Read Online Charming the Prince by Teresa Medeiros - Free Book Online Page B

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."
    She darted for the chamber, but Bannor followed, his challenging gaze warning her that he had no intention of having a door slammed in his face for the second time in that day.
    As Willow yielded to allow him grudging entry, they were both forced to step over one of the sable pelts that littered the floor. Half the bed curtains had been torn clear from their moorings, revealing rumpled sheets and scattered pillows.
      Bannor sauntered over to the bed and plucked a downy white goose feather from what appeared to be a fatal gash in the mattress. He held it up for her perusal.
      "Had I a more jealous nature, I might be tempted to check beneath the bed and see if one of my bolder squires was lurking there."
    "I took a nap," Willow lied. "I'm a restless sleeper."
      "So I gathered." He squatted to retrieve a fallen rose petal, shaking his head. "Fiona's been at it again, hasn't she? When she's not playing