Though he spoke in a flat tone, Eden sensed deeper emotions layered underneath. Was he angry that she had brought up the subject, or filled with pain at some tragic memory?
She’d been so sure, during their previous encounters, that his thoughts were easy to guess. She was forced to revise that assumption. How could she possibly know what a man like him had experienced, so far beyond anything she could understand? She had been a child of privilege all her life.
And in that life she had seldom been called upon to give comfort. Entertainment, yes, and amusement, and the occasional minor scandal to titillate her fellow members of the ton. Only with Spencer’s illness had she found herself trying to care for someone who desperately needed her support, even if he had ultimately rejected it.
With Spencer, she had failed. This might be the first among many chances to prove herself worthy of Donal.
Acting on impulse, she touched Shaw’s sleeve. “I am sorry. I can guess what it is like… to lose a child.”
His gaze speared her hand as if she had branded him with a hot poker. Then he lifted his eyes, and all she saw was scorn.
“Can you?”
We have something in common, she reminded herself. He must have deeply loved his child, as I love mine. If I were to lose Donal again…
She breathed in carefully. “Yes.”
“Is that why you treat Donal as if he were your son?”
The baldness of his question jarred her out of the temporary illusion of fellowship. He’d gone far beyond any previous effrontery. Though he seemed to concentrate on his driving, she knew his question was more than an idle rudeness. He was waiting for her answer.
The set-downs she’d devised never passed her lips. “Donal is… all I have,” she said, listening to her own admission with dazed astonishment. “Take us back, Shaw.”
He continued on through the gate as if he hadn’t heard her. At long last, he pulled the cart to a stop.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I… spoke out of turn, your ladyship.”
His apology was right and proper, yet she felt just as much amazement at his contrition as she had during the rest of their unorthodox conversation. He was as proud as any duke, and far more unpredictable.
But even he could admit when he was wrong.
“I accept your apology,” she said. They looked at each other, and Eden felt the beginnings of warmth in the pit of her stomach.
If she gave up now, she’d be back where she started with Shaw. She glanced at Donal. He was watching them with that remarkable stillness, too young to understand the nature of the adult conflict but aware of it nevertheless. She must set an example for him. And for herself.
“Very well,” she said, smiling at her son. “Shall we go on, then?”
Shaw’s answering smile made her heart tumble like a clown in a Sadler’s Wells pantomime.
Chapter 5
Winter still gripped the dale, just as it had seized a Fane heart five years ago with claws of ice and hopelessness.
Hartley’s last glimpse of this land had been in December, the month of Donal’s birth. The snows had fallen heavily on the day that he consigned himself to Grandfather Oak and abandoned his pact with mortal man.
It was as if the storm had never ended.
Copper drew the cart from Hartsmere’s heights, over a road long since in need of repair, and down into the dale. Hartley saw the farms he had once known—small, fellside establishments and those that rested alongside the beck—battered by harsh weather and hard times. Dirty, unmelted snow formed icy drifts alongside stone walls and byres, and even the trees looked brittle as twigs.
This was what he had left behind.
Eden sat very quietly beside him, the recent disagreement—and the moment of peace that had followed—already forgotten. It was only her third day at Hartsmere, and for the first time she confronted what years of neglect had wrought of paradise.
His doing. And Eden’s.
According to Mrs. Byrne, Eden’s father had been absent from Hartsmere for years. He had left employees and servants to manage the estate, farms, and Birkdale village. Their efforts had not been enough. Nothing would be enough as long as the land lay under Lord Hern’s curse.