Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
M AUDE PAUSED A moment along the forest path that ran up the side of the hill and took a breath. It wasn’t steep, but she’d experienced a distinct lack of energy for the past couple of weeks and it was annoying. She’d be turning over earth, or raking leaves, or doing any one of the thousand tasks involved in managing the grounds of Darkfell Manor, and she’d suddenly find herself needing a lie-down.
Normally, she was fit and had boundless energy, so it was puzzling.
Or rather, it wasn’t puzzling, not if she really thought about it, but she didn’t want to think about it, and so puzzling it remained.
Nothing at all to do with the wild night in the forest five months earlier, where she’d lain in the bracken with the god of the forest.
Thankfully she’d woken up before he had, long before dawn, and had hurried back to the groundskeeper’s cottage. She hadn’t wanted to shower the scent of him from her skin, but her feet had been dirty and she’d been cold, so she’d stepped under the warm water and let it do its work.
Afterwards she’d stood in front of the mirror in the tiny bathroom, gently touching the marks he’d left on her body, her only proof that it had actually happened. She’d let her boss, a stranger, run after her in the woods and she’d let him catch her. Let him take her to the ground and have her.
A reminder that, for one night, she’d been wild.
Her grandparents would be appalled if they knew, but she’d thought then that with any luck they’d never find out.
Unfortunately for her, though, luck wasn’t her side.
It had been six weeks after her last period that she’d eventually taken herself off to see the doctor in the little village twenty miles from Darkfell. The doctor had given her the news she’d dreaded, along with various pamphlets and instructions on what to do next, and Maude had decided that the question about what exactly she was going to do wasn’t one she could answer just yet.
Sonya, her mother, was still in the Earthsong commune, in Scotland, and that was off grid, so she was uncontactable. Not that she wanted to contact her mother, since her mother hadn’t bothered staying in contact with her after her grandparents had taken her away. Even apart from that, there was also the fact that Sonya didn’t know what to do with a baby, especially when she hadn’t wanted the one she’d had.
Maude couldn’t talk to her grandparents about it either. They’d ask too many question about the baby’s father, and the truth wasn’t something she could tell them, not if she wanted the piece of land they were going to leave to her. They’d always been very clear that they didn’t want her going down the same path as her mother had.
There were the other Your Girl Friday girls, but although they were her closest friends—they’d all been to university together—Maude felt weird about telling them. They wouldn’t be judgmental, but they’d be worried and she couldn’t bear the pressure of their concern.
Really, if she told nobody, then maybe she wouldn’t actually be pregnant?
Don’t be stupid. The doctor told you that you are.
Maude sucked in a breath of the rich, forest-scented air and continued her trudge up to the small picturesque waterfall that emptied into a perfect small pool. The waterfall was surrounded by trees and it was peaceful. Grasses and wildflowers grew around it and Maude would often bring her lunch up there for an impromptu picnic whenever she wanted to sit and think.
It was hot for early autumn, and even with the slight bite in the air, Maude was sweating by the time she got to the top of the hill.
Soon she’d be twelve weeks. Soon she’d have to admit to the reality of this baby and, since she hadn’t made a decision earlier, soon she’d have to decide what she was going to do about it.
And him? What about him?
Despite the heat, she shivered.
She couldn’t tell him. After that night, he hadn’t returned to Darkfell, and she hadn’t asked about him. There was limited Internet at the manor and none at all in the groundskeeper’s cottage, so she was able to dismiss him from her thoughts entirely. Out of sight, out of mind.
But she couldn’t keep telling herself that for ever.
Maude sat down at the side of the lake and dipped a finger in the water. It was cold, deliciously so, but not too icy for a swim.
She hadn’t brought her bathing things—she’d intended to come here for some peace to decide what to do about the baby—but the waterfall and pool were very isolated, and no one except Mr and Mrs Harris, who managed the manor, were in residence, so the chances of someone seeing her were just about zero.
Still, she gave a cursory look around at the surrounding woods to make sure she was completely alone, then she kicked off her worn boots before stripping off her muddy jeans, T-shirt, and underwear. Then, standing naked by the pool, she glanced down at the small rounded bump of her stomach.
Her child, conceived on the floor of Darkfell Forest. She touched her stomach gently, and allowed herself to finally think about her baby.
He or she was a gift from the forest and they belonged here with it, she felt that suddenly and quite strongly.
Child of the man who owns the forest, too.
That was true, but what little she did know of Dominic Lancaster was that he wasn’t a family kind of man. After that night, she’d indulged herself once he and all the guests had left, taking advantage of the manor’s Internet and doing a few Internet searches on her laptop.
There were gossip sites and discussion threads dedicated to his sensual exploits, with numerous pictures and videos of parties and clubs he’d attended, and in every single one of those videos and pictures the charisma he gave off was so palpable it mesmerised her.
She’d touched those powerful shoulders. She’d kissed his beautiful, hard mouth. She’d had him inside her...
Now his child is inside you too.
A thick, hot feeling gathered in her throat. She’d really tried to be what her grandparents had wanted. Hardworking, honest. Reliable. Thinking through her actions before she made them and being alert to the consequences. She’d never been a rebellious teen, since her grandparents had made it very clear that they wouldn’t put up with what they termed ‘any nonsense’. They hadn’t wanted her to turn out like her mother, who’d left home at sixteen after falling pregnant to a much older man and then running off to join the Earthsong commune.
Sonya had been wild, reckless, and could never be told what to do. She’d also been distracted and impatient, and had preferred socialising to parenting and Maude had often ended up being looked after by other people in the commune.
Maude’s grandparents had put up with what they saw as their daughter’s irresponsibility for ten years before finally coming to Earthsong and taking Maude away permanently.
She didn’t like to think about that day, because she’d loved the commune. She’d loved not going to school, loved one of the older ladies who’d managed the commune’s garden and who’d let Maude play there all day if she’d wanted to. She loved her wild, reckless mother too.
But Sonya hadn’t loved Maude enough to keep her. She’d let her parents take Maude away with only a shrug. Then she’d cut off contact with them and Maude without explanation. Permanently.
After that, Maude had often felt untethered as a child. As if she’d lost an anchor and the current had been dragging her and she’d had nothing to hold onto. She’d had no real home to go to, no place where she’d felt she belonged. She’d tried to fit in all through the rest of her childhood and into adulthood, had tried to find her place in the world. But the only place that had felt like home was the forest, and Darkfell Forest in particular.
She didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to give up her job, but it was a fixed-term contract and maternity leave wasn’t part of it.
Gran would have told her that it was her own stupid fault and she should have known better. That she had too much of her mother in her, and did she really want to waste her life the way Sonya had?
Now, the thick, hot feeling in her throat tightened and her eyes prickled, but she forced the feelings away. Hard.
Having a baby wasn’t a waste of her life and she wasn’t going to leave, either. This child was part of the forest and she couldn’t think of a better place for it to be than with her, here in Darkfell. Maybe she could manage things with her job so she could stay with the baby.
No, there was no maybe about it. That was exactly what she was going to do, and she’d fight tooth and nail to make that happen.
Braced by that thought, she bent down and picked a wildflower, weaving the stem into her hair on a whim. Then she picked another and another, weaving more flowers into her hair as she went, covering herself with parts of the forest.
She was going to have to tell people, she knew that.
First her friends, then... Well, maybe just her friends for the moment. The one thing she certainly wasn’t going to do was tell Dominic Lancaster.
Picking a couple of forget-me-nots, she wound them into her hair beside each ear, then picked her way around the lake to the rocks where the waterfall splashed down. It was only a little waterfall and not very powerful, delightful to stand beneath and let the water wash over her like an outdoor shower.
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, letting the gentle pressure of the water ease away the tight knot of fear that had settled in her chest. Letting the calm of the forest enter her soul and soothe it.
After a couple of minutes she turned and dived cleanly into the pool. Arrowing down to the sandy bottom, she touched it lightly, a little ritual of greeting to the spirit of the pool and waterfall, then pushed herself back up to the surface. Then she turned onto her back and closed her eyes, floating for a time, letting her mind settle.
Then Maude slowly became aware that she wasn’t alone. Someone was standing in the trees beside the lake, watching her.
A very tall, powerfully built man, with a white stripe running through his black hair.
Dominic wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there watching the woman. He’d been in the forest, showing a developer currently interested in the property around, and had been intending to show him the waterfall and the pool, but as they’d approached, he’d caught a glimpse of bare skin and long golden hair and had quickly decided the developer should return to the manor without him.
Obviously, he hadn’t gone too, since if there was a naked woman bathing in his pool, he wanted to know exactly who she was and why she was there.
Not that he needed to ask her, since the knowledge had been sitting in his subconscious for months now, and had since become part of him.
There was only one woman it could possibly be and that was the beautiful wood nymph he’d caught in the forest on his last bacchanal. And of course it was her. He hadn’t seen her face, hadn’t spoken to her, knew her only by her scent, the soft sound of her cries, and the silken heat of her skin, but it was her all the same.
He knew it like he knew his own name.
He’d watched her turn her face to the waterfall as it cascaded over a delicately curved body, with honey-gold skin, and then he’d watched her dive gracefully into the pool before rising onto the surface and rolling onto her back.
Wildflowers were tangled in hair the colour of ripe wheat and caramel, long tresses like golden kelp fanning around her head as she floated in the water. Her body was framed beautifully, high, rounded breasts with pretty pink nipples, the curve of hip and thigh proportioned with perfection. A slender woman, yet he remembered the way she’d felt, delicate but with a subtle strength in the arms that had wrapped around him and in the thighs that had closed around his hips.
He felt like a voyeur watching her now, but he didn’t move. His scruples had always been few and scant enough that he couldn’t bear to drag himself away. She was a beautiful wood nymph crowned in wildflowers, and she was bathing in his pool.
Abruptly, as if sensing she was being watched, she rolled onto her front, the water splashing as her head turned in his direction and her gaze met his. She had warm brown eyes, flecked with the same gold as her hair. They made his heart feel as if it had missed a beat.
Her mouth opened and her eyes went wide with surprise, and she submerged herself to her shoulders in the water, obviously trying to hide herself.
He should have looked away. He really should, but he’d never been a gentleman, not once, and why shouldn’t he look anyway? The darkness had hidden her that night in the forest, but now the sun was shining and she was naked, and he couldn’t tear his gaze away.
‘Hello, nymph,’ he said. ‘What are you doing in my pool?’
Her features were as delicate as the rest of her, small and precise, with a full mouth and high cheekbones, and slightly winged dark gold brows. An ethereal beauty, almost otherworldly, and subtle enough that he might not have noticed it in another context. But right here, right now, it was all he could see. Those gold-flecked eyes of hers held a strength and a fire that caught his interest and held it.
‘I’m swimming,’ she said. ‘What does it look like?’
Her voice held a husk to it that went straight to his groin, but her tone was decidedly un-nymphlike. Which also went to his groin. He’d always liked a woman with spirit.
‘You appear to have forgotten your bathing suit,’ he pointed out. ‘Did you perhaps think you could hire one? Alas, neither this pool nor the manor are open to the public.’
‘I’m not the public.’ She eyed him with deep suspicion. ‘I work here.’
That gave him pause. She worked here? It was possible, he supposed. He had many houses dotted all over the globe, most of them fully staffed, and he didn’t know the names of all those staff. But he did know the names of the Darkfell staff. They’d been there since he was a child. John and Polly Harris. Those were the only two. Except...
John had been getting on in years and had told Dominic that he should hire a gardener and someone to do forest upkeep, so Dominic had instructed John to employ whomever he thought best. Dominic trusted his judgement. But this...sprite could not be the person John had hired, surely?
She couldn’t be the woman in the woods that night either, right?
Dominic wasn’t often surprised, but he could feel shock working its way through his body now.
He’d found that nightgown the next morning, but he hadn’t bothered finding the owner. In fact, he’d put it out of his mind. Yet every now and then he’d find himself looking over the guest list of that last bacchanal, studying the names of the female guests and wondering.
It hadn’t been any of them, he was sure, which meant he should keep looking. Because if that woman hadn’t been a guest then perhaps he’d involved someone else, someone unsuspecting who hadn’t known what was happening. Then again, she hadn’t protested, hadn’t pushed him away. When he’d caught her, she’d kissed him just as savagely as he’d kissed her. There had been nothing reluctant about her, nothing at all.
She was staring at him now, her gaze wary, her shoulders still underwater.
‘Please tell me,’ he said, ‘that it wasn’t you that night.’
She flushed. ‘What night?’
‘You know what I’m talking about.’
‘I don’t.’ She glanced away, her chin jutting at a mutinous angle. ‘It’s cold. I need to get out. Which means you need to bugger off.’
He decided to ignore that. ‘You’re John’s hire, aren’t you? From that agency. You’re the gardener.’
She glanced back again, her jaw tight. ‘I prefer groundskeeper. Since I also look after the forest, not just the garden.’
Hell. It had to have been her, in that case. There was no other possibility. As the thought hit him, a shock of sexual desire pierced him, so intense it took his breath away, and for a moment he had to fight to get it under control. Which hadn’t happened for twenty years. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in the grip of such intense sexual hunger.
He’d spent the last fifteen years indulging his appetites shamelessly, letting himself have whatever he wanted, and why not? He deserved it after the long battle first to gain control of his father’s company, then to break it up piece by piece. After the years of his childhood where everything had come with a price, with strings. Short strings, long strings, but always strings. Everything had been a negotiation, a deal. Everything a quid pro quo. His father had taught him to be ruthless and hard when it came to getting what he wanted, to negotiation, and, since it was the only power he’d ever had as a child, he’d learned.
He’d learned to control his emotions too, to not let need or desire get in the way of getting the best deal possible. Of course, now he’d achieved what he wanted, he’d lengthened the leash he kept on his appetites, seeing no point in not indulging them. But he never let them get too out of control, never let them control him. He remained in command of himself always.
Except apparently he hadn’t with this woman. Who, despite having been under him for one whole night, made him want to have her again. And again, and again...
Dominic knew he should walk away. Should turn and go back to the manor, sign the papers that would sell this godforsaken property, and leave without a backward glance, never to return.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he strolled over to the edge of the pool and looked down at the woman in it, her hair a golden veil around her face, the remains of wildflowers, blue and pink and purple, still caught in the wet strands.
She stared back, the gold flecks in her eyes glittering with temper.
‘It was you,’ he said, and he didn’t make it a question this time. ‘That night in the forest.’
She gave him an aggravated look. ‘Can you please go away? It’s cold and I want to get out.’
But he was in a position of power now, his favourite position, and he was finding it far too satisfying getting under her skin. She’d turned him inside out that night and apparently still had magic enough to do the same thing now, and what was sauce for the goose was good for the gander, et cetera.
So he merely folded his arms and remained where he stood. ‘Then by all means get out. Don’t let me stop you.’
The golden sparks in her eyes glittered brighter, and again he felt that delicious rush of excitement and anticipation. It would be glorious if she got out, only to run again, naked and dripping wet. He’d run too, and this time he’d make sure to catch her sooner, so that they could get to the pleasurable part quicker, her mouth on his, all raw heat and honey, with a sharp edge.
He hadn’t had a woman since that night. He’d been busy with a new startup in LA and had told himself he hadn’t had the time to find a new lover. Lies, of course. He’d had the time, he just hadn’t had the inclination, and now two months of celibacy were starting to bite.
That had to be the reason he felt this way. The only reason. If she didn’t get out, it didn’t matter to him. He’d find someone else to lose himself in...wouldn’t he?
You want her, though.
She was staring at him furiously from the water, and, yes, he had to be honest with himself. He wanted her. He wanted her badly.
‘I can stand here all day,’ he murmured. ‘You, on the other hand...’
‘Bastard,’ she muttered, shooting daggers at him.
Oh, she had spirit. He liked that very much. ‘I’m your boss. I could fire you for that.’
‘Fine. Fire me. Now go the bloody hell away.’
‘I’ve touched every inch of your body. What does it matter if I see it?’
‘This is sexual harassment.’
‘Take it up with HR.’
Her full mouth compressed. If looks could kill, his broken body would be floating in the water next to her.
What are you doing? You’re usually much better with women than this.
It was true. Then again, he liked power games, and the pettier the better, especially with women who were as fiery and stubborn as this one.
Still, making her sit in cold water to gratify his need to win was perhaps too petty, even for him. He really should turn around and let her get out, and then they could have a proper conversation.
The water of the pool was clear and as he prepared to turn around, he could see the pale shape of her body beneath the surface. She had her arms crossed protectively over her chest, and maybe it was a distortion of the water but it seemed as if her stomach was...
A shaft of ice pierced him and he took a step closer to the edge of the pool before he could stop himself. ‘Get out,’ he ordered.
People always did what he told them when he used that tone of voice, and this woman was no different. Her eyes widened and she’d already half risen out of the pool before she realised what she was doing, brown eyes flashing with anger as she sat again.
But it had been enough for Dominic.
Enough to see the water glistening on the bare skin of her belly, revealing the small, rounded bump of early pregnancy.
Dominic met her gaze, every inch of him suddenly burning with a fury he hadn’t thought was possible for him to feel these days.
‘Get out of the water,’ he said coldly. ‘Get out of the water now .’