Charming the Prince (36 page)

"Can you blame me for being angry? You led me to believe you were naught but a common maidservant, when all along you were a... a..." he grimaced in distaste, "... a
lady."

"
'Twas Willow's idea to disguise me as her maidservant. She was afraid that if Lord Bannor knew I'd run away from home, he'd make her send me back." Beatrix swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. "Now Willow hates me, and Lord Bannor will probably send me back anyway."

 
Desmond swung around to stare at her. 'Twas the first time the possibility had occurred to him. "No, he won't," he said with an arrogance that would serve him well when he was master of the castle. "I won't stand for it."

 
"What do you care?" she flung at him. "You're behaving as if you hate me, too."

 
Desmond paced away from her, stroking the sparse stubble on his chin as if it were a full beard. "As long as you were a maidservant, I was free to dally with you as I pleased. I could chase you around the garden and steal all the kisses I wanted." He swung around to glare at her. "But now that you're a lady, I can't very well just tumble you into a haystack and seduce you. Damned if I won't have to marry you first!"

 
Beatrix blinked up at him, tears of joy flooding her misty blue eyes. "Why, I do believe that's the nicest proposal I've ever received," she whispered.

 
Desmond's eyes glowed with both tenderness and resolve as he stretched out one freckled hand and drew her to her feet. "If I have anything to say about it, Lady Beatrix of Bedlington, 'twill be the last one as well."

******

 
When Bannor arrived at the top of the stairs just before dusk, he found ten of his children huddled on the landing outside Willow's bedchamber, their hushed whispers proclaiming the gravity of their vigil. Desmond and Beatrix shared the top step, their clasped hands poorly hidden by the folds of her skirt. When Bannor appeared, they gave a guilty start and edged away from each other, twin blushes darkening their cheeks.

 
So
that
was to be the way of it, Bannor thought with a wry glimmer of amusement, as he picked his way between them. Although he didn't look forward to negotiating a betrothal contract with the girl's grasping mother, at least he didn't have to worry about his son and heir wooing the laziest maidservant in all of England.

 
He cast the arrow loop a grim glance. If the snow kept tumbling from the sky as it had in the past few hours, he feared he'd have ample time to negotiate that contract. Bannor shuddered at the thought of being trapped in the castle with the nest of adders Willow called a family until the spring thaw. Her father had been drinking himself into a stupor ever since that scene in the bailey and Bannor couldn't so much as catch a glimpse of her stepbrother's sullen smirk without wanting to drive his fist into it.

******

 
The rising wail of the wind was the only sound on the landing. Muffled sobs, outraged shrieks, or the crash of pottery shattering would have been preferable to the piteous silence seeping out from behind the door of Willow's bedchamber. Bannor closed his eyes briefly, cursing himself and all of his male ancestors for being so damnably thickheaded. If he had just heeded Hollis's counsel, he might be sharing Willow's bed right now instead of standing outside the door of her bedchamber, as empty-handed as a beggar.

As he lifted his hand to knock, his children regarded him with a disconcerting mixture of chagrin and pity.

 
"She won't let you in," Mary predicted, her round little face more doleful than usual.

"How can you be sure?"

"Are you the last man on earth?" Mary Margaret demanded, tugging on the leg of his hose.

"I don't believe so," he ventured.

 
The little girl pondered his reply for a moment before shrugging. "Well, even if you were, Willow still wouldn't let you in."

"Or stay married to you," Ennis muttered.

 
"Or throw you a rope if you tumbled headfirst down a well," Edward added cheerfully.

"How do you know that?" Bannor inquired.

 
Hammish cringed in sympathy. "She told Fiona, then Fiona told us."

Bannor blew out a pensive breath. It seemed this was going to be much more difficult than he'd anticipated.

 
Swallowing his trepidation, he rapped his knuckles softly against the door. "Willow? Sweeting? Might I have a word with you?"

 
He would have thought it impossible, but the silence became even more pronounced. He pressed his ear to the oak, encouraged by a faint rustling within. His heart soared as the door slowly creaked open.

 
Then plummeted when Fiona's wizened visage appeared in the crack. The chamber behind the stooped old woman was veiled in shadows.

 
Fiona greeted him with a sorrowful shake of her head. "Ye'd best take yerself off, lad. She'll not see ye right now."

 
Still shaking her head, Fiona began to shut the door. Bannor jammed the toe of his boot into the narrowing crack. "Wait, Fiona! Tell her..."

Tell her what? That his arms ached with emptiness whenever she wasn't in them? That he was a stubborn fool with more pride than courage?

 
Gazing down into Fiona's expectant face, Bannor shook his own head before saying softly, "Just tell her that I'm sorry."

Fiona nodded before gently closing the door in his face.

Once Bannor might have called for a battering ram to pound it down, but if Willow had taught him anything in the past few months, it was that such reckless posturing might destroy the very prize he sought to win.

******

Willow could not seem to stop crying. It was as if all the tears she'd choked back since she was six years old had decided to come pouring out of her in one bitter torrent. She longed to wail and rage and kick her feet as Mary Margaret would have done, but she'd spent too many years crying into her pillow, her body wracked by silent sobs.

 
Every time the salty flood subsided, she would relive the scene in the bailey, remembering her papa's painful confusion, Blanche's frosty contempt, and Stefan's blatant sneer at witnessing her humiliation.

 
Most damning of all had been the raw panic she'd glimpsed on Bannor's face, when he had been unable to choke out the one word that would have forever redeemed her pride in the eyes of her family.

 
Willow's shuddering hiccups deepened to sniffles, her sniffles to snuffles, and her snuffles to sobs. Before long she was weeping full force again, and Fiona was patting her back and crooning soothing words in a language she did not understand. Although the snow was still falling in a blinding veil outside the window, Willow refused to let the old woman light a candle. The gloom suited her.

"Oh, Fiona," Willow mumbled, "I think I hate him!"

 
"Of course, ye do, darlin'," Fiona murmured. "He's a loathsome toad. All men are."

 
Willow stopped crying long enough to cast the old woman a look over her shoulder, her eyes still brimming with tears. "But he's not loathsome at all. He's kind and strong and gentle." She collapsed face first into the feather pillow. "Oh, God, that only makes me hate him more! How did Mary and Margaret bear it? They're probably glad they're dead. I wish I was dead, too!" She seized upon the idea with savage satisfaction. "Perhaps I'll cry myself to death, and then he'll be sorry he never loved me."

 
Fiona gently stroked her hair. "There, there, lass. Don't take on so. 'Tis only natural that yer feelin's would be more tender right now." She chuckled. "Why, when I was breedin' fer the first time, I used to weep and wail until me poor Liam was fair near to burstin' into tears himself."

Twenty Nine

 
Willow's tears ceased abruptly. She rolled to a sitting position, eyeing Fiona as if the saintly old woman had just sprouted horns and a tail. "Breeding?"

 
Fiona gave Willow's taut little belly a fond pat. "Surely it couldn't have come as a surprise to ye, lass. Not when ye've been sharin' Lord Bannor's bed fer almost two months."

"D-Don't be ridiculous," Willow stammered. "I can't be breeding. Bannor doesn't want any more children. Why, we've taken great care to—" Blushing, she leaned over and whispered something in the old woman's ear.

 
Hooting with laughter, Fiona rocked backward so far she nearly tumbled off the bed. "Such shenanigans might work fer a less potent man. But I'd wager, if ye were on one side of the moat and he was on the other, our Bannor would still find a way to tuck his babe into yer belly."

 
Scrubbing the last of the tears from her cheeks, Willow rose from the bed and began to pace around the tower, no longer able to keep still with so much turmoil roiling around inside of her. "My monthly courses were a bit light last month, but I haven't felt the least bit faint or sick to my stomach. Why, I've been hungry as a horse! You saw me at supper last night. I ate three partridge pasties, an entire blancmange, a bowl of oysters, and three enormous ..." She trailed off, silenced by Fiona's knowing smile. "Oh," she whispered, groping for the stool behind her. "I'd better sit down. I do believe I'm feeling a little faint after all."

 
"You'll soon adjust to the shiftin' o' yer moods— laughin' one minute, cryin' the next." Fiona chuckled. " Tis a wonder any man survives nine months o' such devilry."

 
Willow brought her trembling hand to rest against the curve of her belly, before lifting wondering eyes to Fiona. "How did you know?"

 
Fiona grimaced. "The last time I ate a bowl of oysters and a blancmange in one sittin', I was pregnant with me first set o' twins."

 
Willow gazed down at her stomach, marveling that something so fragile as an invisible life could reside within. "I never thought I wanted a babe of my own," she said softly. "But 'tis a part of me, is it not?"

Fiona nodded. "And a part of him. The very best part."

 
Willow knew she ought to be weeping in earnest now, but a shimmering thread of joy had began to unfurl in her heart. "How can I help but love it?" She lifted her chin, giving in to a rush of stubborn pride. "Bannor may not love me, but perhaps his child will."

 
Fiona cocked her head to the side, giving Willow a pitying look. "Just what do ye think love is, child? Me Liam and I were wed for forty-seven years, and the stubborn old cuss never once spoke the words. Yet not a day went by in all those years that he didn't reach fer me hand or sneak up behind me to give me a cuddle. Love isn't a burst o' trumpets and a flock o' doves descendin' out o' the heavens to roost on yer heads. Tis sharin' a cup o' tea by the hearth on a cold winter's night. 'Tis the look in yer husband's eyes when ye lay yer first child in his arms." Sorrow touched the old woman's face. " 'Tis the ache in yer heart when ye watch the light in his eyes dim fer the last time, and know a part o' ye has gone out o' this world with him."

Willow did not realize she was crying again, until a tear splashed on her hand.

 
Fiona reached over to take that hand. "There's a reason Mary and Margaret never regretted weddin' Bannor. They knew in their hearts that the lad loved them, even if he didn't know it himself."

 
The old woman gave Willow's hand a firm squeeze, then rose and shuffled toward the door.

 
Willow stood and swiped the fresh tears from her cheeks. With what she hoped was a dignified sniff, she said, "You may inform my husband that I will see him now."

 
Fiona bobbed a curtsy, her wizened face crumpling into an impish smile. " Twill be a pleasure, m'lady."

******

 
As Willow waited for Bannor to arrive, she pawed frantically through her cupboard, tossing kirtles, gloves, stockings, and chemises over her shoulder left and right.

She was going to have a baby. A vexsome creaturewho would wriggle and fret and rub its sticky little hands all over her. When she cradled it against her shoulder, it would burp in her ear and spit milk down her back. She would never in her entire life know another moment of peace, because she would always be worrying that it might fall down a privy shaft, get its chubby head caught in a window grate, or grow up to fall in love with someone who was overly fond of cabbage or chewed with their mouth open.

She'd never been happier.

 
She finally settled upon a gown woven from the finest camlet, with flowing sleeves trimmed in miniver. She plopped down on the stool and drew on a fresh pair of stockings and garters, then slipped her feet into one of the delicate pairs of doeskin slippers Bannor had given her for a wedding present.

 
Once she might have dreaded telling Bannor that she was carrying his child. Once she might have feared that his heart would grow cold toward her, as her papa's had done. The girl she had been before she came to Elsinore might even have run away without telling him so she'd never have to take that chance.