As the chariot door swung open, Willow hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Sir Hollis.

The knight hung back. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have eaten that entire mutton leg, my dear. You’d best go first. I’ll be right behind you.”

Willow took a deep breath and gingerly slipped one leg out of the chariot. It would hardly do to come spilling out at her husband’s feet like a sack of barley. Thankful for the deep recesses of her hood, she kept her eyes fixed demurely on the cobblestones as she climbed down from the chariot, vowing to herself that she would not flinch when she first looked upon his face, no matter how deformed or unsightly it was.

Only when she stood upon her own two feet did she dare to look up. And up. And up.

Into the face of her prince.

Willow gasped, convinced for the second time in that day that she had drifted into a dream. A dream sweeter and more enchanting than any that had come before it.

But even she could never have dreamed the man who stood before her. She would never have thought to draw the shallow brackets around his mouth or to shade his chin with the merest hint of beard shadow. It had taken the kiss of the sun to bake faint furrows into his brow and darken his skin to a rich, deep gold. His hair was not lustrous samite, but raw silk, cropped to just above his shoulders and shot through with rare threads of silver. Both wit and humor glinted in the midnight blue depths of his eyes, and an elusive dimple in his right jaw only served to emphasize the sulky-sweet cant of his mouth.

He was not slender as she’d fancied him to be, but broad and muscular. The determined jut of his jaw warned her that he was no boy, content to steal chaste kisses, but a man who would not rest until he possessed all she had to give.

Her man.

Flustered by her thoughts, she lowered her gaze. Only then did she realize he was holding something in his arms—perhaps another gift for her. Some costly treasure, no doubt, to be accompanied by a tender pledge of his affection.

Willow lowered her hood, then tipped back her head and smiled at him.

———

As Bannor gazed down upon the cloaked beauty who was now his wife, only one thought pierced his fog of desire.

He was going to kill Hollis.

If his hands hadn’t been otherwise occupied, he might have lunged past the woman and jerked the coward out of the chariot by his throat. As it was, he could only gaze down at her in paralyzed horror.

A simple fillet circled her brow, the delicate band of gold making a valiant, yet futile, effort to tame the cloud of dark curls that framed her face. She had a small mouth. Her upper lip was slightly plumper than her lower, the perfect shape for a man to gently seize between his teeth in the breath before he kissed her. Her dark-lashed eyes were large and gray, but ‘twasn’t so much the look of them that stirred him, but the look in them. He’d had women gaze adoringly up at him, so sated with pleasure they could barely whisper his name, but he’d never had one look at him as if he was the answer to her every prayer. ‘Twas both compelling and unsettling.

Bannor opened his mouth to welcome her to Elsinore.

“Are you my mama?”

Bannor clamped his mouth shut. Little Mary Margaret had broken ranks and was blinking up at the new arrival.

“Are you my mama?” the little girl repeated, her golden ringlets bobbing as she tugged at the sleeve of the woman’s cloak.

Willow’s gaze slowly shifted to the child. She blinked rapidly, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend what she was seeing. Before she could form a reply, Desmond said scornfully, “Of course she’s not your mama. Your mama’s dead.”

Mary Margaret’s blue eyes welled with tears.

Five-year-old Meg patted her on the shoulder, her own plump bottom lip beginning to quiver. “Don’t cry, Mary Margaret. At least you had a mama. Me and Margery and Colm, we never had no mama a’tall.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re all ‘bastards,” Edward informed her cheerfully. “So is Peg and Mags.”

Kell glowered, his small hands clenched into fists. “Don’t call our sister a bastard, you clod!”

“There’s no shame in being a bastard,” Hammish said earnestly, tugging at Bannor’s free hand. “You’re a bastard, aren’t you, my lord?”

“Aye, son, that I am,” Bannor murmured, watching his bride’s expression shift from wonder to confusion to horror. As she slowly took in the row of squabbling children, she began to shake her head as if waking from a dream.

Or tumbling into a nightmare.

Despite Meg’s attempts to console her, Mary Margaret’s sniffles soon escalated into sobs. Four-year-old twins Margery and Colm burst into sympathetic tears, striking up a mournful chorus better suited to a Greek tragedy than the farce that Bannor’s once well-ordered life was fast becoming.

Kell broke ranks to give Edward a shove. “Now, see what you’ve done, you oaf! You made them all cry.”

“I didn’t make them cry,” Edward protested, shoving him back. “Mary Margaret made them cry.”

As lanky twelve-year-old Ennis dove between the two boys, the blows began to fall, punctuated by grunts and oaths. Desmond’s crow took to the air, flapping its splinted wing and cawing madly. Something small and furry scuttled down the leg of his breeches and up Meg’s kirtle, making her squeal. Hammish took one or two stray blows hard enough to make him stagger, but remained staring dutifully ahead, the only remaining link in their shattered chain. The boy’s stoicism reminded Bannor eerily of himself. The baby in Fiona’s arms soon took up the battle cry, squalling at the top of its lungs and shaking its little fists in the air.

Only the babe Bannor was holding remained blissfully oblivious to the shouts and howls that threatened to deafen them all.

“I will have silence!” Bannor roared.

For the first time since his return from the war, the children obeyed him, lapsing into a hush so complete he could hear the flutter of the crow’s wings as it settled back on Desmond’s shoulder, and the shallow whisper of his bride’s breath.

He sensed that his bride was only a step away from bolting. Fiona’s words came back to him—I’ve yet to meet a lass who could resist a strappin’ fellow with a babe in his arms.

In an effort to erase her stricken expression, he thrust his burden into her arms. “My children and I would like to welcome you to Elsinore, my lady.”

She eased back the blanket, then stood gazing down at the feathery perfection of the babe’s head.

Her eyes were as cool as the ash from yesterday’s fire. “No, thank you,” she finally said, handing it back to him. “I’ve already eaten.”

Sweeping the fur-trimmed train of her cloak behind her, she turned and climbed right back into the chariot, slamming the door in his face.

Bannor stared, dumbfounded, at the stag carved into the chariot door. It wasn’t until the children began snickering that he realized the warmth slowly spreading through his groin had nothing to do with the spark of lust his bride had kindled in his loins, and everything to do with the toothless babe grinning up at him from its nest of blankets.