Uncertain Magic by Laura Kinsale Page B

weren't the kind that lovers liked to gaze into for dreamy hours. There would be no lazy afternoons in a hidden bower for her. When men looked at Roddy, they didn't see an attractive woman. They saw themselves, and it was an image that none seemed to care to focus on for long.
    She lifted the silver goblet and drank greedily, hoping the wine would warm the chill from her fingertips. At a sound from the door, she jumped, and the empty vessel fell with a soft thud onto the carpeted floor. She stooped to pick it up.
    When she rose, he was there.
    In a full-length dressing gown of midnight blue, he seemed to Roddy to be inordinately tall. As he reached back to close the door behind him, the robe fell carelessly open, revealing a shirt unbuttoned at the throat, a sprigged waistcoat, and pale breeches above soft ankle-boots and plain silk stockings. Roddy moistened her dry lips, determined not to let her voice squeak. ' "My lord," she said, and sketched a formal curtsy.
    He gave her a slight bow in return, then stood looking at her, his dark brows raised and his lips pressed oddly together. "Shall we dance?"
    Roddy blinked up at him, and saw belatedly that he was joking. She made an effort to smile which didn't quite work.
    "Perhaps we'd better eat," he said.
    Roddy nodded. She sat down in the chair that he held for her. The heavy odor of warm food and his lingering presence at her back made her stomach squeeze uneasily. When he pulled his own chair close to hers, she felt positively ill with fright.
    There was a tureen of soup, from which he served them both. Roddy sat staring down at the clear broth, unable to even lift her hand and pretend to eat. Her insides seemed to press upward into her throat. It was a panic that fed on itself: the more she tried to calm her fear, the more terrified she became. She could not even have said what she was afraid of. Strangeness. Change. Him. Herself. Not
knowing
.
    That was it. The uncertainty. Her life had been ordered and comprehensible, without surprises. She'd been hurt sometimes—by Geoffrey's withdrawal, by his loving someone else—but she had always been sure.
    Now, cut adrift, she was drowning in doubt. Faelan had said to forget what he was. For tonight, just one night, to forget. But she could not forget; she didn't know what he was. A dark man with eyes the color of the sky. That was all she saw.
    He looked at her, returning stare for stare. "Eat your soup," he said.
    Like a chastised child, Roddy picked up her spoon. She had thought she could not eat, but the first salty taste of broth slid easily down her throat. She took another sip, and began to feel slightly better. When he tore off a piece of bread and offered it to her, she took it. The familiar, crusty smell and blandness comforted her. Before she realized she had eaten the whole chunk, he was offering her another.
    Roddy accepted that, too, and their fingers touched in passing. His eyes met hers. He smiled.
    Roddy smiled back, shyly.
    She looked down immediately, but the brief contact had been reassuring. If she could smile at him, surely she could take the next step. It was like crossing a stream on a fallen log—the more nervous she felt, the harder the task would become. She took a deep breath and made herself relax enough to face the boiled pudding.
    He uncovered a roast duck after she had finished half the pudding. It was odd to be eating without footmen to carve and serve, but she was glad of the change. It saved her the strain of keeping up appearances in front of strangers. Faelan served, after a fashion, by slicing a bite of fowl and crisp skin, and offering it to her on the two prongs of his own black-handled fork.
    Roddy looked uncertainly at the tidbit. He waited, and after a moment, she did as he seemed to expect: took it gingerly into her mouth from his fork.
    He made a low sound, a kind of masculine purr of approval from deep in his throat. It seemed to vibrate along Roddy's spine, and she swallowed the bit