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Swallowing Darkness :: Гамильтон Лорел
Страница: 35 из 242"It will be a few months before ya have to worryabout mothering."
"Is it ever too soon to worry?" I asked.
Sholto had come to stand on the far side of the bed from Gran. Doyle and Rhys were looking at the thread. Doyle was actually sniffing it rather than using his hands. I'd seen him do that to magic before, as if he would trace it back to its owner like a hound on a scent.
Sholto took my hand in his, and I didn't pull away, but I saw Gran's face harden. Not good. I looked at him, and what I saw in his face reassured me. I'd expected him to look arrogant or angry, and to have that directed at her. I'd expected that he took my hand to prove to Gran that she couldn't stop him from touching me. But his face was gentle, and he was gazing at me.
He gave me a smile as gentle as any I'd seen on his face. His triple yellow eyes with their individual lines of gold were soft, and he looked like a man in love. I was not in love with Sholto. I had only been alone with him twice, both times ending in violent interruptions, neither of them our doing. We didn't really know each other yet, but he looked at me as if I were the world, and it was a good, safe place.
It made me uncomfortable enough that I dropped my eyes so he would not see that my look did not match his. I could not give him love in my face, not yet. Love, for me, was made up of time and shared experience. Sholto and I had not had that yet. How strange to be with his child, and not to be in love with him.
Was this how my mother had felt? Married, bedded, but not in love, then to suddenly find herself pregnant with the child of a stranger? For the first time ever, I had some sympathy with my mother's emotional ambiguity toward me.
I had loved my father, Prince Essus, but perhaps he had been a better father than husband. I realized in that moment that I truly knew nothing of how my father and mother had interacted. Had their tastes in bed been so different that they had no middle ground? I knew their politics were opposite poles.
I held Sholto's hand, and had one of those adult moments when you realize that maybe, just maybe, your hatred of your parent is not completely justified. It was not a comfortable feeling to think of my mother as the wronged party instead of my father.
It made me look up at Sholto. His white-blond hair had begun to escape from the ponytail he'd worn to rescue me. He'd used glamour to make his hair look short, but the illusion might have been harmed if someone had become tangled in his nearly ankle-length hair. Strands of his hair trailed around a face as handsome as any in the courts. Only Frost had had a more masculine beauty.
"Is it ever too soon to worry?" I asked.
Sholto had come to stand on the far side of the bed from Gran. Doyle and Rhys were looking at the thread. Doyle was actually sniffing it rather than using his hands. I'd seen him do that to magic before, as if he would trace it back to its owner like a hound on a scent.
Sholto took my hand in his, and I didn't pull away, but I saw Gran's face harden. Not good. I looked at him, and what I saw in his face reassured me. I'd expected him to look arrogant or angry, and to have that directed at her. I'd expected that he took my hand to prove to Gran that she couldn't stop him from touching me. But his face was gentle, and he was gazing at me.
He gave me a smile as gentle as any I'd seen on his face. His triple yellow eyes with their individual lines of gold were soft, and he looked like a man in love. I was not in love with Sholto. I had only been alone with him twice, both times ending in violent interruptions, neither of them our doing. We didn't really know each other yet, but he looked at me as if I were the world, and it was a good, safe place.
It made me uncomfortable enough that I dropped my eyes so he would not see that my look did not match his. I could not give him love in my face, not yet. Love, for me, was made up of time and shared experience. Sholto and I had not had that yet. How strange to be with his child, and not to be in love with him.
Was this how my mother had felt? Married, bedded, but not in love, then to suddenly find herself pregnant with the child of a stranger? For the first time ever, I had some sympathy with my mother's emotional ambiguity toward me.
I had loved my father, Prince Essus, but perhaps he had been a better father than husband. I realized in that moment that I truly knew nothing of how my father and mother had interacted. Had their tastes in bed been so different that they had no middle ground? I knew their politics were opposite poles.
I held Sholto's hand, and had one of those adult moments when you realize that maybe, just maybe, your hatred of your parent is not completely justified. It was not a comfortable feeling to think of my mother as the wronged party instead of my father.
It made me look up at Sholto. His white-blond hair had begun to escape from the ponytail he'd worn to rescue me. He'd used glamour to make his hair look short, but the illusion might have been harmed if someone had become tangled in his nearly ankle-length hair. Strands of his hair trailed around a face as handsome as any in the courts. Only Frost had had a more masculine beauty.