Willow sank her teeth into the apple she’d confiscated from the page who had been about to hurl it at Desmond’s head. The lad and his companions had rapidly dispersed after Willow had disarmed them, still grumbling and kicking at the dirt because they were to be deprived of the pleasure of throwing bruised apples and rotten cabbages at her surly prisoner.

As the sun had began to set behind the west tower, deepening the chill in the air, the rest of the crowd had drifted away as well, growing bored with the spectacle of Desmond glaring at Willow and Willow cheerfully ignoring him. Soon the two of them were left all alone in the courtyard, their pointed silence broken only by the distant strains of music and merriment wafting out from the great hall.

Desmond’s crow perched on the sinister arm of the gallows, looking more inclined to tuck his head into his breast and take a nap than to pluck Willow’s eyes out.

Willow sat with her back against the flogging post, her skirt draped between her splayed knees. From the corner of her eye, she saw Desmond’s hungry gaze trace a trickle of apple juice down her chin.

“Care for a bite?” she asked, holding the apple beneath his chin.

He bared his teeth, warning her that he’d rather rip her throat out.

She shrugged. “I would imagine your brothers and sisters are enjoying some nice fat pomegranates and rose-sugared raisins right about now. If you’d like to join them, all you have to do is apologize.”

“I’d rather rot!”

Willow tossed away the apple core, hiding her gratified smile. ‘Twas the first sound he’d made since his outraged howls had faded to sullen silence. “That could be arranged. Although I suspect your father would protest when the vultures started plucking the flesh from your bones.”

“Ha! He’d be glad to be rid of me.”

“Why would you say such a thing?” she asked softly.

Desmond was no longer glaring at her, but staring straight ahead, his freckled jaw set so tight it hurt to look at it. “Because ‘tis the truth. He cares naught for me, or for any of my brothers and sisters. He cares only for war and the king.” Now that the floodgates had been opened, Desmond couldn’t seem to stop his torrent of words. “During the war, we had to be content with him coming home every few months—bringing a sack of presents, rumpling our hair, telling us what fine children we were and how proud our mothers would have been had they lived. When he came home to stay, I thought ‘twould be different. We all did. But he shut himself up in that tower and wouldn’t pay us any heed, no matter what we did.” He fixed her with a baleful glare. “Then you came.”

Willow wanted to recoil, but she was forced to watch helplessly as that rigid jaw began to quiver. “You with your big gray eyes and your soft black hair. We saw the way he looked at you that day in the courtyard! We knew he’d never come to love us if he had you to love!”

A single tear spilled down the boy’s cheek. He pressed his face to the crossbar, but could do nothing to hide the sobs that wracked his narrow shoulders.

Willow drew in a shaky breath of her own. So their mischief was not wicked or malicious as Stefan’s and Reanna’s had been, but was only a desperate bid for their father’s attention. And they weren’t seeking his attention so much as they were seeking proof of his love. She knew only too well how futile a quest that could be.

Willow tore at the pillory’s iron latch, shredding one of her fingernails. When she lifted the crossbar, she half expected Desmond to bolt, but he crumbled into a sitting position on the platform, burying his face in the crook of one arm.

Willow longed to comfort him as she had so often longed to comfort Harold or Gerta. She resisted the temptation by drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She sat quietly while he cried, her gaze fixed on the frosty opal of a moon that had just begun to peep shyly over the castle ramparts.

She waited until he swiped at his nose with the back of his hand before choosing the apple with the least bruises from her pile of missiles and holding it out to him.

He scowled suspiciously at her.

“I may be a wicked stepmother, but ‘tis not poisoned, if thats what you fear.”‘

“I s’pose I couldn’t blame you if it was,” he confessed sheepishly, snatching the apple from her hand and biting a juicy chunk out of it. “Not after that horrid thing we did to your hair.”

“ ‘Twill grow back in time. I hope.” Willow hugged her knees even tighter, also hoping that the sooner she made her own confession, the less painful it would be. “You needn’t consider me a rival for your father’s affections, Desmond. Although he is noble enough to honor his vows, Lord Bannor has made it quite clear that he was very disappointed in Sir Hollis’s choice of a bride.” She blinked up at the moon. “He will never love me.”

“Oh, we know that now,” Desmond said cheerfully, nibbling his way around the gutted apple core. “ ‘Twas him who gave us the idea of driving you away.”

Willow whipped her head around to stare at him. “Oh, he did, did he?”

“Aye. We were just going to play a couple of pranks on you in the beginning. Then Kell climbed up on the roof to drop a stinkpot down the chimney of the tower, and overheard Father tell Sir Hollis that the best way to get you gone was to let you spend as much time as possible in our company.”

Willow felt as if she had been the one struck over the head with a branch. She knew Bannor regretted marrying her, but she hadn’t suspected that he was so eager to be rid of her that he would use his own children to drive her out of his life.

“You needn’t look so insulted,” Desmond said, tossing the apple core over his shoulder. “ ‘Twasn’t very flattering to us, either.”

She frowned. “No, I don’t suppose it was.”

“But it made sense of what Edward heard the night you came to Elsinore. Edward’s a bit of a dunderhead when it comes to spying, so we thought it was just gibberish at the time.”

“And just what did Edward hear the night I came to Elsinore?” she asked, although she was almost certain she didn’t want to know.

“Well, he was peeping through the squint in the north tower wall—”

“The squint?”

“Aye, ‘tis a tiny hole in the mortar that connects to the secret passageway in the wall.” Desmond shrugged as if living in a castle honeycombed with secret passages and peppered with peepholes was the most ordinary thing in the world to him. “Most of the chambers in the castle have got them. Fiona told us our grandfather had them built so he could spy on his female guests while they disrobed, then smuggle them into his chambers after his wife was abed.”

Well! Willow thought. That would certainly explain the niggling sensation that she was always being watched, and the spectral giggles that haunted her whenever she was alone. “What a miserable old lech your grandfather must have been! I suppose I should warn Bea to start wearing a chemise to bed.”

“Oh, must you?” Desmond blurted out, his dismay unmistakable. He had enough manners to blush beneath Willow’s frigid stare. “Anyway,” he hastily continued, ducking his head, “Edward was peeping through the squint when he heard Sir Hollis say that swearing a vow of celibacy would be much nicer than bedding you or some fat old fishwife with a mustache. Father couldn’t bear the thought of giving up women for good, so Sir Hollis offered to keep you for himself. Father told him it would be unfair to ask him to make such a terrible sacrifice.”

Willow gasped. Was there to be no end to the insults she must endure from the wretch’s faithless tongue?

“Then Father mentioned a convent. He and Sir Hollis both agreed ‘twas the only fit place for a woman such as you.”

Willow would have gasped again if her breath had not frozen in her chest. A convent! Bannor found her so abhorrent that he would lock her way in a convent? He would doom her to a life of piety and celibacy. She would never know the kiss of her prince or that of any other man. She would never know his kiss.

Desmond peered into her pale, still face, a hint of panic flaring in his gamin green eyes. “You’re not going to cry, are you? I hate it when the girls cry. I’d rather you whacked me on the head again.”

“No,” Willow said calmly, rising to her feet. “I’m not going to whack you on the head. And I’m not going to cry.”

She had no intention of wasting another tear on his traitorous father. Just as she had no intention of wasting another moment struggling to earn the love of a man who was so stingy with his affection he wouldn’t even spend it on his own children. She’d already squandered too many tears and too many moments striving for a love that could not be won or earned, yet was never freely given.

Rage poured through her, washing her heart clean of the blood from its fresh wounds and searing the old wounds into scars that would serve her well in the battle to come.

Unnerved by her icy calm, Desmond stammered, “D-don’t not cry for my sake. Blubber all you want if ‘twill make you feel better. I’ll just stick my fingers in my ears.”

Before he could, Willow said, “I was just remembering something my father once told me.”

“And what would that be?” Desmond asked.

She tugged the boy to his feet. He hung helpless in her grasp, plainly captivated against his will by the storm of mischief brewing in her eyes. She gave his freckled hand a squeeze before bending down to whisper, “All it takes to make allies of foes is a common enemy.”