Page 9 of Better Love Next Time
“Are you a fairy?” he asked.
She smiled, a dazzling dimple marking her left cheek. “Am I?”
“That’s what I asked.”
“You did.”
“I did,” he answered, irritation in his tone. “Well?”
She motioned a graceful hand to his lap. “What is that?”
Julian followed her line to his drawing forgotten in her presence. He flipped it over. “My ship.”
She dared to reach for the drawing, brushing his thigh and turning the paper face up. Admiration lit in her eyes. “How beautiful.”
It wasn’t much, since he’d only finished the hull and masts, but what did a fairy, if she were one, know about ships? “Thank you.”
“I should love to sail.”
“Can’t you just use your fairy wings and fly wherever?”
She swept out her arms like a figurehead on the bow of a ship. “But to glide upon water with the wind in my face would be magical.”
“Flying is magical.” Leaping to his feet, he loomed over her. “Are you or aren’t you a fairy?”
Gathering his belongings, she folded the shawl, placing it and his papers and pencil and the bottle of brandy in the pillowcase. A shaft of sunlight shone down on her head.
Her hand tucked suddenly in his, sending a hum up his arm. It curled around his chest and settled strange and warm in his belly. “Would you like to see something magical?” she asked.
Before he realized it, Julian was being led behind her assured little figure, swerving between trees and brambles. The music of the forest murmured and snapped beneath their feet. Not his imagination, birds flitted and followed them from the canopy. A red squirrel leapt from tree to tree.
Was she leading him to a bad end? Why was he dying with curiosity to know?
A tree branch whacked him across his face—too high to affect her—shocking him out of his trance. He yanked his hand free from hers and dug in his heels.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To my lair.”
“Yourlair?”
She giggled. Her arm swept behind her to an old, gnarled tree trunk as wide as a coach. Within its twisty folds was a narrow opening. She skipped to the tree, turned with an impish smile, and after waving him near, disappeared inside.
What did fairies do to their captives? He was going to find out.
He strode to the tree and took a last look at the world as he knew it. He hoped his family never found a trace of him and his father mourned the day he sent his monster son away. But he knew the earl wouldn’t. He had Oliver as his heir. Julian was the worthless second son.
He swept into the tree and blinked, his jaw dropping in awe. If he’d been pressed to describe a fairy’s lair, Julian would have described it exactly as what lay before him, down to the lamp casting light over the enchanting home.
Cross-legged on a green-and-white quilt spread out over the ground, the fairy reached for his hand again, drawing him to his knees. Moss crept up the gnarled walls, like hairs on an old man’s grizzled face. A nosegay of wildflowers rested in an alcove. From a chest, books, ribbon, and a yellow-haired doll spilled out.
And food.
She unwrapped a napkin, displaying the most beautiful pastry dotted with raisins and sugar. From another cloth, buttery biscuits appeared. And purple berries. And firm cheese. And was that cream sitting on a book? Thick, yellow cream in a translucent cup with a dainty spoon to serve it.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
Julian’s stomach growled. “No.”
