The Forest Lord (5 page)

One expected winter to be a time of quiet waiting, especially here in the rugged north. But as dull and bleak as
Eden's last winter here had been, she did not remember such an atmosphere of ruin and decline. It was as if spring would never come again.

Trees lining the road—coppices of pollard oak, ash, and elm—were bent in weariness under their burdens of snow. No few looked wasted and dead, as if struck by lightning or eaten from within by disease. And though the fields and pastures were no more than stubbled quilts of brown and white, even they seemed shadowed by death. Like Eden herself, the whole countryside wore mourning clothes.

The stone cottages and farmhouses on the fellsides seemed to cling there stubbornly like the remnants of a vanished race. Huddled sheep shifted like dirty wads of wool on the inbye pastures near the farmhouses.
Eden didn't see a single dalesman tending the animals nor a sign of smoke from the chimneys. She heard no sound, not even the bark of a dog.

"I do not remember feeling quite so cold in the north," Aunt Claudia remarked, pulling her fur-lined cloak more tightly about her. She had endured the long journey from
London with her usual stoicism, though the ancient berline, oldest and most practical of Spencer's carriages, was neither swift nor comfortable.

During the five-day journey,
Eden had had much time to prepare herself for what lay ahead. She, like Claudia, had heard the solicitor's grim forecast. The elderly steward of Hartsmere had been ill for some time, and Spencer hadn't bothered to replace him or answer his pleas for assistance. All her husband had cared about was the income… for as long as it had lasted.

Now
Eden was to reap the harvest of his neglect and her own willful ignorance.

"Do you remember,"
Eden said, "the stories you told me as a child? Hartsmere was at the very end of the world… a dreadful place that anyone of sense would avoid. There were monsters in the wood and ghosts in the house." She shivered, and not with the cold. Even Claudia did not know just how real the "monsters" were. She hadn't been there that night at the inn.

The fearsome night of which they had never spoken.

"I made no secret of my dislike," Claudia admitted.

Eden
forgot her own fears and covered her aunt's hand. "I know that your memories of Hartsmere are not happy ones. The viscount—"

"Raines's accident was before your birth, and long ago. It is not for myself I fear."

No. You have always looked out for me, dear Aunt. But the one you warned me against is gone. Surely he is gone forever.

"You do not look happy, my dear. Have you second thoughts after all?"

"No second thoughts, Aunt." She spoke the lie with perfect aplomb. She would not increase her aunt's anxiety, or her own, with exaggerated fancies or sorrowful memories. She would not spend her time at Hartsmere looking over her shoulder.

The past was as dead as Spencer. She had come in search of her living son.

She tried to imagine what it would be like to be a mother. Her coterie of fashionable, fast-living matrons spent little time with their offspring, and she had avoided thinking about children. To do so brought forth too many painful emotions.

She could not remember grieving for her lost child; the days just before and after his birth had vanished from her memory. But even the possibility of getting him back dissolved the years, and the loss felt as fresh as yesterday.

How could I ever have believed you were dead?

She gazed out the window, seeking distraction in the landscape. Hartsmere itself had come into view, still half a mile distant. It lay nestled at the foot of a fell, almost at the end of the valley where the beck came tumbling over the rocks and made its way to the tiny lake—the mere of Hartsmere's name.

Behind the house, halfway up the fell, rose the thick patch of wood that spread like a menacing cloud over the land.
Eden had been to Hartsmere only a few times in her life, yet she had feared that forest for as long as she could remember. It was almost as if it contained all the despair and loneliness she had known in this place.

She wrenched her thoughts from the past and turned her attention to the house itself. Well she remembered its cold stone halls hung with threadbare tapestries, fires constantly burning to take off the damp chill at all times of the year except high summer.

As if infected by the same pall that had settled over the dale, Hartsmere's gray stones and chimneys leaned upon one another like ancient ruins near crumbling.
Eden knew that her vision was only illusion, but the great Elizabethan pile was anything but welcoming.

And did you expect a welcome
?
she
asked herself and laughed under her breath.
You, who cursed this place and vowed never to
return
?

"You find something amusing?" Claudia asked. "Pray, share it with me. I would be most grateful."

"I was only thinking that the house is in perfect keeping with our carriage and what little we have left to us. You know that I am a terrible housekeeper, dreadful with servants, and if you do not keep the household accounts, I do not know where we shall be by summer."

Claudia shook her head with a faint smile. "You do yourself an injustice, Niece. But of course I will help you—however long we remain."

Her aunt had not given up on the idea of leaving Hartsmere as soon as the mourning period was over and
Eden was free to accept Rushborough's attentions. The matter of
Eden's son had hardly come up between them since the discussion two months ago. It was as if Claudia had forgotten.

She had not forgotten.
Eden was certain of that. But for the past five years,
Eden had lived as if tomorrow did not exist. Until she found her son, she intended to continue living by that philosophy.

The berline made its creaking way down the winding road and into the dale. The beck was a mere trickle, and ice covered the lake. The frozen reeds, usually a haven for water birds, looked as sharp and uninviting as lances.

Now the
village
of
Birkdale
came into view. The cottages, like those on the small fell farms, appeared tumbledown and in need of new roofing. For the first time,
Eden caught a glimpse of the inhabitants of the dale: a child in ragged clothing and an old man limping down the sodden lane with the help of a gnarled branch.

Eden
prepared to signal the coachman, thinking to stop and speak to the child. No sooner had she made the decision than the boy—or was it a girl?—vanished, she could not tell where. No curious faces poked out of the cottage doorways.

Troubled,
Eden stared at the village until the road passed around a low hill. That child had not looked well fed, and certainly not well clothed. Six years ago, when she had reluctantly come for the winter at her father's request, Birkdale had seemed a happy village, its inhabitants less burdened by poverty than many of the dalesmen in Westmorland.

With a sinking feeling, she realized that the solicitor had not exaggerated. The dale
had
prospered… until everything had passed into Spencer's keeping as part of her marriage settlement.

She closed her eyes, trying to remember how it had been at the beginning of the events that had changed her life. Pictures rose in her mind: of days that seemed sunnier than anywhere else in the country, of endless flocks of handsome Herdwicks, of boisterous shepherds and farmers enjoying a hearty feast after days of hard autumn labor.

None of which she had appreciated during her time spent at Hartsmere.

"I do not believe that managing the household will be my only concern here, Aunt,"
Eden said quietly. Speaking it aloud made it real: She would be, for at least a little while, mistress and lady of this place. She would have duties and responsibilities to her tenants and servants and laborers.
Duties that had been sorely neglected—by Spencer and her—for half a decade.

"If you refer to the poor state of the cottages," Claudia said, "we know that your father's steward failed in his charge. Spencer should have replaced him. You cannot expect to undo five years of inadequate management in a few months."

But Papa gave this estate to me and I should have known. I should have made it my business to know.

Just as I should have realized the truth about my son.

The carriage passed through the gate and over the graveled drive that crossed the park. In
Eden's imagination, the trees held naked limbs skyward in a prayer for salvation.

Hartsmere loomed above them as the berline drew around the sweep in front of the porch. The house was deceptively plain, for a former Fleming had attempted to modernize the Elizabethan hulk with an eighteenth-century facade. But that effort could not conceal what waited inside: the vast, cold hall, dark paneled wood, narrow passages, a confusion of chambers in the two wings, and a complete lack of modern conveniences.

A handful of servants waited before the porch, barely suppressing their shivers. They wore dusty, ill-fitting livery and well-worn dresses. Could this be the entire remaining staff?

"Only a pair of maids," Claudia remarked. "I suppose that gray-haired woman is your housekeeper. As for the men, none has sufficient presence for a butler, though the one in livery must be a footman. And that pair of ruffians must be gardeners or stablemen." She shook her head. "This is much worse than the solicitor led us to expect."

"Surely some of the servants must be inside,"
Eden said, trying to lighten both their moods. "At least we have a welcome of sorts, after this dismal journey."

Claudia arched her brow but made no further comment.

When the berline came to a stop, the lanky
footman loped up to open the door and offer
his hand to Claudia. She took it and stepped down, surreptitiously brushing off her skirts.
Eden followed. Her nostrils were immediately assaulted by the smell of dampness, mold, and decay.

The two maids curtsied, and the housekeeper came forward, her hands folded over her waist.

"Lady Eden," she said. "Praise
be
that you've come safely to Hartsmere." She bowed her head, but her gray eyes were shrewd and sharp in the mild, wrinkled face. Her words held more than the trace of an accent.

Irish
, Eden thought.
I do not remember her
.

"My name is Byrne, my lady. Mrs. Nuala Byrne. I'm sorry for this poor greeting, but there are few of us here now. The cook, Mrs. Beaton, is inside making up something for your dinner, and a pot of tea to take the chill off."

Claudia regarded Mrs. Byrne with a calculated stare that always put upstarts and mushrooms in their places. "I trust that you have rooms made up for us, Mrs. Byrne?"

"Aye, indeed, my lady.
I hope they'll be to your satisfaction." Her gaze shifted to
Eden. "I hadn't the honor of meeting Lord Bradwell. Mr. Brown, the steward, took me on when Mrs. Outhwaite left three months ago."

Eden
felt as if she were being examined from head to toe. If Claudia had hoped to cow this woman's boldness, she hadn't succeeded. But Papa had always said that the folk of the dales—like the Irish—were too independent and proud to bow and scrape to any "outcomer" lady or lord. They waited to be impressed.

"I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Byrne,"
Eden said. On impulse, she decided to try informality. She would need loyal servants at Hartsmere. "I'm sure we shall rub along very well together."

Mrs. Byrne hesitated, and then a cautious smile touched her lips.
"Aye, my lady.
Armstrong will carry up your luggage, and
Nancy will wait upon you. Hester will serve you, Lady Claudia."

Eden
recognized none of these people and was greatly relieved. No reason to fear that they remembered her elopement with her mysterious cousin. Papa had tried to confine the gossip; any vague tattle that might have followed her to
London had died out once she was respectably married to Spencer Winstowe. Whether it was still alive in the dale remained to be seen.

She glanced doubtfully at
Nancy. The girl was shaking in her shoes.
Eden had dismissed her own expensive and experienced Abigail, hoping that she'd find a suitable girl at Hartsmere. She smiled, but
Nancy would not meet her eyes.

"Pray go upstairs, Aunt,"
Eden said. "I shall follow directly."

Claudia hesitated and followed Hester up the stairs.