Author: Tammy Falkner
Category: Fantasy
Go to read content：https://readnovelfree.com/p/47688_11
“Grandfather has died,” Marcus said. He inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled out through his mouth to calm himself. “Your presence is required at home.”
Claire laid a hand on her chest. If she didn’t, it might just stop beating. Her grandparents had raised her and her brother and sister.
The wind began to swirl in earnest.
“Prepare yourself, because Lord and Lady Ramsdale are in the land of the fae, as well as Sophia’s duke and his daughter.”
Humans never entered the land of the fae. “It’s forbidden,” she bit out.
“So is falling in love with a human. But apparently, people do it anyway.”
Just as Claire stepped aboard the moving wind, ready to be swept away to the land of the fae, the light flared to life in the bedchamber where she’d been with Finn. She looked at Marcus and said, “Idiots, the lot of them. I could never, ever fall in love with a human.”
“There are worse things than falling in love,” the garden gnome said quietly.
Claire chose to keep her retort to herself. Just as she would keep what had happened that night to herself. Forever.
Seven
Winter 1817
Change was afoot in the land of the fae. And if there was one thing Claire Thorne didn’t like, it was change. She preferred for all of her thoughts and feelings to fit in nice little compartments, well organized and constantly tended. Otherwise, one lone thought could topple all the others. One rogue feeling could shake the very foundation her life was built upon. She imagined them all crashing into a heap like a fallen house made of playing cards. She’d never had this fear before.
Not until now. Not until her parents had shown up in the land of the fae. Both her fae mother and her nonfae father were here. And it was wrong. Change was wrong. Committing Unpardonable Errors was wrong.
Claire glanced over at her mother, Lady Ramsdale, as she danced barefoot on the riverbank, lifting her skirts high above her knees. She stuck one bare toe into the cool running stream and flicked water toward Claire, who scowled and moved farther up the bank. Her mother tsked at her, and Claire made her face into a horridly mocking scowl.
“Your face could freeze like that,” her mother warned.
Lady Anne, the six-year-old daughter of the Duke of Robinsworth, giggled into her cupped hand.
Lord Ramsdale—Claire’s father whom she’d never laid eyes on until three months ago—dropped down beside her in the grass and nudged her shoulder with his. “Why such a long face?” he asked quietly. His voice sounded almost like he cared. He hadn’t cared for twenty-seven years. Why on earth should he start now? Just because Sophia, her sister, had brought their mother and father to the land of the fae? Just because she’d forced them to remember they had children not of their world? It was too little too late.
It simply wasn’t done. A faerie that had been cast out of the fae and her human husband had no business being in the land of the fae. Nor did Ashley Trimble, the Duke of Robinsworth, and his daughter, Lady Anne, neither of whom was the least bit magical.
Lord Ramsdale, who Claire once more reminded herself was her father, nudged her with his shoulder again. “Are you planning to talk to me?” he asked. He leaned back on one elbow and regarded her warily.
Lord Ramsdale made a motion with his eyes toward his wife, and she took Lady Anne’s hand and led her farther down the stream, supposedly so he and Claire could have a private talk. She didn’t want a private talk. She wanted life to go back to normal. She wanted to go on a mission. She wanted the humans cast from the land of the fae. She wanted all thoughts of Lord Phineas Trimble out of her head. She wanted her boxes back in their appropriate places. She could see clearly where each should sit. She bit her lower lip between her teeth and didn’t respond.
Claire had refused to use magic as long as the humans were in the land of the fae. She’d even gone so far as to have Marcus lock her dust up in the family safe. It just wasn’t proper for humans to be in her land. And she wouldn’t use magic or go on any missions until they left.
“Ignoring us won’t make us go away, you know?” her father chided.
“One can hope,” Claire shot back.
He grimaced and lay back with a huff. Claire almost felt bad for him. But only for a moment. It wasn’t her duty to make him feel good about the way events had taken place. She’d never asked to be born, after all. They’d done that all on their own. Then her parents had let their fae children be taken back to the land of the fae to be raised by grandparents and led to believe they had no parents at all. Twenty-seven years with no parents. She certainly didn’t need any at this point.
“What can we do to make it easier for you?” he asked quietly.
“Leave.”
He frowned. “We just arrived.”
They’d been there since winter, and now it was spring.
Her father picked a handful of daisies and began to make a chain of them, looping one together with the next until he’d made a short circle of them. He held it out to her with one arched brow.
She shook her head. The last thing she wanted from him was a chain of daisies. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was a lady. A faerie. And he was not of her world.