And he had found Eden and her son.
Hatred returned, blossoming as swiftly as the roses in the garden. It was a heady feeling. It restored her courage as nothing else could. Her courage, and her determination.
Oh, he’d fooled them all, changed his appearance enough that no one who had seen him as Cornelius Fleming would look for him in a laborer. And who would think to seek his alien nature beneath the human veneer?
That was why it was up to her to save Eden and to exact revenge at last. Her life, which had lacked purpose since their exile to Hartsmere, had meaning again. No longer would she worry about Eden’s infatuation with Hartley Shaw. She would find a way to use it to her own advantage, and for Eden’s ultimate good.
As for the boy… if not for her hatred of his father, she might have let Shaw—Cornelius, or whatever he chose to call himself—take him away as he surely planned to do. She could only assume he had not done so already because he had further designs upon Eden. But if Claudia’s plans succeeded, Donal would be in need of a new father and mother.
The one thing she could not do was tell Eden who Shaw really was. He might have her bewitched, and she was too emotionally fragile to face the truth. Eventually she must, of course. But Shaw didn’t suspect what Claudia knew of him. That gave her an incalculable advantage.
Calm and clearheaded again, Claudia peered around the ash. Donal and his father—so much alike, now that she understood—were discussing the wing pattern of an emperor moth. It occurred to her to wonder why this creature was unaware of her presence, and she guessed that he was completely absorbed with his son. But that could change in an instant.
With utmost care, Claudia made her way to the edge of the wood. The pursuit she feared did not come. Once safely away from the vicinity of the trees, she relaxed her walk as if she had just come back from a casual stroll.
She settled in the sitting room and sent for a tea tray. Her hands were completely steady as she poured. The day would proceed as expected. The marquess would find nothing amiss. Nothing whatsoever.
Eden returned only an hour before the appointed time. She looked harried and flustered, her hair straggling about her neck and her skin sheened with perspiration.
“I am sorry to be so late, Aunt,” she said, tugging off her bonnet. Her hair tumbled free as if the bonnet alone had held it in place. Armstrong hurried into the drawing room to take her spencer.
“You are hopelessly disheveled, my dear,” Claudia said. She took Eden’s arm and solicitously led her to a chair. “What has happened?”
“What has not?” Eden plopped into the chair with unladylike force. “Everything has gone wrong in the dale. Livestock missing, quarrels over boundaries, flooding, Mrs. Topping ill, Mr. Appleyard upset because Mr. Holmes’s sheep got into his garden and ate his vegetables—it all seems to be occurring at once!” She blew out her breath, stirring a tendril of hair that lay across her nose. “I cannot understand it.”
But I think, now, that I can. If you are busy elsewhere, he has more time alone with your—his—son.
How many of these predicaments are his doing? Claudia nodded with the right degree of reserved sympathy. “You should not exhaust yourself. You cannot, nor are you expected to, see personally to every problem in the dale. That is Mr. Rumbold’s province.”
“Yes, yes. You are undoubtedly right, Aunt, but now that they have given their trust to me—” Her eyes lit, as they had once done at the prospect of a new ball gown or handsome beau. “I do not want to let them down. But I must spend so much time away from Donal. It would not be fair to take him on all these errands. Where is he?”
“With that groom, I believe,” Claudia answered, not bothering to hide her scorn. The truth was far more effective than any prevarication. “Nancy is off visiting her family today, and Mrs. Byrne is even less reliable at watching the boy. You are aware that Shaw takes Donal to the woods almost every afternoon?”