The Prince of Ill Luck — Susan Dexter

THE CURSE, THE PRINCE, AND THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER

Leith, Prince of the isles, had been born under a curse; ill luck had dogged his steps from his earliest days. Now, shipwrecked on a wild and foreign coast, he found Valadan, a fabulous black stallion, wandering loose. Youth and horse joined forces, and Leith dared to hope that his wretched luck had finally changed.

The vagabonds soon chanced upon a city. There, against all expectation, Leith won a contest for the hand of a beauteous maiden--a contest that no one was supposed to win! The prince and his bride 'might have lived happily ever after...

But Leith's bad luck was running true to form. The headstrong young Kess flatly refused any idea of marriage. She was determined to escape the city to search for her missing parents. And Kess claimed that her mother was a witch!

Shouldn't a witch be able to lift a curse?

And so, in his last-ditch effort to escape the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune, the prince and his stallion joined the duke's daughter on the quest of a lifetime...