She closed her eyes, and the childlike tilt of her head, her willingness to try in spite of her fear and disbelief, sent a bolt through him that was more than esteem or desire or obsession or any of the things he had felt in her presence. Her very spirit seemed to pour into the Lady Elm and flow into his body, purified and vitally precious, like sap rising in spring. So it would be, a thousand times more potent, when he joined with her.
Eden’s face lit with amazement. “I think… I think I hear her,” she said. She ran her hands over the trunk, reaching, until her fingers nearly touched his. She pressed her cheek to the bark with a sigh.
That was when she felt what he had. Her eyes snapped open, and she bolted away from the lady as if she had been stung. She rubbed her hands on her skirt, over and over again, until she noticed him watching. She tossed her head and smiled defiantly.
“Have you any other talking trees to show me,” she asked, “or perhaps a shrub that quotes Byron?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “Come and find out.” He took her hand to lead her away, and the bond the tree had forged between them sparked anew. But Eden did not try to break free. She gazed at him, her lips slightly parted, while a dove alighted in the branches over her head and cooed its approval.
He could have taken her there, under the nurturing arms of the lady. But there was a better place, where his magic was strongest and that of men—of Eden—held little sway.
He led her deeper into the wood. In a small clearing lay a badger’s sett, a mound of earth around a tunnel entrance. The sleepy sow climbed out to greet him, followed by her four bickering cubs. Eden knelt behind a yellow-flowered gorse and watched with obvious delight as the clumsy youngsters tumbled fearlessly over each other and their parent.
A few yards away, in a thicket of hawthorn, a vixen and her cubs played with the same careless joy. The vixen paused in her game and sat on her haunches, barking once at Eden as if to convey a secret message. Then she and her offspring vanished into the undergrowth with a final salute of their white tipped brushes.
“I do not think I shall ask you what she said,” Eden remarked.
“She greeted you as a fellow female and warned you to keep a wary eye on your male, for they are not to be trusted.”
“She is a most percipient creature indeed.” But the look she cast him was anything but guarded. Already the things he had revealed to her had opened her heart and loosened the bonds of her world’s expectations.
“Even the hedgehog finds his mate when the time is right,” he said as the snuffling, bristly little male poked his head from his nest of leaves in the undergrowth. “It is fortunate that he seeks a hedgehog wife, for only another like him would find him handsome.”
Eden laughed, and Hartley took unexpected pleasure in her amusement. “I think he is adorable,” she said. “I would love to take him home to Donal.”
“You would destroy him.”
Her eyes widened at his harsh tone. Fool. Do not frighten her away now.
“Eden,” he said gently, “I show you all this so that you will know why it must be protected and saved from men who would enter and kill, or cut down the trees that shelter so much life. So few of these places remain. They are as rare as Donal, and he is a part of this forest, as much as he is a part of you.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “Why does this forest mean so much to you?” she asked. “Did you lie to me when you said that you were not from this parish?”
“I have known of this wood for many years.”
“And you wish to make sure that I protect it… from—”
“Men such as your father.”
Her head lifted. “Did you know Lord Bradwell?”
“I have heard of him.” He was uncomfortably aware that a look of suspicion had come into her eyes. She moved a step away.