The Forest Lord (26 page)

She considered returning to humbly beg Francis's pardon, but her pride, shredded though it might be,
remained
largely intact. He had all but accused her of… of…

Of the very thing she had feared and wished for ever since she'd met Hartley Shaw.

She was so attuned to him that she felt no surprise when he appeared beside her.

"Who has made you weep,
Eden?" he asked.

"I am not weeping."

"As you wish."
He leaned against the fine old tree and gave it an affectionate pat. "Is it your aunt who has upset you, or Lord Rushborough?"

"I am a little weary of other people attempting to decide what is best for me and my son."

He ran his hand around the curve of the trunk, drawing closer to her. "You do not like to be commanded, do you,
Eden? You have always had your own way."

Not always
. She shivered. "It is you who seem to get your own way," she said.
"An unfortunate habit in a servant."

"But acceptable in a peer such as Lord Rushborough. He, too, is used to getting what he wants, and what he wants at Hartsmere is obvious."

Eden
pressed her back to the tree and averted her face. "I told you—"

"That he is only a friend." He laughed, but the laugh cut short. "Do you love him, Eden?"

The question paralyzed her. Hartley was just like the others, pulling her this way and that with questions and demands. But she could not hate him for it. Her heart began to beat a little faster.

"Were you lovers?"
Hartley asked.

"No.
All the
ton
thought it—even my aunt—but we never…" She swallowed. "I ended it when Spencer—my husband—became ill."

Warm fingers brushed her cheek. "You have not answered my first question,
Eden."

"I do not answer to you, or Rushborough, or my aunt—"

"Then answer to your heart."

The heart he spoke of had filled her throat, making it impossible for her to reply. His eyes mesmerized her, sent her tumbling into an endless forest of deep green.

"Once all I cared about was
myself
," she said. "Everything I do now, I do for my son."

"Everything?"

"From the beginning you have questioned my devotion to Donal," she whispered. "You take him out at night without my permission. You behave as if you were his father, and that you cannot be."

"No?" His eyes glittered. "Why don't you ask the boy how he feels?"

"Is it not enough that I discharged his governess on your behalf?"

"It was a beginning." Another swift
change,
and his face was gentle again. "You knew it was right."

"I do not believe I know what is right anymore."

He brushed his fingers over her lips. An indescribably erotic charge beset her body.

"If you love Donal, you will do what is best for him."

"Always."

He stroked across her lower lip and then the upper. "There is devotion in you, Eden—more than I had thought possible."

She drew back. "You seem to have difficulty in making up your mind about me, Hartley Shaw. Shall I ever meet with your unqualified approval?"

A strange look came over his face, as if she had asked him a painful question. All at once he was vulnerable, a little lost, just as she was.

"Shall I ever meet with yours?" he asked.

They stood so close that they breathed each others' breaths and felt each others' sighs.

"How can I ever understand you?" she asked.

"Perhaps no understanding is necessary." He
smiled,
that precious gift he so rarely bestowed. "Is this not the eve of Beltane? There was a time when this was a celebration of life in all its meanings. It was the ritual marriage between the horned god and the goddess worshiped at the beginning of our history—a festival when all fears were set aside, and joy was the only purpose."

"Between you and Mrs. Byrne, you seem to know every folk custom that ever existed in this land," she said with a nervous laugh.

"They were more than merely customs. On nights such as this, couples went into the woods and made merry until dawn. Perhaps this very eve, men and maids may create new life."

Eden
wanted to move away from the heat of his insinuations, but she was transfixed. "Not our woods up the fell, surely," she murmured. "Everyone knows that they are haunted by a vengeful Faerie spirit."

"Perhaps he was vengeful because men did not respect any life that was not their own. But I think… I think that your Faerie Lord is not angry tonight. I think that he may accept a sincere offer of friendship."

Though his words were strange and disquieting,
Eden was not afraid. She knew that the moment had come, a second chance at what they had so narrowly missed in the cart on the way to Birkdale.

She remembered Francis's kiss, and how little it had moved her. She remembered Aunt Claudia's stern reproach. She considered, one last time, what she was about to betray.

And she cast it all aside like so many paste jewels.

She stepped in to Hartley and kissed him.

She had kissed many men. Some were rakes, greatly experienced in the arts of seduction; others had been less accomplished but more sincere. Never had she thought to kiss a common servant.

But there had never been a servant like Hartley, and there was nothing common about him. His answering kiss was the final proof.

It began almost gently, meeting her daring with
a stillness
like the deep, impenetrable center of the lake that gave Hartsmere its name. But his lips were not cold; they burned on hers and gave no pain, only delight.

Her head spun so that she could not tell up from down, night sky from shadowed earth. She had made the first move, but somewhere in the midst of the endless kiss Hartley took control. His arms came about her, lifting her from her feet. Her body seemed to melt into his. In a distant part of her mind she realized that he, too, must have had much experience to kiss with such expertise. This was not the fumbling, crude caress of a laborer or farmer.

It was a kiss such as the mythic gods of love might have bestowed upon those mortal women they chose as lovers.

Hartley parted her lips with his tongue and she let him inside. The lower half of her body had begun to throb in a way she could not mistake. For most of the past five years, she had denied it the satisfaction and completion it craved, testing her will against that of the men the
ton
called her lovers.
Never quite surrendering.
Saving herself… for what, she did not know.

Until now.
Until Hartley.
This
was what she had waited for. She admitted it freely, for denial was pointless. He moved his tongue in such a way that she felt as if she lay naked beneath him on the soft grass while he thrust deep between her thighs.

Yes
. The image gave her no shame. She wanted him hungrily, greedily,
desperately
. She was all desire, swept back to the one time when a man had carried her to paradise. She had tasted it and yearned to taste it again. She, Lady Eden Winstowe, whom everyone assumed took a new lover each month, rumored to be deliciously skilled in the arts of love, was hardly more than a virgin.

She perched on the edge of a limitless crevasse, ready to hurl herself beyond the reach of redemption. If she gave herself to Hartley—oh, as she so longed to do—she would not be indulged by Society as she had been in
London. She would become an outcast among her own, a traitor to
all the
ton
held dear. Her previous life would be truly over.

That she might sacrifice willingly, but not Donal's future. Not everything that was to
be,
must
be his.

"Hartley," she murmured. He was using lips and tongue in a hundred delightful ways on her face and neck, finding places she had not known could bring such pleasure. She wedged her hands between them.
"Hartley, stop."

He obeyed
instantly,
with none of the reluctance other men might show. Her skin felt icy where his hot mouth had been. He stepped back, and a wind as bleak as winter rushed between them.

In his eyes was that same coldness, as if he had been expecting her protest.
Her rejection.

And hated her for it.

"Hartley," she whispered. "It is… it is not what you think."

His mouth curled in a parody of his glorious smile. "Are you not about to tell me that you have decided that this was a mistake? That you have remembered who you are and what I am?"

He mocked her, but she could not fault him for it. She had started this. She had to make him understand. "I have never forgotten who I am."

"But you cannot admit that I—this rough form you despise—did to you what no other man could."

His arrogance seemed designed to provoke her anger. But he was right; a thousand men could attempt to seduce her, and every one would leave her indifferent from this moment on. Had she been so transparent, so ingenuous?

"Will it help you if I admit it?" she said, lifting her chin. "Is it so important to you that I become your… conquest?"

He expelled a harsh breath. "If I had wanted to conquer you, I could have done it with ease, and your petty defenses would be useless."

She laughed.
"How gallant of you, Hartley.
You make it quite impossible for me to forget your station."

He moved a step closer, crowding her with his body. "Should I play the role of a true blackguard, Eden? Do you want me to force you, so that you need feel no shame at having a common lover?"

She held her ground. For all his quicksilver changes of mood and many contradictions, Hartley would not stoop to rape. Dark he might be, and unpredictable, but at heart he was a good man. Yes… a good man who had been wounded, as she had been.

Perhaps that was all they had in common—that, and desire.
Lust.
Physical attraction that would bind them for a short while until both were sated.

"Hartley."
She took his stiff, unresponsive hand in hers. "I am not pushing you away." She flushed, realizing that what she was about to admit could not be recalled. "It is only that… that I want you so much that I fear… I fear I may hurt my son."

"By sharing your bed with a servant?"

"Yes." She did not look away from his biting stare. "You are no ignorant rustic. You know what others will say if we are seen together as lovers. And Donal will suffer the consequences."

Donal's name was like a magic invocation that had the power to banish Hartley's anger. His mouth relaxed, and the crease between his brows smoothed as if at the touch of a gentle hand.

"Then your world is not for Donal," he said.

"It is the world to which he was born."

"A world that can be yours again if you marry Rushborough."

Eden
flinched. "I cannot consider marriage until my period of mourning is done."

"But you are considering it,
Eden. Aren't you?"

"That is between me and the marquess."

"Will he not disapprove of what you do here with me?"

Testing.
He was always testing her, probing for weakness, demanding more than she dared give. "He does not rule my life. Neither do you."

"And you do not want him."

Eden
was weary of wordplay and dissent. "Wanting is unimportant. You asked before if I loved him." She smiled with an uneasy mingling of sadness and pride. "I do not believe that I shall ever love any man again."

His jaw set.
"Never?"

"I have had enough of what men and women call love. It has been burned out of my soul. Can you understand that, Hartley?"

She thought he was not going to answer, that her blunt declaration had upset him. Had he actually expected her love as well as her surrender?

"Yes," he said at last. He gave her an ironic smile in return. "Much less complicated, is it not?"

"I do not deny the desire I feel for you. But I must be sure that my son's future is protected."

He was silent for a long while, gazing up into the gnarled branches of the oak. "I can arrange it so that no one will see us," he said. "Not even the servants will know."

How strange and utterly unromantic this conversation was, like a negotiation between warring armies. How very pragmatic and responsible she had become, even in the midst of planning a life-altering indiscretion.

"How can you be so sure?" she asked.

He looked at her and smiled again, a genuine smile that held all the sensual delights she had yet to taste. Tiny lights danced in the green depths of his eyes. "Trust me."