Page 82 of A Bloom for a Blacksmith

“Because I’m quite sure he hasn’t.”

“And I did my best to assuage her of her suspicions—”

“Good, because he’s very devoted her,” Darius stated.

“So I suggested she go to his bedchamber instead of waiting for him to come to hers.”

Darius stared at her before he barked a laugh. “Well, good. For him and for her.”

When he didn’t say anything else, she scoffed. “Well, what did you learn?”

“Our secret is safe.”

“So… he is an Immortal?” she asked in whisper.

“We had it sorted correctly, yes, but he was an Immortal for at least a couple of hundred years before he accepted the Woodhurst title. Like me, he didn’t understand what happened when he died the first time and then came back to life. After that, it took him several decades of not aging to realize he wasn’t a mortal.”

“In battle?” she guessed.

“Indeed. From what he remembers, he was an orphan who spent most of his time in Prussia before moving west to the Netherlands. Aligned himself with William the Orange, proved himself as an officer, and he’s been Lord Woodhurst ever since.”

“Your paths didn’t cross before Neerwinden?” she asked with worry.

“No.”

“So… why did he keep your letter?”

Here Darius seemed hesitant to share what he had learned. “He… uh, suspected I was like him. Said something about a sensation he felt in his head whenever I was near. The buzzing in your head you’re always blaming on me.”

“That’s your essence, darling,” she replied. For years, she hadn’t known what to call it, but the term seemed to fit the effect of his consciousness on hers. “Although it might have bothered me a few thousand years ago, I’m quite happy to feel it whenever you’re near.”

“Glad to hear it,” he deadpanned.

“I think it’s interesting he noticed it. Did you sense anything from him?” she asked. “I only detected a slighting buzzing. Nothing as apparent as your essence, which I adore, by the way.”

“He’s not as old as me, and he probably hasn’t taken the life of another Immortal, so he doesn’t have any other essences clambering for attention.”

Although Darius possessed a few other consciousnesses, he managed to keep control over them, so they no longer surfaced when he slept.

He had actually taken possession of the body of the last Immortal he had killed, allowing his essence to settle into it as opposed coming back to life in his own body. There were too many witnesses to that death in the gladiatorial arena, and had the audience been allowed to watch as that mortally wounded body stitched itself back together, he probably would have been burned at the stake.

As he’d told Stella, that wasn’t a death he wished to experience, and she could completely understand what he meant.

“So, he kept the letter, but why?”

Pulled from his brief reverie, Darius realized he hadn’t asked Woodhurst. “I think he expected to cross paths with me again long before now, and then when he didn’t, he tucked the letter away and waited. Then he met you.”

“Me? How did he know I was an Immortal?”

Darius lifted a shoulder. “The same way I knew,” he replied. “You give off this amazingly pleasant and very addictive sensation,” he accused. “Your essence.”

“That’s only meant for you,” she groused.

“Well, he remembered the letter and knew how to read it,” he said. “Wasn’t hard for him to put two and two together.”

“What did he do after the Battle of Neerwinden?”

“After serving with a few armies, he took a wife and then another before discovering he couldn’t father a child—”