"Such pretty hair you have, Your Grace." She fingered the golden lock between her pudgy fingers. "My Mort had hair like that when he was a babe." She laughed and the entire bed trembled. "You should see him now. Not a single shaft on his pate!" Her laugh was like the cawing of a buzzard. "Let me tell you about when he…"
* * *
"Meggie!"
There was no answer.
"Meggie Ruck!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. His sharp gaze pierced the pleasant face of the elderly lady sitting in the chair by him, grinning. "Meggggie!"
"What’s that you’re saying, Your Grace?" the nearly deaf woman inquired.
"Meggggieeeee!"
"You’ll have to speak up, Your Grace," the old woman said, pointing to her ear. "I don’t hear so well no more."
"Meggieeeeeeee!"
The door opened. "What is it, Milord?" some chit of a girl asked.
"Get me Meggie Ruck!"
The young girl bobbed him a quick curtsy then quietly closed the door. It was a good ten minutes before Meggie threw open the door and stood frowning at her patient.
"What are you yelling about?" Meggie asked.
Conar glared at her as she shooed the other women from the room. His lips were a thin line of fury. When she shut the door, folded her arms and stood at the foot of his bed glaring back at him, daring him to start anything with her, he opened his mouth, then clamped his lips shut.
"So! What was so all important you had to drag me from my baking?" she prompted, tapping one foot. "There are other folks in this world besides you, you know!"
He sighed, letting out his anger with his breath. His shoulders slumped in defeat. "I’ve had enough, Meggie," he whimpered.
"And have you now?"
"I understand."
Meggie glowered at him for a moment and then came to plop down in the chair where dozens of women had sat in a nine-day period. "And just what is it you think you understand?"
Conar sighed. "Every woman has a different personality. They are caring, even of strangers, and cheerful and they can make you laugh." He pursed his lips. "Even when you don’t feel like it and don’t want to." He shrugged. "And some of them won’t be bullied even if the man doing the bullying is their Overlord."
"You figured that one out all by yourself, did you?"
He shook his head and smiled at her, but Meggie’s face was devoid of good humor or encouragement. "I think the ladies helped me see that."
Meggie nodded. "And so now, you think you know all there is to know about women on the good side of a disposition, eh?"
"I didn’t say that."
"It’s good that you didn’t, because every women is different, Your Grace. There ain’t no two of us alike nowhere in the world." She sniffed disdainfully. "No more than there are any two men alike."
He sighed again. "I can see that, Meggie."
"Good that you do," she snorted and stood. "I got baking to do." She started to walk away but he caught her hand, wincing only a little as he did. She glared down at him.
"Sit with me awhile?"
"I can’t. I’ve got work to do!"
"You’d make a fine Master-at-Arms, Meggie Ruck." He grinned.
After squeezing his fingers for a second, she snatched away her hand and made a humpfing noise as she waddled out his door.
Conar lifted himself in the bed, crossing his hands behind his head and smiled. Meggie was a dear, sweet woman, and she had meant well. He knew she loved him and he returned that love. It was a special bond he had never before had with a woman. She treated him, not as a Prince or future King, but almost as though he were one of her sons. His grin grew wider. Much as his own mother would have treated him.
The door squeaked open and he glanced at it, still smiling. "Did you decided to sit with me after all, Lady?"
His smile disappeared.
"Hello, Your Grace," the girl said. "My name is Henrietta."
* * *
"We’ll be leaving at first light," Conar told his brother as they sat eating their evening meal of fried chicken and creamed peas in the common room. "If I stay here much longer, I’ll be as wide as Meggie Ruck."
"I heard that!" Meggie yelled from the kitchen.
Conar spooned a mouthful of mashed potatoes into his mouth and grinned, his lips pursed tight around the buttery gob as he chewed.
"I know well what you mean," Teal spoke up. "I’ve gained ten pounds since we’ve been here." He pushed back his plate and rubbed his aching shoulder. "I figure that’s about a pound every other day."
Thom snorted. "You’ve eaten more than a pound of food a day, du Mer!" He shoveled a large amount of peas into his huge mouth and spoke around the mushed-up mess, making the others look away with disgust. "You’ve eaten that in bread alone!"
"You feel up to traveling, then?" Legion asked as he wiped his mouth on his napkin. "No pain?"
"A twinge, nothing more." Conar glanced at him, then pulled up his shirt. Since it wasn’t tucked in his breeches, but hanging free, he brought it all the way up to his neck. "See? Want me to shuck my breeches, too, so you can have a look at my…"
"No!" Legion examined the wound he could see. It had healed nicely. There was no chance it would come undone again. "It looks all right to me." He leaned back in the chair until the front legs were off the floor. "But if you look the least bit ragged, I will have your horse taken away from you for your own good."
Conar fixed him with a stony stare. "Aye, and if I slap your fat ass in the dungeon at Boreas, it will be for your own good!"
Legion shrugged. "As if you could." He stretched his arms over his head. "Or would."
"I might fool you one day, A’Lex," Conar snapped and stood, tossing his napkin on the table.
"You going up to bed?" Legion asked. "Want Meggie to send up some tea?" His eyes twinkled.
Conar leaned over his brother, putting his nose to Legion’s. "I’ve had more than my share of nightly cups of tea from Meggie’s slumber garden!" He straightened and turned his head to gaze at Teal. "Remind me to never drink anything given to me by my brother or any of his co-conspirators."
"Want Meggie to sit with you?" Legion chuckled.
Conar glared. "I intend to sleep tonight without the accompaniment of your hovering, Meggie’s cover-tugging, Thom and Teal’s looking-in and Meggie’s friends’ bedtime stories! My door will be bolted, gentlemen." He raised his voice. "And Lady!"
"I got better things to do than nursemaid you tonight, lad," Meggie snapped back at him from the confines of her baking domain.
"Suit yourself," Legion assured him. "Just so long as you’re up at first light." He arched back his head as Conar went past him to the stairs. "Sleep well, little brother!"
"Command suits you." Teal laughed, watching as Conar stomped up to the bedchamber, mumbling dire consequences if anyone dared disturbed him.
"I rather like to think so." Legion grinned.
* * *
Conar closed the door to his room and started to bolt it, but his sixth sense nudged him and he slowly turned, his spine tingling as he felt another presence in the room. If it had been one of Meggie’s women friends, they wouldn’t have been waiting for him in the dark. He knew it wasn’t one of his own men or Harry Ruck, for each of them was in the common room.
His hand went down to his thigh and he grimaced, realizing his dagger was in the drawer by his bed. He felt the hair prickle on his arms. He was about to shout when someone moved out of the darkness of the room and his vision adjusted to the small amount of light cast from the simmering logs in the fire grate, focusing on the silhouette of a woman outlined against the far wall.
For one heart-stopping moment, his hopes rose, his heart slammed against his ribcage, but the woman’s words brought him crashing back to earth with a thud.
"I came up to see if there was anything you might need, Milord."
Conar’s hope turned instantly to anger as he recognized the tavern wench, Dorrie, and her husky voice. He didn’t bothe
r answering, but lit a candle, cupping the flame in his hand as he carried the light to his beside table.
Her pretty cornflower blue eyes roamed down his lean shape and she boldly met his look as he turned his attention to her. Her tongue licked at her smiling lips. "If there is anything you might need, Your Grace."
Anger turned to jaded appraisal of the woman offering herself so blatantly. He knew she had been tumbled by every man there, including his own brother.
"Some of the other ladies have no doubt taken good care of your, uh…needs," she said, hesitating, "but I can take far better care of you than any of them."
"Is that so?"
"Well," she drawled, coming closer, close enough to lay her hand on his hard chest. "I know Greta is a handful for most men, as is Jannie, but I taught them all they know." She let her hand roam over him.
Conar’s brows came together. "Greta isn’t married."
Dorrie laughed and her laugh was tinkling. "You don’t have to be married to know how to care for a man, Milord."
Conar’s upper lip curled in disgust. "And Jannie?" He had truly liked the little Chrystallusian girl who had sang songs of her homeland to him.
Dorrie shrugged. "She’s married to that sailor man from down Ciona way, but she never grows lonely." She winked. "If you know what I mean."
Conar had no way of knowing if the girl was lying, making up tales to belittle the other women. As her other hand came up to smooth over his chest, he sent her a fiery look she thoroughly misunderstood.
"I could make you feel much better than any of those women did."
The blue eyes flicked over her and finally settled on her grinning lips. "I have no wish to insult you, Mam’selle, but I never swim in dirty water."
Dorrie’s head came up and she pursed her lips in mock hurt. "No one likes to be insulted, Milord, but I would venture to say you should not go swimming any time soon."
"Meaning?"
The girl’s smile widened and she removed her hands from his chest to place them on the top of her blouse. Drawing the white cotton fabric over her slim shoulders until her naked breasts were gleaming in the soft candlelight, she held his fierce gaze.
"There is no reason you can not be eased by gentle means, is there, Milord?"
Conar folded his arms over his chest and stood staring at her. Despite having grown fond of Meggie’s friends, and though he now looked differently at them, he was more familiar with women like Dorrie Burkhart, and her kind sickened him.
He didn’t move, didn’t speak, as the girl stepped out of her skirt and blouse and faced him, her nude body inviting him to touch her.
He let his gaze wander down the perfection of his temptress and grudgingly admired the curves and mounds that had given his men such pleasure. There was no denying the girl was an armful. She was pretty, young, her body taut and shapely. He looked in her face and saw the very fires of hell blazing there.
Encouraged by his silence, Dorrie put her arms around his neck and pressed herself to him.
Conar grabbed her arms and put her away from him. His pupils flared into pinpoints of dislike that she read as passion.
"You want me, Mam’selle?" he snarled.
She gasped. His touch set her mouth to watering and her loins to fire. Here was the Prince Regent, the future King of Serenia, holding her near him. It didn’t matter that his eyes were unkind and cold; his touch was hard and hurting on her soft arms; his lips drawn back with some emotion she couldn’t fathom. Her tongue flicked out to wet her full lips. "Aye, Milord, I want you as I have wanted no other man."
The smile that slowly settled on his lips was malevolent and evil. "Any way you can get me?"
She looked up at him from under her lashes and her own smile was triumphant. She had him, she thought. "Any way at all, Milord."
He released her arms, put his heavy hands on her shoulders, and pushed. His gaze followed her as she sank to the floor at his feet, then locked with hers as she tilted up her head. A long silence swept around them as she looked at him, her lips puckered into a coy smile.
Her hands came up to the buttons of his breeches and she put one hand at the juncture of his thighs to softly stroke the bulge. She smiled in victory as she felt him stir. "Shall I ease you, then, Milord?" she asked in a breathless tone.
He stared down at her, his face hard with scorn, and then buried his hands in her thick, red-gold hair. "Aye, Mam’selle. Take all you want."
Her fingers undid the buttons of his breeches and pushed aside the fabric to free his manhood. She smiled. His size had not been over-exaggerated, she thought with lust. "I shall, Milord," she whispered.
He pushed her head against him and raised his head to stare into the distance. He stood very still as her lips moved over and around him, sucking, drawing, nibbling.
Though his body reacted to the expert attention it was receiving, Conar felt ashamed. His manhood throbbed, aching for a release from weeks of abstinence, but he was as detached from what was being done to him as he was to the howling wind outside his window. The pleasure Dorrie’s lips brought to him also brought disgust. He felt dirty, embarrassed that he took any measure of comfort from what she was doing.
His hands tensed in her hair for a moment and then his lids flickered a fraction as his release came with surging speed. He looked at her bent head as she licked the seed from his shriveling flesh and he smiled. It was a smile full of hate and revenge.
And he thought he just might have found a way for Anya Wynth to earn her keep in Boreas.
Chapter 26
* * *
A trumpet sounded on the battlements of Boreas Keep. The royal pennant of the McGregor family snapped in the stiff breeze as a guardsman attached Conar’s own personal standard to the hoist to run it up alongside King Gerren’s, a signal the Prince was home. As the last echo died from the trumpet, the drawbridge began to lower on well-oiled hinges, for it was late in the evening and the keep had been secured for the night. The stamp of hooves rang out over the hard-packed snow and the jingle of harnesses and coach wheels broke the midnight silence.
High on the crenelated walls, King Gerren stood huddled in his great cape, his hair blowing about his head. He was chilled to the marrow of his bones, but was here to watch as his sons and their guards rode through the flare of torch-light and onto the massive drawbridge. He was there to assure himself Legion had spoken true: Conar was well and able to ride.
He had worried about his child, not only from the seriousness of the wound, but from the moroseness it was said Conar was steeped in. Something vital was wrong with his boy, and the King, like any father, was concerned.
Although both Legion and Conar thought him ignorant of the situation with the girl, Liza, King Gerren had known all along. At first he had been angry. Nay, more than angry. He had been incensed that his firstborn heir would flaunt honor and custom as he had. But when the marriage postponements heaped upon one another, Gerren had changed his mind; altered his opinion of Conar’s right to know some happiness. He had his doubts, as his son did, about what Shaz’s daughter looked like. If she was as bad as Rayle had suggested, then Conar would spend the rest of his life regretting what his mother and father had done to him by allying him with the Wynth family.
Over the past year, the King’s spies had warned him that the love affair had grown far beyond the ordinary. He, himself, could see the marked difference in the way Conar had both treated, and looked at, the women at court when the girl was in his life.
And the way Conar reacted when she left him.
Truth be told, he thought having the girl at Conar’s side—though against Tribunal law—might be better than having his son alienating the entire kingdom, for word had reached the King that his son was ill-tempered to the point of outright insolence. His irrational demands and seething irascibility made his earlier outbursts before the girl had returned seem tame. Everywhere along the trail from the tavern where he had recuperated to the city of Boreas, whispers concerning the young P
rince’s mood and disposition were the talk of the common man. And woman.
Watching the defeated slant of Conar’s shoulders, King Gerren wondered for the millionth time if he had been more fool than loving parent in letting the thing go on without hindrance. He had not expected this much trouble with Conar when the boy was forced to give up his mistress. He had thought his son would lose interest in the girl, as he had all the others over the years. His spies had disagreed with him, telling him Prince Conar was truly, irrevocably, in love with Liza.
Gerren sighed, pulled his cape tighter around him. He saw his son glance up at him and he raised his gloved hand in greeting, but Conar did not return the signal of welcome. Sighing again, Gerren knew that did not bode well.
Mentally preparing himself for the clash of wills he knew would ruin the new day come morning, the King headed wearily to the outside stairs.
Glancing up at the pennants twisting in the chill November night, he looked long and hard at his son’s personal flag, a flying white dove on an azure background: The sign of the firstborn male heir. One day, Conar’s would fly there alone, side by side with the standard of the Princess Anya of Oceania.
The thought, however, did not bring as much happiness to the King as it once would have.
* * *
Hern threw his riding gloves across the table where they skidded to a stop in front of the young man sitting hunched over the cook’s table in the kitchen. He growled a greeting at the old woman, then hooked a long leg over the back of the only other chair at the small oaken table. Leaning back precariously on the chair’s rear legs, he folded his arms over his massive chest and pinned the young man with a sharp gaze.
"Do you want hot tea, Hern Arbra?" Sadie asked, eyeing the two men sitting at her table. When the Master-at-Arms didn’t answer, Sadie made herself scarce.
Conar dropped his spoon into the oatmeal he was trying to force down and returned Hern’s stare. "May I help you?" he asked, sarcastically.
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