Free The First Princess of Wales by Karen Harper Page A

heir, though he cared naught for any of their political matrimonial dealings or their choices so far.
    He drank deeply of the rich, red Bordeaux wine again, and the face of the hot-tempered, muddy, and wet maid at the quintain drifted before his inner vision as his mind seized on the words of Hankin’s song:
                      
    “That pleasant fever
    That love doth often bring,
    Lady, doth ever
    Attune the songs I sing.
    Where I endeavor
    To catch again
    Your chaste, sweet body’s savor,
    I crave but may not taste.”
                      
    He seemed to float off as the words began again. Why, of all the maids or more experienced ladies he had been offered and of those few he had deigned to taste since he began to know the delights of a woman’s body, did this one snag his eye and tempt his heart so for a week now? He had beheld her but a little while, a few brief teasing words, one quick touch of her rounded hip through her stained and damp traveling dress when he sent her away.
    He had never been one for such foolish courtly love games or ensnarements of the heart and mind. There were too many other things to be accomplished, to be dared in order to earn his just approval from others and from himself. But now, while his fighting hand healed just a whit more, why not the chase for him to catch again her “chaste, sweet body’s savor” he craved but did not taste?
    A rapping at the door startled him, and he sat bolt upright, sloshing the last of his ruby wine from his goblet onto the table. Hankin’s strumming stopped and the musician moved quickly to open the door. Nickolas Dagworth’s grinning face appeared, and with a slight turn, he pulled the red-haired, wide-eyed wench Allison into view. Her eyes darted to the prince as he rose from the table across the solar, and her pink tongue wet her red lips.
    “The, ah, lady you sent for, Your Grace,” Nick Dagworth announced and winked at him over the maid’s red head.
    “Damn, I had almost forgot.” Edward frowned without meaning to as the girl approached and Dagworth hovered near the door. “I suddenly feel out of sorts, Nick. I thank the lady for coming, but I shall just be giving her a bauble for her pains and asking you to deliver her back.”
    The girl’s voice was rather shrill when she spoke. Why had he not remembered that? “Oh, my dearest liege lord, I could make you feel better. I was so honored to be sent for—I thought you had quite forgot me. I could just stay quiet as a mouse and any desire you should have, I would be more than ready to fulfill.”
    Her ripe breasts pushed against the rose-hued bodice of her clinging kirtle as she leaned forward to plead. Even from several feet away, she emanated a musky aroma which tantalized his flared nostrils. But her coloring was too brazen, her voice too strident, her manner both meek and servile at the same time.
    “I think not, Allison. I meant to be alone tonight and quite forgot myself. Nick—”
    Nickolas Dagworth saw the lay of the land in one quick glint of the steely blue of his prince’s eyes and he nearly swept the disappointed girl from the room while carefully masking the surprise on his own face. He would see to it, he thought, that this ripe, little hussy had a place to lay that lush body of hers this eve, for his wife was at Windsor with the court and his own townhouse but three streets away. Ambitious, changeable of mood, and strong-willed though he was, the prince was one he would never feel loath to take the leavings from.
    Dagworth hurried the still-protesting girl down the stairs, and Hankin, the fine lutenist the prince always kept in his entourage, quickly followed them down.
    “What ails His Grace now, man?” Dagworth whispered to the lutenist at the bottom of the steps, careful the girl would overhear no tales to tell from her brief visit here.
    “I hardly know, my lord,” Hankin shrugged. “With anyone else, I would ha’ said love-longing,