What she would make of Shaw didn’t bear thinking of.
Eden checked Donal once more and went downstairs. Hartsmere was as still and empty at midday as it had been at dawn. The small but cheerful fire did little to warm the sitting room. Eden picked up a copy of La Belle Assemblee brought from London and leafed through it idly, unable to summon up any interest in the latest fashions.
“Lady Eden, I have good news.”
Mrs. Byrne bustled into the sitting room, looking flushed and very pleased with herself.
“Has the doctor come?” Eden asked.
“Not as yet, my lady. But I’ve found someone able to take Dalziel’s place until he’s better.”
Eden knew who that someone was before Mrs. Byrne could speak the name. A chill spiked through her body. “Shaw,” she said.
“Aye. I’ve been speaking to him in the kitchen. Seems he’s quite experienced with horses. More than that, he’s a man of all work, able to do whatever is needed around the place—gardening, gamekeeping, repair work.” She smiled broadly. “We couldn’t ask for better, my lady, and he’s a practical lad. His wages won’t be dear.” She caught herself. “That is, of course, if you approve.”
So he has won you over as well, Eden thought. “What do we know of him, Mrs. Byrne?” she asked in a reasonable tone. “Is he from this parish? Can anyone speak for him?”
“I can speak for myself.”
Shaw walked into the room as if he made a habit of visiting the homes of his betters. His cap was in his hands, but that was his only concession to her rank. The green eyes held hers with the same insolent directness.
“Would you care to hear my credentials, my lady? Where shall I begin?”
Chapter 4
During countless years of life in the mortal realm, Hartley had learned to read human faces and bodies as mortals read their books, and with far greater comprehension.
Yet he could not read Eden’s. He still expected to see in her the vivacious, uninhibited girl he had courted and won.
That Eden was no more. In her rapid journey from child to woman, she had perfected the art of deception. She smiled at him with all the graciousness of an aristocrat to an underling and seated herself in the chair near the fire.
“Ah, Mr. Shaw,” she said. “I trust that you have been well looked after in the kitchen?”
Even the music of her voice had changed; it was more resonant but a little satirical, as if she had learned to wield it as mortals used their tools of Iron, to cut and twist.
“Aye, your ladyship,” he said. The honorific stuck in his throat, but it was all a part of the game.
“Excellent. We owe you great thanks for your help this morning.”
We, she said. But she didn’t mean Donal and herself, or even Dalziel. She used words as she used her rank, to keep him at a distance, and that told him that her mask of indifference was as much a deception as anything else.
She still did not recognize him. That she could not hide. But he disturbed her. And now, when he was no longer distracted by the shock of finding his son, when they were facing each other with nothing between, he knew why.
His long-dormant senses woke to their full power. He smelled the answer in the air swirling about her body. He heard it in the pounding of her heart. He felt it in his belly like a draught of heady mortal ale.
To Eden Fleming, he was a servant. But he was also a man, and once he had taken her as a man takes a woman. Her body remembered what her mind did not. Her very bones and blood were imprinted with his spirit as her womb had been branded with his seed.
She wanted him. It was the primal dance that had existed since men had worn skins and worshiped the Fane as gods.
Many times, in their millennia upon the earth, Fane had taken willing mortal lovers. Occasionally it was with no thought beyond a moment’s pleasure, but more often it was because of the unique enchantment that mortals alone wielded: the magic of their emotions, made vivid and powerful by their brief, fire-bright lives.