“Thank you,” she said. She tried to stand, but Hartley caught her arm and helped her up, like any true gentleman who had his way with a woman.
“I will take you back to the house,” he said. That was all. His voice was flat and uninflected. He would not meet her eyes.
Why, Hartley? What have I done? But such questions would rob what little composure she had left, and she refused to so humble herself. All her knowledge of men—men of the ton, every one—could not help her now.
She still had her rank and her dignity. Squaring her shoulders, she marched in the direction she thought they had come. Hartley caught up and moved a little ahead of her, taking great care not to touch her again.
What had she been thinking about her aching heart? Now she knew that it could break into many pieces and still keep her body alive. Yet cursing herself for a fool was futile. If it happened all over again, she knew she would do the same.
Even if Hartley Shaw never knew that she loved him.
Chapter 14
The plan upon which he had built his hopes was a failure.
Hartley ached with the need to touch Eden, to reassure her with soft words, erase the stiffness of her expression and carriage with caresses she could not resist.
He did not touch her. He could not even speak. The loathing he felt for himself in that moment muted him as surely as any spell.
He had seduced Eden for a purpose: to give her a child of her own and sever the ties that bound him to her and to her world. Once he was free, his Fane heart would return to its normal condition and cast off the guilt that tormented him at the thought of taking Donal from his mother.
But his heart had not changed. Or it had, but not in the way he had wished. He felt as if Eden had taken a more binding possession of his soul even as he found release deep within her body. And he knew that she was not with child.
It seemed impossible that he had failed in so simple a task. Had he lost the ease of his old powers? Yet the foliage grew lush at his command, and the animals were fertile.
Where was his mistake? Had her very body rejected his seed, as she had rejected him six years ago?
That knowledge was bitter indeed. Doubly so because he felt her pain and refused to ease it with the words mortals required at times such as this.
Words he could not speak. His only relief lay in the fact that she had declared herself incapable of love for a man. That was one loss he’d not inflict upon her.
They walked in painful silence back to the house.
Eden left him at the door and didn’t look back. His immediate thought was to find Donal, but he knew that would be Eden’s desire as well. He turned, instead, for the stables and set about grooming the horses, seeking some measure of peace in the repetitive motion and the easy company of the animals. He worked until the horses gleamed like satin, yet he found no serenity.
The night was well advanced when the fox slipped in the stable door and curled about Hartley’s feet. The horses snorted and sidled, but only for a few moments. Tod was no threat to them.
Indeed, Tod was far more distressed than the horses. He quickly changed from fox to man and bounded up to the top of the stall partition. He grimaced and rolled his eyes, pulling at his hair as if he would tear it out by the roots.
“No more,” he said. “No more, my lord. Can’t stay by the mortal and keep her away, not now.”
Hartley dropped his brush. He had almost forgotten that he had set Tod to create minor mischief in the dale to keep Eden occupied and away from Donal while he taught his son how to use his Fane gifts. He suspected now that Eden would not have objected. He had caused her much vexation.