Shadows and Light by Anne Bishop Page B

Ashk. There was something sharp behind the words that were teasingly said.
    Ari didn’t seem to notice. She blushed fiercely, then laughed. “All right. We enjoyed each other, and neither of us was interested in counting on our fingers that night to see when a babe might come.”
    Wanting to turn the conversation to something else, Morag said, “You planted a lot of beans. You must like them.”
    Ari wrinkled her nose. “I like peas better, but Neall likes beans. I want to be sure enough plants grow so that he can eat all the beans he wants fresh and still give me enough to can so that he’ll have some over the turning of the seasons.”
    Glancing at Ashk, Morag was surprised to see pleasure and pain in equal measure on the other woman’s face.
    “Are you feeling well?” Ashk asked quietly. “Neall mentioned that you’ve nodded off a few times almost before you’ve finished eating the evening meal. You shouldn’t be that tired after sleeping during the day.”
    “I —”Ari looked around, as if checking to make sure it was still just the three of them. “I don’t really sleep during the day.”
    “Oh?”
    “When Neall and I went to Breton last month, I traded some of the weavings I’d done over the winter for fabric to make clothes for the babe, and something for me to wear while the babe’s still growing in me. And I got a fine piece of linen to make Neall a shirt for the Summer Solstice. I hid the linen among the rest of the fabric because he would have dug in his heels about me getting something for him that cost so dear.” Ari hesitated, took a deep breath, then let it outslowly. “All those years when Neall lived with Baron Felston, he never had anything new, anything fine. All his clothes were Royce’s cast-offs. But this is Neall’s home; this is his mother’s land. He’s gentry here, and a Lord in his own right. So I want him to have something new and fine. And I want it to be a surprise, so I can work on it only when I’m supposed to be resting because that’s the only time when Neall takes care of chores that aren’t close to the cottage and I can be sure he won’t walk in before I can hide the shirt.”
    What’s going on in your head and heart, Ashk? Morag wondered as that mixture of pain and pleasure filled Ashk’s face again before the woman looked away.
    “Fair warning,” Ashk murmured. “The young Lord approaches.”
    Ari started weeding vigorously.
    Morag rose to her feet, feeling oddly protective but uncertain why that was so.
    Neall strode toward the kitchen garden. He frowned when he reached the wall and saw Ari.
    “You’re supposed to be resting,” he said.
    Ari looked over her shoulder. “I rested. Now I’m teaching Morag how to weed the garden.”
    “I already told her how to do that.”
    “And now I’m showing her how to do it.”
    Before Neall could say anything more, Ashk said briskly, “Come, young Lord. While Morag has her lesson, it’s time for yours.”
    Morag watched Ashk and Neall walk toward the woods. Neall looked human, but his father had been half Fae and his mother had been a witch, a Daughter of the House of Gaian. Ever since their arrival here last summer, after he and Ari had fled from Ridgeley and the Inquisitors who had come there to destroy Ari because she was a witch, Ashk had been teaching him how to nurture the power that had lain dormant within him, how to be a Lord of the Woods.
    That much Morag had learned from Neall in the handful of days since they had welcomed her as friend and family and invited her to stay with them. But there were things she sensed weren’t being said when she spent time with the Fae who lived in this Old Place. More often than not, when she asked a question, the answer was, “That is for Ashk to answer.” And Ashk, who could be quite forthright about many things, turned away far more questions than she answered.
    Who are you, Ashk? I’ve never seen a Lord or Lady of the Woods rule over a Clan the way you