Charming the Prince (5 page)

"Eeeewww!" she groaned, recognizing it as an eager male tongue.

 
Spinning around, she backed her assailant into the shadows. "I'd suggest you keep that viper in your mouth before I yank it out by the roots."

 
Her stepbrother chuckled and cocked a smug eyebrow. "Ah, but why should I keep it in
my
mouth when yours is so much sweeter?"

 
Stefan's gleaming fall of thick, blond hair and bulging bands of muscle might make the castle maidservants swoon, but to Willow, he was the same smug little boy who had mocked her mercilessly since their very first meeting. Only now he wore a much larger sword.

 
"Even the sweetest of berries can poison you," she retorted, hands on hips.

 
His pale blue eyes narrowed. "I do believe this particular berry has grown a bit saucy." He nodded toward the balcony. "Before your opinion of yourself ripens any further, you might wish to remember that this mysterious lord is offering to buy you for his bed as if you were naught but a village whore."

Willow was too stunned to take offense at his insult.

"Me?" She touched a tentative hand to her chest, betrayed by a treacherous surge of wonder. "This lord wants
me
for his bride?"

 
Stefan's smirk darkened into a scowl. "You needn't look so calf-eyed. Mama will never let you go."

 
Willow's wonder faded as she recognized the bitter truth in his words. "Of course, she won't. If she did, she might have to find another nursemaid for her brats."

 
Unable to bear hearing her papa send the earnest young knight away, Willow turned toward the bedchamber.

 
Stefan stepped in front of her, blocking her path."Mama wouldn't give you to another man because she knows I want you for myself."

 
Willow recoiled. Her stepbrother had never before dared to be so brazen. She forced herself to meet his taunting gaze with equal boldness. "Well, you can't have me. Blood may not bind us, but you're still my brother. The king would never allow us to wed."

 
Stefan caught her shoulders in a painful grip, his voice deepening to a husky growl. "Who said anything about wedding you?"

As he licked his plump lower lip, as if in anticipation of savoring some juicy morsel of meat, Willow almost regretted teasing Harold. She forced herself to wait until the glistening tip of his tongue was only an inch away from her parted lips before whispering, "I warned you to keep that viper away from me."

 
Jerking herself out of his grip, she drove a knee into his padded codpiece. He doubled over, grunting an oath.

 
Before he could recover, Willow darted left, then right, driven by a primitive urge to flee. Her bedchamber no longer felt like a refuge, but a trap. Without conscious thought, she plunged down the stairs that wound into the great hall, stumbling to a halt in the shadows beneath the balcony.

 
" Tis a tremendous sum, Rufus," Blanche was saying, a dreamy sheen softening the avaricious glitter of her eyes. "Enough to pay the taxes for the next two years."

 
"I won't hear of it, woman! I'll not sell my own daughter!"

 
Longing only to escape a future as ugly as her stepbrother's sneer, Willow stepped out of the shadows, her voice ringing like a bell. "And why not, Papa? 'Twouldn't be the first time."

******

 
Hollis's jaw dropped as his meek Madonna came marching into the great hall, her shoulders squared for battle. He squinted at her through the gloom, the smoke from the poorly trimmed rushlights making his eyes water. The girl's homely cap had slid down over one eye, casting a shadow over her features.

 
He still couldn't quite believe his good fortune. His mysterious angel hadn't turned out to be some common village wench, but the spinster daughter of an impoverished baron. She'd probably long ago resigned herself to living out the remainder of her life as a weighty burden to her family. She would no doubt be pliable and eager to please a mighty lord such as Bannor. Especially since Bannor would laud the very plainness that made her repugnant to other men.

 
Hollis stole a glance at the ceiling, where cobwebs drifted in place of the colorful banners that must have once adorned the rafters. She should also be most humbly grateful to be rescued from this place. Upon their approach, he and his men had been appalled by the disagreeable stench of the weed-choked moat. Rain seeped steadily through cracks in the ceiling, running in dank rivulets down the crumbling stone walls. The stale rushes beneath their feet were littered with oft-gnawed bones and the droppings of hounds, both dried and fresh.

As the girl marched toward the dais, Hollis gallantly made way for her, prompting his men to do the same.

 
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?"