Charming the Prince (12 page)

 
Willow kept her expression bland. "Lord Bannor doesn't seem to make any distinction between his children, no matter which side of the blanket they happened to be born on. 'Tis a most admirable quality. Most men don't even bother to claim their bastards, much less welcome them into their homes."

 
"Perhaps he doesn't feel 'twould be fair to deny them, when he's naught but a bastard himself?" Beatrix clapped a hand over her mouth. "He did tell you, didn't he?"

 
"Of course he told me." Willow snapped, unable to bear her stepsister's pity. "I simply thought he was referring to his temperament, not the circumstances of his birth." She padded toward the bed.

 
Beatrix went around to the opposite side of the bed, preparing to shed the towel before she climbed into it. "They're already laying wagers, you know, on how soon you'll be breeding." Her stepsister stole a sly glance at Willow's stomach. "Since their lord paid a visit to your chambers last night, some of them are whispering that you already are."

 
Willow might have indulged herself with a bitter laugh if she hadn't been distracted by the small, dark shapes clearly visible beneath the sheet.

 
"Fiona," she murmured, shaking her head. "Perhaps the sentimental old fool will soon learn 'twill take more than a handful of rose petals to lure her lord into
my
bed."

 
Weary of hiding her hurt, Willow yanked back the sheet. She was still trying to figure out why the rose petals had suddenly began to chirp when the first cricket took flight, striking Beatrix square in the nose.

******

 
High above the castle in the refuge of the north tower, Sir Hollis was desperately seeking a maneuver that might save his queen from the ruthless clutches of Bannor's knight when a bloodcurdling scream shattered the cozy silence.

 
"Good God!" Hollis shouted, bounding to his feet. "It sounds like someone's being murdered!"

 
As the screams—shrill, feminine, and punctuated by hysterical shrieks and a peculiar stamping sound—welled in intensity, he fully expected his companion to snatch up his sword and race for the door.

 
But Bannor acknowledged the interruption with nothing more than a wary flicker of his eyelids. " Tis your move."

 
Hollis slowly sank into his chair, groping for his rook with a trembling hand. He slid the piece into the square next to it, realizing even before Bannor murmured "Checkmate" that he'd surrendered his queen to the rapacious white knight and left his king helpless before the onslaught of one of Bannor's craftier pawns.

 
Although Bannor seized his prize without hesitation, caressing the delicately carved queen between his thumb and forefinger, he found it impossible to take his usual satisfaction in his victory.

 
Because, unlike Hollis, he knew the game hadn't ended.

It had only just begun.

Nine

Bannor was free.

 
Free to joust and spar with his knights in autumn sunshine so bright it stung his eyes. Free to train his garrison of soldiers beneath the cottony clouds floating across the crisp blue sky. Free to gallop across the stubble of his shorn fields on his mighty white destrier and praise his grinning villeins for reaping such a plentiful harvest. Free to sup each night at the head of the high table in the great hall, surrounded by the angelic faces of his children.

He'd never been so miserable.

 
He might have been able to savor his freedom had Willow not been required to pay the price for it. Now that his children had discovered a more gratifying target for their mischief, they hastened to obey his every command, murmuring, "Aye, Papa," "Nay, Papa," and "As you wish, Papa" with all the humble piety of saints, all the while packing Willow's cupboard, bed, and bath with enough bugs, rodents, and reptiles to rival any plague Moses had cast on the Egyptians.

 
Bannor forced himself to turn a blind eye to their devilish doings, promising himself that every humiliation Willow endured at their hands would only serve to spare her pride when she was finally goaded into spurning him.

 
When they dumped enough pepper in her stew to make her sneeze a dozen times in rapid succession, he commented upon its savory tang and handed her a kerchief to wipe her streaming eyes. When they loosed Mary Margaret's favorite pig in her bedchamber, he behaved as if deaf to its shrill squeals, even going so far as to step absently over the beast as Willow and her scowling little maidservant herded it through the great hall. When they tossed a stinkpot down her chimney, he ignored the pungent odor of sulfur that clung to her mane of silky curls for days.

 
After that first night, there were no more screams. Unable to bear the strained silence, Bannor would find himself standing in the shadows of the courtyard, waiting for the moment when Willow would throw open the shutters, her delicate nostrils pinched between thumb and forefinger, and calmly toss out the rancid eggs Desmond had stuffed in the toes of her shoes. Once or twice, he would have almost sworn he felt her accusing eyes searching the darkness, as if she sensed his presence.

Bannor's desperation grew as the fortnight approached its close without Willow making so much as a whisper of complaint. The winter snows would soon be upon them. If he was forced to spend the long, dark winter nights in her company, he knew a babe would come as surely as the spring.

 
He was breaking his fast one cold, sunny morning, ringed by the bland faces of his impeccably behaved children, when Fiona marched into the great hall and slammed his trencher down on the table. "I'm afraid there isn't any honey this morn, m'lord. Ye'll have to eat yer bread dry." She glowered at him from beneath her scraggly brows. "I hope ye don't choke on it."

As Fiona stomped back into the kitchen, Bannor exchanged a wry glance with Hollis. He'd been forced to confide in his steward, but all the other denizens of the castle remained baffled by his thoughtless behavior toward his bride. Even his knights and men-at-arms, who would have never dared question his authority on the battlefield, had taken to muttering among themselves and casting him disapproving glances. If Willow didn't spurn him soon, he might very well have a full-scale rebellion on his hands.

 
Bannor had just taken a hearty bite of bread when Willow appeared on the broad stone steps that cascaded down into the great hall. For one moment, he believed he truly might choke. His labored swallow was audible in the stunned silence, as the eye of every knight, squire, and page who had chosen to break their fast in the great hall turned toward the stairs.

 
It seemed the mystery of the missing honey had been solved.

Golden gobbets of it dripped from Willow's hair and clung to her throat and shoulders, draping her alabaster skin in a glistening amber veil. Bannor fought an absurd temptation to race up the stairs and lick her.

 
As she descended, her slippers adhering to the floor with each painstaking step, Fiona emerged from the kitchen. The old woman threw up her hands to cup her horrified face. The earthenware platter she'd been carrying shattered on the floor. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, lass! Ye look like a banshee!"

 
Desmond exchanged a sidelong glance with Kell and Edward, his triumphant smirk leaving no doubt as to who had propped the missing pot of honey over Willow's doorway. Bannor had to grip the edge of the table to keep from dunking his son's head in his bowl of porridge.

 
The stunned silence swelled as Willow picked her way to the foot of the table and simply stood there.

 
Acutely aware that everyone in the hall, from the burliest knight to the smallest page, was holding his breath in anticipation of his reaction, Bannor simply popped another chunk of bread into his mouth. "Good morning, Willow. I trust you had a pleasant night's sleep."

 
She did not reply. She simply gazed at him down the length of the table, the bitter reproach in her stormy gray eyes informing him that he had finally won. He had finally succeeded in making his bride despise him. Oddly enough, as she turned her back on him and trudged back up the stairs, her head held painfully high, Bannor felt no flush of triumph, only an overwhelming sense of defeat.

******

 
Willow paced the length of her bedchamber as she sawed through another sticky curl, waving it like a battle flag when it finally came off in her hand. Honey would have washed out of her hair easily enough, but her tormentors had been diabolical enough to lace the viscous syrup with tree sap. "Lord Bannor the Bold indeed! Why, I've never met such a dastardly, craven, cowardly, lily-livered..."

"Pusillanimous," Beatrix provided cheerfully

"Pusillanimous, fainthearted..."

As Willow lapsed once again into sputtering, Beatrix wrested the dagger from her hand and gently propelled her toward a stool. "Why don't you let me finish this? If you persist as you have been, Lord Bannor the Bold will be wed to Lady Willow the Bald."

 
Willow threw herself down on the stool, clenching the sticky folds of her skirt in her fists. "You won't have to worry about that. I wouldn't stay married to the wretch if he was the last man on earth and the survival of mankind depended on my bearing one of his horrid little brats."

 
"I can understand that," Beatrix said, divesting her of another honey-and-sap-laden curl. "I just don't understand why you let it go on so long. I would have insisted that he throw the nasty little trolls in the dungeon the first time they emptied a bucket of soot down my bedchamber chimney."

 
"And give the little monsters the satisfaction of knowing I went running to their father to tattle on them? I think not! Besides, I've endured much worse at the hands of Stefan and Reanna. Remember the time they nailed my shoes to the floor?
While
I was wearing them?" Willow sighed woefully as another gooey strand of hair plopped into the growing pool on her bedchamber floor.
I
suppose I thought that perhaps in time, Bannor would come charging to my rescue to slay the naughty dragons, like a knight or a... a..."

 
Beatrix leaned over her shoulder, an impish smile playing around her lips.
"A
prince?"

Willow swiveled around to gape at her stepsister.

 
"I used to hear you talking to your imaginary lover when you thought I was asleep," Beatrix confessed. "Once I even saw you kissing your hand and pretending it was him."

"Why, you meddlesome little minx!"

 
As Willow lunged forward, Beatrix danced backward, holding the dagger out of her reach. Only then did Willow realize that she felt curiously light-headed.

 
She touched a tentative hand to her shorn locks. " 'Tis a most curious sensation. My hair has done naught but vex me since the day I was born. I never realized how very
attached
I was to it."

 
Proudly surveying her handiwork, Beatrix thrust a mirror into Willow's hand. Willow slowly raised the mirror to her face, only to behold a stranger gazing back at her. A stranger with hair that bristled around her head like a cornered warthog's, and enormous eyes like those of the trained ferrets that used to somersault their way across the great hall at Bedlington in more prosperous times.

 
Beatrix twined one of her own long, flaxen locks around her finger as she crowded close to steal a glimpse of herself over Willow's shoulder. " 'Tis really quite fetching. You'd make a very pretty boy."

 
Willow's eyes widened until they were livid circles in her pinched face. When she slammed down the mirror and surged to her feet, Beatrix hopped backward.

"Where are you going?"

 
"To slay my own bloody dragon." Willow marched toward the door, her face pale, but resolute.

 
Beatrix trotted along behind her, hefting her skirts high to avoid the puddles of honey still scattered across the floor. "If you don't want Lord Bannor anymore, might I have him?"

 
Willow spun around in the doorway, a scathing smile curving her lips. "With my compliments!"

 
The echo of Willow's angry footfalls had yet to fade when Beatrix darted for the cupboard. She tugged a creamy sheet of vellum, a quill, and a bottle of ink from one of the cubbyholes carved into the door.

Dear Stefan,
she scribbled.
You'll be delighted to know that Willow has given her blessing to my union with Lord Bannor. 'Twill be only a matter of time before I summon you to Elsinore.

Beatrix signed her name with a flourish. Now all she had to do was coax one of the bumbling squires who was so enamored of her to deliver the letter to Bedlington. As she held the sealing wax over a candle flame to soften it, she fought to ignore a twinge of guilt. She wasn't exactly betraying her stepsister. She was simply striving to remain in the good graces of her brother.

 
As Beatrix tipped her hand, the scarlet wax spilled over the parchment, sealing its secrets inside.