Charming the Prince (4 page)

 
Before Hollis could consider rescuing the lad, a shepherdess separated herself from the gamboling flock of children and rushed to the side of her fallen lamb. As she gathered the bawling child into her lap, Hollis's curiosity sharpened. He squinted into the sunlight, but could make out nothing of her features. Although she moved with the grace and swiftness of youth, her garb gave no clue to her age. Her hair had been gathered into a russet wool cap and she wore a drab kirtle and apron of the sort any serf or castle maidservant might wear.

 
It wasn't her appearance that intrigued him so much as the protective curve of her shoulders as she hugged the child to her breast. They were too far away to hear her voice, but he could well imagine the gentle words she must be crooning to soothe the lad's sniffles.

 
Hollis sank back on his heels. Perhaps he'd been going about his quest in entirely the wrong way. After all, Bannor had never insisted his bride had to be of noble birth. Why not present him with a young Fiona—some shy, sturdy peasant girl who would welcome the care of his unruly brood and make few demands on her new lord and master?

 
A grin slowly spread over his face. The men-at-arms crept closer, gazing down at his dazed visage in alarm. One of them passed a hand in front of his face; Hollis didn't even blink.

"What is it, sir? Have ye seen a vision?"

 
"Aye, I have at that. The answer to all my prayers." As the men exchanged a perplexed glance, Hollis's grin softened into a blissful smile. "A Madonna."

 
He was tempted to drive his mount straight down the hillside into the meadow, but he feared startling both the girl and her young charges. 'Twould be a simple enough task to seek out the nearest village or castle. Surely someone there could tell him who she was and where she lived.

 
He parted the bracken again, unable to resist stealing one last look at his find before he took his leave. As he watched, the lad wiggled out of her lap and went shimmying up the gnarled trunk of an apple tree. She scrambled to her feet and stood beneath the tree with arms outstretched, as if to catch him should his hands slip or his little feet falter. The broad expanse of her hips did indeed give her a distinctly bovine look.

 
Hollis sighed with anticipation as he rose and groped for the reins of his horse, already hearing in his head the sweet, coaxing music of her voice.

******

"If you don't come down from that tree this instant, you wretched little troll, I'll climb up and toss you down."

"Will not."

"Will, too."

 
"Will not." A half-rotted apple came sailing through the branches, striking Willow's temple with a solid
bonk.
The other children erupted in scornful laughter.

 
Gritting her teeth, Willow tucked her foot into the crook of the trunk, fully prepared to make good on her threat.

 
Yowling like a treed cat, ten-year-old Harold came sliding down the trunk. He had almost reached the ground when his foot became tangled in Willow's skirt and he went sprawling on his stomach for the second time in that day.

 
His high-pitched wail set Willow's teeth on edge. While she was trying to decide whether she should pick him up and dust him off again or throttle him, he rolled to a sitting position.

 
"She t-t-twipped me!" He gulped for air, his plump cheeks turning redder than the apples she'd gathered in the pockets of her apron. "Willow twipped me! I'm going to tell my papa!"

 
Eight-year-old Gerta stomped to his defense, her flaxen braids bristling with indignation. "I saw her trip you. She's an ugly, hateful girl and I shall tell Papa, too."

 
"And Mama!" chirped the nine-year-old twins in near unison. "We shall tell Mama. Mayhaps she'll send her to bed without supper again."

 
Undaunted by the familiar chant, Willow simply leaned against the tree, folded her arms over her chest, and narrowed her eyes. As a wicked smile spread over her face, the children grew very still. Even Harold stopped his sniveling.

 
"I hope they send me to bed without supper," she said softly. "For if they do, I shall soon grow fiercely hungry. Then I shall creep out of my bed in the black of night and go in search of something to eat." She deliberately lowered her gaze to the white little belly protruding from beneath the hem of Harold's tunic, then ran her tongue along the edge of her gleaming teeth. "Something plump and tender and succulent..."

 
As her voice deepened to a growl, Harold surged to his feet, bellowing in terror. His brother and sisters followed, squealing at the top of their lungs as they scattered across the meadow, fleeing toward the sanctuary of the castle.

 
Willow collapsed against the tree, weakened by laughter. When her mirth finally subsided, she slid to a sitting position and took an apple from her apron, savoring the rare bliss of solitude. There seemed to be little point in continuing to coax and cajole, reason and threaten, when her every effort to make her brothers and sisters behave was thwarted by her stepmother's indulgence.

 
She sank her teeth through the apple's crisp skin, remembering how eagerly she had anticipated Harold's birth. After three years of serving as nursemaid to her pampered step-siblings, she was finally going to have a brother or sister of her own blood. But Blanche had used the occasion of his birth to pour more of her poison into Papa's ear. As Willow had approached the bed to steal a peek at her new brother, Blanche had gently reminded her papa that it was Blanche, and not Willow's mother, who had fulfilled the sacred duty of giving him a son.

Willow snapped another bite from the apple. Harold had been a sweet-natured babe, as had been the three babes born after him, but his natural affection for her was soon tainted by the disdain his older step-siblings showed her. The chasm between them was simply too great for his chubby little arms to bridge.

 
They were sturdy. She was slender. They were blond. She was dark. They had blue eyes. Hers were the tempestuous gray of a storm at sea. They had icy Saxon blood flowing through their veins, while hers surged with the warm, passionate blood of the French. They were loved. She was...

 
Willow tossed away the half-eaten apple, abruptly losing her taste for it. She had not been her papa's little princess for a very long time. From the moment Blanche had arrived at Bedlington, she had deposed Willow with all the ruthless ambition of a conquering queen determined to set her own heirs on the throne.

In the beginning, Willow had been too bewildered to accept her defeat. She would try to crawl into her father's lap only to find it already occupied by a clinging Reanna or a smirking Stefan. Hungry for a story, she would wiggle her way into the circle of children crowded around her papa's knee. Just as Papa would reach out an arm to draw her nearer, Blanche's hand would descend on her shoulder like a pale spider.

 
"You're growing too old for such nonsense, dear," Blanche would whisper, the honeyed venom of her voice paralyzing Willow more effectively than her biting grip, "Why don't you run along upstairs and see if Beatrix needs her napkins changed?"

 
Willow would creep from the great hall, stealing a yearning glance at her papa over her shoulder. More than once, she would have sworn she glimpsed a reflection of her own trapped panic in his eyes. His mouth would open, but before he could call her back, Blanche's children would swarm over him, clamoring for his undivided attention. Eventually, his unspoken words had swelled into a silence so deafening it could never again be fully broken.

 
Sometimes Willow wished she couldn't even remember when Papa had loved her. Perhaps then she wouldn't waste her time dreaming that someone might love her that way again. The yearning ran deep, deeper even than her craving for a single hour of freedom to call her own.

 
Seduced by that bittersweet dream, she leaned her head against the tree. As her eyes drifted shut, it was not her papa's face she saw, but the face of another man.

Her prince,
she had christened him when she'd still been young and foolish enough to believe in such fancies.

 
His hair was as dark and lustrous as samite, his jaw strong and his brow kind. It mattered not what color his eyes were so long as they brimmed with love for her and her alone. He would not love her for a brief, sweet season, but forever.

 
Willow could not have said how long she lingered in that meadow, hearing his whisper in the rustling of the grasses, feeling his touch in the caress of the breeze. She didn't even realize she'd puckered her lips for an imaginary kiss until the first drop of rain spattered against them, vanquishing both her prince and her dreams.

 
She scrambled to her feet, her alarm rising with the wind. She might be getting too old to be sent to bed without supper, but she had no doubt Blanche could devise some more subtle punishment for her rebellion. She tucked a stray tendril of hair into her cap. The last time she'd dared to defy her stepmother, Blanche had threatened to shear her of her unruly curls.

 
Tying up her apron so as not to spill the apples from the pockets, Willow went dashing across the meadow toward the castle she had once called home.

******

 
Willow burst into the musty gloom of the kitchen only seconds before the fitful shower swelled into a genuine downpour. She ducked around the stream of rain pouring through a crack in the ceiling, shivering as she discovered the fire had been allowed to go out again. If the cold hearth and deserted spit were any indication, she might not be the only one going to bed without supper. Perhaps 'twould be wise to hoard the apples in her apron.

 
Blanche's spending was bleeding her papa dry. The overflowing coffers he'd dreamed of when he'd wed the wealthy widow had long ago dried to a meager trickle. As long as she was draped in jewels and fur and her little darlings garbed in samite and wool, Blanche cared not that the castle's defenses were rotting or that her father's villeins and men-at-arms had deserted him for fairer and more prosperous masters.

 
The king's wrath would have descended on them long ago had Blanche not wed her two eldest daughters, Reanna and Edwina, to wealthy barons. Driven to distraction by the incessant whining of their wives, the barons had agreed to pay the castle taxes Blanche's own threats and bullying had failed to raise.

 
Willow and her papa might have been poor before he'd married Blanche, but at least they'd had each other. Now they had nothing between them but regrets and strained silences.

 
Willow started up the winding stairs, hoping to creep around the balcony that overlooked the great hall and reach the bedchamber she shared with her sisters before her stepmother could waylay her. She fully expected to hear Harold lisping out a detailed recitation of her sins. She did not expect to hear the stern ringing of masculine voices.

 
Willow crept toward the balcony railing and peered through the smoke of the rushlights. Oddly enough, there wasn't a child in sight in the great hall below. Three strangers stood before the raised dais where Blanche insisted that Papa receive all visitors to the castle. Papa hunched in a canopied chair, his red-gold hair faded to a lackluster gray, his once proud shoulders stooped beneath the burden of his wife's debts and demands. Blanche reclined next to him on a gilded bench, presiding over the dusty squalor of the hall like some mythical Saxon queen.

 
The man who was speaking wore the golden spurs of a knight. "If a dowry cannot be arranged at this time, I'm sure my master would be willing to provide a generous bride-price."

 
" Tis barbaric! I'll not hear of it!" Papa shouted, pounding on the arm of his chair.

 
"Just how generous?" Blanche asked, resting a pale hand on Papa's sleeve.

 
The stranger shifted his scrutiny to Willow's stepmother, his thick mustache twitching with amusement. "Generous enough. My lord has already secured the blessing of the king. He is
very
eager to make this match."

 
"Ah, but she is
very
dear to us," Blanche said before Papa could speak.

 
Willow clung to the railing. They could only be discussing the betrothal of Blanche's youngest child from her first marriage. But Beatrix wasn't yet fourteen! Blanche must be desperate indeed if she was considering bartering her off to the highest bidder. By rights, Willow knew she should be glad to see the girl go. After pissing in Willow's shoes all those years ago, the brat had gone on to inflict a host of indignities upon her. Willow pressed a hand to her belly. Perhaps the pang she felt there was simply a twinge of envy for Beatrix's good fortune. Surely she wouldn't actually miss the spoiled little minx.

 
Shaking off Blanche's grip, Papa glowered suspiciously at the knight. "Just why does your lord want her so badly?"

 
Willow was straining forward to hear the man's answer when something wet slithered across the back of her neck.