Charming the Prince (33 page)

 
"And a stubborn one," Hollis said, refusing to acknowledge the speculative look Bannor slanted him.

"As well I know. In the beginning, she refused Willow's invitation to come live at the castle and help Fiona care for the children. She didn't relent until I threatened to marry her off to the first man who would take her."

 
Hollis prayed he wasn't blushing. "Fiona was a bit jealous at first, was she not, to have another cat sniffing around her litter?"

 
Bannor shrugged. "She sulked and pouted for a few days, but it didn't take her long to realize Netta was just another lost child for her to mother."

 
Netta wasn't the only lost child who had come beneath Bannor's protection in the past two months. Thanks to Willow's prodding, young Annie, whose father had threatened to drown her newborn baby in a bucket, had joined the hallowed ranks of the castle maidservants. Her father had also received a personal visit from the lord of the castle. The village gossips swore it had taken the blacksmith over six hours to dislodge the man's fat head from his own privy bucket.

 
Hollis dragged his gaze away from Netta. "I doubt you summoned me here to admire your children or their new nursemaid, however fair."

 
Bannor clamped a hand on his shoulder and steered him toward the table. "You're quite right, Hollis. 'Tis your keen wits I have need of. I want you to help me plot the most important campaign of my career."

 
Once, Hollis might have felt a thrill of excitement at Bannor's words. Now he felt only dismay. The solitary life of a soldier no longer held the attraction for him that it once did. "Have you received word from the king? Has the peace faltered? Are we to join him in France? If he has summoned you to his side, perhaps 'twould be best if I linger here at Elsinore. After all, someone needs to tend to the castle and all of its business. I should hate to see it fall into disarray and neglect again."

 
Unfazed by his steward's feverish urgency, Bannor propelled him into a chair. "I don't want you to help me make war, my friend, but to make merry."

 
"Merry?" Hollis repeated, hardly able to comprehend the word when it was all he could do not to bang his head upon the table in despair.

 
"Aye. I want you to help me plan a wedding. A wedding the likes of which Elsinore has never seen before and will never see again." A tender smile curved Bannor's lips. "I want to marry Willow."

 
Hollis shook his head, baffled. "But you've already married Willow. I should know. I was there."

 
"Precisely. But I wasn't. This time, I want to stand before the priest myself and make my vows. I want to endow her with all my worldly goods." Bannor's voice and his gaze softened as he glanced toward the bed that stayed rumpled more often than not, now that Willow was sharing it with him. "I want to promise to worship her with my body."

 
"A task you've no doubt already been giving your most pious attention."

 
Ignoring Hollis's smirk, Bannor shoved a crisp sheet of parchment at him. "We shall begin by penning an invitation to her family."

 
Hollis's amusement quickly shifted to disbelief. "Have you taken leave of your senses, my lord? She was naught to them but a piece of chattel, to be bartered away to the highest bidder."

 
Bannor's face darkened. "That's precisely why I want them here to witness her triumph. Why I intend to make them grovel at her feet, as I take her to be my bride with all of the splendor and honor she deserves. Why, I can hardly wait to see the astonishment on her face when they arrive to pay homage to her."

 
Hollis swallowed. "Willow does not know of this invitation?"

 
Bannor looked nonplussed by the very suggestion. "Of course not. I want it to be a surprise. Just as the wedding itself will be."

 
Hollis nearly groaned aloud. "Do you really believe 'tis wise to stage a wedding without the bride's sanction?"

"What protest could she possibly have? We've been living as man and wife for over three months."

 
"I doubt that Willow will have any objections to having your union blessed twice. But it has been my personal experience that women prefer to believe they have a say in such matters, whether they do or not."

 
Bannor waved away his counsel. "No offense, my friend, but Willow has taught me more about women than I'd previously learned in my entire thirty-two years. Oh, I knew all there was to know about pleasuring a woman, but very little about pleasing one. I knew they were tender of flesh, but not so very tender of heart." A shadow of regret passed over his face. "If I had, I might have been a far better husband to Mary and Margaret."

 
"From what I witnessed, my lord, those two noble ladies, God rest their souls, had few complaints."

 
Bannor flashed him a grateful smile. "If I have anything to say about it, Willow will have none."

 
Hollis chuckled. "It does my heart good to see you behaving like a love-struck swain."

 
Bannor's smile faded. "Don't be ridiculous," he said stiffly. "I'm no love-struck swain, simply a man who appreciates the value of a good wife."

"And a good sword. And a good saddle. And a good piece of horseflesh," Hollis could not resist adding.

 
Bannor glowered at him. "And a steward who knows when to hold his tongue and mind his own affairs."

 
Wisely heeding the warning, Hollis devoted all of his attention to dipping a freshly sharpened quill into a flask of ink.

 
"We must make haste," Bannor said, pacing behind him. "We have no way of knowing how long this break in the weather will last."

 
As Bannor began to dictate, Hollis wished it was possible to capture the excoriating edge of sarcasm in his voice. It didn't take him long to finish with the pleasantries, or the pointed lack of them.

 
" 'Tis my great pleasure to invite you ...' " Bannor paused, the gleam in his eye sharpening to a wicked glint, "No, change that to
command.
'Tis my great pleasure to
command
you to attend the wedding of your cherished daughter a sennight hence...'"

******

 
"Desmond?" Beatrix whispered, slipping into the deserted barn.

 
The vexsome boy appeared to have vanished, leaving her all alone to wend her way through the shadows. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the cracks in the walls, gilding the dust motes that drifted through the air. With its towering rafters and steeply pitched ceiling, the barn possessed the hushed and holy ambiance of a cathedral. Beatrix shivered. She'd never much cared for churches. She had too many wicked thoughts, and despaired of ever atoning for them all.

 
"Desmond?" This time, her plaintive call was greeted by a muffled whicker and some halfhearted shuffling of hooves. Most of the horses and all the grooms were out taking advantage of the brief spell of sunshine. The scent of hay tickled her nose.

 
She choked back a sneeze, then froze. She would have almost sworn she heard a rustling in the loft above her head. She cocked her head to the side, but it did not come again. 'Twas probably naught but a mouse, she told herself firmly.

"Or a bat," she whispered, beginning to edge toward the door. Which was really naught but a mouse with razor-sharp fangs, poised to swoop down and tangle itself in one of her braids.

 
Spooked by the image, she whirled around to flee. From the corner of her eye she saw a great shadow descending upon her. A scream tore from her throat as the frightful creature wrapped its wings around her and tumbled her into a bristling mound of hay.

 
Beatrix was still screaming and beating at her hair when she realized the thing that had collapsed on top of her was not some behemoth of a bat, but Desmond. His entire body was quaking with laughter.

 
"Get off me, you horrid boy!" she yelled, struggling to wiggle out from underneath him.

 
Her squirming was to no avail. Once, she might have unseated him with little effort, but in the past two months, his shoulders seemed to have doubled in breadth, keeping pace with the length of his legs. If the wretched lad didn't stop growing soon, he'd be looking down his nose at her.

 
His moss green eyes sparkled with mischief. "I should have just let you keep wandering around the barn, bleating like a lost sheep."

 
"I may have been bleating, but you're going to be
bleeding
if you don't let me go." Beatrix caught his ear-lobe between her thumb and forefinger and twisted.

 
He gritted his teeth, but refused to budge. "Stop pinching me, wench, or I swear I'll. . . I'll..." As he struggled to come up with a threat vile enough to subdue her, his gaze lit upon her trembling lips. "Why, I'll kiss you!"

 
Beatrix abruptly stopped struggling. "You wouldn't dare."

Desmond cocked one eyebrow, looking even more devilish than his father. "Oh, wouldn't I?"

 
Beatrix was unprepared for the blush that scorched her cheeks.

So was Desmond. His mouth fell open, then snapped shut. "You've never been kissed, have you?"

 
Taking advantage of the shock that had weakened his grasp, Beatrix shoved him off of her and sat up, brushing the hay from her apron with brisk motions. "Don't be ridiculous. I've had scores of suitors and at least a dozen proposals."

 
"But you haven't been kissed," he repeated, this time with a smug certainty that made her want to box his ears.

"Have too," she retorted, scrambling away from him.

 
"Have not." As her back came up against a bale of hay, Desmond looped an arm around one knee and shook his head, hooting with laughter. "Fancy that! Sweet Bea struts around flaunting her cleavage, twitching her saucy little rump, and working the squires into a fine lather, and she's never even been kissed."

A shriek of defeat escaped her. "Oh, all right! So I've never been kissed! Mock me if you must, but if anyone else ever finds out, especially Willow, I shall perish of shame. Why, I'll fling myself into the river, I swear I will!" She choked up a pathetic sniffle. "If you were a man of honor, you'd vow to tell no one."

 
Desmond gazed at her for a long moment. "You've never called me a man before. I rather like the sound of it on your lips." He ducked his head, a flush working its way from his bobbing Adam's apple to his squared jaw. "It occurs to me that I couldn't tell anyone you'd never been kissed"—he eyed her through the unruly hank of hair that had tumbled over his brow—"if you had."

 
If there had been even a hint of mischief in Desmond's eyes, Beatrix would have flung his bargain back in his face. But their crystalline depths were curiously somber, mirroring her own breathless uncertainty. She was too dazed to protest when he captured the flaxen rope of her braid, winding it around his fist to coax her nearer.

 
Her eyes fluttered shut. She wouldn't have been surprised had he sought to poke his tongue into her mouth, as her older sisters had warned her men were wont to do. But his lips simply grazed hers in a whisper-soft caress. The two of them lingered that way for as long as they dared, nothing touching but their mouths. Beatrix breathed deeply through her nose, amazed that even in the depths of winter, he could smell so much like sunshine.

When he finally drew away, it took her a moment to work up the courage to open her eyes. If he laughed, she decided, she would snatch up the pitchfork propped against the wall and stab him through the heart.

She opened her eyes. Desmond was smiling. It wasn't the mocking smirk she had feared, but a lopsided grin that tugged at her heart as inexorably as his hand had tugged at her braid.

 
"Since you wouldn't want anyone to know you've only been kissed once," he murmured, the husky note in his voice making her quiver, "I feel 'tis my duty, as a man of honor, to kiss you again."

 
"How very chivalrous of you, sir." Beatrix leaned forward, her full lips puckering in the seductive pout that had always come as naturally to her as breathing. Desmond's lips were only an uneven breath away from her own when she whispered, "But you'll have to catch me first."

 
Bursting into laughter, she sprang to her feet and darted for the barn door, her braid slipping through his fingers like cornsilk.

 
"Why, you treacherous little wench!" he shouted, bounding to his own feet. But as he cleared a bale of hay in a single leap and went racing after her, he was laughing nearly as heartily as she was.

******

 
Willow stood at a narrow arched window on the second level of the castle, blinking down in disbelief at the barren garden below. For the past five minutes, Desmond had been chasing Beatrix around and around a stone bench, his breathless demands for her surrender mingling with her shrieks of laughter. That didn't surprise Willow, since the two of them spent most of their waking hours at each other's throats.