Beast (10 page)

He shook his head. “No. That has thankfully passed.”

“That’s good. It means Your Highness is healing. Might you spare a moment? I could change the bandage and wash the wound. “When it looked as though he would protest, she added, “It would help with the itch.”

The first true smile she’d seen from him all day subtly twisted his lips. “My lady, you have me at your leisure. Lead me, and I will be yours.”

“Hush.” She didn’t need his flirting. It was bad enough he’d laid beside her in the night, cradling her against his hard, warm body. An ache pricked her low in her belly, a ghost of feeling from those days when she would sit in his lap and let him kiss her for hours. In those days, she’d gone to her bed and slyly touched herself beneath the covers. She wouldn’t have such relief now, with men bunking in every spare bit of the castle that remained.

She headed for the wooden stairs, knowing that Philipe followed her without looking back. Perhaps she should have waited, and followed him? She did not remember all the royal protocol.

“Couldn’t you find a prettier serving wench to bed, Your Highness?” a voice called out, like a fist pummeling Johanna in the chest. The insulter wheezed a laugh and continued, “Something a little less well done, perhaps?”

If she hadn’t heard the commotion, she would not have turned. She did not care to see who had spoken of her so crassly, and she would not give any man who dared to speak thus the satisfaction of her attention. But a clatter and a shout, that was worthy of noting, and she turned in time to see Philipe pull a man across the table. Short and fat, the knight had a mop of graying ringlets all about his head, like a ram too ill-tempered to sheer. His pock-marked face was red from wine, both the wine he’d drunk and the contents of the tankard Philipe splashed on it. For his part, Philipe did not scold the man with words, but his fists, each blow landing sharp and brutal, powered by cold rage. Blood leaked from the man’s nostrils and the corners of his eyes, huge, black bruises blossoming like spilled paint.

“Your Highness, no!” Wilhelm shouted, pushing through the knights who’d risen, hands on their sword hilts, uncertain what was expected of them. Johanna felt real fear, then. Would one of these men cut Philipe down, their loyalty to their fellow soldier greater than their loyalty to their prince?

Wilhelm dragged Philipe from the knight, who groaned and rolled from the tabletop to the ground. Two men came forward and helped him away, like a pig carcass hanging from a pole. Blood splattered the ground, and empty cups dripped their precious content onto the mud.

And somehow, the tide of interest had shifted. Johanna found herself the subject of stares, not all friendly or curious. There was open hostility on some of the faces, and she noted the appearance of those men. She would not find herself alone with them.

“This woman is the lady of Hazelhurn, and this is how she is repaid?” Philipe shook off Wilhelm’s grasp. “She offers hospitality, and she is mocked? If you are my men, and you are truly with me, you would not behave so. Mockery and cruelty are the weapons of King Albart. You are free to return to his service, should those concepts appeal. I will not have it here.”

Philipe strode toward Johanna, and she took an unconscious step back. Of course, he was not angry with her, but when a man looked as fierce as Philipe did now, it seemed only instinct to fear him. He stopped at her side and took her arm. The contact was startling. “If any man says a word, in mocking, in jest, if any man dares to insult Lady Johanna again, I will strip the flesh from his back, and it will be my arm wields the scourge! Have I made myself clear?”

“Aye, Your Highness,” the men answered, some in shouts, some in grave mumbles. It gave Johanna no illusion of safety, but some small satisfaction. In all the years since the fire, she had hidden her burns, covered herself with the veil, pretended it did not hurt when people couldn’t look at her. Only her nurse, and Wilhelm, had ever been able to look upon her without disgust. Philipe could not command his men to do the same, but it was thoughtful of him to defend her.

“Come,” he ordered, his anger making every word a command, even to her. Her arm still tucked in his, she climbed the stairs to the tower with him.

* * * *

“These men followed you because they love you, and because they are tired of tyrants.” Wilhelm paced before the hearth, repeating himself for the third time in his circuitous chastisement. “And now you show them a tyrant’s face. I thought you were smarter than this, Philipe!”

“Why on earth would you assume I was smart? You’ve met me before, you know me well.” Philipe hissed at the touch of Johanna’s hand against his shoulder. “Careful, woman, you might as well cut the whole damned thing off if you’re going to be so rough with me!”

“Don’t be angry with me because you’ve behaved foolishly,” she scolded, rising from her place, kneeling beside the bed. She went to the chest of medicines and rummaged through it, seemingly unconcerned with things like gratitude after he’d defended her honor.

Wilhelm shook his head. “Men like that will always mock Johanna. That is why we have not ventured out from here. She is aware that her appearance will garner insults.”

“You are her brother. You believe she should bear being called a common trollop, in front of those men down there?” Philipe’s blood heated anew at the memory of the man’s words. The knight had all but called her a whore, insinuating that she…and that he…

“You were angry because he suggested you might bed me?” Johanna straightened, and through the veil Philipe could see the set of her mouth, tight as if expecting further insult. “I’ve heard you would bed a goat if someone put a wig and perfume on it. Perhaps you should not be so affronted.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Philipe felt like he was playing a game he had no chance of winning. If he told the truth, that he would not mind bedding Johanna, she wouldn’t believe him, and Wilhelm would punch him. He settled on diplomacy. “I would have defended any woman from such baseless accusations of wantonness.”

“I think my sister is safe from any man’s assumption that she is a wanton,” Wilhelm said flatly.

Philipe watched Johanna react to those words, and he wanted to bloody Wilhelm’s nose, too. “No matter. I will not have any man under my banner treat a lady so. Especially Johanna.”

“Stop this needless and incessant worrying over me, the both of you.” She came to Philipe’s side with fresh linen and more of that damned, old honey. “You’re worse than Nurse ever was.”

“These men will not respond to your heavy hand and threats,” Wilhelm warned. “I might suggest you extend some good will toward them. You chastised them all for the bad behavior of one.”

“That, I cannot deny.” At the palace, Philipe might have ordered a fine feast to win them over, or a gambling party that went on until dawn. There were no such luxuries at Hazelhurn. “Let me think on it.”

* * * *

Supper that night was thick with a moody silence, the men eating wordlessly, with no trace of the excitement from earlier. Men who had been eager for battle earlier in the day sulked over their trenchers, no doubt planning their departure on the next morning.

All because Philipe had been too stupid to rein in his own emotions. Stupid, but it had felt so satisfying to take out the rage that he’d thought long-ago conquered on something flesh and blood. Because punching fire did very little good.

Wilhelm grimaced over his cup of wine. “Perhaps a word from you, Your Highness. It might set the men at ease.”

Though King Albart was a great and natural orator, his son had not inherited such a gift. Philipe stood, and instantly felt the eyes of twenty men upon his person. He smiled tightly. “Yes, hello. I…am your prince. Prince Philipe, of Chevudon. You know that already. Uh…”

He looked to Wilhelm for support, but the knight appeared as though he might vomit on the table. Johanna sat calmly at his side, chin resting on her hand behind the gauzy black that hid her features. The veil did not obscure the fact that she was clearly amused at his discomfort.

Imagine you are father. Imagine what he would say to win these men over
. Then, he carefully revised that ambition.
Imagine that you are father,
twenty years ago.

“I would like to express my very heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you. You have sacrificed much in coming to my aid, in my hour of need. And yet, I still ask more. I ask that you fight for me, that you lay down your lives for me, a prince that many of you have never met. And more men will come, and they will know me less, but I will ask the same of them. I will esteem them as greatly as I do you twenty, who came here at the first. That will not seem just to some of you, but I cannot give you more than I will give them. For I will give every man who fights under my banner my infinite gratitude. Fight for me, and together we can rebuild our kingdom.” When he stopped speaking, he looked down, not knowing exactly why his gaze was drawn to her, to search Johanna’s expression as best he could through the veil. Was she pleased? Did she approve? He told himself he only cared because of her intelligence, that she could see things more clearly than he, but something pulled in his chest, a hope he could not deny. He wanted her to approve of him as a man, not as a ruler.

You weren’t so worried about that fifteen years ago,
he reminded himself tersely. Lifting his gaze to the men who’d politely listened to his little speech—and who were doubtless still thinking of leaving—he spied Sir Valeyard Gettrich, a familiar face. The man was a fierce warrior, but a brilliant musician, as well. “Gettrich, any chance you brought along that harp of yours?”

“But a small, traveling harp, Your Highness,” the knight replied. “Nothing so fine as you are you used to at court.”

So, that was the way of it. These men saw Philipe not as a fugitive prince fighting for the throne, but a posh, pampered ass who found none of them good enough. He’d fostered that opinion for them when he’d beaten a man senseless and threatened them all with the same. Without letting his frustration show—he’d had years of practice in masking his emotions—he smiled broadly at the man.
I am friendly. I enjoy the common people and their common things. I am not a spoiled monster prince
.
“Sir, you are too modest. I have heard you play before, many years ago. I have no doubt you could play a crofter’s plow and bring forth music that would cause the very heavens to weep. Please, I think we could do with some entertainment tonight.”

“As my prince commands,” Gettrich said, rising from his seat. Of an average height and an almost slight build, the knight did not look capable of his legendary battle prowess. But when he settled on the trestle bench with his harp in his lap, his confidence and mastery was clear.

On the other side of Wilhelm, Johanna had pushed back her trencher and now sat with her hands folded beneath her chin, elbows on the tabletop. Philipe’s lips twitched, aching to smile at her. But Wilhelm had been in a strange mood since earlier in the day, cautiously putting himself between Johanna and Philipe at the most innocent of moments. He’d insisted on staying while Philipe’s bandaging was changed, and before dinner, when Johanna had asked Philipe to help her haul water, Wilhelm had taken up the buckets himself. He’d claimed that it had to do with propriety; a prince should not, after all, be seen doing such menial chores. But Philipe could not quell the feeling that Wilhelm suspected him of something. Had Johanna told him what had happened in the night? The memory of Johanna’s warm, small body pulled against his, her sleepy whispers and the terror that had calmed from his presence tormented Philipe every time he looked upon her.

How many nights would they have had, lying together in the dark, wordless? How many nights would he have silently contemplated her, thanking fortune for delivering her to him? Though it hurt to think on a past that was not, it hurt him more to think of missing what could be.

Sir Gettrich played deftly, the harp a jaunty, rowdy instrument for one song, a mournful, wailing object the next. Over the notes plucked by his skilled hands, the knight’s deep voice sang tales of brave warriors and the glory of the north, along with bawdy tunes about maidens happening upon sleeping dragons. The dragons were never merely dragons, and Philipe thought he spied a blush through the dark gossamer of Johanna’s veil.

Like a bucket of cold water thrown over a man in a hot bath, Philipe realized too clearly that something had happened. He wasn’t sure when, perhaps in the night, or when he’d beaten the man who’d insulted her, but it didn’t matter. It was too late. Fortune and all the fates preserve him; he was in love with Johanna.

She clapped at the end of a particularly racy tune, her laughter showing her straight, white teeth behind perfect lips. Applauding along with the men, who hooted and bade Gettrich continue, Johanna appeared happy. She had been locked away in a tower for over a decade, no wonder her mood improved with company.

With the right company
, Philipe reminded himself. Johanna had not been overjoyed to see him, that was certain. Nor had she been pleased to find him in her bed that morning. He’d never stopped loving her, in all the years they’d been apart. What he’d told her last night had been true, that he thought of her more often than the women he was bedding, that he’d never found a wife because he’d already found the one he’d wanted. That he’d cast her aside as a callow young man had not soothed him. Now, the ghost of that love, the wraith that had tortured him for fifteen years, had become some new and terrible life, a squalling, infant terror whose cries would not be silenced without the comfort of Johanna, her arms around him, her voice promising love in his ear. And it was too late. He’d destroyed any chance of winning her love when he’d written—no,
commanded his valet
to write—that letter breaking their engagement, while she still lay on the precipice of mortality.

She turned, with the startled expression of one who has felt another’s stare lingering. Philipe smiled briefly and turned his attention to Gettrich, but he could not concentrate on the bard’s song. Unable to ignore the tense cord that stretched between them, Philipe turned to Johanna. “You play the harp, do you not?”