Bannor glowered at him. "And a steward who knows when to hold his tongue and mind his own affairs."

Wisely heeding the warning, Hollis devoted all of his attention to dipping a freshly sharpened quill into a flask of ink.

"We must make haste," Bannor said, pacing behind him. "We have no way of knowing how long this break in the weather will last."

As Bannor began to dictate, Hollis wished it was possible to capture the excoriating edge of sarcasm in his voice. It didn"t take him long to finish with the pleasantries, or the pointed lack of them.

" "Tis my great pleasure to invite you ..." " Bannor paused, the gleam in his eye sharpening to a wicked glint, "No, change that to command. "Tis my great pleasure to command you to attend the wedding of your cherished daughter a sennight hence...""

"Desmond?" Beatrix whispered, slipping into the deserted barn.

The vexsome boy appeared to have vanished, leaving her all alone to wend her way through the shadows. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the cracks in the walls, gilding the dust motes that drifted through the air. With its towering rafters and steeply pitched ceiling, the barn possessed the hushed and holy ambiance of a cathedral. Beatrix shivered. She"d never much cared for churches. She had too many wicked thoughts, and despaired of ever atoning for them all.

"Desmond?" This time, her plaintive call was greeted by a m.u.f.fled whicker and some halfhearted shuffling of hooves. Most of the horses and all the grooms were out taking advantage of the brief spell of sunshine. The scent of hay tickled her nose.

She choked back a sneeze, then froze. She would have almost sworn she heard a rustling in the loft above her head. She c.o.c.ked her head to the side, but it did not come again. "Twas probably naught but a mouse, she told herself firmly.

"Or a bat," she whispered, beginning to edge toward the door. Which was really naught but a mouse with razor-sharp fangs, poised to swoop down and tangle itself in one of her braids.

Spooked by the image, she whirled around to flee. From the corner of her eye she saw a great shadow descending upon her. A scream tore from her throat as the frightful creature wrapped its wings around her and tumbled her into a bristling mound of hay.

Beatrix was still screaming and beating at her hair when she realized the thing that had collapsed on top of her was not some behemoth of a bat, but Desmond. His entire body was quaking with laughter.

"Get off me, you horrid boy!" she yelled, struggling to wiggle out from underneath him.

Her squirming was to no avail. Once, she might have unseated him with little effort, but in the past two months, his shoulders seemed to have doubled in breadth, keeping pace with the length of his legs. If the wretched lad didn"t stop growing soon, he"d be looking down his nose at her.

His moss green eyes sparkled with mischief. "I should have just let you keep wandering around the barn, bleating like a lost sheep."

"I may have been bleating, but you"re going to be bleeding if you don"t let me go." Beatrix caught his ear-lobe between her thumb and forefinger and twisted.

He gritted his teeth, but refused to budge. "Stop pinching me, wench, or I swear I"ll. . . I"ll..." As he struggled to come up with a threat vile enough to subdue her, his gaze lit upon her trembling lips. "Why, I"ll kiss you!"

Beatrix abruptly stopped struggling. "You wouldn"t dare."

Desmond c.o.c.ked one eyebrow, looking even more devilish than his father. "Oh, wouldn"t I?"

Beatrix was unprepared for the blush that scorched her cheeks.

So was Desmond. His mouth fell open, then snapped shut. "You"ve never been kissed, have you?"

Taking advantage of the shock that had weakened his grasp, Beatrix shoved him off of her and sat up, brushing the hay from her ap.r.o.n with brisk motions. "Don"t be ridiculous. I"ve had scores of suitors and at least a dozen proposals."

"But you haven"t been kissed," he repeated, this time with a smug certainty that made her want to box his ears.

"Have too," she retorted, scrambling away from him.

"Have not." As her back came up against a bale of hay, Desmond looped an arm around one knee and shook his head, hooting with laughter. "Fancy that! Sweet Bea struts around flaunting her cleavage, twitching her saucy little rump, and working the squires into a fine lather, and she"s never even been kissed."

A shriek of defeat escaped her. "Oh, all right! So I"ve never been kissed! Mock me if you must, but if anyone else ever finds out, especially Willow, I shall perish of shame. Why, I"ll fling myself into the river, I swear I will!" She choked up a pathetic sniffle. "If you were a man of honor, you"d vow to tell no one."

Desmond gazed at her for a long moment. "You"ve never called me a man before. I rather like the sound of it on your lips." He ducked his head, a flush working its way from his bobbing Adam"s apple to his squared jaw. "It occurs to me that I couldn"t tell anyone you"d never been kissed"-he eyed her through the unruly hank of hair that had tumbled over his brow-"if you had."

If there had been even a hint of mischief in Desmond"s eyes, Beatrix would have flung his bargain back in his face. But their crystalline depths were curiously somber, mirroring her own breathless uncertainty. She was too dazed to protest when he captured the flaxen rope of her braid, winding it around his fist to coax her nearer.

Her eyes fluttered shut. She wouldn"t have been surprised had he sought to poke his tongue into her mouth, as her older sisters had warned her men were wont to do. But his lips simply grazed hers in a whisper-soft caress. The two of them lingered that way for as long as they dared, nothing touching but their mouths. Beatrix breathed deeply through her nose, amazed that even in the depths of winter, he could smell so much like sunshine.

When he finally drew away, it took her a moment to work up the courage to open her eyes. If he laughed, she decided, she would s.n.a.t.c.h up the pitchfork propped against the wall and stab him through the heart.

She opened her eyes. Desmond was smiling. It wasn"t the mocking smirk she had feared, but a lopsided grin that tugged at her heart as inexorably as his hand had tugged at her braid.

"Since you wouldn"t want anyone to know you"ve only been kissed once," he murmured, the husky note in his voice making her quiver, "I feel "tis my duty, as a man of honor, to kiss you again."

"How very chivalrous of you, sir." Beatrix leaned forward, her full lips puckering in the seductive pout that had always come as naturally to her as breathing. Desmond"s lips were only an uneven breath away from her own when she whispered, "But you"ll have to catch me first."

Bursting into laughter, she sprang to her feet and darted for the barn door, her braid slipping through his fingers like cornsilk.

"Why, you treacherous little wench!" he shouted, bounding to his own feet. But as he cleared a bale of hay in a single leap and went racing after her, he was laughing nearly as heartily as she was.

Willow stood at a narrow arched window on the second level of the castle, blinking down in disbelief at the barren garden below. For the past five minutes, Desmond had been chasing Beatrix around and around a stone bench, his breathless demands for her surrender mingling with her shrieks of laughter. That didn"t surprise Willow, since the two of them spent most of their waking hours at each other"s throats.

The shock had come when Desmond had vaulted over the bench and wrapped his arms around Beatrix. Instead of boxing his ears, as Willow had expected her to do, Beatrix had ducked her head and cast him a shy glance utterly foreign to the bold little vixen.

Willow"s mouth fell open as Desmond cupped Beatrix"s chin in his hand and awkwardly tilted her face to his. The warm mist of their breath mingled as their lips met in a kiss so innocent and full of promise that Willow had to look away, her eyes stinging.

Ashamed of herself for spying upon their tender interlude, she silently drew the shutter closed. Surely she wasn"t so petty as to still be suffering twinges of envy over her stepsister"s good fortune! How could she begrudge Beatrix the devotion of a besotted lad, when she herself was among the most fortunate of women?

She had a home. She had a family. She no longer had to labor from dawn to dusk in a vain quest to please a mistress who could never be satisfied.

And she had Bannor.

As Willow leaned against the window embrasure, a tender smile softened her lips. Her husband was indeed a man of his word. He had promised her a banquet, and delivered nightly a feast of the senses. He eagerly sought new ways to pleasure her without getting her with child, each more delicious than the last.

Only last night he had challenged her to a chess game, in which they were each forced to surrender not only their captured pieces, but an item of clothing as well. Willow had won by forfeit, since the sight of her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s licked by tongues of firelight had maddened Bannor to the point of distraction. Growling beneath his breath, he had swept the chessboard to the floor and lunged across the table at her. Willow had been unable to resist murmuring "Checkmate" in his ear as he lowered her to the wolfskin rug in front of the hearth.

It wasn"t until she was curled up in the warm coc.o.o.n of his arms, listening to the oddly soothing rumble of his snores, that a faint melancholy had stolen over her. Bannor might be her prince, but he would never utter those three magical words that would transform her into his princess.

Willow was not so naive as to believe most marriages were built on a foundation of love. On the contrary, most were arranged when the parties were still too young to understand the meaning of the word. Her own papa certainly hadn"t married Blanche for love, but for the generous dowry provided by the king.

But Willow could still remember the look on her papa"s face when he had told her that he would never love any woman as he had loved her mama.

Shaking her head at her own folly, she turned away from the window. No matter how cherished Bannor made her feel, perhaps somewhere deep inside, she would always be that awkward little girl who had groped for her papa"s hand, only to have him draw it out of her reach.

Twenty Seven Sir Rufus"s hands trembled as he uncorked the silver flask and brought it to his lips. The chariot chose that moment to buck its way through yet another jagged rut. Ale dribbled down his chin. Feeling more like an old man than ever before, he swiped it away, then took a deep draught from the flask.

The spicy-sweet brew settled heavily in his belly, but not even its agreeable warmth could take the strident edge off his wife"s laughter or soften the smirk curving his stepson"s lips. Blanche and Stefan had been whispering and giggling together for most of the journey, behaving more like lovers than mother and son.

There was no denying that his strapping blond stepson looked even more satisfied with himself than usual. He reclined on the padded seat next to Blanche, his long, muscular legs taking up more than their share of the chariot"s scant room. As the wagon jolted through another rut, the lad"s knee struck Rufus"s gouty one with a thump that made Rufus wince.

"Sorry." Stefan flashed his teeth in a wolfish grin, looking less than penitent, then drew a sc.r.a.p of parchment from the satin purse dangling from his belt and began to study it.

The vellum was yellowed and creased, as if it had been opened, read, then lovingly refolded, countless times. A dab of crimson wax still clung to its broken seal. Rufus craned his neck, but still couldn"t make out the words formed by the smudged ink.

"Would you care for a cushion, dear?" Blanche inquired, blocking his view with one of the plump pillows she had embroidered with her own pale, graceful hands.

Rufus shifted his gaze to his wife. She was always so kind. So solicitous. So mindful of his comfort. Yet he couldn"t quite banish the notion that she"d rather be pressing the pillow over his face.

"No, thank you," he said, leaning away from her. "We should reach the G.o.dforsaken castle soon enough. That is, if we"re not buried alive by the blizzard that"s coming." He drew back the velvet curtain and glared at the clouds brooding over the hostile crags. "Don"t you find it rather odd that Lord Bannor would summon us in such a high-handed manner? After all, he"s already wed Willow once. In my day, that was more than sufficient."

Stefan and Blanche blinked at him, looking like a pair of cats who had just shared a particularly tasty canary.

"Perhaps Lord Bannor simply seeks to give Willow the sort of wedding she deserves," Blanche ventured.

"That"s what we all desire, isn"t it?" Stefan murmured, tucking the parchment back into his purse. "To see Willow get what she deserves."

Unsettled by the hungry gleam in the lad"s eyes, Rufus nodded toward Blanche. "At least "twill give you the opportunity to fetch home that rebellious daughter of yours."

Stefan exchanged another enigmatic glance with his mother. "Beatrix might very well choose to remain at Elsinore. In her last missive, she a.s.sured me that Lord Bannor had taken quite a fancy to her."

" "Tis fortunate we left the rest of the children at home," Rufus muttered. "He might have taken a fancy to them and decided to keep them as well."

His hands were still trembling when he let the curtain fall. He had no idea why the prospect of seeing his daughter again should make him quiver with both antic.i.p.ation and foreboding.

He could still remember the last time he had seen her- standing before the priest in the chapel at Bedlington, pale and steadfast. Her voice had not faltered, not even when she had made her vows to a stranger who would soon hand her off to another stranger.

I"ll not sell my only daughter!

And why not, Papa? "Twouldn"t be the first time, would it?

As he recalled her accusing words, Rufus"s heart twisted with a painful mixture of anger and regret. The girl had no right to reproach him! He had always striven to do what was best for her, had he not? After all, everyone knew that a little girl needed a mother. It wouldn"t have done to let her keep running through the castle and meadows that surrounded Bedlington like some wild, wee sprite.

And hadn"t Blanche a.s.sured him that after giving birth to six children of her own, she knew just how to handle a headstrong little girl? Hadn"t she promised to temper Willow"s natural exuberance with maidenly restraint? Whenever Rufus had protested that Blanche might be being a bit too harsh on the child, had she not soothed him with her gentle words, her honeyed lips? How could he protest the heaviness of her hand against his child"s flesh when it was wielded with such tender skill against his own? How could he protest the sharpness of the same tongue that wreaked such delicious havoc in the privacy of their bedchamber?

The sparkle might have faded from Willow"s eyes and her bubbling laughter become naught more than a memory, but Blanche had a.s.sured him "twas only the ransom the girl must pay for leaving behind the frivolous pleasures of childhood to seek the more satisfying joys of womanhood.

Rufus took another swig of the wine, grimacing to find it more bitter than sweet.

As the carriage rocked its way up a steep hill, Rufus settled deeper into his cloak. The wine might have failed to ease his foreboding or steady his hands, but it had cast a leaden net over his eyelids. He closed his eyes, dreaming that they had already arrived at Elsinore. Dreaming that he descended from the chariot with the sprightly step of the man he had been before the war and Blanche had robbed him of his pride. Dreaming that a little girl with bouncing dark curls and sparkling gray eyes came racing across the bailey to greet him, an adoring cry on her lips. As she flung herself into his arms and smothered his beard with kisses, he had to bury his face in her curls to hide his tears.

Willow raced through the bailey in desperate pursuit of the pig Mary Margaret had just liberated from the irate butcher"s ax-wielding clutches.

"Ennis!" she shrieked. "He"s coming your way!"

Laughter rippled from her throat as the creature darted between Ennis"s gangly legs, then doubled back, in what Willow would have sworn was a deliberate charge, to knock first Margery, and then Colm, flat on their plump little backsides. Willow"s laughter deepened to pained grunts as Mary raced over and began to climb her like a tree, in a frantic attempt to escape the beast"s wrath.

As Edward and Kell closed in from opposite corners, the pig squealed in outrage. The boys dove for the animal at the precise same moment. They missed it entirely, knocking heads with a crack loud enough to make Willow wince.

As Hammish appeared in the doorway to the herb garden, the pig slowed to a trot. The boy crept forward, his cupped hand extended before him. "Here, piggy-piggy," he crooned. "I"ve a treat for you."

Mesmerized by the lad"s singsong invitation, the pig snuffled once at the air, then buried his snout in Hammish"s palm, rooting blissfully among the acorns he found there.

"Nice piggy," Hammish crooned, scratching behind the animal"s bristly ears. "Sweet piggy"

"Tasty piggy," Ennis muttered, snorting in disgust as he tried to brush the mudstains from his breeches.

"Little does he know that Hammish is more likely to eat him than the butcher," Mary predicted from her perch atop Willow"s shoulders.

"Do you really think Hammish would eat the butcher?" Edward asked, staggering to his feet.

"He would if he was hungry enough," Kell replied, rubbing his own head.

Mary Margaret chose that moment to flounce into the courtyard like some sort of pygmy princess. "Oh, there you are, you naughty pig. I was wondering where you got off to." Looping a lavender ribbon around the animal"s neck, she began to parade him around the courtyard, utterly oblivious to the chaos she had caused.

Willow dislodged the toe of Mary"s slipper from her ear, and lowered the little girl to the ground. "There you go, dear. I do believe "tis safe now."

As the child went scampering off to admire the newly docile pig, Willow examined the damage done to her kirtle. Muddy handprints and footprints stained the once plush purple wool of her skirt. Her damask bodice had fared little better. Its jeweled b.u.t.tons had all been driven into the dirt when she"d fallen flat in a vain attempt to tackle the fleet-hooved pig. She lifted her hem to discover that her stockings were torn in several places and one of her shoes was missing.

Chuckling ruefully, Willow drew off her sash and used it as a kerchief to bind back her disheveled hair. If she was going to behave like a swineherd, she might as well look like one, too. As she went in search of her shoe, the icy bite of the wind whipped roses into her cheeks. If the black-edged underbellies of the clouds ma.s.sing in the north were any indication, their reprieve from the snow might very well be coming to an end.

She crawled beneath a drummer"s cart, but earned naught for her trouble but a fresh smudge of mud on her nose. When she emerged, Bannor and Hollis were striding toward her.

Bannor looked every inch the prince with his neatly trimmed beard, ivory hose, and doublet cut from sapphire blue wool. He was so handsome he took her breath away.

Unable to resist teasing him, Willow hitched up herskirts in a mocking curtsy that revealed her shredded stockings, and wiggled the grubby toes of her shoeless foot at him in a most impudent manner. "Good day, my lord. Do you fancy my new attire?"

Bannor pressed a distracted kiss to her brow and murmured, " Tis most enchanting, my dear," before proceeding toward the gatehouse.

Willow dropped her skirts and gazed after him, baffled. He"d been behaving in a most peculiar manner all day-pacing the length of the great hall one moment, flinging himself into a chair to restlessly drum his fingers on its arm the next. Even now, his uneasy gaze kept darting between the winding road that led to the castle and the inky clouds brewing over the mountains. He didn"t even seem to notice that his daughter was dragging a full-grown pig around the courtyard by a lavender ribbon.

At least Sir Hollis"s glum demeanor was no mystery. Bannor"s steward was no doubt still suffering from Netta"s chilly rebuffs of his every overture. Despite the knight"s engaging warmth toward her, the woman"s frosty pride showed no sign of thawing.

"Stop following me, you wretched little boy, or I"ll box your impertinent ears." Willow whirled around as Beatrix came marching out of the herb garden, clanging the gate shut behind her.

Desmond vaulted over it, landing gracefully on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. "I"d rather be a wretched little boy than a great haughty girl, with my prissy nose always stuck up in the air."