Charming the Prince by Teresa Medeiros Read Free Book Online

conducted most of his business from the tower, daring to leave its sanctuary only in the dark of night while the children slept.
      One morning near dawn, he'd slipped into the warren of interconnecting chambers they shared to find the lot of them nestled like a litter of pups in an enormous four-poster bed. Mary Margaret slept with her golden hair spread across Desmond's breast, her thumb tucked between her little pink lips. A faint snore drifted out of Desmond's open mouth. Studying his son's freckled cheeks and snub nose, Bannor shook his head, marveling that so angelic a visage could be capable of such devilment.
      The sense of helplessness that plagued him was utterly foreign to his nature. He knew all there was to know about being a warrior, but nothing at all about being a father. How was it that he could command a legion of twelve hundred of the king's most powerful and dangerous men, yet couldn't coax one scrawny boy into granting his simplest request?
      He was reaching to smooth a tousled lock of the lad's chestnut hair when Mary Margaret's misty blue eyes fluttered open.
    "Papa?" she whispered. "Are you a ghost?"
    "No, honeypot," he murmured. "Just a dream."
      She had closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep with a contented sigh, leaving Bannor to slip out of the chamber without a sound.
      The lookout's cry did not come again. Bannor settled deeper into his chair and rested his chin on his chest, hoping to steal a nap. Sleep had become an elusive prize since he'd taken to roaming the night, haunting his own castle like a beleaguered ghost.
      When a banging sounded on the door, he jumped to his feet, instinctively grabbing his broadsword.
      "M'lord, m'lord!" Fiona cried, her brogue muffled by the thick oak of the door. "Yer standard's been spotted on the south road less than a league away! Tis yer lady!"
    His lady. Bemused by the notion, Bannor slowly lowered the sword. He hadn't had a lady to call his own since Margaret had died over six years ago.
      He could hear the old nurse clucking with impatience as he heaved aside the stout bench he'd been using to block the door and lifted the crossbar. Fiona stood on the landing, wringing her apron in her gnarled hands. " 'Tis yer lady, m'lord! She comes at last!"
      Bannor snatched his burgundy doublet from the back of the chair and shrugged it on over his shirt. As his large fingers fumbled with the ivory buttons of the closely tailored tunic that flared over his hips, he wished that he was donning mail hauberk, plate armor, and helm to ride into battle instead of marching out without armor or arms to greet his new bride. He looked longingly at his broadsword, knowing how vulnerable to attack he would feel without its familiar weight at his hip.
      "Have the children been gathered to welcome their mother as I ordered?"
      "Aye, m'lord. Every last one o' them. Even the babes." Fiona beamed up at him, quivering with joy at the prospect of having a new lady for the castle. She'd adored her first two mistresses and grieved as deeply as Bannor when they'd died so young and so tragically.
      He draped a chain of braided silver around his hips, then smoothed his disheveled hair. "I suppose I should inspect them before she arrives. A warrior never sends his men into battle without giving them a few words of instruction and encouragement."
    "Aye, and eager for yer counsel I'm sure they'll be, m'lord," Fiona promised.
     
    ******
      A less wary man might have been inclined to believe her, Bannor thought as he strode the length of the inner bailey, surveying the children gathered in the walled courtyard. They were actually standing in something that looked remarkably like a row. Fiona brought up the tail of their ranks, juggling the two most recent additions to his household. From the largest to the smallest, the children gazed straight ahead with nary a fidget or a smirk among them. The innocence of their expressions made Bannor distinctly uneasy.
      Although