“By sharing your bed with a servant?”
“Yes.” She did not look away from his biting stare. “You are no ignorant rustic. You know what others will say if we are seen together as lovers. And Donal will suffer the consequences.”
Donal’s name was like a magic invocation that had the power to banish Hartley’s anger. His mouth relaxed, and the crease between his brows smoothed as if at the touch of a gentle hand.
“Then your world is not for Donal,” he said.
“It is the world to which he was born.”
“A world that can be yours again if you marry Rushborough.”
Eden flinched. “I cannot consider marriage until my period of mourning is done.”
“But you are considering it, Eden. Aren’t you?”
“That is between me and the marquess.”
“Will he not disapprove of what you do here with me?”
Testing. He was always testing her, probing for weakness, demanding more than she dared give. “He does not rule my life. Neither do you.”
“And you do not want him.”
Eden was weary of wordplay and dissent. “Wanting is unimportant. You asked before if I loved him.” She smiled with an uneasy mingling of sadness and pride. “I do not believe that I shall ever love any man again.”
His jaw set. “Never?”
“I have had enough of what men and women call love. It has been burned out of my soul. Can you understand that, Hartley?”
She thought he was not going to answer, that her blunt declaration had upset him. Had he actually expected her love as well as her surrender?
“Yes,” he said at last. He gave her an ironic smile in return. “Much less complicated, is it not?”
“I do not deny the desire I feel for you. But I must be sure that my son’s future is protected.”
He was silent for a long while, gazing up into the gnarled branches of the oak. “I can arrange it so that no one will see us,” he said. “Not even the servants will know.”
How strange and utterly unromantic this conversation was, like a negotiation between warring armies. How very pragmatic and responsible she had become, even in the midst of planning a life-altering indiscretion.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
He looked at her and smiled again, a genuine smile that held all the sensual delights she had yet to taste. Tiny lights danced in the green depths of his eyes. “Trust me.”
Yes. Trust him. He is an utter stranger, yet you have known him all your life.
Let it begin. Let it be tonight.
“There is too much at stake,” she said, silencing the cries of her body. “I need time, Hartley. You must give me time to decide.”
“Ah.” He laughed. “You mortals, who have so little of it, value time no more than you do the earth that gives you life.”
“Mortals?” A shiver coursed down her back. “What do you mean?”
She realized how seldom she’d caught him off guard when she saw the look on his face.
“It is merely an expression, from a poem I read once… a long time ago.”
She relaxed. “You read poetry as well? We don’t really know each other, do we?” She sighed. “But it doesn’t matter. Not if we are honest in what we want from each other.”
“No. It doesn’t matter at all.”
“Then, until I am sure,” she said—until I find the courage—”we must not be seen together. Do you agree?”
He made a leg, the sort of courtly bow that was going out of fashion in London. “I am, as always, your servant.”
His mockery had become so familiar that it had lost its power. “Shall we shake hands on it, then?” She offered her hand.
He took it gravely. It was the perfect ending for this most peculiar seduction. She expected him to take her in his arms and kiss her once more for good measure, to remind her of what she might lose. He did not. But there was in his lightest touch such potency, in his look such fire and promise, that a kiss would have seemed redundant.
If she remained in his presence another moment all her prudence would go for naught. “Good night,” she said hastily. She started for the house, looking back only to find him vanished into the night.