The Forest Lord (23 page)

Though the day was waning, Hartley held the wind at bay so that the afternoon's warmth lingered even as the sun began its downward journey. When
Eden came out of the house, slim and youthful in a simple gown of sprigged muslin, the angled rays turned her into a gilded angel.

Others had seen what he had. Conversation dwindled, and faces turned toward
Eden in curiosity and anticipation.

Hartley watched from a distance as she realized what had happened during her absence. A smile, unfashionably wide and quite inelegant, broke across her face.

She glided to the nearest table. "Welcome," she said almost shyly. "Welcome to all of you. I am so glad you came." She beamed at Mrs. Topping and her daughters. "You are enjoying yourselves?"

Voices murmured respectful thanks and agreement. They were still a trifle wary, but they no longer shut her out.

Eden
moved among the tables, greeting each man, woman, and child by name. As she passed near Hartley, she met his gaze. Her smile altered subtly, meant not for the crowd but for him alone. Hartley moved as close as he dared without seeming too bold.

"People of the dale," she said, lifting her hand for attention. "This is a day of celebration, the beginning of a new age in our dale. I asked you here in the hope that you will share my belief."

A long silence was broken by a lone male voice crying, "Aye!" Said another, "They ha' nae sheep in
London, I hear, but t'lady is mighty handy with the wee beasties!"

Eden
blushed, but her eyes glowed with pleasure. "I have heard that May Eve has always been a time for celebration. And so we shall celebrate tonight, with games and music and prizes for the finest dancers."

A few in the crowd cheered. Young men fidgeted on their benches and cast mooncalf glances at pretty young women. The murmur of enthusiastic response swelled and then faded into an expectant silence.

The back of Hartley's neck prickled, and he turned just as the crowd parted to make a path for a new arrival.

The newcomer was no farmer. He paused just behind the outermost table, leaning on a polished, silver-headed cane, beaver hat in hand. He was handsome and dark, hair meticulously coifed, his suit of clothing fitted to his lean frame as if he had been sewn into it.

Hartley had met his like before. Not in this century, as men reckoned the years; when he had courted
Eden, they had remained in the country despite all her urgings to the contrary.

But Hartley recognized this man for what he was: one of
Eden's
kind
. A son of privilege brought up, as she had been, to all the pleasures and comforts money and social connections could buy.
The sort of polished dandy to whom
Eden would naturally be drawn.

She stared at the visitor. He bowed.

"I beg your pardon for intruding upon your celebration, Lady Eden. Perhaps my call is inopportune, and I may come again at a later time?"

"Lord Rushborough?"
Eden said. Hartley could hear the speeding of her heartbeat and the hitch in her breath.

Points of fire burned under the skin of Hartley's forehead. The primitive, rutting male—the angry and powerful beast that was his other earthly self—recognized a dangerous rival.

With an act of will, he remembered that he was Fane. That he had but one claim on
Eden, and it was not her body or soul.

Certainly not her love.

Like one enchanted,
Eden waited while the dandy wound his way among the tables and stopped before her. "Lady Eden," he said, "my deepest condolences upon your loss."

Eden
emerged from her spell. She smiled at the intruder and extended her hand.

"Lord Rushborough. This is an unexpected honor."

Rushborough took her hand and kissed the air above her glove. "I do apologize. I had thought that Lady Claudia was aware of my visit to the countryside."

Lady Claudia
. Hartley remembered every nuance of his confrontation with the woman. He stared at Rushborough through narrowed eyes.

The dandy ignored him, as he would any servant. And so did
Eden.

"You know how slow the mails can be here in the country,"
Eden said with a lilt in her voice. "I confess that I did not expect to see you so far from
London, in the midst of the Season."

"But I had an excellent reason to come, Lady Eden." He took a step back, raised his quizzing glass, and swept the curious gathering with his gaze. "I am not intruding?"

"These are my farmers and tenants. May I introduce you to Mr. Appleyard, our curate?"

"As you wish."

She led the marquess across the lawn, and Hartley trailed behind. Mr. Appleyard looked up from his conversation as they approached.

"Lord Rushborough, Mr. Appleyard."

The curate bowed hastily, quite overwhelmed. "An honor," he said.
"A very great honor indeed, my lord."

Lord Rushborough nodded to the curate with casual condescension and looked at
Eden as if nothing else around him was of any consequence. She made a random, uneasy movement that heightened Hartley's vigilance.

"You have traveled a great distance, Lord Rushborough," she said. "My aunt will wish to welcome you herself. Where are you staying?"

"I have taken a house in a neighboring dale—though I must say that you enjoy better weather by far. I can only presume that it is your presence here that works such wonders upon nature."

She blushed. "My housekeeper will prepare a private meal for you, Lord Rushborough. We will talk as soon as I am free."

"My poor Lady Eden," he murmured, looking into her eyes. "How dreadfully dull for you, to waste your many talents on unappreciative farmers. I am very glad I came."

Hartley could feel all that they left unsaid, messages shared from a past in which Hartley had no part. But he understood well enough that Lord Rushborough had come with a purpose, and that was Eden herself.

"Shaw," she said, "please
see
to Lord Rushborough's horse."

Now, indeed, he had been put in his place. He turned on his heel and went to fetch the dandy's overbred hack. Rushborough offered
Eden his arm, and the two of them strolled into the house.

Hartley tended the horse, whose mind was too weary to offer more than a sigh of thanks, and returned to the park to wait for
Eden, every muscle in his body rigid with anger.

When she emerged, her smile was fixed like that of a painted figurine. Mr. Appleyard promptly intercepted her.

"My lady," the curate said, "what a privilege it is that Lord Rushborough should visit our humble parish. We are blessed with an abundance of riches this day."

"Yes,"
Eden
said,
her mind clearly elsewhere.

"An honor.
A very great honor.
Is it not as I predicted, my lady? Your feast has been a success."

"So it has." Suddenly she noticed Hartley. "I thank you for all your help."

Appleyard was not so oblivious as to mistake a dismissal. He glanced incuriously at Hartley and bowed himself away.

"Hartley," she said, avoiding his eyes. "Thank you for looking after Lord Rushborough's horse."

She was trying to keep him at a distance, and he knew why. "You did not expect this Rushborough, did you?"

"No."

"But you know him."

"Yes.
In
London.
We were… friends."

Oh, no. They were much more than that. The definition of friendship among men did not include such glances as the marquess had given
Eden.

Yet she had been married until a few months ago. Had she betrayed her husband with this haughty mortal lord?

"Why did he come?" Hartley asked, unable to keep the coldness from his voice.

"I had no idea that he had even left
London until Lady Claudia…" Hidden memories played behind her eyes. "I am still in mourning, and Rushborough hates the country as much as I—" She stopped.

"As much as you do?"
He curled his lip. "Are you glad he came?"

"I have known him for many years, and he is welcome here. He is also a peer of the realm, and you will treat him with respect."

With a few sentences she demolished the closeness that had grown between them and set them back to where they had begun.

"I will treat him as he deserves," he said.

"And have I deserved to be mocked and subjected to such disrespect?" she asked, matching his coldness. "If you disapprove of my guests, you are free to leave at any time." She picked up her skirts and strode purposefully toward the troupe of musicians who had arrived from Ambleside to accompany the dancing.

Hartley did not follow. His thoughts slowed to match the dull, leaden pace of his heartbeat. Even when the music began and
Eden called her guests to the first dance, he could not bring himself to walk away. He watched her preside over the first set and the next and the next.

He left the gathering just as the dancing ended and
Eden announced the judging for prizes. She, Mr. Rumbold, and Mr. Appleyard consulted, and the crowd waited in a hush of expectation.

Hartley missed the outcome. He strode to the back of the house, unremarked, and entered through the servant's door. He took the stairs two at a time until he reached the nursery.

Had Miss Waterson been there, he would have walked right past her. She was not. Donal lay in his trundle bed in the adjoining room, curled up on the sheets with the blanket tossed aside. In sleep he seemed far younger than his five years.

For a moment Hartley gazed down at his son. It would be easy to leave now and take the boy to the forest. When the searchers looked in that direction, as they eventually must, he and the boy would be through the gate to Tir-na-nog.

Home.

He closed his eyes and saw
Eden's face.

Not yet. Not without giving her…

A little more time to spend with the son he would steal away? A chance to recognize who she rejected when she turned her back upon the man she called Hartley Shaw?

Or the thing he had begun to consider when he had seen her with Mrs. Byrne on Candlemas Eve?

The memory of
Eden on that night, and the near kiss today, diffused his anger. He no longer wished to hurt her. His desire for
Eden, and hers for him, had become too strong to resist. He had ceased to seek revenge; she was on the verge of surrender. When he and Eden lay together, as they inevitably must—marquess or no marquess—he could make sure that their joining left her with a child to replace the one she lost in Donal.

He had the power to assure fertility, as befitted the god men had once called him; he could even make certain that such a child was free of Fane gifts that might mark it out as different and thus unacceptable among men.

He knew
Eden would welcome such a child, whatever questions its birth raised in the minds of her own people. She had too much of mortal love to turn her back on any creature that needed her. She would hold the babe from the hour of its birth and never doubt its origins.

Whatever pain he might feel at abandoning a child of his body, it would be no worse than what
Eden would suffer when Donal was gone. And he would leave a little of himself behind on this earth, whose creatures he had protected. If
Eden married again, she'd give the child a father…

Rushborough.
Did he seek
Eden as his mate—that popinjay who didn't deserve to kiss her feet?

The twin points on Hartley's forehead began to throb.

He knelt by the bed, stroking Donal's soft hair away from his face.

"Wake up, my son," he said.

Without the normal transition from sleep to waking, Donal opened his eyes. "Hartley?" he murmured. "Is it night?"

"Not yet." Donal held up his arms, and Hartley lifted him. "We are going to a party, Donal. Would you like that?"

"A party?"
Donal's eyes brightened.
"The one in the park?
Will Mother be there?"

"Indeed she will."

Donal performed a perfect imitation of a rooster's crow. Hartley kissed his cheek and set him down. Together they made for escape.

"Where are you taking that child?"

Donal stopped dead, like a rabbit hoping to be ignored by a fox. Miss Waterson stood in the doorway, her hands upon her hips.