Chapter Seventeen
Eoin had never experienced such joy. His mother and his sister had both openly embraced him. They hadn’t asked him to change. Instead, they were the ones willing to uproot their lives. And that… that helped heal hurts that Eoin had long since stopped recognizing.
Now Hannah was staying longer at his home, for no other reason than the fact that she wished to spend more time with him. The glory of that news blazed through Eoin, setting every inch of him ablaze with sweet fire.
Caught in the wonder of bliss, Eoin dipped his head to capture Hannah’s mouth with his. But just as his lips touched her soft ones, a terrible hissing arose from the ground.
“Ouch! Ouch!” Hannah pulled back and began to rub furiously at her ankles.
“What happened?” Eoin asked in bewildered concern. He glanced around the shadows, trying to locate what had caused Hannah’s distress. Then he heard it. The familiar chirping.
The gosling had found them.
Peering down, he saw an angry shadow darting around Hannah’s feet. Reaching for it, he captured the enraged fluff. He could feel some of the rougher juvenile feathers poking out from the down as its stubby wings beat against his knuckles.
“How did you get into the garden?” Eoin asked and then felt ridiculous.
At the sound of his voice, the bird settled and began to chirp happily. Eoin supposed he should be grateful that the creature wasn’t honking yet.
“Most likely, the gosling was bothering one of your aunts or uncles,” Hannah surmised. “I don’t think your servants would have tossed your pet into the wild.”
Eoin grunted. “The fowl is not my pet, and this garden is hardly wild.”
“Regardless of how you view it, the goose has most definitely adopted you as its mama.” Hannah nudged Eoin’s shoulder, which the baby bird did not appreciate in the least. The fluff extended its still relatively stubby neck, its useless wings bouncing furiously.
Eoin shot Hannah a withering look, which was probably lost in the darkness. Still, the expression made him feel better. “I am not the fowl’s mother.”
“I do believe that it is past time to name your baby. You cannot keep calling it the fowl,” Hannah teased. “Isn’t that right, Little Bubbles?”
“I am not naming the bird Bubbles. That would be absurd.”
“Ah. But you will be giving it an appropriate appellation, then?”
“You hoodwinked me into that, didn’t you?” Eoin accused in exasperation.
Hannah laughed merrily. “Perhaps. But more importantly, what shall you choose?”
“Gosling? Goose?”
Hannah chuckled again, and the sound of her mirth filled Eoin. He wanted more of this. Yearned for it. What would life be like with Hannah constantly by his side?
“Those are rather uninspired choices, especially for a bird with so much personality.”
Eoin lifted the fluff to scrutinize it, but he couldn’t see much in the dark. No inspiration came. “Mayhap you should name it?”
“Oh no. I wouldn’t dare. It’s your pet.”
Eoin decided it was futile to debate the fowl’s status in his life. Instead, he bent to place the small animal on the ground near their feet.
“Aren’t you afraid she’ll wander off?” Hannah asked.
Eoin glanced down at the little mite even though he couldn’t properly see it. “Not with me here. It’ll faithfully stick by my side.”
“Ah! So you do admit that you’ve become a mother to it!”
“Will my capitulation make you happy?” Eoin cast a sideways glance in Hannah’s direction. In the low light, he could just spy the outline of her profile, but he wished he could fully see her pink lips parted in laughter and the happy flush touching her pale cheeks.
“Exceedingly so.”
A rare chuckle escaped Eoin. “Then I suppose that I have no choice but to claim parentage to it.”
“Her,” Hannah said definitively.
“Her?” Eoin pointed at the chick, who was most likely munching happily on bugs. “However can you tell? It is just a ball of fluff that is sprouting feathers.”
Hannah shrugged but did not appear shaken in her conviction. “I simply have a feeling that the goose is female. She has that air about her.”
Giddy joy shot through Eoin. Unable to contain it, he nearly doubled over with laughter.
“What?” Hannah asked. “Can’t you sense it as well?”
“Noooooooo.” The denial came out as a helpless, uneven howl.
“Well, I can,” Hannah replied loftily.
Eoin tried to get his chuckles under control but found that he simply could not. He realized that he wanted to kiss Hannah—to share this glee with her. Acting on instinct, he started to bend his head in her direction, but then he froze.
“Why are you stopping?” Hannah asked as she threaded her arms about his neck. “I want to— Owwww!”
“That is why,” Eoin explained. “I didn’t want you to get pecked again.”
“Hmmmm.” Hannah kept her hands interlocked behind his head as she glanced down speculatively at the still-unnamed menace. “I believe my ankles can endure, especially since the rest of me will be suffused in pleasure.”
Heady need shot through Eoin, and his bliss burst into flames of want. “Suffused in pleasure? I make you feel… like that?”
“Most assuredly!”
Hannah gently tugged him toward her, and his heart bumped furiously in his chest. With his blood pounding this hard, he doubted that he would even hear the gosling’s hisses. He hoped Hannah’s legs wouldn’t suffer too—
Rawrrrrrrrr!
Eoin jerked away from Hannah. For a brief moment, he stared dimwittedly at the fowl despite the absurdity of the sound emanating from it.
Rawrrrrrrrr!
Hannah’s nails dug into Eoin’s shoulder as they both whipped their heads in the direction of the roar.
“That—that sounded like a bear!” Hannah’s voice hovered between disbelief and terror.
“I agree,” Eoin said grimly as he launched himself to his feet. The growling had originated from near the garden gate. Eoin quickly placed himself between the entrance and Hannah.
“I know that it is easy to weave fantasies when you’re in the dark, but I don’t believe we’re mistaken.” Hannah rose to her feet and stood beside him.
“Get behind me!” Eoin ordered as he strained to listen. To his horror, he heard ominous thrashing through the overgrown foliage.
“Why? Are you impervious to claws and teeth?” Hannah asked, but even as she joked, he could detect the tremble in her pattern of speech.
“I’m more bruin-sized,” Eoin said.
“Wouldn’t that just make you a tastier-looking morsel?” Hannah quipped. “I’m bonier.”
“I—I can’t lose you.” The words tore from Eoin. “I can handle my pain but not yours.”
Hannah fell silent but only for a moment. When she spoke again, her tone had turned serious, which only exposed how much her voice was quavering. “And don’t you think it is the same for me? Let’s stay side by side.”
Rawrrrrrr.
Bollocks. The growl was closer now.
Hisssssssss!
“Is—is the gosling trying to defend us?” Hannah asked.
“It appears so. Foolish fowl.” Eoin bent to capture the fluff, but it darted away from him. He lunged a second time, but his fingers only brushed uselessly against the down.
Heavy footsteps—or pawsteps—thudded against the ground, and the thick vegetation rustled. Not for the first time, Eoin was grateful for the mess of flowers and plants that had served so often as his shelter. But his thankfulness was quickly replaced with an even more crystalized fear.
“We should run for the house!” Hannah grabbed his arm. “It sounds like the bear is stalking us!”
“We can’t,” Eoin said starkly as his mind tried to determine how they could escape. “The beast is between us and the nearest door.”
“Are the walls scalable? Or is there a helpful trellis leaning against the bricks?” Hannah asked. “I am very adept at climbing despite being born and bred a Londoner.”
“There’s a folly in the far corner,” Eoin said. “It will be cramped, but there is at least a door we could shut.”
“What kind of a folly? Greek? Roman? Medieval hermit?” Hannah asked.
“Does it matter?” Eoin asked.
“Well, some are holier than others. I mean full of holes, not religiously sanctified,” Hannah babbled, and Eoin could hear her teeth clacking together. She was clearly terrified but determined to use humor to calm herself.
“Well, a hermit’s hut could be holy.” Eoin tried to join her humor as he snagged her hand.
Tugging gently on their interlocked fingers, he took a step backward, and she followed suit.
Although Eoin had never tried to flee from a bear, he’d read once that one should never turn their back on an enraged dog.
The sight only encouraged the canine to chase.
Eoin supposed it could work with bruins as well.
“Only real hermitages. I don’t think stone beehives erected for the visual pleasure of the aristocracy count,” Hannah shot back as they continued to shuffle backward. The gosling darted in and out of their feet, her small body occasionally brushing against Eoin’s ankles.
“That would be too Irish for my grandfather,” Eoin replied just as he stepped in a divot. His ankle twisted, and his body began to sway. Thankfully, though, he did not collapse. The fowl chirped, and Hannah tugged at his palm, helping to steady him.
“Hopefully it is not an open pavilion with Greek columns—a pretty structure but not very useful for bear blocking.” Hannah spoke with increasing rapidity as they picked up their pace.
“It is thankfully a small tower, not sturdy enough to withstand a Norman invasion but sufficient for a bruin attack.”
Sweat had started to drip down Eoin’s back even though they hadn’t broken into a full run. Surely, they should be close to the folly now. The garden was not a particularly large one, but then again, Eoin had never been trapped inside it with a bear hunting him. That changed perspectives enormously.
Rawrrrrrr!
“That definitely sounded nearer.” Hannah’s voice rose slightly at the end, but she didn’t shout. It seemed that the more imminent peril became, the calmer she grew.
“Yes,” Eoin agreed as he glanced over his shoulder. He could see stone crenellations peaking over two overgrown rosebushes, but the haven was still yards away.