Charming the Prince

  “Your hair,” he whispered, the spicy-sweet warmth of his breath caressing her ear, “is a cloud of the softest sable. Any man would long to bury his face in it. Your skin...” he murmured, sliding his hand around to cup her cheek, “is as gold and sweet as nectar warmed by the sun. Your limbs ...” he stroked his hands down her arms until they were palm to palm, then laced his fingers through hers, holding her hostage to the gentle press of his body against hers, “are delicate, yet strong enough to bind me to your heart.”

  Willow was beginning to rue her frankness. He wouldn’t, she thought breathlessly. He couldn’t...

  But he did.

  Bannor claimed her breasts as boldly as he had claimed the rest of her, first kneading them through the coarse linen of her tunic, then supporting their weight with his palms while his thumbs stroked her rigid nipples. Willow gasped, no more prepared for the raw throb of pleasure than she was for the thick, sweet surge of liquid desire between her thighs.

  “And your breasts . . .” Bannor’s hoarse rasp deepened to a wordless groan that was more eloquent than any tribute ever composed by a poet or minstrel. He inclined his head to press a reverent kiss upon each gentle swell.

  Willow twined her fingers in his hair, coaxing his head back up. “I’ve always thought my mouth was rather . . . plain,” she confessed, daring to give him a provocative look.

  “Well, you were wrong,” he said gravely, touching his fingertips to her lips. “ Tis a thing of uncommon beauty.”

  Her eyes fluttered shut as he lowered his head to graze her lips with his own. This time, he took his pleasure in tender sips, molding his mouth to hers, then gently nibbling her upper lip until she was the one hungering for the fulsome sweetness of his tongue in her mouth. He did not leave her wanting for long. She moaned her delight as he seized the prize of her mouth with rough, lavish strokes that charmed her own shy tongue into joining the fray. She cupped the nape of his neck in her small hand, coaxing him closer, urging him deeper.

  Bannor accepted her invitation with a growl of satisfaction, bearing her back against the wall. There was no need for his body to ripen against hers. It already had. For Willow, not even the foreign shock of that discovery could compare to the sheer wonder of realizing that this magnificent man—this warrior prince—truly wanted her.

  He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her until the undeniable proof of everything he’d said nudged at the juncture between her legs. Her thighs parted instinctively, welcoming him as eagerly and artlessly as her mouth had welcomed his tongue. The coarse wool of her breeches created an exquisite friction as he cupped her bottom in his hands, lifted her hips high, and ground himself against her.

  Fearful that he was in danger of spilling his seed in his braies like some callow squire, Bannor began to tug Willow’s breeches down her slim hips. They wouldn’t be slim for long once her body began to swell with his child. The image should have panicked him. Instead, he felt a savage rush of pride.

  Biting off an oath, he broke away from her, leaving her to collapse against the wall in a bewildered heap. He staggered to the window, flexing his hands on the stone sill. The night’s wintry breath failed to cool his fevered brow.

  If he turned around in that moment, he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist Willow’s moist, parted lips or the luminous invitation in her misty gray eyes. Perhaps ‘twas not too late to make her believe his attentions had been naught but a twisted game of revenge. But even as he considered the ploy, he knew she would not believe him. If his body didn’t betray him, his eyes would. Fiona had always said he was a wretched liar.

  He gazed up at a distant star, stripped of every defense except the truth. “I wasn’t trying to drive you from Elsinore because I did not want you, my lady, but because I feared I would never stop wanting you.”

  “And that would be bad?” Willow squeaked, still reeling from the wonder of being wanted at all.

  “ ‘Twould be terrible,” he replied, his profile bleaker than the winter sky. “Because every time I touched you, your body would quicken with my child.”

  Willow’s breath caught as she realized for the first time just how sorely she had misjudged him. She crossed to the window, drawn toward him by a tide of tenderness, and rested her hand on his forearm. “You mustn’t allow your grief and guilt to rob you of all future happiness,” she said softly. “After all, any man would be reluctant to bed his bride after his first two wives had lost their lives bearing his children.”

  Bannor turned to stare at her. “Who told you such a thing?”

  “No one had to tell me,” Willow murmured, growing bold enough to lift her hand to his cheek. “Fiona said that you’d always blamed yourself for their untimely deaths.”

  “As well I should. If Mary hadn’t been waiting in front of the castle to greet me after the Battle of Guisnes, she wouldn’t have been standing on the bank of the moat when the drawbridge chain snapped. And if I’d been home with my family instead of off wresting Poitiers from the French, I would have never allowed my sweet-tempered, absentminded Margaret to gather wildflowers in the meadow while the squires were practicing their archery.”

  Willow’s hand went limp, falling away from his jaw. “Do you mean to tell me that neither one of your wives died in childbirth?”

  “I should say not. They were both as hale and hearty as broodmares. They would have each been happy to bear a dozen of my children.” He shuddered as if someone had walked over his own grave.

  As he began to pace the tower, much as she had done earlier, Willow sank down on the windowsill, gazing at nothing in particular.

  “Potency has always been the bane of our family,” he explained, raking a hand through his hair. “My own father sired fifty-three children before he died. His father before him sired sixty-nine. So you see, Willow, ‘tis not that I don’t want you. I just don’t want any more bloody children!” When she replied to his outburst with a dazed bunk, he knelt beside her, cupped her hands in his own, and peered up into her face, hisexpression as earnest as young Hammish’s. “I cannot give you the one treasure every woman yearns for—a child of her very own.”

  Willow laughed. “Is that what you think I want from you—a child? Some sniveling creature to cling to my apron? Some cunning imp who whines and sulks and throws tantrums until it gets whatever it wants? Why, I can’t abide the wretched little monsters!”

  Bannor looked genuinely puzzled. “You seem to get along well enough with my wretched little monsters.”

  Willow scowled, surprised to realize that was true.

  “Well, I can abide your children,” she amended, “but not the rest of them. They’re selfish.”

  He nodded. “And greedy.”

  “They fidget.”

  “And wriggle,” he concurred with a grimace.

  “And gobble up all the choicest morsels,” she pointed out.

  “They’re sticky.”

  “And rude,” she snapped, her voice rising.

  “And crude.”

  “And petty!” she yelled.

  “And spiteful!” he roared.

  They both stopped shouting at the same time, nose to nose, mouth to mouth, their breath mingling. They eyed each other warily, realizing that for the first time they were in perfect accord and that their accord just might be more dangerous than their enmity.

  “Thank God Fiona was wrong,” Willow murmured, unable to tear her gaze away from his. “At least you cannot get me with child simply by gazing into my eyes.”

  “ ‘Twould take a wink,” he agreed, nodding soberly.

  “Or perhaps even a kiss,” she whispered, her lips parting of their own volition.

  Willow moaned softly as he drew her into his arms. Resisting the ripe temptation of her mouth, Bannor feathered his lips over her brow, her eyelids, the bridge of her nose. The sensation was so delicious she had to fight a shameful urge to beg him to kiss her in all the places she’d never been kissed. He nibbled at the corner of her mouth, coaxing a sigh of pure deli
ght from her lungs.

  Her sigh was all the invitation he needed. He bent her back over his arm, taking her mouth with a kiss so deep and sweet it made her knees crumple with desire.

  Willow knew from Bannor’s agonized groan that he never intended to lower her to the straw mattress, never intended to come down on top of her, never intended to nestle the bulk of his weight between the cradle of her thighs.

  So when he did just that, she could not bear to reproach him. She could only cling to his shoulders and arch against him, baring her throat to the moist, searing caress of his lips.

  Was it any wonder she mistook the rhythmic pounding she heard for the passion-thickened throb of her pulse? Or the trickle of sandstone for the sound of the wall around her heart crumbling to dust beneath Bannor’s tender siege?

  But there was no mistaking the deafening crash that followed, or Mary Margaret’s shrill cry. “Oh, Desmond, he’s biting her! Make him stop before he gobbles her all gone!”

  Sixteen

  Bannor rolled off of Willow, his warrior’s instincts returning to life an instant too late to save either of them. For a dazed moment, all Willow could see was feet—a forest of grubby little feet crowned by chubby little toes. Her bewildered gaze fixed on the pair of feet directly in front of the mattress. They were larger and dirtier than the rest, but not so dirty she couldn’t make out the freckles peeping through the grime.

  She traced those angular feet up to a familiar bow gripped in a pair of freckled, white-knuckled hands, up even farther to a pair of narrowed green eyes, then back down to the arrow pointed at Bannor’s heart.

  Acting on pure instinct, Willow flung herself across Bannor’s chest, arms outstretched, and shouted, “Hold your fire!”

  It wasn’t until she saw the disgusted shock on Desmond’s face that she realized she had betrayed not only the children, but herself as well. It took the boy a heartbeat longer than she would have liked to lower the bow.

  “I should’ve shot the wretch in the back while he was wallowing all over you,” he snarled.

  “At least I’d have died a happy man,” Bannor murmured into her hair.

  Desmond’s comrades were similarly armed. Ennis wielded a sickle, Mary a pair of sheep shears, Edward a club, Kell a blacksmith’s awl, and Mary Margaret a pitchfork. Hammish was clutching something that looked amazingly like a ham bone, while Meg and the twins balanced a miniature battering ram between them. Given the amount of dust drifting through the air, it must have been the same battering ram they’d used to smash their way through the stone wall.

  “How did you find me?” Willow asked.

  After returning the arrow to its quiver and shrugging the bow back on his shoulder, Desmond reached behind him and dragged forth a flushed and rumpled Beatrix. Willow might have been tempted to believe her stepsister had suffered an attack of conscience if the girl’s hands hadn’t been bound in front of her and her contrite grunt hadn’t been muffled by the kerchief stuffed between her lips. She wiggled her fingers at Willow in a sheepish wave.

  “When Bea returned from the mission without you, I sensed something was amiss.” Desmond cast the girl a smug glance. “It didn’t take much to wring a confession from the little traitor. All I had to do was make Hammish sit on her while I tickled her feet.”

  Hammish hung his head while Beatrix tossed hers, the haughty glare she shot Desmond promising retribution.

  Ennis lowered his sickle. “You can imagine our alarm when we learned Father had taken you.”

  “Don’t I wish,” Bannor whispered, his devilish chuckle making Willow’s earlobe tingle.

  Willow dug her elbow into his stomach, but she might as well have been elbowing a rock.

  Edward brandished his club in the air, as if to vanquish an invisible enemy. “ ‘Twas me who founded you for ‘em. I was peepin’ through the squint when I heard Papa say your hair was soft as dog fur, your skin was all sticky like somethin’ that’d been left out in the sun all day, and Bea here was fat as a pig.”

  The gag failed to muffle Beatrix’s outraged gasp.

  Willow blushed, more concerned about what Edward might have seen through the squint than what he might have heard.

  “He makes a rather eloquent spy, doesn’t he, my little fishwife?” Bannor muttered.

  Mary Margaret planted the tines of her pitchfork in the floor, scowling ferociously. “If Papa wasn’t biting you, then what was he doing?”

  Extricating herself from the haven of Bannor’s lap, Willow rose to her feet with as much dignity as possible. She was as aware of her rumpled tunic, tousled hair, and glistening, kiss-swollen lips as she was of Desmond’s suspicious gaze. “Your papa and I were ... urn, we were...”

  Bannor sprang to his feet. “Negotiating a truce.”

  “A truce?” Desmond spat.

  The rest of the children groaned in disappointment.

  Willow smiled sweetly. “I cannot blame your father for seeking to spare his pride, but what we were really negotiating was his surrender.”

  “My surrender?” Bannor glowered down at her.

  Desmond still looked skeptical. “If he’s surrendering, then what is there to negotiate?”

  “Terms, of course.” She dared to give Bannor’s chest an amicable pat. “After all, compromise is the very nature of surrender, is it not, my lord?”

  “I wouldn’t know, my lady,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ve never surrendered before.”

  “So I gathered,” she murmured. “Which is why we shall strive to make this as painless as possible.” She beamed at the children. “You’ll be delighted to know that your father has agreed to all of your demands.”

  “Like hell I have—” Bannor’s protest died to a grunt as Willow’s heel came down hard on his toes.

  “But in exchange,” she continued before the children could unleash their triumphant cheers, “he has one demand of his own.” Both Bannor and the children seemed to be holding their breath, awaiting her next words. “He wants to spend more time in your company.”

  “He does?” Desmond asked, barking out a dubious laugh.

  “I do?” Bannor echoed, panic rising in his voice.

  Willow ignored them both. “ ‘Twould be a great boon to him if you would allow him to share all of your meals and to tuck you into bed each night.”

  “At midnight,” Kell confirmed, testing the sincerity of his father’s pledge.

  “Aye, at midnight,” Willow agreed.

  Beatrix rolled her eyes as the children huddled together, engaging in a muttered and hissed parley that concluded with a shoving match between Kell and Edward. When they separated, it was Mary Margaret who approached Bannor.

  “We wants one more thing,” she proclaimed, the pitchfork clutched like a royal scepter in her chubby little fist.

  Bannor shot Willow a wary look before squatting down to his daughter’s eye level. “And just what would that be?”

  “We wants you to pway wif us.”

  Bannor rolled his eyes heavenward, then chuckled ruefully. “Very well, princess. I shall be honored to do your bidding.”

  That familiar endearment on Bannor’s lips made Willow’s heart contract with a longing she’d hoped never to feel again. As he reached over to rumple his daughter’s ringlets, she had to turn away.

  Desmond was watching her, his gaze as sharp and predatory as his crow’s. The sullen quirk had returned to his lips. “So tell me, Father,” he said, folding his wiry arms over his chest, “just what has Willow gained for her efforts? After all, she was the one who persuaded you to surrender.”

  Bannor straightened. He gazed at Willow for a long moment before saying softly, “Willow has won her freedom, if she so desires it.”

  Mary Margaret dropped the pitchfork and threw her arms around Willow’s leg. “You’re not going to leave us, are you? You promised to teach me how to braid ribbons in a horse’s tail and shoot a bow. Oh, Willow, say you won’t go!”

  For a painful moment, Willow couldn?
??t say anything at all. Then she scooped the child into her arms. “The only place I’m going right now is to bed. Which is where you all belong, since ‘tis well after midnight.”

  Ignoring Mary Margaret’s groan of protest, she thrust the child into her father’s arms. Bannor held the scowling moppet at arm’s length for a moment before heaving her over his shoulder. Mary Margaret’s groan turned into giggles. “Just what am I to do with the little imp?” he asked, glowering at Willow.

  “Tuck her in.” Willow smiled sweetly and pointed toward the newly made door in his wall. “If you follow that passageway down to the next level, you’ll find it leads right to her chamber.”

  Desmond waited until his father and Mary Margaret had squeezed through the jagged hole before drawing a wicked-looking dagger from his stocking. “You might be a traitor, Bea,” he said, slicing through the girl’s bonds, “but at least you’re not sleeping with the enemy.” He ducked into the passageway, giving Willow a bitter look over his shoulder.

  Willow sighed, fearing that she had lost a cherished ally, perhaps for good.

  As if sensing her melancholy, Hammish tucked his plump hand into hers. “Don’t pay Desmond any heed, my lady. I think you were ever so brave to beard Papa in his den. I’m sure it must have been quite terrible for you to end up in his clutches.”

  “Simply horrid,” she murmured wistfully, remembering the gentle press of Bannor’s hands against her flesh, the delectable taste of his kiss, and the helpless hunger on his face when he had confessed to wanting her.

  Seventeen

  As Willow struggled down the castle drawbridge the next morning, frigid gusts of wind whipped the folds of her cloak around her ankles. The day had dawned cold and bright, but the dazzling sunlight promised little more than the memory of warmth. As she passed beneath the arch of the gatehouse, she drew up her hood and averted her face from the curious stares of the guards. ‘Twould never do for the lady of the castle to be caught running such a shocking errand.

  Turning toward the village, she shifted the woven basket on her arm from one side to the other. The laden hamper might slow her steps, but she hadn’t wanted to march empty-handed into a stranger’s camp. Especially not when she was the one who had come to do the begging. She’d packed the basket with several of the gifts the generous castle-dwellers had bestowed upon her—jars of honey, slabs of salted meat, scented wax tapers that would surely seem the height of luxury to anyone accustomed to the overripe stench of tallow.