Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,28
baby and talked before Delae put her to her breast to feed.
That, too, was a wonder, the simple magic of mother and child together.
Lifting her eyes, Delae met Dorovan’s gaze and they shared the pleasure, Dorovan brushing her hair back, feeling the connection through the bond they shared.
They made love while the baby slept.
Kort returned only briefly to see the child but he did so only at sword point, Delae adamant. She wouldn’t let that drunken reprobate touch her baby, however much she might be his, too. Dorovan had given her more lessons. Never again would she be forced against her will to anything. She would defend her home and family to the death.
As the years passed it never became possible to tell if Selah was Elven or not. She gave no sign of it although she was an unusually healthy baby and child. Her ears were shaped a little differently but not with the distinctive Elven points. There was no sign of the magic with which Elves were born. In every way she was her mother’s daughter, save her hair was straighter and darker and her eyes were as brown as a doe’s, as Delae’s mother’s had been. She would be taller than her mother but Kort was tall. In the shape of her face, though, the set of her eyes, her mouth, she was Delae’s.
To Kort’s disgust.
Dorovan was more father to Selah than Kort ever was, whether in body or presence.
If she was Elven, they wouldn’t know it for years as she failed to age as men did. The only other sign was her gift for working with plants and herbs as his folk did, but some men had a touch of that gift as well. She had no hand with a sword nor did she desire one.
Delae loved watching them together, Selah with her head slightly bent, her brown eyes turned up to look at Dorovan.
After a time, they simply forgot to think about it, Dorovan loved sweet quiet Selah as if she were his own, for herself, and she loved him as well with her gentle warmth. Many was the time they would work together side by side among the herbs she’d grown, Dorovan instructing her in the uses of them. Or the three of them would sit in the sun, Selah having inherited her mother’s skill with a needle, Delae talking of the changes in the homestead or Dorovan of what went on in the wider world.
Delae aged but as far as Dorovan was concerned she only became more refined as silver threaded through the fire of her beautiful hair.
Chapter Ten
Word of the Progress had been sent around to all the homesteaders - a celebration of Geric’s coming of age, of his naming as Heir to the Kingdom of Riverford and Delae’s holding wasn’t to be neglected. She’d done well over the years.
The courtyard was abustle with the preparations. Baskets of flowers hung from the posts of the archways of the east and west wings.
Delae had had Kort’s rooms cleared and prepared for the arrival of the King and Queen, the guest chamber for the newly named Heir.
Word had come only the year before that Kort had been found dead in an alley. Oddly some part of Delae grieved for him… more for the fact and manner of his death. She actually mourned for Kort himself very little and grieved because she felt so little for his passing. Any more than she’d grieved at the loss of his parents. She’d wept more and harder when Petra had died and then Hallis had followed her shortly after.
The homestead seemed far emptier for the loss of those two than it did for the loss of those whose blood had once owned it.
Even so, she never slept in Kort’s rooms and never would.
Sighing, she put those thoughts aside, smiling as she watched Selah gently instruct sweet Lucie and Lucie’s daughter Keran in the preparations.
The great room had been swept clean of every grain of the old rushes, the wood floor had been washed, oiled and new rushes put down over it before the precious carpets had been restored to their proper places. All the shutters were open to allow fresh air inside, the light falling brilliantly over the chairs Delae had made, each seat cushion carefully decorated in her own tapestry.
All of the bedrooms and bed linens had been aired and freshened - the straw ticking replaced and the straps on the beds tightened.