By Winter's Light: A Cynster Novel (Cynster Special Book 2) by Stephanie Laurens Page A

then the last sled, hauled steadily along by the carpenter’s apprentices, both grinning fit to burst, was before them.
    The four girls and the other children swarmed the sled; Claire, Daniel, and Melinda also looked and smiled appreciatively at the two very strong portraits of Cailleach-as-the-crone carved into the logs.
    As the boys leaned into the ropes and the sled moved on, Claire joined the following crowd. Smiling, swept up in the welling gaiety, she fell in along the edge of the small army, keeping pace with the four girls over whom she was still keeping a watchful eye.
    Melinda was walking just ahead, like a mother hen ushering the three youngest Cynster girls ahead of her.
    Every sense Claire possessed was ridiculously aware that Daniel had elected to pace alongside her, on her other side.
    Deeper in the crowd, Louisa stumbled, knocking Juliet into Claire.
    Instinctively Claire caught Juliet and prevented her from falling, but in righting her charge, Claire lost her own balance. She stifled a cry as her boot soles slid on the icy ground.
    Daniel caught her. Easily held her.
    She’d fallen back against him, her senses jarred by the sudden contact. Against the back of her shoulders, he felt like an oak, solid and immovable.
    The crowd parted about them, streaming toward the front porch; the girls looked back at them and giggled, then were swept on.
    Despite the crowd, for an instant it was as if they stood alone on some island, just the two of them.
    A man strong enough to catch you and hold you up when you stumble.
    Still supported by Daniel, Claire looked up—into his face. Into his hazel eyes. Some part of her mind noted—again, avidly—his clean-cut features, the chiseled planes, the perfectly squared jaw below lips created by some celestial artist.
    But it was his eyes that held her, that trapped her gaze and her awareness in warmth and something more.
    She fell in—into the hazel, into the mind and personality behind—and saw.
    Clearly.
    He employed no shields, no screens, no guile.
    What she saw was the truth—his truth.
    And seeing that clearly—being afforded that precious insight—the reckless soul that yearned deep within her broke free and stated unequivocally: I want you.
     
    * * *
    The afternoon was waning, and the air beneath the trees in the forests had turned cold. Bone-chillingly cold. A portent Lucilla and Marcus had read with ease.
    They’d promptly insisted that a storm was closing in and that the riding party had to head back to the manor immediately.
    To give the others their due, after taking a long look at her and her twin’s expressions, Sebastian, Michael, and Christopher had agreed without argument, even though they’d yet to sight any deer.
    That had been fifteen minutes ago. They’d turned on the bridle path they’d been following northward—they’d been riding to the west of Carrick lands by then—and backtracked to the junction with the path running eastward through the forest that lay along the manor’s northern boundary; that path was their fastest, most direct route back to the manor.
    Lucilla kept her mount close behind Prudence’s; her cousin was riding behind Michael and Sebastian, while Marcus brought up the rear, riding behind Lucilla. Falling as he always did into the role of leader, Sebastian had set Christopher, arguably their best rider in terms of picking out the safest route, in the lead, with the younger boys strung out behind him and ahead of Michael.
    The storm was going to be a tempestuous one; even without being able to see the sky, Lucilla knew that—and she was certain Marcus did, too. She might be the Lady’s future representative in these lands and therefore afforded greater insight, but Marcus was Lady-touched, too; he, like Lucilla, was attuned to the forces that ruled this land.
    They were perhaps a third of the way home, following the bridle path that ran more or less along the northern ridgeline, when a thrashing in the bushes downslope