“Nothing.” He scooped her close and kissed her lovely lips. She tasted of butter and lemon, an enticing combination on top of everything else about her. Then he firmly set her down. “Everything. I can’t stay. Your father is coming.”
“My fath—” She managed to look dismayed, horrified, surprised, and elated all in one. “I’m going to meet my father.”
“Don’t trust anything he says,” Sebastien advised. “I’m sorry to rush out. Last night was incredible. That sounds like a line, but it’s absolute truth.”
“A line?” she repeated, a wrinkle of confusion between her brows.
“Never mind.” Charmed by her, he couldn’t resist kissing her soundly again. “He can’t find me here. Just play dumb and go along with whatever he says.”
“That will be easy,” she said drily.
He tapped her on the nose. “Stop that. I’ll find you. I love you.”
Her brow cleared. “I love you, Sebastien.”
“Hide the ring for now. Until I see you again.”
She smiled wistfully. “Until I see you again.”
28
Thorn stared at the doorway abruptly emptied of Sebastien, but his presence lingered on her skin and in the ring she wore. With reluctance, she slipped it off her finger and put it in her pocket with the wax-embedded gem.
Though she missed him already, she remained deliriously happy. A rapturous night followed by the truly delicious feeling of waking up in Sebastien’s arms. She hugged to herself the shimmering delight of Sebastien and his passionate lovemaking. It had been even more wonderful than she’d dreamed. And, after seven years of dreaming, that was saying something. Her body throbbed still with passion and she imagined his scent rose from her pores.
She opened the kitchen window, allowing in the fresh, rain-washed morning and the chorus of birdsong. Sebastien led Kismet out the gate with no resistance from the wards, Bunny and Nonna bounding ahead. He turned to wave at her, but by the time she raised a hand in her own farewell, he’d mounted and galloped through the trees. With a pang of worry, she wondered if she’d ever see him again, then chided herself. Jada would no longer be her jailer. Sebastien, and Rose, wouldn’t abandon her. And, if they did, she’d find a way to rescue herself. She was Lilythorn now and a sorceress in her own right.
Deciding she’d better not let breakfast burn, she turned her attention back to cooking the freshly gathered eggs. After what felt like no time, she was startled by the peculiar, familiar/unfamiliar sensation of the wards bound into the walls of the cottage suddenly imploding. Thorn’s ears popped, except the feeling wasperceptible only to her sorcerous senses and wasn’t in her body at all. And her father appeared in the kitchen doorway.
Tall, with brown skin, black hair and matching eyes, he gazed upon her with something that looked like surprise, but wasn’t. His handsome garb, the garnet cloak beaded with moisture, the highly polished boots, all made him seem as dashing as Sebastien, except that this man was older. Not careworn, but mature. He stared back at her. “Good stars,” he said. “Youdolook exactly like Rose.”
“Hallo Father,” Thorn replied, applauding herself for her last-moment capture of apparent poise and aplomb.
He raised dark brows, the expression so like Rose’s that Thorn marveled. This must be what it was like to have family. How strange. “Where is Jada?” he asked, looking about the room as if Jada might pop out from under the bed.
“I have no idea where Jada is,” Thorn answered drily, very pleased with herself that she managed to make it sound like this was his fault. “She comes and goes as she pleases. Mostly goes and gone, these days.”
Her father’s gaze settled on her again, an ironic tilt to his half smile. “You don’t only look like Rose, do you?”
She didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Seems I’m just in time for breakfast, at least,” he said with a significant glance at the table where she’d planned a romantic breakfast with Sebastien, seating himself without waiting for an invitation.
“Is my mother here?” she asked.
He shook his head, taking the teapot on the table and pouring himself a cup. “No, though Shosh knows I’ve come to see you. She very much wants to meet you, but I insisted on seeing you, speaking with you, first.”
Shosh.Shoshan. Rose had taught Thorn the name of this mother she’d never known. The one who hadn’t known Thornlived. Thorn sat, too, and poured her own tea. “I’d make the observation that I apparently don’t get a choice on when I get to meet my mother, but I’m already talking to the person who took away all of my choices.”
He looked up from doctoring his tea, brow creased in irritation. “You’re meeting yourfather. That should count for something.”
“Should it?” She sipped her tea, brewed too long and bitter now.
“And you were an infant,” he continued. “No infant makes their own choices. Let’s not overdramatize this situation.”
“Overdramatize,” she echoed. That sounded like something Jada would say. She pointedly reached across the table for the pot of honey he’d inconsiderately left at his elbow. “Do you blame me for being upset about this ‘situation’?”
“Honestly, yes.” He shrugged, popped a cookie in his mouth. “But I’m assuming you don’t understand how important you are to me, to my plans. You’ve hardly led a life of deprivation. It’s not as if I left you to be raised in a slum. You’ve been well provided for—many an impoverished child would trade places with you in a flash—and now you’ll be at the center of society, with wealth, privilege. How much has Rose told you?”
