Lord of Fire (56 page)

Damn,
he thought bleakly. That would be the hardest part. He would rather rushed a fortified line of French earthworks than face a female’s tears, no matter her age, but it had to be done.

He looked hollowly at Lucien, the silver-tongued, multilingual diplomat-spy. “How do you tell a little girl who watched her parents drown that the only person left in the world who loved her is dead?”

Lucien winced and shook his head. “Gently, my friend. Very, very gently.”

“Jesus,” Damien whispered, then looked away and let out sharp curse under his breath. For
Sherbrooke’s sake, he vowed to give the girl the best of everything, even if it meant foregoing the purchase of the broodmares with which he had planned on starting his racing stock in the spring—his dream, such as it was.

Above all, he would find out who had done this.

“I’ll go with you to
London if you wish,” Lucien offered, watching him closely.

“Thanks, but give me a moment,” he muttered, scratching his scruffy jaw with a barren sigh. “I’ve got to shave.”

Ready or not, it was time to face the world.

This book contains an excerpt for the forthcoming edition of
Lord of Ice
by Gaelen Foley. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

An Ivy Book

Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

Copyright © 2001 by Gaelen Foley

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the
United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York
, and simultaneously in
Canada by Random House of Canada Limited,
Toronto.

Ivy Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.ballantinebooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

eISBN 0-345-45496-0

v1.0