Charming the Prince (31 page)

She laughed softly, but with a trace of bitterness. "He warned me that he has never sworn an oath he could not keep."

 
"Aye," Netta agreed, sinking down on the edge of the hearth. "He is a man of his word. When I left the first babe outside of his gates one chill November eve, I never dreamed he would claim her as his own. I could only pray that one of the laundresses or maidservants might take her in." She shivered. "When two of his men-at-arms appeared on my doorstep the next day to escort me to him, I was terrified he was going to have me cast into the dungeon, or perhaps imprisoned in the stocks, so that everyone would know the dreadful thing I had done."

 
Willow almost smiled, remembering how reluctant Bannor had been to so much as spank his rebellious son.

 
"I was trembling like a leaf when they brought me before him." Although Willow would have sworn it was impossible, a becoming blush crept into the woman's cheeks as she bowed her head. "When he dismissed his guards and turned away to pour a goblet of mead, I began to disrobe, thinking that he meant for me to trade my favors in exchange for his mercy."

 
Willow arched one eyebrow. "That must have been quite a shock for him."

"Oh, it was," Netta assured her. "At first I thought he was going to bolt from the chamber. But then he realized my knees were knocking with fright. He jerked a tapestry down from the wall, wrapped it around me, and bade me to sit in a chair by the fire before I collapsed. 'Twas then that he told me about his mother, and promised me that no child would ever be turned away from the gates of Elsinore, not so long as he was lord there."

 
Willow recognized the fierce glow in Netta's eyes. She had seen it in the eyes of her own reflection only a short while ago.

 
"Why, you're half in love with him, aren't you?" Willow regretted the words almost immediately, sensing that nothing else she could have said would have so cut Netta to the quick.

 
Netta's lips tipped in a rueful smile. She did not bother to blink back her tears. "How could I not be, my lady?"

 
"Aye," Willow murmured, reaching out to clasp the woman's rawboned hand. "How could you not be?"

******

 
Willow slipped through the darkened passages of Elsinore. 'Twas not yet dawn, and the castle was silent except for the whisper of her cloak against the flagstones. 'Twas almost as if its inhabitants had fallen beneath the same enchanted hush as the snow-glazed world beyond the windows.

 
As she traversed the second level, a half-ajar door beckoned her forward.

 
A peculiar pang seized her heart when she saw that Bannor's children had reverted to their old habit of sharing the same immense bed. In truth, she could not blame them on a morning as cold as this. The fire had dwindled to glowing embers, and she could see the ghost of her sigh drifting in the air. Desmond's crow dozed on a perch near the window, his head tucked into his sleek breast. His yellow tomcat was curled up at the foot of the bed. As Willow drew nearer, the cat opened his one golden eye and blinked at her.

 
A tousled flaxen head rested next to Desmond's chestnut one. After being banished from her own bed, Beatrix must have sought sanctuary in theirs. Willow wondered what Desmond would do when he awoke to find the girl nestled against his back, naked except for a fur pelt. She smiled. He'd be lucky if the shock of it didn't cause him to tumble out of the bed and crack his noggin.

 
When she'd first arrived at Elsinore, she'd seen the children as naught but a passel of faceless brats, but as she traced their slumbering faces with her gaze, she realized she had come to know them in a way she had never known her own brothers and sisters.

 
Gangly Ennis, who strove to be the voice of reason; sober little Mary with her amusing habit of always looking at the glum side of things; generous, sweet-natured Hammish; chattering Edward; Kell with his sunny hair and sarcastic quips; strong-willed Mary Margaret; Meg and the twins, looking like a litter of cherubs with their plump limbs and dimpled cheeks.

 
And Desmond—still a boy, yet poised on the brink of manhood, revealing more of his father than he knew in his fierce protectiveness toward his brothers and sisters and his kindness to animals that no one else wanted.

 
Willow might have drifted right past the nursery had it not been for Fiona's rattling snores. The old woman was curled up on a narrow bedstead at the foot of a wooden cradle. Peg and Mags slept side by side in the cradle, bundled up like a pair of fat, woolly lambs. Willow touched both of their downy cheeks with her fingertip before turning to go.

 
She was almost to the door when she heard a soft sound—not quite a whimper, not quite a coo. She slowly turned. A wicker basket rested on the hearth. She knelt to find the newborn baby nestled within. A baby who would soon grow into a sturdy little boy. A boy who would never lack for bread or have to sit shivering in the snow and watch his mother draw her last breath.

 
Seized by a strange urgency, Willow tucked the blanket around the baby and slipped from the chamber. As soon as she was out of earshot of the nursery, she broke into a run. She raced up the stairs and threw open the door of Bannor's tower without bothering to knock. The chamber was deserted, the grate cold. The feather mattress bore no imprint of his body. A goblet was overturned on the hearth, as if someone had flung it there in a fit of anger.

 
Willow flew down the stairs to the great hall. Although the yeasty aroma of baking bread was beginning to drift out from the kitchens, most of the stragglers who had sought shelter from the snowstorm were still sleeping off the effects of the ale that had been served after Lord Bannor had welcomed his new son into his household. When Willow tripped over one of the tumblers, he simply mumbled an oath and snuggled deeper into his cloak.

 
Bursting into the deserted bailey, she spun around, at an utter loss. The sun drifted over the eastern horizon at that moment, striking the snow with a force that nearly blinded her. It wasn't until Willow shaded her eyes against the dazzling glare that she spotted the lone man standing between the merlons of the battlement high above her, his dark hair whipping in the wind.

 
By the time Willow reached the wall walk, she had managed to steady her breathing, but not the hammering of her heart.

 
Bannor stood gazing across the snowswept meadows, his hands resting on the stone embrasure between the merlons. He did not turn, not even when he heard the crunch of her slippers against the crust of snow. "Did it never occur to you, my lady," he asked, his voice as hard as the glittering crystals of ice that laced the scattered trees, "that I might also seek to spare myself the pain of bidding a third wife farewell?"

 
Despite the chill in Bannor's voice, his words warmed her. He had never before addressed her as his wife. "Did it never occur to you, my lord, that I might seek to spare you that pain as well?"

"Quite frankly, it did not."

 
"I just came from the nursery." She dared to draw nearer despite his lack of welcome. "Your new son is pinking up nicely. I dare say that, thanks to your kindness, he'll be battling wee Mags for a teat before the day is over."

 
"I'm pleased that the babe will survive, but I'm in no mood to be lauded for my generosity. Not when the cost of it is so high."

 
Willow kicked at the snow with the toe of her slipper, keeping her voice deliberately light. "Oh, I haven't come to praise you for your charity, but to chastise you for your pride."

 
He snorted. " Tis the second time I've been accused of such a sin in as many days. Have you been talking to Desmond?"

 
"No, I've been talking to a friend." Willow was thankful he could not see the wry twist of her lips. "One who is more devoted than you realize."

 
"Devoted enough to brand me an arrogant fool, it seems."

"Arrogant perhaps, but not a fool." She paced behind him, expelling a mocking sigh. "If I were a mighty warrior, so feared that my name was spoken only in whispers by my enemies, I might also prefer that everyone believe my seed was as potent as my sword. 'Twould no doubt damage your ferocious reputation if word got out that you were so tender of heart, you couldn't bear to turn a child away from your gates." She stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. "Even one you did not sire."

 
Bannor relinquished his white-knuckled grip on the stone, and slowly turned to face her. "Idle gossip, my lady, coaxed from the treacherous throat of someone who is surely not a friend, but a foe."

 
Despite the intensity of his gaze, Willow refused to retreat. "And is it also idle gossip that a woman died in a meadow not far from here? That she froze to death after your father branded her a whore, and ordered his men to cast both her and her innocent child out into a blizzard?"

If not for the rhythmic twitching of the muscle in his jaw, Bannor might have been carved from ice himself. "That child was no innocent, my lady. He had already spent countless nights huddled in the cold outside the door of his mother's cottage, while she took a succession of grunting, stinking strangers to her bed. Even though it made him gag, he had learned to choke down every bite of moldy bread she gave him, knowing just how much it had cost her."

 
Bannor turned back to the battlement, his profile as harsh as the snow-capped crags of the distant mountains. "When she died, I swore that all of this would one day be mine. I only wish my father could have lived long enough to see that day come."

 
Willow stroked his rigid forearm. "Perhaps if he had, you wouldn't have been waging war against him all these years. Tell me, Bannor, have you ever slain a foe who did not wear his leering face?"

 
Bannor's dry chuckle held no humor at all. " 'Tis not his face that haunts me, but hers. She is the one I cannot forgive."

 
Willow knew then that as terrible as the story had been, Netta had spared her the worst of it. "She loved him, didn't she?" she asked in a choked whisper.

 
"She adored him. She was only fifteen when he seduced her, and she never stopped believing that he'd come back for her someday. Never accepted that he had a girl just like her in every village within a hundred leagues of Elsinore." The bitterness in his voice ripened. "She used to tell me what a fine man my father was. How generous! How kind! How noble! When she was forced to take up whoring, she wept not because she had sold her body and soul for a crust of bread, but because she feared she would no longer be worthy of him." Bannor flashed Willow a look that was both entreaty and warning. "Her love was a sickness of the heart. And in the end, it killed her."

 
With a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, Willow realized that the deadly weapons he had collected through the years, the gleaming shields that adorned his walls, had all been painstakingly chosen to make him invulnerable to the poisoned arrow that had felled his mother. He had spent the years since she died armoring his own heart against every threat.

Including her.

 
It was Willow's turn to clutch the embrasure, to gaze out over the barren beauty of the snow-shrouded meadows while the wind whipped her unbound curls from her stinging eyes. "I can certainly understand why you want no more children of your own," she said softly. "If word continues to spread that the mighty lord of Elsinore will claim any babe left on his doorstep, we'll soon be overrun with the little imps."

"We?" Bannor echoed softly, as if afraid he had misheard her.

 
She could feel him behind her, his warmth as palpable as a caress. She had not realized how cold she was until that moment. Once Willow had been arrogant enough to pity Bannor's first two wives for contenting themselves with less than his love. Now she felt only a strange kinship with them.

 
She swung around to face him, her chin steady, her eyes dry. "You're a man of your word, Bannor of Elsinore. You're not given to uncontrollable rages, strong drink, or blasphemy. A woman can ask no more than that of her husband. If you have naught but crumbs of affection to offer me, then I shall make do as I always have."

 
"Is that all you think I have to offer you?
Crumbs?"
Bannor lifted his hand to her cheek, his eyes darkening with a fierce hunger of their own. "On the contrary, my lady. If you dine at my table, I can promise you a banquet sweeter than any you've ever imagined."

 
Willow held her breath as his mouth descended on hers. His warm, rough tongue dipped into her mouth, offering her not just a sip of ambrosia, but a taste of heaven itself. She curled her hand around his nape, clinging helplessly as he swept her up into his arms.

Bannor's mouth never left hers. Not when he carried her down the narrow flight of stairs that led to her tower. Not when he blindly kicked the door shut behind them. Not when he lowered her to her feet, unfastened the catch of her cloak, and shoved it from her shoulders. Only when he fisted his hands in her kirtle and began to draw it over her head was he forced to surrender her lips. He did so with the most heartfelt of groans.