Charming the Prince

  He expected the girl’s arrival to intensify her father’s blustering, but the old man began to toy with the folds of his moth-eaten surcoat, taking great care to avoid her eyes. “What are you doing here, child?”

  “I’m not a child any longer, Papa. If I were, you wouldn’t be discussing my betrothal with these strangers.”

  He wagged a finger at her. “The matter is none of your concern.”

  “On the contrary. ‘Tis very much my concern. I had no say in the matter when you sold me into servitude for the price of the king’s approval and Blanche’s dowry. Perhaps I should be allowed to choose my next master.”

  Turning her back on her sputtering father, she took a few steps toward Hollis, then hesitated. Although the gloom made it impossible to determine her expression, Hollis could not help but be touched by the dignity of her stance. Her fists were clenched at her sides, her chin tilted to a proud angle.

  “Do you speak the truth, sir? Does your lord want me for his bride? Does he truly want me?”

  Remembering the longing he’d glimpsed on Bannor’s face when he had charged him with finding a mother for his children, Hollis nodded and said softly, “Aye, my lady. He wants you more than you can imagine.”

  She tilted her chin even higher. “Then he shall have me.”

  Hollis broke into a grin, oblivious to her father’s groan, her stepmother’s triumphant laugh, the garbled exclamation of rage that came from the balcony above them.

  The girl reached around to loosen the ties of her apron. As she cast away the rumpled garment, a crimson shower of apples went bouncing across the floor. One came to rest against the toe of Hollis’s boot, but he never felt it.

  His grin had frozen on his face as she’d peeled away the bulky apron. His wide-eyed gaze slowly traveled up her slender, high-breasted form, following the graceful path of her hands as she reached up to drag off the russet cap. She shook her head, freeing a shimmering cloud of raven curls, before baring her own pearly white teeth in an answering smile.

  Hollis’s grin faded.

  He groaned aloud.

  Bannor was going to kill him.

  Three

  “Leg o’ mutton, my lady?”

  Willow tore her gaze away from the chariot window to eye the enormous hunk of meat gripped in Sir Hollis’s fist.

  “No, thank you,” she murmured.

  The knight’s hopeful expression fell, and she was tempted to reconsider. But her hands were none too steady, her stomach was all aflutter, and she didn’t want to risk staining her beautiful new kirtle with even a drop of grease.

  While Sir Hollis delved back into the seemingly bottomless hamper of food he’d purchased at the last village they’d passed through, Willow smoothed her skirt, marveling at the absence of little muddy handprints on its plush green velvet folds. She knew she was no beauty, as Reanna and Beatrix were, but arrayed in such finery, she could almost pretend she was. ‘Twas the happiest she had felt since that long ago day when Blanche had arrived at Bedlington to wed her papa.

  Willow smiled, bemused by the irony. Today she was the one rocking along in a splendid chariot drawn by six handsome steeds. She was the one guarded by a retinue of knights bearing rippling pennons adorned with their lord’s standard—a magnificent red stag rearing up against a field of gold. She was the one racing toward the arms of the man who had made her his bride. Her heart thudded in time with the horses’ hooves as she leaned out the window to embrace the crisp autumn afternoon.

  As they had traveled north, the towering trees of Bedlington Forest had given way to the rolling hills and sharp crags of Northumberland. A hint of snow laced a distant peak.

  “Fig sweetmeat?” Sir Hollis leaned forward to wave the delicacy beneath her nose, as if hoping to tempt her with its rich nutmeg scent.

  She shook her head, tempering her refusal with a polite smile.

  He returned to pawing through the hamper, muttering something that sounded curiously like, “Mount my head in the great hall, won’t he?”

  Willow’s world tilted as the chariot began to climb a steep and winding hill. She settled back into her seat and drew the hood of her fur-trimmed cloak up over her hair, shivering with a mixture of exhilaration and apprehension.

  All she knew of the mysterious lord who was now her husband was that he was a generous man. As soon as his steward had sent word by one of his men-at-arms that she had agreed to become his bride, he had dispatched not only the chariot and knights, but a wagon bearing two massive chests filled to overflowing with exquisite gowns woven of velvet, sendal, and damask; half a dozen pairs of shoes stitched from the softest beaten doehide; and several vials of precious perfumes and rare spices.

  The sight of all that bounty spilling across the great hall had made Blanche sick with regret, Stefan sick with jealousy, and Beatrix sick with envy. Blanche had bemoaned the fact that she hadn’t demanded a higher bride-price, while Stefan sulked and Beatrix fled up the stairs, wailing that Willow had stolen the man who should have been her husband.

  Willow stroked the supple mink tippets trailing from the sleeves of her kirtle, smiling wryly. If not for her husband’s extravagance, she would have arrived at his castle with her scant belongings tied up in a rag bundle on the end of a stick. Perhaps he thought her the sort of woman who could be wooed by the caress of silk against her skin or the tantalizing aroma of myrrh. She hoped he would be pleased to discover that her affections could be bought far more cheaply, costing him nothing more than his devotion.

  “Sugar comfit?”

  “No!” Willow said sharply, growing ever more perplexed by the knight’s persistence. “I’m not the least bit hungry.”

  Her curt refusal made his thick mustache droop with despair. For the first time, Willow caught the brief downward swipe of his lashes and followed it with a questioning glance of her own. The kirtle hung loose on her, almost as if it had been fashioned for a much larger woman. She’d always felt lacking next to her robust siblings. Stefan had oft mocked her for being as skinny as a willow wand and twice as knobby. Perhaps Lord Bannor preferred strapping wenches with ample hips, and breasts as buxom as young Beatrix’s were already promising to become.

  The poor child cannot help her looks. Blanche’s pitying murmur was so clear that Willow wouldn’t have been surprised to find her stepmother perched on top of the chariot like some malevolent harpy.

  Still glaring, she snatched the sweet from the knight’s hand and wolfed it down in a single bite. He looked so mollified that she also accepted the fig sweetmeat he timidly proffered. But when he fished the mutton leg out of the hamper and waved it at her, she abruptly lost what little appetite she had.

  Her doubts made her feel like a child tugging at her father’s hand once again.

  Will the lady Blanche love me?

  Of course, pet. How could anyone not love Papa’s little princess?

  She’d been naive enough to believe such a lie once. If she’d deluded herself again, she would have a lifetime to repent her reckless decision.

  “Tell me more of this Lord Bannor,” she demanded. “You’ve told me all about his bravery in battle and his devotion to king and country, but I still don’t know what manner of man would beseech another to choose his bride.”

  Sir Hollis gave the mutton leg a thoughtful nibble. “A prudent one.”

  A chill shot down her spine. Perhaps it was not she who was lacking, but her husband.

  “Is he ...” she leaned forward on the bench, hardly daring to speak her suspicions aloud, “... ill-favored?”

  Sir Hollis nearly choked on his mouthful of mutton. “I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

  Willow found his reaction less than comforting. “Was he disfigured in the war? Did he lose a limb? An eye?” She suppressed a shudder. “A nose?”

  The knight’s mustache twitched as if he was fighting back a sneeze. “I can assure you, my lady, that Lord Bannor returned from France with all of his significant parts intact.”

  Wil
low frowned, wondering just which parts a man might consider significant. “What of his temperament, then? Is he a kind man? A fair man? Or is he given to brooding and violent fits of temper?”

  Sir Hollis blinked at her. “My lord would be the first to assure you that he is not a man given to strong drink, uncontrollable rages, or blasphemy.”

  Willow settled back on the bench, folding her hands in her lap. “I suppose a woman can ask no more than that of her husband.”

  Yet once she had wanted more. Much more. A fleeting vision of her prince drifted before her eyes, evoking a bittersweet pang of yearning. She would never again hear the rich echo of his laughter. Never again taste the honeyed sweetness of his imaginary kiss. The time had come for her to exchange her girlish dreams for a man wrought of flesh and blood, sinew and bone. She closed her eyes, bidding her prince farewell with a wistful sigh.

  She was determined to make this Lord Bannor a good wife. It mattered not if he was old and infirm, harelip, or disfigured in service to king and country. If he was willing to pledge his devotion to her and only her, she could certainly do no less for him.

  Fortified by her resolve, Willow opened her eyes. Or at least she thought she did. But the vision framed by the chariot window persuaded her that she must have drifted into a dream.

  A castle seemed to float upon the cliff that overlooked the sparkling waters of the River Tyne. It bore no resemblance to her papa’s crumbling keep. Graceful round towers jutted toward the clouds, crowned by conical roofs of gray slate. A crenellated wall enfolded the massive palace in a sweeping curtain of sandstone.

  Willow blinked. She must surely be dreaming, for who but a prince could live in such a majestic abode?

  She didn’t realize she had spoken the question aloud until Sir Hollis replied, “Why, you, of course.”

  She shifted her wide-eyed gaze to the knight.

  His tense smile sent a shiver of foreboding down her spine. “For that majestic abode is Elsinore, and you, my dear, are its new lady.”

  ———

  “The chariot approaches! The chariot approaches!”

  As the lookout’s cry echoed from the watchtower, followed by a braying blast from a hunting horn, Ban-nor yawned and stretched his long legs, refusing to budge from his chair. Twice in the past week, Desmond had lured him from the tower with a similar ruse. He’d emerged the first time only to go skidding across the buttered planking and down the stairs. If the wall hadn’t broken the force of his headlong tumble, he might have snapped his neck. He’d taken more care the second time the horn had sounded, tiptoeing gingerly down the stairs and peeping around corners until the greased pig Mary Margaret had lured into the great hall with a handful of acorns went sprinting between his legs, knocking him flat.

  He’d endured many sieges while defending his king’s holdings in Guienne and Poitou, but never one so prolonged or so relentless. Since Hollis had departed to seek a mother for his children, Bannor had conducted most of his business from the tower, daring to leave its sanctuary only in the dark of night while the children slept.

  One morning near dawn, he’d slipped into the warren of interconnecting chambers they shared to find the lot of them nestled like a litter of pups in an enormous four-poster bed. Mary Margaret slept with her golden hair spread across Desmond’s breast, her thumb tucked between her little pink lips. A faint snore drifted out of Desmond’s open mouth. Studying his son’s freckled cheeks and snub nose, Bannor shook his head, marveling that so angelic a visage could be capable of such devilment.

  The sense of helplessness that plagued him was utterly foreign to his nature. He knew all there was to know about being a warrior, but nothing at all about being a father. How was it that he could command a legion of twelve hundred of the king’s most powerful and dangerous men, yet couldn’t coax one scrawny boy into granting his simplest request?

  He was reaching to smooth a tousled lock of the lad’s chestnut hair when Mary Margaret’s misty blue eyes fluttered open.

  “Papa?” she whispered. “Are you a ghost?”

  “No, honeypot,” he murmured. “Just a dream.”

  She had closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep with a contented sigh, leaving Bannor to slip out of the chamber without a sound.

  The lookout’s cry did not come again. Bannor settled deeper into his chair and rested his chin on his chest, hoping to steal a nap. Sleep had become an elusive prize since he’d taken to roaming the night, haunting his own castle like a beleaguered ghost.

  When a banging sounded on the door, he jumped to his feet, instinctively grabbing his broadsword.

  “M’lord, m’lord!” Fiona cried, her brogue muffled by the thick oak of the door. “Yer standard’s been spotted on the south road less than a league away! Tis yer lady!”

  His lady. Bemused by the notion, Bannor slowly lowered the sword. He hadn’t had a lady to call his own since Margaret had died over six years ago.

  He could hear the old nurse clucking with impatience as he heaved aside the stout bench he’d been using to block the door and lifted the crossbar. Fiona stood on the landing, wringing her apron in her gnarled hands. “ ‘Tis yer lady, m’lord! She comes at last!”

  Bannor snatched his burgundy doublet from the back of the chair and shrugged it on over his shirt. As his large fingers fumbled with the ivory buttons of the closely tailored tunic that flared over his hips, he wished that he was donning mail hauberk, plate armor, and helm to ride into battle instead of marching out without armor or arms to greet his new bride. He looked longingly at his broadsword, knowing how vulnerable to attack he would feel without its familiar weight at his hip.

  “Have the children been gathered to welcome their mother as I ordered?”

  “Aye, m’lord. Every last one o’ them. Even the babes.” Fiona beamed up at him, quivering with joy at the prospect of having a new lady for the castle. She’d adored her first two mistresses and grieved as deeply as Bannor when they’d died so young and so tragically.

  He draped a chain of braided silver around his hips, then smoothed his disheveled hair. “I suppose I should inspect them before she arrives. A warrior never sends his men into battle without giving them a few words of instruction and encouragement.”

  “Aye, and eager for yer counsel I’m sure they’ll be, m’lord,” Fiona promised.

  ———

  A less wary man might have been inclined to believe her, Bannor thought as he strode the length of the inner bailey, surveying the children gathered in the walled courtyard. They were actually standing in something that looked remarkably like a row. Fiona brought up the tail of their ranks, juggling the two most recent additions to his household. From the largest to the smallest, the children gazed straight ahead with nary a fidget or a smirk among them. The innocence of their expressions made Bannor distinctly uneasy.

  Although Desmond looked no less angelic than his siblings, the crow with the splinted wing perched on his shoulder glared at Bannor, and the furry tail protruding from the neck of the boy’s tunic twitched in annoyance.

  Wisely deciding its origins were best left unexplored, Bannor clasped his hands at the small of his back and leaned down to sniff the dirt-ringed neck of the slender, fair-haired boy at his side. “And when was the last time you had a bath, young Hammish?”

  The boy counted backward on his fingers. “Less than a fortnight ago. But I’m not Hammish, sir.” He drove an elbow into the ribs of the solid little fellow standing next to him, eliciting a muffled oomph. “He is.”

  “Hmmmm...” Bannor masked his chagrin by turning a thoughtful scowl on Hammish. The lad had stout legs and thick, straight cinnamon-hued hair that made him look as if he was wearing an earthenware bowl on his head. “So you would be Hammish?”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  “There’s no need to address me as your lord. You may call me ‘Papa.’”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  Bannor sighed. His head was beginning to ache. He couldn’t very well introduce
the children to their doting new mother if he couldn’t remember their names. He scrambled to come up with a convincing lie. “Before we march into battle, ‘tis common practice for all the men fighting beneath my standard to shout out their names. Would you care to try that?”

  The children leaned forward and craned their necks to the right, looking to the boy who headed their ranks. He lifted his shoulders in a sullen shrug, then dutifully barked, “Desmond!”

  The others followed in turn.

  “Ennis!”

  “Mary!”

  “Hammish!”

  “Edward!”

  “Kell!”

  “Mary Margaret!”

  “Meg!”

  “Margery!”

  “Colm!”

  The two babes added a goo and a gurgle. Fiona gave Bannor a grin as toothless as the babes. “We just call these wee angels Peg and Mags.”

  Bannor pinched the bridge of his nose. The ache in his head had deepened to a throb, yet he was no closer to being able to pick one of his own children out of a mob of strangers. Hell and damnation, they were a mob of strangers.

  He plastered on a smile. “ ‘Twas a fine effort. Suppose we try it once more?”

  “Lackwit,” muttered Desmond.

  Bannor gave him a narrow look. “What was that, lad?”

  The boy gave him a cherubic smile. “I said, ‘As you wish.’”

  Before Bannor could confront his insolence, a mighty blast from the lookout’s horn sent a tremor of excitement through the courtyard. The jangling of chains was followed by a grinding creak as the gatehouse portcullis inched its way upward. The musical jingle of spurs and rhythmic thud of hoofbeats heralded the chariot’s final approach.

  Bannor fell into line between Hammish and Mary, choosing to make his stand with his troops. As the retinue of knights split away and the chariot rolled to a halt, he tugged at his doublet and reached to smooth a beard that was no longer there. He was not yet accustomed to his clean-shaven jaw, but given his beard’s alarming tendency to burst into flames whenever his offspring were near, he decided he soon would be.