She straightened on the bench and looked up toward the glade, a splash of autumn color against the brown fell. Was he still there? Did he wait for her, hoping she would relent? Or had he accepted her rejection and fled, never to return?
No. Not to see him again? Not to watch him with Donal, teaching her son—their son—with infinite patience? Not to be held in his arms, feel him moving inside her? Not to know that wherever she went, he would be waiting for her at the stable or in the wood, his green eyes alight with passion as she drew near?
She clenched her fists and stood up. Decide, she demanded of herself. Which is the greater fear: to face what you do not understand, or to live without love?
Donal took her hand. His touch comforted her. Donal was the very essence of love: his own, hers… and Hartley’s. To reject that love was to deny the happiest days of her life. To deny that Hartley—whatever, whoever he was—had the ability to love, to suffer, or to feel the bitter pain of loss.
Who was she to make such a judgment?
“I still… care for you above all others, you and Donal,” he had said. “I would die to protect you. To… stay with you.”
She believed him.
The tightness in her chest gave way. God help me: I must go back. I must talk to him. I must let him speak and ask a thousand questions, and dare to fight for this love…
She squeezed Donal’s hand. “Go inside to your room. You have had a very busy day. I will come and speak to you later, about all that has happened.”
“Da?”
Such a simple question, with a world of meaning behind it.
“I must talk to him, Donal. Just… your father and I.”
He nodded and kissed her hand. “Don’t be afraid, Mother,” he said. He turned and marched into the house.
Eden felt as if she had lost her only ally. She looked down at her soiled dress and knew there was no point in changing. Not for Hartley. The stains and tears would only match his odd clothing that much better.
All the tension inside her released on a laugh. She had the wild urge to unpin her hair and shake it about her shoulders, like a wood nymph of myth. Would that, too, not be appropriate to the occasion?
“Eden? Good lord, are you all right?”
Claudia swept into the garden, her expression sharp with alarm. “We have been searching everywhere for you,” she said. “Lord Rushborough said you were not where he had left you. He told us about Donal and the hounds… My dear, what has happened?”
Eden had no time for her aunt now, for the inevitable recriminations and explanations. Her mind must be clear and focused on one goal. One man.
“I cannot speak of it now, Aunt,” she said, already starting for the gate. “Donal is safe and in his room. I may be gone for a while—”
“Was it him?”
Claudia’s tone was so heavy with dread that Eden’s muscles locked into place. “What?”
“The man who is a beast. The one you know as Hartley Shaw.”
Three things warned Claudia that she could wait no longer. One had been Lord Rushborough’s account of the stag and Donal’s incredible ride. The second had been overhearing Donal’s excited speech to Nancy in the hall, about meeting his father on the fell.
The third was the look of grave distress on Eden’s face.
“I… do not understand you, Aunt,” Eden said. She appeared very close to collapse, driven to distraction by the shock she must have suffered. But she had enough presence of mind to lie.
“I am sorry that I did not tell you sooner,” Claudia said. “I know what you saw on the fell. I know who it was that carried Donal on his back.”
Claudia felt behind herself for the bench and sank down. “A stag… it was a stag—”
“A stag who became something very much like a man, but not a man. A creature who has deceived you from the first.”
Eden’s eyes told her that her guess was correct. He had revealed himself, either by accident or design.