Laurell Hamilton - Never After

Never After

Table of Contents

Praise for #1 New York Times bestselling author

Laurell K. Hamilton

What The Da Vinci Code did for the religious thriller,

the Anita Blake series has done for the vampire novel.

USA Today

Vampire hunter Anita Blake hasnt slowed down

through sixteen novels. St. Louis Post Dispatch

Praise for New York Times bestselling author

Yasmine Galenorn

A powerhouse author; a master of the craft who is tak

ing the industry by storm, and for good reason!

New York Times bestselling author Maggie Shayne

Galenorns kick-butt fae ramp up the action in a wyrd

world gone awry!

Patricia Rice, author of Mystic Guardian

Praise for New York Times bestselling author

Marjorie M. Liu

Readers of early Laurell K. Hamilton [and] Charlaine

Harris . . . should try Liu now and catch a rising star.

Publishers Weekly

The boundlessness of Lius imagination never ceases to

amaze.Booklist

Praise for national bestselling author

Sharon Shinn

Shinn is a master.Mary Jo Putney

Sharon Shinns books have been on my comfort shelf

ever since Archangel came out.Anne McCaffrey

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NEVER AFTER

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the authors

PRINTING HISTORY

Jove premium edition / November 2009

Copyright 2009 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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eISBN : 978-1-101-14896-9

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Can He Bake a Cherry Pie?

LAURELL K. HAMILTON

The Earl of Chillswoth was a pervert, and everyone knew it. Elinore knew it, and the sensation of his age-spotted hand over her pale young one frightened her more than anything had ever frightened her before, because the earl, though a known abuser of every kind of vice, was wealthy and well connected at court. Her father was neither of these things, because of the small matter of a disagreement with the current kings father about a war. The war was long over, the kings father long dead, but Elinores father longed to regain his standing at court. It wasnt just for himself, he reasoned, but for his two sons. The fact that the price for saving the family reputation was his only daughters health, happiness, and body didnt seem to bother her father. Elinore found that . . . disappointing.

Hed never been particularly affectionate, except in that absent way that fathers have, but she had thought, truly, that he loved her as a daughter. The fact that he had already agreed to marry her to the aging earl, with his hungry eyes and wet lips and overly familiar hands, without so much as, Im sorry, Elinore, had made her realize that to her father, she was not real. She was not a son, and thus was only something to negotiate with, to use as a bribe, like land, or a fine horse. She was property. Legally, she knew she was, but she hadnt realized that her own father believed it.

Her mother had been deaf to her pleas, and even now sat smiling at the other end of the huge banquet table. It was the celebration for midsummer. It was a time of games, dancing, bright colors, and looking the other way when some of the young girls and men went off by themselves. Many a hurried marriage followed midsummer. Elinore had always been a good girl. She had refused all those handsome young men. She had been dutiful, and pure, and everything a daughter should be. She had her mothers long yellow hair; skin like milk that had never known a hard day in the sun. Her eyes were the color of cornflowersby far her best feature, so her mother told her. She had her grandmothers eyesagain, so she was told. Her grandmother had been a great beauty in her day, but sadly stubborn. Elinore was even named after that lost ancestress. Shed always been very unlike the dead grandmother. She had been pliable, and look where all that good behavior had gotten her.

The Earl of ChillswothCall me Donaldleered down the table at her. He was sitting by her father, not because he had the highest rank, but because he was the highest in favor at the distant court of the king. She did not wish to call him Donald, and she did not wish to have her father announce to all that she would be the earls fourth wife. Or was it fifth? Two of them had been as young as Elinore, and they had not lived to see twenty-five. One had died in childbirth, but no one wanted to talk about what happened to the last one. Shed heard whispers that the old man was becoming unable to perform, and so his desire of the flesh had turned to harder things. She did not understand everything that was meant by that sentence, but she understood enough to know that she did not want to be the earls fourth, or fifth, wife.