The Forest Lord (48 page)

 

The guest list for Lord Rushborough's birthday
celebration was most select. Only the most influential, most respectable members of the
ton
who remained in
London had been invited to Lady Saville's stately mansion on All Hallows' Eve. However inconvenient it might be that her brother had been born when
London was thinnest of company, Flavia Saville intended to make the best of it.

Lady Saville had tried to convince
Eden to be the evening's second guest of honor. The only thing that spared
Eden that trial was the excuse of her illness. In spite of her rapid improvement, lingering weakness had confined her to taking brief turns about her bedchamber. She had been able to eat a little and receive a few visitors, including Lord Rushborough. His possessive inquiries about her health did nothing to ease the state of her mind.

Even amid the relative peace of

Grosvenor Square

, the noise and bustle and excitement of the city, which she had once adored, grated unbearably on her frayed nerves. The constant racket overwhelmed ears grown used to the quiet of the country; the droning hum of the guests as they arrived and mingled downstairs was like the relentless buzzing of flies. Even the smells within and without the house made her stomach chum with nausea.

And her thoughts circled incessantly among Claudia, Lord Bradwell, Donal, and Hartley. Her imagination tormented her with dreadful possibilities: Claudia seeking to drug her niece so that she, not Hartley, could steal
Eden's son for her own incomprehensible reasons.
Hartley attempting to follow, and succeeding—or suffering the dangerous effects of leaving Hartsmere.
Her father fairing in his promise to find Donal.
Donal crying for his mother…

It was those helpless worries that drove
Eden to rise from her bed and dress on the night of the birthday fete. She had been counting the hours since dawn, listening and hoping for word that Lord Bradwell had brought Donal safe to
London. She intended to be ready when the message came.

Let it come soon.

With her borrowed maid's help, she donned a simple long-sleeved carriage dress of
Madras muslin and sent the maid downstairs to inquire once more. After an hour of pacing her room, she thought that she might well go mad if she remained there another minute. But if Lady Saville saw her on her feet, her refusal to join the party in Lord Rushborough's honor would be most awkward, especially in light of the assumptions his sister and the
ton
were already beginning to make.

By now, everyone guessed that Lord Rushborough had proposed to the widowed Lady Eden Winstowe, so eager a suitor that he had not waited for the end of her year's mourning. After all, had not she and the marquess been in each others' pockets before Winstowe passed away?

There had been no formal announcement, of course, but none was needed. Society had its own very effective rumor mill, fully as efficient as that of any fishwife at Billingsgate market.

Eden
's hasty departure from Caldwick and Hartsmere, followed by her illness, had conspired to prevent her from refuting those assumptions. But once she appeared before her acquaintances and friends, she would have to do so. She dreaded that ordeal and the hurt it must cause. It did not matter that Lady Saville's sponsorship assured
Eden's welcome back into Society. Such recognition was no longer
Eden's ambition, except where it affected her son.

Donal
.
She went to the door and turned the handle to open it.
Just a crack.
Just in case…

"Lady Eden? Is that you?"

Lady Saville stood before the door, her beringed hand raised to knock.
Eden fell back, knowing that she had been found out.

"Oh, I am so delighted to see you up and about!" Lady Saville exclaimed. "Are you truly better? The color has returned to your cheeks! I had just come up to make sure that you… but what excellent timing, when our soiree has just started!"

Eden
could not bring herself to feign an illness that had finally—and suspiciously—released its grip. She managed a smile.

"I am… somewhat better, Lady Saville," she said. "It was kind of you to look in on me, but I fear that I am not in a fit state to attend your party." She gestured at her dress. "I have scarcely been up—"

"Nonsense!
Anyone with half an eye could see that you are recovered. Where is Adele? She is quite proficient in arranging hair. I understand that you did not arrive with a great many gowns. No matter, I shall contrive…" She lost herself in her own musings, oblivious to
Eden's wishes.

Blatant discourtesy to a hostess had never been one of
Eden's besetting sins, and it would take pointed rudeness to refuse Lady Saville now. She could not help her father or Donal by doing so. She resigned herself to waiting out the rest of the evening in company rather than alone with her fears and worries. Lord Bradwell's message would reach her just as easily in the drawing room as it would in her own chamber.

And at last she'd lay the rumors about her "engagement" to rest.

"I will be happy to join you, Lady Saville," she said.

"Rushborough will be delighted! Now, you must come with me, dear Lady Eden, while we look through my gowns to find the one most quickly altered. You are so thin, my dear! How fortunate that my
abigail
works wonders with her needle. She will do it in a trice…" Lady Saville took her arm and pulled her into the hall. The sounds of the festivities downstairs grew louder.
Eden gritted her teeth and let herself be swept along in her hostess's wake.

An hour later, she was sitting before Lady Saville's dressing table, having her hair arranged while the older woman's
abigail
made final adjustments to one of Lady Saville's better gowns. Lady Saville was beyond generous, but she was also generously endowed in her proportions. The alterations had been significant, even on a modest but elegant gown of white satin that would not have been particularly flattering on its owner.
Eden rose and was poked and prodded a few more times by the haughty
abigail
, who stepped back at last and pronounced the work finished.

"How charming you look, my dear Lady Eden," exulted Lady Saville, clucking about
Eden like a well-fed
grouse.
"You suit that gown so much better than I ever did. I am so glad that I chose it for you." She clapped her hands. "It shall be just like a second coming out. Rushborough will be charmed!"

Lady Saville was sincere, good-humored, and impressionable. Her naïveté was almost comforting. But
Eden remembered the last time she had been fitted for such a gown: on the eve of Lord Rushborough's house party. And she well knew how that occasion had ended. What it had brought to an end.

Hartley.

Lady Saville clucked at her as she set out the jewelry she had insisted that
Eden borrow, tasteful pearls to match the gown. Once the necklace and tiny earbobs were appropriately bestowed, she took
Eden's arm and led her grandly down the stairs to the great drawing room.

Eden
felt as if she walked through a waking dream. Her enervation seemed to have passed for good, but the sense of unreality lingered. If Lady Saville noticed her constant glances toward the door, she was too polite to question it.

Lord Rushborough was at the center of a group of well-wishers. He saw
Eden at once and watched her with an intensity that made her neck prickle. She felt his possessiveness, his confidence that soon she would be his. But she was spared close conversation with him by the sudden attention of Lady Saville's guests.

For Lord Rushborough's sister, it must have been one of those social triumphs that all
London hostesses savored. Lady Saville presented
Eden as if she were the queen of some distant but friendly nation.

Her efforts were not in vain. It seemed that
Eden had been missed, after all. Lord Rushborough's country house party had paved the way.
Eden had every reason to believe that Donal would find equal acceptance once he learned to get about in Society.

Surely Donal would arrive at any moment.

Just as at the house party,
Eden was able to slip behind a mask and make the necessary conversation, showing the right amount of gratitude for the condescension of her peers and professing interest in the latest gossip. Entirely absent, however, was the heady sense of pleasure she had so briefly enjoyed at Caldwick. What had happened since then made that quite impossible.

And as she went through the motions, she was continuously alert for the footman who would bring her word of Lord Bradwell's return.

"She is more reserved than I remember," she overheard one bejeweled matron murmur to another between sets, "but I quite like the change. She has a dignity about her. I am convinced that is why the marquess proposed. He certainly had no need to, when one considers her reputation—and of course Winstowe left her with nothing."

"My dear," said another, "it is common knowledge that her affairs have greatly improved since last November, else she would not return to
London. Her reputation is no worse than most, and she has certainly suffered, forced to rusticate as she has been. But you are right about the change in
her,
though I am not sure it is so much for the better. She has become quite brown in the country."

Eden
listened without interest. Once she would have laughed at such talk, amused to be the subject of conversation and convinced that it could not hurt her. And indeed, it could not, but for different reasons. She knew now how unimportant it was.

"Lady Eden, I cannot tell you how very glad I am to see you returned to
London."

With half her attention,
Eden recognized Mrs. Bathurst, who had once been a frequent companion in her larks and capers. Mrs. Bathurst was very pretty, very young, and very fast, and had earned her reputation with enthusiasm.

"
London has been insufferably dull without you," Mrs. Bathurst continued, as if
Eden had welcomed her with great joy. "We must reassemble our merry band and set the city on its ear as we did before. You must have been so dreadfully bored in the country—you, who loathe it so!" She
laughed,
a high-pitched giggle that grated on
Eden's ears. "I have an excellent idea for a most amusing pastime. You must have heard how inordinately proud Mr. Porter is of his new curricle. I thought that perhaps…"

Eden
never learned Mrs. Bathurst's plan. A man entered the room, preceded by a nervous footman, and the young matron halted in midsentence.

The new arrival paused in the doorway, handsome, regal, and dressed in green
so
dark as to be almost black.

Eden
's mind went blank. She watched the man walk into the room, saw all heads turn and conversation stop.

He was magnificent. He wore his clothes as if he had been born in them, as if they had grown to fit him like flesh. Their cut and color were just unusual enough to attract attention without evoking fashionable censure. He carried himself like a prince, like a king… like one who was so sure of his inborn superiority that he had no need to put it on display. His face was almost too perfect, as if it had never known worry and could not suffer the effects of age.

"My word," Mrs. Bathurst murmured. "Who is he?"
Eden knew the answer, though she could not have spoken it aloud even if her voice was capable of speech. The Forest Lord had come to
London.

 

The pain was constant, and had grown more intense
with every mile Hartley put between himself and Hartsmere.
It was not fatal… not yet, in any case.

And he almost forgot it when he saw
Eden.

He had prepared himself for the moment he would face her again, look upon her with accusation and contempt, and prove to her by his very presence that he was not so easily defeated. She would tremble with the realization of what he was. Her eyes would betray her guilt, and she would humble herself and admit that she was wrong.

So it had gone in his imagination all during the journey to
London. He had not been fully recovered when he left; he had considered the risk worth taking. But he had exhausted his rapidly waning powers in his travel, forced to resort to human methods of transportation.