The Forest Lord (16 page)

And I shall spend the next few days preparing for another round of copious thanks
, she thought wryly. "Good day, Mr. Appleyard."

"Good day. May the Lord's blessings be upon
you!
" He bowed himself out of the drawing room and was led away by Armstrong, who closed the door quietly behind him.

Eden
sighed and sank back in her chair. One more item checked off her mental list. Her brain felt positively befuddled, filled as it was with figures and inventories and accounts, repairs to be made, servants to hire, and tenants to visit. The work to be done seemed endless, and the limited funds at her disposal could not possibly be enough to complete it.

Certainly Aunt Claudia did not approve of her expenditures.
Eden had never been thrifty or careful with money; Claudia had reason to doubt her. But
Eden was determined to prove that she was not the frivolous scattergood she had been for so much of her life.

And all this had real purpose. In the fortnight since she had arrived at Hartsmere, every minute of every day had been occupied with learning her role and duties as mistress of Hartsmere or discovering the joys and challenges of motherhood. It was hard work, and she had concentrated until her head ached and a thousand minor concerns kept her from sleep.

But she'd never been happier. Every morning she woke to discover some new miracle: one of Donal's rare smiles when she kissed his cheek, the glorious sun melting the last of the snow, each returning bird that appeared unexpectedly in the bare-branched elm by her window. The
whole world was about to spring back to life, opening up as if to embrace her.

She tried with minimal success to ignore the other reason for her happiness. Work distracted her, as did aiding the unfortunate. But whenever she saw Hartley Shaw grooming one of the horses until its glossy coat shone like porcelain, or speaking to Donal with such attentive gravity, her heart set up a thundering pulse that left her breathless.

It was almost as if his arrival, not hers, had signaled the changes in the dale. And that was ridiculous; she told herself that repeatedly and tried to avoid being near him. But the household staff was still small, Hartley was in charge of the stables, and his strength and versatility made it necessary to call on him frequently.

Above all, he was good for Donal. In spite of her very mixed feelings,
Eden could not deny it. There was enough of culture and education about Shaw that she need have no fear of her son picking up rough ways or compounding his ignorance while in Shaw's company. And every moment Donal was not with her, playing jackstraws, listening to her read from one of the old books in the library, or learning the proper way to eat at the table, he was looking for his new hero.

She could not resent Shaw for that. She suspected that the future governess would have a great deal more trouble confining Donal than she did.

Unable to sit still,
Eden got up and went to the glass-paned double doors connecting the drawing room to the garden. The garden spread out before her, no longer an ugly maze of weeds and undergrowth but tamed into something approaching order. There was still a touch of wildness about it, but she found that she liked it that way.

Perhaps her new appreciation went hand in hand with her gradual discovery that the countryside was not
Coventry after all. It was not a place to be avoided, a backwater where nothing ever happened. Even the woods seemed to beckon instead of repel. And Hartsmere itself, after a thorough cleaning by
a local charwomen
and two additional maidservants, revealed the charms she had overlooked as a girl.

Eden
heard voices just out of sight, and soon Hartley Shaw came into view, Donal trailing after him. Hartley touched a few of the dormant plants that he had shaped and nurtured with such surprising care, inviting Donal to do the same.

Hartley knelt on a patch of bare earth, his back blocking
Eden's view. Two heads, both nearly the same shade of brown, bent together. After a long moment, Hartley looked up. His nostrils flared as if to smell the air. Then he turned to look directly at
Eden.

As always, longing and desire roared through
Eden like a
Lakeland flood. She put out her hand to brace herself against the doorframe.

Hartley did not smile. He did so even less often than Donal—especially since their first visit to Birkdale. When he spoke to her, he didn't show his former impudence; in fact, he was noticeably distant. But instead of helping
Eden overcome her impossible attraction to him, his behavior only served to increase it.

She closed her eyes.
Who would have thought that you had such feelings left
?

"Mother?"

She opened her eyes to find Donal with a stalk of tiny white flowers in his hand.

"For you," he said and presented the flower to her. She was charmed far more than if the ton's richest peer had presented her with an expensive jewel, and profoundly touched.

"Thank you, Donal," she said. "What a very nice thing to do." She
was smelling
its perfume before she realized that it was a lily of the valley, a flower that did not bloom until well into spring. She looked over Donal's head for Hartley Shaw. He was no longer in the garden.

"Donal, where did you find this flower?" she asked.

"Hartley gave it me."

"And where did he find it?"

Donal pointed into the garden.
Eden saw only the bare patch of earth where Shaw and her son had knelt a few moments ago.

There was no sense in trying to make Donal explain. His heart was free of deception, though his imagination was quite extraordinary.

"Did you get your breakfast this morning?" she asked Donal with a bright smile.

"With Hartley, before the sun came up." All at once he was contrite. "Do you want me to wait for you next time, Mother?"

He could still surprise her. She hugged him lightly as he preferred. "I am quite the slugabed, am I not? You need not wait on breakfast, as long as you join me for luncheon."

Donal planted a wet kiss on her cheek. "Very well, Mother. May I go help Hartley with the horses now?"

"Off with you, then!" She watched him run through the garden and toward the stables. The flower, almost forgotten, claimed her attention again.

How very odd. The hothouse stoves have not been lit. How could Shaw have come by it?

"What have you there, Niece?"

Eden
turned with a guilty start to face Aunt Claudia. "Donal brought me a flower," she said, surprised at the stammer in her words.

"So I see.
How lovely."
Claudia examined the blossom and touched one tiny white, bell-shaped flower.
Eden waited for the obvious questions, but Claudia did not voice them. She glanced through the open doors.

"Donal is with Shaw again," she said.

"Yes."
Eden wandered across the room with an air of unconcern. "Have you become acquainted with him, Aunt?"

"I have no desire to, and you should keep your son away from such unwholesome influences."

"Children seem impressed by simple matters such as skill with horses and other mysterious adult knowledge."

"Donal spends as much time with that servant as he does with you."

"You cannot expect me to smother him. He has no other male to—"

"That can be remedied."

Eden
picked up a cracked porcelain shepherdess from the mantel, turning it about in her hands.
"When my mourning is over."

"I sometimes wonder if you might wish it to last forever."

"I want what is best for my son."

"Then you will be pleased to know that I have employed an experienced governess for Donal. She should be arriving today—in fact, at any moment."

Eden
squeezed the shepherdess in her fist until it bit into her palm.
No. Not so soon
! "But we had not yet discussed it."

Claudia sat down in a wing chair by the doors, serene and confident. "You may trust my judgment,
Eden. I couldn't trouble you when you were so preoccupied with estate affairs. I wrote to several
London friends for advice."

"Did you explain why we required a governess?"

"I gave out the story you have told everyone here: that your cousin's son has come into your care, and you intend to raise him as if he were your own." She waved such concerns aside. "This woman comes highly recommended. Miss Waterson raised both Lady Gilbert's sons and one of her daughters, and received an excellent character from her previous employer. We are extremely lucky that she finds herself between positions at precisely the time we require her services."

A professional governess, no doubt prune-faced and humorless.
Eden carefully set the porcelain figurine down on a chiffonier. "I have not even met her. How can you expect—"

"Donal needs discipline, as you yourself have admitted. You have no experience in raising children. You know as well as I that no lady of the
ton
caters to her child's daily needs. Donal must learn independence and his place in the world in order to preserve your fiction."

"I had no governess—not when I lived with my father or with you."

Claudia smiled. "Your father spoiled you. But when you came to me, you were a very quick study. You understood instinctively how to move in Society. You were a pleasure to teach. Donal is entirely different. He is half wild and uneducated. Once he is under Miss Waterson's care, he will no longer be running after servants. He will receive a proper English gentleman's education."

And that he must have
.
Eden canned herself and sat opposite her aunt. Claudia was her staunchest ally, her dearest friend.
Eden owed her more than she could ever hope to repay.

"I will see her,"
Eden said.

"That is all I ask."

While Claudia was in a receptive mood,
Eden broached another sensitive subject. "I have discussed the matter at length with Mrs. Byrne, and I do wish to go ahead with the tenants' dinner and fair. May Eve
seems
an ideal date. It will give me time to find a steward and distribute more goods to the tenants and villagers. Mr. Appleyard—"

"You know my opinion on bestowing such excessive generosity on the tenantry and laborers so soon," Claudia said. "They shall come to expect even more indulgence, which you can scarcely afford. And you've already done much."
Too much
, her silence added.

"Only because the estate was so badly neglected.
What I have spent thus far is much less than what I have paid for a few gowns in
London. I can hardly cavil at expenses now."

Claudia leaned forward, her handsome face filled with concern. "You were not intended for this,
Eden. You should have all the joy and pleasures of life, not its burdens. You must return to Society, to your rightful place."

For a moment,
Eden tried to imagine such a return, freed of her widow's weeds and on Rushborough's arm.
London seemed a million miles away, Almack's and Rotten Row in another universe.

But I have changed, Aunt
, she thought with wonder.
I can see beyond the next visit to the modiste, the next ball, the next foppish beau
.

She saw, instead, Hartley Shaw, his face intent as he instructed her son in the proper way to groom a horse. Hartley Shaw, who would be utterly out of place in the drawing rooms and ballrooms of the
ton
, as confined and incongruous in tight pantaloons and form-fitting coat as a fox in a kennel.

London
would never know such a man.

"I am not the woman I was in
London," she said quietly. "I cannot enjoy myself while those around me suffer."

Claudia shot from her chair with uncharacteristic violence and strode to the double doors. She placed one elegant hand flat against a glass pane. Slowly her fingers curled into a fist.

"I hate this place," she said.
"God, how I hate it."

The baldness of the statement shocked
Eden far more than its sentiment. Claudia spoke from the heart, laying it bare, and
Eden caught a glimpse of a woman she didn't recognize: an aging woman with her own measure of regret and bitterness, hiding her fears and secrets from the world.
A woman who needed
Eden more than the reverse.
She hurried to Claudia's side but stopped, afraid to touch this brittle stranger.