Home.
He closed his eyes and saw Eden’s face.
Not yet. Not without giving her…
A little more time to spend with the son he would steal away? A chance to recognize who she rejected when she turned her back upon the man she called Hartley Shaw?
Or the thing he had begun to consider when he had seen her with Mrs. Byrne on Candlemas Eve?
The memory of Eden on that night, and the near kiss today, diffused his anger. He no longer wished to hurt her. His desire for Eden, and hers for him, had become too strong to resist. He had ceased to seek revenge; she was on the verge of surrender. When he and Eden lay together, as they inevitably must—marquess or no marquess—he could make sure that their joining left her with a child to replace the one she lost in Donal.
He had the power to assure fertility, as befitted the god men had once called him; he could even make certain that such a child was free of Fane gifts that might mark it out as different and thus unacceptable among men.
He knew Eden would welcome such a child, whatever questions its birth raised in the minds of her own people. She had too much of mortal love to turn her back on any creature that needed her. She would hold the babe from the hour of its birth and never doubt its origins.
Whatever pain he might feel at abandoning a child of his body, it would be no worse than what Eden would suffer when Donal was gone. And he would leave a little of himself behind on this earth, whose creatures he had protected. If Eden married again, she’d give the child a father…
Rushborough. Did he seek Eden as his mate—that popinjay who didn’t deserve to kiss her feet?
The twin points on Hartley’s forehead began to throb.
He knelt by the bed, stroking Donal’s soft hair away from his face.
“Wake up, my son,” he said.
Without the normal transition from sleep to waking, Donal opened his eyes. “Hartley?” he murmured. “Is it night?”
“Not yet.” Donal held up his arms, and Hartley lifted him. “We are going to a party, Donal. Would you like that?”
“A party?” Donal’s eyes brightened. “The one in the park? Will Mother be there?”
“Indeed she will.”
Donal performed a perfect imitation of a rooster’s crow. Hartley kissed his cheek and set him down. Together they made for escape.
“Where are you taking that child?”
Donal stopped dead, like a rabbit hoping to be ignored by a fox. Miss Waterson stood in the doorway, her hands upon her hips.
“Why are you here?” she demanded, staring at Hartley. “You are not one of the house servants. Leave at once.”
Hartley tightened his grip on Donal’s hand. “I will leave with the boy.”
“You will do no such thing. I shall call her ladyship—”
“I am taking him to her ladyship,” he said. “If you are referring to Lady Eden.”
Something in her face suggested that she was not. “Did she send for him? I am to know about everything the boy does.”
“And do you?” Hartley smiled. “Do you know where he is every minute?”
Her face twisted with suspicion and affront. “Several times I have found him outside the room before dawn, his clothes smelling of dirt and leaves, as if he had been—” her eyes widened. “You. You have been taking him at night.”
“Kindly step out of my way.”
“You have no right! What do you mean by stealing him away, and you only a stable servant! When her ladyship hears of this—”
“Why don’t you tell her yourself?”
“I will. And when I am done, Lady Claudia will have you discharged without a character, and I shall personally see that—”
Her words cut off on a shriek as a mouse ran out of a hole in the wall and skittered between her feet. It reared up on its hind legs, whiskers twitching with savage purpose, and showed its two long front teeth.
Donal giggled.
“You—you hellion child!” Miss Waterson cried. She pressed up against the wall and glared at Hartley. “Kill it! Kill it at once!”