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The Forest Lord
Susan Krinard
Excerpt
With the merino pelisse drawn close about her like a
suit of armor, Eden returned to the stable. Much to her
surprise, Dalziel was on his feet. Beside him stood Shaw,
not touching but somehow lending support even so.
And she saw his face.
I know this man, she thought. The moment of
recognition was brief, but it shook her to the core before
she realized that it must be an illusion. She would have
remembered such a face.
Hartley Shaw had looks that took her breath away.
His were the sort of features one might find in a member of
the ton, but more sharply cut, bolder, less refined. The
chin was dimpled but firm, mouth generous but masculine,
nose decisive.
And the eyes ... the eyes were the verdant green of
new spring growth, nestled in the heart of winter. For
Shaw's expression was as cold as the land around them.
He met her gaze with not the slightest hint of
deference, and she could have sworn that a mocking smile
lifted one corner of his mouth.
"I've seen to your horse," he said, neglecting to
add her title.
"Thank you." She forced herself to look
away. "Dalziel?"
"I'm better, my lady," he said, holding his
shoulder. "It's still not right, but the pain is gone. Shaw
helped me."
Eden would have had difficulty imagining Shaw
bending enough to help anyone, had he not stepped in to
save Donal. He was as unyielding as one of Elgin's Greek
statues.
And yet he had moved with grace and suppleness when
he had worked with Atlas. Could a laborer be as graceful as
if he'd spent years learning to move in expertly-cut
clothing, and in perfect time to a quadrille at Almack's?
* * *
During countless years of life in the Mortal realm,
Hartley had learned to read Human faces and bodies as
Mortals read their books. Yet he could not read Eden's. He
still expected to see in her the vivacious, uninhibited
girl he had courted and won.
This Eden had perfected the art of deception. She
smiled at him with all the graciousness of an aristocrat to
an underling and seated herself in the chair near the
fire.
"Ah, Mr. Shaw," she said. "I trust that you have
been well looked after in the kitchen?"
Even the music of her voice had changed; it was more
resonant but a little satirical, as if she had learned to
wield it as Mortals used their tools of Iron, to cut and
twist.
"Aye, your ladyship," he said. The honorific stuck
in his throat, but it was all a part of the game.
"Excellent. We owe you great thanks for your help
this morning."
We, she said.She used words as she used her rank, to
keep him at a distance, and that told him that her mask of
indifference was as much a deception as anything else.
She still did not recognize him. But he disturbed
her, and he knew why. His long-dormant senses woke to their
full power. He smelled the answer in the motes of air
swirling about her body. He heard it in the pounding of her
heart. He felt it in his belly like a draught of heady
Mortal ale.
To Eden Fleming, he was a servant. But he was also a
man, and once he had taken her as a man takes a woman. Her
body remembered what her mind did not. Her very bones and
blood were imprinted with his spirit as her womb had been
branded with his seed.
She wanted him.
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