“Once all I cared about was myself,” she said. “Everything I do now, I do for my son.”
“Everything?”
“From the beginning you have questioned my devotion to Donal,” she whispered. “You take him out at night without my permission. You behave as if you were his father, and that you cannot be.”
“No?” His eyes glittered. “Why don’t you ask the boy how he feels?”
“Is it not enough that I discharged his governess on your behalf?”
“It was a beginning.” Another swift change, and his face was gentle again. “You knew it was right.”
“I do not believe I know what is right anymore.”
He brushed his fingers over her lips. An indescribably erotic charge beset her body.
“If you love Donal, you will do what is best for him.”
“Always.”
He stroked across her lower lip and then the upper. “There is devotion in you, Eden—more than I had thought possible.”
She drew back. “You seem to have difficulty in making up your mind about me, Hartley Shaw. Shall I ever meet with your unqualified approval?”
A strange look came over his face, as if she had asked him a painful question. All at once he was vulnerable, a little lost, just as she was.
“Shall I ever meet with yours?” he asked.
They stood so close that they breathed each others’ breaths and felt each others’ sighs.
“How can I ever understand you?” she asked.
“Perhaps no understanding is necessary.” He smiled, that precious gift he so rarely bestowed. “Is this not the eve of Beltane? There was a time when this was a celebration of life in all its meanings. It was the ritual marriage between the horned god and the goddess worshiped at the beginning of our history—a festival when all fears were set aside, and joy was the only purpose.”
“Between you and Mrs. Byrne, you seem to know every folk custom that ever existed in this land,” she said with a nervous laugh.
“They were more than merely customs. On nights such as this, couples went into the woods and made merry until dawn. Perhaps this very eve, men and maids may create new life.”
Eden wanted to move away from the heat of his insinuations, but she was transfixed. “Not our woods up the fell, surely,” she murmured. “Everyone knows that they are haunted by a vengeful Faerie spirit.”
“Perhaps he was vengeful because men did not respect any life that was not their own. But I think… I think that your Faerie Lord is not angry tonight. I think that he may accept a sincere offer of friendship.”
Though his words were strange and disquieting, Eden was not afraid. She knew that the moment had come, a second chance at what they had so narrowly missed in the cart on the way to Birkdale.
She remembered Francis’s kiss, and how little it had moved her. She remembered Aunt Claudia’s stern reproach. She considered, one last time, what she was about to betray.
And she cast it all aside like so many paste jewels.
She stepped in to Hartley and kissed him.
She had kissed many men. Some were rakes, greatly experienced in the arts of seduction; others had been less accomplished but more sincere. Never had she thought to kiss a common servant.
But there had never been a servant like Hartley, and there was nothing common about him. His answering kiss was the final proof.
It began almost gently, meeting her daring with a stillness like the deep, impenetrable center of the lake that gave Hartsmere its name. But his lips were not cold; they burned on hers and gave no pain, only delight.
Her head spun so that she could not tell up from down, night sky from shadowed earth. She had made the first move, but somewhere in the midst of the endless kiss Hartley took control. His arms came about her, lifting her from her feet. Her body seemed to melt into his. In a distant part of her mind she realized that he, too, must have had much experience to kiss with such expertise. This was not the fumbling, crude caress of a laborer or farmer.