The Forest Lord (31 page)

Eden
clenched her fingers. "You did quite as you ought, Mrs. Byrne."

The older woman nodded once.
Eden suspected that she harbored the same suspicions.

"Donal should be in his room, Mrs. Byrne. I have told him that you will take his dinner up and perhaps read to him afterward, if it will not keep you too long from your other duties."

"Of course, Lady Eden
. 'Tis no trouble at all."
The housekeeper set off without delay, leaving
Eden alone in the stable yard.

Alone but for the man inside the stable doors.
And she knew he was the one she truly wanted to see, to be with,
to
steal what solace she dared from the one man who saw her as she truly was. Whom she now believed loved her son almost as much as she did.

He stood just within the doorway, his face half hidden in shadow. He said nothing but took her hand and drew her into the room. It smelled of straw, clean leather, and horses.
And Hartley.

"I have waited," he said.

"I know." She slipped free and took the stool Mrs. Byrne had left. Its uncertain balance seemed safer than the support of
her own
legs. "I have come… about Donal."

If he was disappointed, he didn't show it. "You met with your marquess today."

She suspected his statement was not a simple change of subject. "Yes. And I asked him to meet Donal."

Hartley cocked his head. In the next building, a horse whinnied. "And did your marquess find your cousin's son to his liking?"

"I told him the truth."

His surprise was almost gratifying. "You told him that Donal is your son?"

She met his gaze. "He was far more understanding than I had a right to expect."

"But?"

"Remember when you first came—you and Donal played a game about hearing the horses speak. I asked you not to encourage Donal in such fancies." She gave a brief laugh. "I did not really expect you to obey my instructions, but it has all become… I am beginning to believe…" The words trickled to a stop. How could she admit that she had allowed herself to consider that Donal might not be an ordinary child?

"That he is different," Hartley said, completing her sentence. "That he has special gifts."

She looked at him sharply, searching for the slightest hint of mockery or disbelief. He had never appeared more sincere than he did now. What had seemed ridiculous took on the weight of incontrovertible truth.

"You believe it as well?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"How can you be so sure… that it is real?"

"I, too, have seen the evidence." He stood over her, strong and immovable as an ancient oak. "You know it is true,
Eden."

She shook her head, more in confusion than denial. "He… speaks to horses."

"To all beasts of wood, field, and pasture."
Hartley smiled with a fondness that stopped
Eden's heart. "He listens to them, and they speak."

The absurdity of the conversation gave this moment the air of a dream. "If you knew, why didn't you tell me?"

"But I did, and so did Donal. You did not wish to hear."

Nor did she wish to hear it now. The implications were staggering. If Francis had fled because Donal had actually done what he claimed, then the marquess also believed. And if he knew, so might others.

Others who would wonder, and question, and fear.
Just as she had feared when she saw
a man sprout
antlers and work magic at an inn on the Scottish border.

"Has he… displayed these abilities to other people?" she asked.

"Not to any who can do him harm.
Yet."

The air in the room turned icy. "Harm him?"

He leaned opposite her on a harness stand and captured her gaze. "Think how the boy's rare gifts at the track could alter the outcome of a race. Draw birds from the skies right to the waiting guns. Summon sheep from another man's pasture. Send a dog to attack an enemy. Even your city teems with animals
who
can listen and obey."

Indeed.
Cats, stray dogs, mice.
Rats. Terrible pictures formed in
Eden's mind. She had thought of suspicion and misunderstanding from other children and adults, but not how Donal might be a tool to feed the desire for profit or power.

She
did not know such people. But what if Spencer had lived and learned of this? He had loved the racetrack, and he was always in desperate need of money. Could Donal, as Hartley suggested, make some horses win and others lose?

Surely not.
Not my son.

Did Donal even understand what he could do, and how he might use such abilities? Or was he only beginning to experiment, as children had done since the dawn of time?

Had her son deliberately set out to drive the marquess away?

"Do not make the mistake of thinking that Donal's gifts can remain secret," Hartley said. "Not even if you hide him at Hartsmere until he is old enough to understand why he must keep them to himself. And he must,
Eden." He reached for her hand, hesitated, let his own fall. "He must learn to control what he can do, so that no one may ever use him. The world is a cruel place,
Eden. It holds no mercy for those who are different."

Eden
stared at him. "How do you know all this?"

"I have seen it before."

Seen what? A-child who could speak to animals? Or similar, eldritch powers that did not belong among mortal men
—
that might only be granted to the children of those not… human
?

"Where?" she whispered.

"You have trusted me with Donal,
Eden. Trust me now. I have been watching, doing what I can to guide him."

"Your visits to the woods," she said. "Was that what you were doing—guiding him?"

"In every way I can." He leaned forward again, and she was reminded of Francis only an hour before, who had taken just such a pose as he proposed marriage. "I swear to you, Eden. I will let no harm come to him. He will not suffer because of who or what he is."

Her throat tightened. She nearly forgot that Hartley could make no such promises about Donal. If anyone was to protect her son, it would be a man like the marquess, who had wealth and power enough to shelter him from the world's harshness.

But the marquess had seen Donal's gift at work. If he never returned, the choice of marrying Francis for Donal's sake would be taken from her.

She rose and walked to the door. "I will speak to Donal, and explain to him that he must not talk to animals around other people, or make them do things that will attract attention. He is old enough to understand." She glanced defiantly at Hartley. "People will believe that he is a child, with a child's imagination."

"And when he is older? Will you deny him what is within himself—his rightful heritage?"

Her muscles locked in place. "What heritage?"

"You tell me,
Eden. Who was his father?"

To her credit,
Eden did not falter. She met Hartley's gaze
with that surprising fortitude he had come to admire and respect, and her eyes were clear. It was for Donal that she feared, not herself.

He fought the urge to pull her into his arms. The time was not right.

But soon.
Very soon.

"I have entrusted only one other with what I am about to tell you now," she said. "But I can trust you, can I not?"

"Always, where Donal is concerned."

"Very well."
She squared her shoulders. "Donal's father was my cousin, who came to live with us when I was still a girl. We planned to be married. We were not." Her eyes dared him to judge her. "I paid for my mistake, but it gave me Donal. I wish the world to accept him as my uncle's grandson. I wish him to have all the advantages of a legitimate birth."

He listened for regret in her voice, the wistful sorrow of love lost, but she spoke as if relating a household inventory. Even now, knowing what Donal was, she refused to admit that the boy's father might not be human.

"And the marquess can provide that," he said harshly.
"The very same man who fled when he witnessed Donal's gifts?"

She took a step back. "How did you know? I did not speak of what happened, only that—" Her eyes narrowed. "You wished the marquess gone, did you not? You poisoned Donal against him."

"I did not need to. Donal is wise enough to recognize an enemy."

"Enemy?"
She gave a breathless, strained laugh.
"No, not Donal's—yours.
Because he can provide for my son what you, a servant, cannot."

"Can he, Eden?" Hartley closed the space between them and grasped her arms gently but implacably. "Can he be a father to a boy who is not of his get or his nature?" He felt her pulse beating high and fast beneath her skin, the rising scent of mingled fear and arousal. His own body leaped in response. "Can he awaken you with sweet summer kisses and bring you flowers in midwinter? Can he make you feel as I do?" He gathered her nearer, increment by increment, timed to the precise moment that her resistance ended. "I make you feel,
Eden, as no one has ever done."

"You… make me…" She closed her eyes and shuddered. "You make me want you. That is all."

"You do not want the marquess," he said, stroking the tension from her back with long, sensual sweeps. "How can you consider making him your mate when you do not know what you will be giving up?"

"You speak… as if we were animals."

"Ask your son if that is such a terrible thing." He drew her to the doorway and turned her to face the forest. "The world beyond your walls of stone and metal is his. He can be a part of it as few can hope to be." He pulled her against his chest and nuzzled the back of her neck. "Do you know what it is like to be a part of nature,
Eden—to live as one with the ebb and flow of the seasons, to understand the soaring thoughts of the birds and fly with them, to feel the tiny spark of the seed as it waits in the earth for the coming of the sun?"

"No. I do not." She didn't struggle to free herself, but she wasn't yet at ease in his arms. Or with anything he said. "I have always… always hated coming to the country."

"And do you still?"

She turned slowly. Her eyes were so soft, so unguarded, that he lost all desire to do anything but drown
himself
in them.

"No," she murmured. "I do not hate it anymore."

Ah,
Eden. I stopped hating you the moment I saw you again
. He bent his head. Her breathing stilled. The kiss he gave her was almost spiritual, like a benediction. The next, when it came, would not be.

"Let me show you," he said, "how to begin to love it." He took her hand and led her through the door, across the stable yard, and beyond to the gate in the stone fence that marked the boundary of the home pasture. He started up the fellside, but
Eden's grasp was an anchor that pulled him back.

She stood staring up at the forest. He remembered that look from the old days when, as Cornelius Fleming, he had tried without success to interest her in his world. Then, her thoughts had been focused entirely on returning to
London after their wedding and teaching him the ways of the
ton
.

Yet in spite of her rejection of it, Nature was kind to her; the slanting late afternoon sunlight penetrated the sheer fabric of her dress, outlining her graceful legs as if she were some half naked wood nymph of the south, and the breeze caressed her face, stirring tendrils of hair and tinting her cheeks with rose.

He could see her as one of his own people in the time before so many had left—running with abandon through the wood, laughing, free of the human rules that forbade her to follow her deepest desires. If only he had time to teach her…

Why was it so important that she understand the things he loved and had devoted his life to protecting? For Donal's sake, yes—so that when he took his son to Tir-na-nog, she would know it was for the best. And he held the slim hope that she would become the land's guardian for the remainder of her mortal life, watching over the birds and beasts and untouched wood as she did her tenants.

But there was more to it than that. He need not take so much trouble to seduce her; she was nearly his, vulnerable in her confusion, prepared to throw caution to the winds. The marquess had helped, not hindered, his plans. A few more kisses would send her tumbling into his bed.

Seduction of her body was no longer enough. He did not know when his intentions had changed; he wanted to seduce her mind and heart as well, make her his in every way, even though he knew the cruelty in it if he succeeded.