“Why?” she asked. “What do those days and weeks bring to you? This was not simply a challenge for you, a conquest, to prove yourself my equal. It was not for power or money or ambition.” She counted all the motives she must have ascribed to him in the past few hours, rejecting each one in turn, and yet her eyes continued to search his. “What do you want, Hartley Shaw?”
He leaned close, brushing her lips with his. “What you want, Eden. No promises, no demands. Only this.”
There, in her widow’s bed, he kissed her, and began to make her believe that a minute could last an hour. He kissed her again, and tried to make himself believe that he might, against all evidence to the contrary, sate himself with her body as she did with his, get her with child, and leave her content—yes, even content to surrender her son. He salved his guilt by thinking only of what he would give her, not what he would take away. He shrugged off his absurd and all-too-human urge to seize her and make her confess that she loved him. And he called what he felt for her obsession, lust, admiration, affection.
Even Fane could lie… to themselves most of all.
Summer began with a riot of growth and color that the villagers and dalesmen hadn’t seen for many years.
Young women continued to apply for positions at Hartsmere; young men returned to the dale, including the errant Mr. Singleton. Sturdy Berwick lambs gamboled on green hillsides, vegetable gardens thrived free of vermin, and the weather was a perfect balance of rain for the crops and sunshine for the soul.
For Eden, it was an idyll such as she had not imagined could exist in her life. She had taken Hartley as her lover, casting off all doubts and regrets. Her heart blossomed like the land; new energy coursed through her body, and she could walk miles without fatigue, alert to every joy the countryside had to offer. It was as if she had been blind, deaf, and incapable of all understanding before this miraculous season.
Incapable of loving as she loved Hartley Shaw.
She had made peace with her emotions. Not once did she demand that Hartley reveal what he felt for her, beyond what he had done that day in her bedchamber. She did not want to know.
If he loved her, then giving him up when the time came would be that much more difficult.
For he never attempted to suggest that they ought to marry. She loved him all the more for his perception, that his pride did not extend to an ambition to wed so far above his station, and thus endanger her hopes for Donal.
It shamed her now to think that once she’d considered him capable of such scheming. She had come to realize that his coldness after their first time had been his way of dealing with the unexpected: the powerful magic they made together in the act of love. If he had ever possessed ulterior motives in pursuing her, they had not survived that night.
But so much else had. So much more had altered forever.
They sought the magic together, night after night, stealing what moments they could. Sometimes, when it seemed safe, he came to her bed; at others, he took her back to his forest bower or introduced her to some new sanctuary where they could not be discovered.
During the day, no one seemed to suspect. Hartley became a model servant, showing her more deference than he ever had when she’d regarded him as such. Donal continued to worship him, and though Eden knew that her son, like she, would suffer Hartley’s inevitable loss, the things he could teach outweighed all other considerations. Hartley understood him. Hartley loved him. No declaration was required.
And whenever she wondered at his true origins, she laughed off her misgivings.
Aunt Claudia continued to speak of marriage and the marquess. Lord Rushborough had returned to London for the Season, but Claudia dropped hints that he planned to return in early autumn. His letters, addressed to Eden, continued to arrive—brief and irregular, but proof that he had not been discouraged by Eden’s confession or Donal’s display.