Charming the Prince (8 page)

 
"As well he should," Willow muttered beneath her breath. They'd no doubt died spewing out his babes in that very bed.

 
The old woman's words cast a pall over the cozy chamber. The precocious Beatrix and her married sisters had sometimes whispered of men who measured the vigor of their manhood by the number of children they could sire. Men who looked upon their wives as little more than fertile fields to be plowed thoroughly and repeatedly until their seed took root. Perhaps this Lord Bannor was just such a man. Perhaps he hadn't sought her out to be a chattel to his children, but a slave to his insatiable lusts.

 
Her thoughts must have been apparent for Fiona wrapped an arm around her and gave her a quick, hard squeeze. "If ye're tempted to cower under the bed as I did, lass, just remember that Lord Bannor won't need a flagon o' ale to coax ye into his arms. 'Tis said he has charms no maiden can resist."

"That's just what I'm afraid of," Willow whispered.

 
But the woman was already gone, leaving her all alone to await her lord's pleasure.

******

 
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't throttle you?" Bannor demanded for the dozenth time as he paced the north tower, glancing off the rounded walls like a cornered stag.

 
"I'm your only worthy chess opponent," Hollis suggested hopefully.

 
Bannor leveled an icy glare at him. "I defeated you the last eleven times we played."

"Ah, but it took you more than five moves."

 
"Only because I felt sorry for you. A weakness I'm in no danger of succumbing to at the moment."

 
"More's the pity," Hollis said glumly, slumping deeper into his chair as if hoping such a pathetic posture would make him a smaller target for Bannor's wrath.

 
"I send you out to find me a maternal, bovine dowd to mother my children, and you bring me a ... a ..." Bannor sputtered to a halt, at a loss to describe the exquisite creature who had emerged from the fur-lined depths of the hood. His voice both roughened and softened as her piquant features and cloud of sable hair danced before his eyes. "A goddess!"

 
"Not a goddess—a Madonna," Hollis protested. "You should have seen her with her brothers and sisters. She was the very soul of tenderness and devotion. The moment I laid eyes on her, I knew she would welcome your own children with open arms."

 
"Aye, that she did." Bannor slapped at his chest through the thin linen of his shirt. "That's why I'm marching around the tower in naught but my shirt and hose while the maidservants scrub piss out of my finest doublet."

Hollis heaved a defeated sigh. "When I first saw her, she was wearing a cap. And apples."

 
Bannor swung around to blink at his steward, wondering if the man had well and truly lost his senses.

 
"By the time I got a clear look at her, 'twas too late. The bargain had been struck. She had defied her own father to plight her troth to you."

"So you chose to defy me by accepting her pledge."

 
It was a statement, not a question, and Hollis wisely held his silence. Until he muttered beneath his breath, "You would have done the same."

Bannor gave him a narrow look.

 
Hollis dared to meet that look. "If you had seen the heartless manner in which her family treated her while we were waiting for the banns to be read, you would have done the same. Her father ignored her. Her stepmother disdained her. Her brothers and sisters ordered her about as if she was no better than a slave. And her stepbrother ..." Hollis shook his head, his mouth thinning to a grim line. "I cared naught for the look in his eyes whenever they lingered upon her."

The thought of such a delicate treasure being ill used made Bannor want to slam his fist into the wall. Made him long to march upon this Rufus of Bedlington and burn his keep to the ground. Made him yearn to pound that lecherous stepbrother of hers until he begged for mercy.

"Did they beat her?"

 
"I think not. 'Twas her spirit that was bruised by their lack of kindness, not her flesh. Bruised, but not broken."

 
Bannor had caught a glimpse of that spirit when she'd thrust wee Mags back into his arms and slammed the chariot door in his face. During the war, he'd grown so accustomed to everyone scurrying to obey his commands that he'd been startled by an urge to applaud her defiance.

 
He should have followed his warrior's instincts and worn armor to their first meeting—a helm to shield him from her beauty and a breastplate to protect his heart.

 
He raked a hand through his hair. "I trusted you to find me a wife who would not tempt me to get her with child, and you bring me a woman who makes me think of nothing else. Just how long do you think 'twill be before her body begins to ripen with my seed? A fortnight? A sennight? A night?"

 
Hollis brightened. "Perhaps you should consider a vow of celibacy. I've no doubt God would find it a most impressive sacrifice, much more pleasing in His eyes than if you had wed some stout fishwife with a mustache."

 
Bannor planted both palms on the table, looming over his steward. "If you'd care to keep your tongue, perhaps you should consider a vow of silence."

Hollis snapped his mouth shut.

 
Bannor straightened, shaking his head. "I fear there's only one way to undo this wretched mischief you've done." He went to the door. But he did not open it until after he'd looked furtively out the window and determined that the children should be safely abed.

"Where are you going?" Hollis demanded.

"To inform my bride that a terrible mistake has been made. To tell her that we must petition Edward for an annulment before the union can be consummated."

 
Hollis rose to his feet, drawing himself up to his full five feet nine inches. "I cannot bear the thought of her returning to live in such squalor and neglect. If you don't want her, then I'll keep her for my own wife."

 
Bannor tried to imagine Hollis stroking his bride's creamy skin, Hollis sifting his fingers through her raven curls, Hollis tickling that delectable upper lip of hers with his mustache. He could not have said what his expression was in that moment, but his steward took a fearful step backward.

 
"I appreciate your noble offer, Hollis, but I could never ask you to make such a terrible sacrifice." The sarcasm drained from his voice, leaving it somber with regret. "If Lady Willow does not wish to return to her father's household after the annulment is granted, then I shall escort her to the sisters at Wayborne Abbey. 'Tis the only fit refuge for such a woman."

It pained Bannor to imagine a woman as desirable as Willow devoting herself to a life of pious virtue, but 'twas preferable to the thought of another man enjoying her.

 
As he turned to go, Hollis said softly, "Was it not you who claimed that when I returned to Elsinore with this woman, she would be your wife in the eyes of God?"

Bannor hesitated, his friend's rebuke piercing his armor of resolve like the tiny blade of a misericorde. "Then I can only pray that He will forgive me for what I am about to do."

******

 
Willow never would have thought that she would miss Harold's whining or Beatrix's imperious commands, but as she gazed around the bedchamber, the unfamiliar hush unnerved her. Once she had longed for silence and solitude—for a few precious moments to think and dream. Now that she was alone at last, she was afraid to do either.

 
A curious peek behind the bed curtains did nothing to ease her fears. The sable pelts had been folded back and the linen sheet sprinkled with velvety rose petals, confirming her dark suspicion that Lord Bannor intended to waste no time in getting his brat on her.

 
After shrugging out of her cloak, she lifted the linen napkin on the table. A mincemeat pie sat on a silver plate, still warm to the touch. Nibbling its flaky crust, she wandered into a curtained alcove to discover not a chamber pot, but the decadent luxury of an actual privy. The queenly throne was outfitted with a wooden seat and surrounded with fresh handfuls of straw. She barely resisted the childish urge to yell "Halloo" down its murky shaft.

 
An ornate cupboard had been set against the wall opposite the bed. Willow swallowed the last of the pie and approached it. The rearing stag carved into its door seemed to leer at her, his mighty antlers a threat to any maiden who dared to trespass upon the secrets he guarded.

 
" 'Tis a wonder Lord Bannor didn't choose a rutting stag for his coat of arms," she muttered darkly.

 
As the cupboard creaked open, she braced herself, half expecting to find the crumbling bones of Lord Bannor's most recent wife. But its silk-lined interior yielded only a silver comb and a chemise woven of a sendal so fine she could see her splayed fingers through two layers of the stuff.

 
Its very existence invited fondling. But as Willow held the garment up to her chest, testing its length against her own, 'twas not her hands she saw caressing the gossamer silk, but a man's hands—their backs dusted with crisp, dark hairs.

 
Cursing her vivid imagination, she dropped the chemise and scuttled backward. Her heel caught on an uneven board, sending her tumbling through the bed curtains. The feather mattress swallowed her up in one hungry gulp. The bedframe's leather springs creaked madly as she struggled to escape before Lord Bannor discovered that she'd stumbled right into his perfumed trap.

******

Bannor's determined strides did not slow until he reached the foot of the winding stone staircase that led up to the south tower. The dismay he'd felt at confronting his children was only a twinge compared to the panic roiling inside him now. He'd challenged the grim specter of death without flinching too many times to count, but the prospect of facing one willowy slip of a girl iced his palms with sweat and made his heart thud with dread.

 
He was afraid not so much of her as of himself. Every time he'd taken a brief respite from the war and climbed these very steps to visit the bed of one of his wives, a babe had been born nine months later. As much as it galled him to admit it, he was no different from his father in that respect. No lord of Elsinore had ever been able to touch a woman without getting her with child. And Bannor feared that once he started touching this woman, he wouldn't be able to stop.

 
He marched up the stairs, resolved to explain to this Lady Willow that his steward had made a terrible, if well-intentioned, mistake. He had just reached the landing when the door crashed open and his bride came flying from the chamber.

 
Bannor made an instinctive grab for her, hoping to keep them both from tumbling headlong down the stairs. As he caught her, she jerked up her head and he found himself gazing deep into her dark-lashed eyes.

 
He expected her to be startled. He did not expect her to let out a scream that curdled his blood in its veins and sent him staggering backward with an unmanly yelp of his own.

Six

 
Willow backed away from the towering stranger who was now her husband, the echo of her scream still ringing in the narrow stairwell.

 
Even as she averted her eyes and clapped a protective hand over her stomach, she knew she was being absurd. She had ten siblings. She wasn't so foolish as to believe a man could make his babe quicken within a woman's womb simply by gazing into her eyes. Yet how to explain that dart of lightning she'd felt deep in her belly at the precise moment their eyes had met?

She stole a sidelong glance at Bannor. He wore only an ivory linen shirt—belted to flare over his lean hips— black hose, and leather calf boots. With his shirt unlaced at the throat to reveal a dark
V
of chest hair and his hands resting on his hips, 'twas almost possible to believe him capable of such wicked sorcery. Willow had always thought blue eyes were cold and soulless, but this man's eyes crackled with passion, especially with the raven wings of his brows arched over them like forbidding storm clouds.

 
"Sweet Christ in heaven, woman!" he thundered. "Are you trying to break my neck or yours?"

 
Willow shifted her hand from her belly to her heaving chest, still avoiding his eyes. "Forgive me, my lord. You startled me."

 
He raked a hand through his hair. "Not nearly as much as you startled me. Just where were you headed in such haste? Is the tower afire?" His eyes narrowed. "Has that naughty son of mine tossed another stinkpot into the privy shaft?"

 
Embarrassed to admit she'd been panicked by nothing more than a feather mattress and a nest of rose petals, Willow shook her head. " Tis a habit of mine to take the night air. I was simply going for a ... a stroll along the battlements."

His left eyebrow shot up. "Without your cloak?"

"How foolish of me," Willow replied, seizing the opportunity to escape. "I'll go fetch it this very moment."