THE FOREST LORD By Susan Krinard

She drew the crumpled bedcover up to her shoulders, her face expressionless. “Behaved wrongly? By stealing my virtue, which was gone long ago? I can hardly claim to be an innocent victim, can I?”

Her mockery cut, but not at him. She turned her bewilderment into rage against herself, like a beast tearing at its own limbs to escape man’s trap.

Such confusion, such bitterness, such passion accompanied one human emotion above all others. But she had said she could not love again. He had no cause to doubt her. They had lain together, pleasured each other… that was all.

Or was it? Did he misjudge her now, as he had six years past? Was it possible… that she loved him?

Loved him as she had claimed to love him before, when she’d believed she had nothing to lose and the world at her feet?

Old bitterness gave his words a harshness he had not intended. “I do not apologize for taking you,” he said, “but I was… cold to you. I caused you pain you did not deserve.”

Eden inched back on the bed until she was encased in a fortress of pillows heaped against the headboard. “How kind of you to say so. May I assume by this affectionate declaration that you do not intend… do not intend to—” Her words were lost in a low sob. “You will not… take advantage of…”

He reached across the bed for the only part of her he could touch. Her bare foot was icy cold. He thought of warmth, and felt her flesh come back to life under his hand.

“You know me so little,” he said thickly. “Have I been so heartless, Eden? Have I ever treated you so ill?”

She was fighting tears with all her strength, determined not to let him see her vulnerability. He stroked her foot from toe to ankle, soothing with no intent of seduction.

“We wanted each other,” he said, “and we gave each other pleasure, did we not? But I… it has been very long since I have been affected by a woman as I have been by you.”

He said it for her sake, and then he realized that it was true. Even more true than it had been when she was an innocent, and he so certain of his Fane superiority.

The frozen rigidity of her face gave way at last. A tear slid down her cheek. He caught the crystalline drop on a fingertip.

“Don’t,” she protested, averting her head. “When you are gentle like this, I—”

“Believe me? Believe that I wish no harm to you, Eden.” He caught her chin and turned her to face him again. He closed his eyes and forced out another truth. “I… care for you.”

She trembled. “Do not attempt to be kind—”

“I have not often been called kind. What kindness I possess you have awakened. But I do not make promises that I cannot keep.”

She looked at him, clear-eyed and suddenly done with weeping. “You never did make promises, did you? Nor did I. As I can make none now.”

“No.”

She remained burrowed among her pillows like a hedgehog halfway coaxed from its nest. “All of this… seems somehow beyond our control.”

“Then why struggle, Eden?” He took her small, cold hands and kissed her fingertips. “You behave as if you have earned punishment, when it is pleasure you deserve. That I can promise you. I did please you?”

Her breathing quickened. “Yes.”

“And you, Eden… you pleased me very much. Why can we not continue to please each other?”

She withdrew her hand from his. “But for how long? A week? A month?”

Her voice was completely calm, her words measured and rational and unweighted by emotion. Surely he had been right to believe her that night in the park, when she had told him that love was impossible. She did not love him. Already she accepted that there could be no future for them, though her reasons came of ignorance. She didn’t question why he did not offer marriage. She would have been appalled if he had.

Appalled no matter what guise he wore.

But a proposal was the last thing she need fear from him. “You speak of time as if it were solid and unchanging,” he said. “A day can seem a week, and a month a year.”