Eden and Donal, bundled in furs and blankets, sat in the inelegant post chaise Claudia had hired to convey them to London. The postilions stood beside the horses, stamping their feet to keep warm, while their animals blew clouds of mist that quickly dissolved in the lashing snow.
Claudia’s form was just discernible through the window, consulting with Dalziel, who was to drive the old berline that would carry her, Jane, and their few hastily packed trunks. Any notion of using the landau had been discarded because of the harsh weather. Dalziel perched in the berline’s driver’s box, so wrapped up in scarves, hat, and greatcoat that only his eyes were visible.
Eden was as numb as the stinging cold that bombarded them from every side, blanketing the world in the white of death. The death of dreams.
She held Donal tight against her, as much for her own peace of mind as to warm him. His little body gave off more heat than the bricks under their feet. She looked outside the window and wondered how far they could go before the roads became impassable. Now that she had made her decision, all she could think of was to be gone from this place.
Hartley—Hern—had not shown himself again. Every moment since last night she had expected him to appear from behind a tree or rock, glaring at her with accusing, inhuman eyes.
But she could not maintain that image long. The eyes she remembered were warm and filled with pain as he begged for her understanding.
No. A deception. A lie. It must be. Because if it were not, she could not live with herself. And she must go on living—for Donal’s sake.
Nothing was worth risking her son. Donal was real, and his love—her love for him—must be the only happiness in a future where sorrow was the one abiding condition she could expect. She no longer believed in some ephemeral happiness based on false hopes, not even the fragile chance that love between a man and woman could survive the wreckage of shattered beliefs and broken trust.
“Mother, why do we go to London?”
Eden had prepared herself for the questions she knew must come—those which, in the rush of preparation, had been blessedly spared her until now. She squeezed Donal’s mittened fingers.
“You know that I lived in London for many years before I came here, Donal. I left there very quickly. There are still a few things… that I must do that I did not get a chance to finish.”
“When is Hartley coming to London?”
Her heart seized in midbeat. Donal had not called Hartley “Da” since that disastrous meeting. It was as if he knew how that word upset his mother. Just as he seemed to know better than to speak of what had happened on the fell.
He did not know of the message she had found tucked beneath her bedchamber door at Hartsmere. She feared to speculate how it had arrived there, but Hartley’s brief words had both tormented her and given her the hope that he would not realize they had left until it was too late. In three days, they would be over halfway to London.
“I… am not certain, Donal,” she said. “He has duties at Hartsmere that he cannot abandon.” She tried to smile. “Who else can care for the animals so well as he?”
Donal looked at her, and she could hardly meet his gaze. He knew she was lying. He knew, and forgave.
“Will Mrs. Byrne be there?”
Eden breathed again. “Someone must stay to look after the house—but we shall see.”
“When do we come home?”
She owed him the truth at least once. “I do not know, Donal.”
He absorbed this gravely and turned to the wooden soldiers she had given him for the journey. His very silence was worse than any accusation. But, mercifully, he did not ask for her reasons. She could not have answered. She tucked the blankets more snugly about him.
A tap came on the window.
“My lady?”
She glimpsed one of the postboy’s faces through the frosted glass and opened the door. “Is it time?”
“Aye, your ladyship.”