Charming the Prince by Teresa Medeiros Page A

long ago, their querulous echoes still rang in her head.
    Are you my mama ?
    Of course, she's not your mama. Your mama's dead.
    At least you had a mama. We never had no mama a'tall.
    That's 'cause you're all bastards.
      Willow shook her head to silence them. While extolling his master's virtues, Sir Hollis had neglected to mention that several of Lord Bannor's conquests must have been of an amorous nature.
      How many children had the man sired, for heaven's sake? Ten? Twelve? Twenty? She hadn't awakened from her horrified daze until the moment he had handed her the youngest babe, beaming as if he expected her to clasp the bratling to her breast and swoon with maternal delight. He would never know it was not the babe's soft coo that had made her knees go weak, but the rugged charm of his smile. A smile that made promises and broke them in the same treacherous breath.
    You're a bastard, aren't you, my lord?
    Aye, son, that I am.
      His rueful confession should have warned her. He was no noble prince offering her his heart, but a wicked ogre commanding an ill-tempered army of dwarves. Willow touched a hand to her sooty curls, remembering his horrified expression when she had pushed back the hood of her cloak. At this very moment, he might be nursing a disappointment as bitterly keen as her own.
    "M'lady?"
      Willow started in dread, but the beseeching voice was neither a man's nor a child's, but a woman's lilting brogue.
      "I've made ready yer chamber, if ye'd care to come inside."
      Willow lifted the curtain and looked outside. A hunched figure was silhouetted against the shadows of night. She couldn't very well remain in the chariot forever, she thought despairingly. Nor could she demand to return to a home where she was no longer welcome. Her papa would never allow her to defy Blanche's wishes, and her stepmother would never return Lord Bannor's gold.
      If she fled back to Bedlington, Blanche would no doubt have her trussed up, tossed over the back of a horse, and delivered right back into her husband's arms. Even now, the prospect of being bound to such a man sent a strange shiver down her spine.
      "Come now, lass," crooned the woman. "Ye've nothin' to fear from our lord."
      Willow swung open the door, abandoning her haven, though she knew in her heart that the woman was wrong.
    ******
      As the stooped crone led Willow through the broad, flagstone passages of the castle, she cast a toothless grin over her shoulder. "There's no need to apologize fer yer shyness, lass. After I wed m'darlin' Liam, God rest his randy soul, it took him two days and three flagons o' ale to coax me out from under the bed. By then I was too drunk to do any thin' but lay there with m'skirts over m'head." She gave Willow an impish wink. "Not that Liam seemed to mind."
      Shaking away a dark image of Lord Bannor ravishing her insensible body, Willow followed the crone up a winding staircase lit by fat beeswax candles perched on stone corbels.
      "Ye can't blame a man for bein' eager to sample his bride's wares. But there's no need to fret, lass. He's gentle as a lamb, our Bannor is, despite what they say 'bout his bein' able to rip a man's head off with one hand."
      Willow swallowed hard, imagining Lord Bannor ravishing her insensible, headless body.
    "Aye, and if any man knows how to pleasure a lady, 'tis our lord."
      " 'Twould appear he's had ample practice," Willow said dryly.
      Fiona paused on the landing, drawing her nearer with one bony claw, as if to share a girlish confidence. " Tis whispered he's so potent he can make his babe quicken within a woman's belly simply by lookin' deep into her eyes."
      Willow shuddered. "Then I shall endeavor to avert my gaze whenever he is near."
    The woman cackled, her dried apple of a face puckering into a leer. "Such a vow would be easier to keep were the lad not so comely to look upon."
      Willow could find no retort for the truth. Her steps grew more leaden as they climbed a second