WINDKEEPER (41 page)

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 bother 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.

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 Prince’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.

Hern snorted and continued his silent regard. His scrutiny swept over the Prince with insulting appraisal. He twisted his neck and scanned Conar’s legs and back before straightening and resuming his intent gaze.

Lowering his head, looking at his own body, Conar evaluated himself and then returned his look to Hern. "Have I grown an extra set of arms or am I that handsome you can’t keep your eyes off me?"

"You ain’t that handsome to me, boy!" Hern growled. He pursed his lips beneath the bush of his grayish-white mustache and made a clicking sound with his tongue. "You look rather sissyish to me."

Hern’s display of rudeness and his intended insults didn’t fool Conar. He knew exactly where Hern was leading him. He’d been there before.

He lifted one tawny brow. "And you want me to prove otherwise."

Hern moved forward and the chair’s legs returned to the floor. He bent his head and looked Conar up and down. "Heard tell you was sick for awhile. Heard you nearly died. Got yourself a wicked wound." Hern sniffed. "Probably wasn’t paying attention as you’re wont to do!" He put his elbows on the table and hitched himself closer to Conar. "Maybe you should just keep yourself calm-like for awhile longer. Stay indoors out of the cold." He nodded at the bowl of oatmeal. "Eat soft foods and such. Maybe drink some sugar-milk."

"I’m fit enough," Conar ground out from between clenched teeth.

"Is that so?" Hern fixed him with a steady glower.

"Aye, it’s so."

"Think you’re a warrior, do you? Able to fight with the big dogs?" Hern smirked. "Don’t look that way to me!"

"I’m as fit as ever, Hern."

"Prove it."

"When?"

"Ten minutes."

"Where?"

"The training field." Hern stood and snatched his riding gloves from the table.

"I’ll be there." Conar took up his spoon and started to eat again, ignoring Hern.