For him.
She must get inside. She must protect her son. She must think.
As if thinking would alter the circumstances one jot.
She led Donal into Caldwick’s rose garden and sat down on a bench, resting her hot face in her hands. Donal sat beside her, legs dangling.
“Mother?” he said, patting her shoulder. “Don’t worry. It will be all right.”
Eden hugged him against her. God love the child; he had obviously accepted his father without fear. And just how long had he known? Had… he… told Donal from the beginning?
How had a young boy kept such a secret from his own mother?
She took firm hold of her emotions and smiled at her son. “Donal, you know that… Hartley is your father.”
He nodded, eyes wide and solemn.
“When did he tell you?”
“He didn’t tell me,” Donal said. “I just knew. Like I knew who you were.”
Memory blinded her. That first day she had found Donal at Hartsmere, he had called her “Mother.” But he had never seen her before.
He had simply known. And given her his heart. As he had done with… him.
You cannot keep this up forever. Pretending he does not have a name, that you did not lie with him night after night, and swear that you loved him.
Once she had believed she loved him in another guise. Now she knew that the love she’d felt as a girl had been a mere shadow of the reality. She had been flattered by masculine attention, attracted to wealth and looks, certain of her own ability to mold her cousin into what she wanted.
What she felt for Hartley—what she had felt—had grown deep and strong like the roots of a great tree. She had ceased wishing to change him or expecting him to be what he was not.
And all the while, he hadn’t been what she’d believed.
She called up the vision of the being she had met in the glade. The magnificent, larger-than-life form, like a god… like Hartley but somehow more so. The clothes that seemed assembled of moss and bark and leaves. The rack of antlers that matched those he had worn as a stag.
He not only understood the beasts, he was one. And not.
For his eyes had been Hartley’s. They had pleaded for her forgiveness, her acceptance, casting aside the pride that he wore so naturally in all his forms.
Hartley. Oh, Hartley. If only I had never known.
If only she had lived in ignorance, denying her doubts, deceived by the man she loved, who was not a man at all. If only they could have gone on as they had been, forever.
But that was not to be. Two different worlds. Worlds father apart than she had imagined, even in her wildest speculations.
The sole bridge between them sat beside her: Donal. A boy who was also more than human. Whom Hartley had saved twice from death. Whom he would risk everything to protect. As she would.
Donal’s fey nature had no bearing on her love for him.
Why was it so different with Hartley? Because he had lied to her not once, but twice… and all but destroyed her life? Or was this a deeper, more primitive fear?
If he is not human, what is he?
But she knew. Mrs. Byrne had told her, and so had Mr. Kirkby. She had guessed part of the truth when she’d decided he might be, in some way, like Donal. Or Cornelius.
He could speak to animals. He could change his appearance. He could take the form of a stag and God knew what else. He sprouted antlers from his forehead, and perhaps had other powers she could scarcely imagine.
But he could also lie with a woman and father a child who looked and behaved human in nearly every way. He could love her with the greatest tenderness and defend her ferociously. He held his son like any father, pride and love burning in his eyes. He worked with his hands in the earth, and gentled the most frightened horse with a touch.
That was Hartley Shaw. That was the man she loved.