Alex might have known. Mary. His favorite, his beloved cousin, Harriet's daughter.
“No, I have not,” Aslam replied crisply.
Slowly John nodded. Alex couldn't be certain, but he thought he detected a sense of relief coming from John. Not knowing, on occasion, was far better.
“Thank you for coming,” John said to the empty space beyond the table.
Aslam's head lifted, and Alex thought he might speak. But he didn't. He simply waved a backward hand in Alex's direction, drew open the door, and went out into the night, leaving the door open, as though confident someone lesser than he would close it.
For several moments no one moved. If there was any sound at all in the crowded pub, it had been drowned out by that deafening silence.
“Nigger!” came the hissed voice of old Bates. “Never did like the nigger. Treacherous, all of them.”
Alex could have been mistaken, but he thought he saw John smile. At the same time, he lifted his head, found Alex, and asked a peculiar question. “Where's his carriage? I didn't see his carriage when we arrived. How are you traveling?”
Alex started forward slowly. There was so much John didn't understand, needed to know, and must know soon if he was to wrest any degree of power from Aslam's hands. “It's out there.” He nodded. “A rented brougham, two horses. Aslam owns no carriage. Considers it a needless luxury. In London he walks about. Where he can't walk, he rents a... conveyance.”
All the time he spoke, John's face was splintering again into new angles of bewilderment.
When the confusion appeared to render him speechless, Alex took the lead. Aslam would give Alex three, perhaps four minutes; then the hired driver would be instructed to guide the rented brougham back to London — with or without him.
“John, please,” Alex said quietly. “Complete this journey as quickly as possible. Rescue Elizabeth and come back to London, where you belong and where you are needed.”
“Is it true, Alex, what he said about Richard?”
“I don't know. I see Lord and Lady Eden infrequently. They don't journey about much and seem content in rural Kent.”
“And Mary. Have you heard...?”
“Nothing. But then, America...”
As Alex's voice lightened, so did his expression, anything to offset the gloom on John's face and the distance they had effortlessly strayed from the single most important point he had tried to make. If John wanted to retain any degree of power with his famous London firm, he'd better return and do so as soon as possible. At the door now, aware of Aslam's growing impatience, Alex stopped and looked back. It was his guess that John was finished. Perhaps the trip to Paris would kill him. In a way, it would be a blessing.
Then Alex had seen enough, and stepped through the door and closed it behind him, realizing sadly as he hurried across the cobblestones that the winds of change were upon them all, a torch-passing time, the “nigger pariah” of yesterday well on his way to becoming the richest man in the British Empire.
“Climb aboard!” came the clipped voice from the darkness. ‘There is work waiting for us in London.”
“Yes, sir.” Alex nodded, reached one hand up for support, and only briefly looked longingly back toward the mullioned windows of the well-lit pub behind which sat the remains of the most remarkable man he had ever known.
What ceases to exist when someone dies?
Why were we wrong for so long about the sun going around the earth?
As long as John could keep his mind busy, he would not feel so acutely the pain caused by the confrontation with Aslam.
Damn him! Suddenly he gripped the table with both hands, fearful of falling. The chair on which he was seated seemed to be tipping.
“Easy, sir,” Bates soothed. “You need food and drink. I’ll fetch - ”
“No, nothing,” John muttered, waving away both the man and his offer. He continued to hold on to the table until the world grew steady again.
“Come, sir. Charley's here. He'll help you upstairs. A good night's rest and we'll head for the channel and Miss Elizabeth. After all, that's what we came for, wasn't it? Forget the nigger.”
For some reason John enjoyed hearing Bates call Aslam a nigger, though years ago when the boy had been growing up under John's protection, John had had men horsewhipped for the same offense.
Well, as soon as he fetched Elizabeth, he'd safely ensconce her at Eden and put her in charge of readying the old castle for all the various homecomings. His sons — surely Rose O'Donnell would locate them — and Elizabeth would write to Mary and tell her of John's illness, and surely Mary would come. And Richard... Yes, he could persuade even Richard to forgive him for past transgressions.
“Are you ready, sir?” Bates prodded again, clearly disliking the crowd that was now pushing around them, And John disliked them as well. “Yes, Bates, shall we...?”
“Here, lean on Mr. Spade, sir. He will assist you up to your chambers.”
“Come, sir, don't stumble,” Charley whispered, and turned him about, and he obeyed, as placid and helpless as a child.
“Elizabeth,” he muttered as the name appeared without sequence on his consciousness.
“Yes, sir.” Bates smiled, leading the way through the cluttered pub to the narrow wooden steps which led up to the chambers above. “Tomorrow bright and early we will go in search of Miss Elizabeth, But now you require food and rest. I promised Susan Mantle.” There was that name again, so solid-sounding against the indefinite pain of a vague past. John found in memory the face that went with the name, and both provided him with enough courage to make it through all those staring eyes — and worse, the realization of what he had become.
Exmoor November 5, 1874
For four days and three nights Lord Richard Eden, fifteenth baron and seventh earl of Eden, had traveled from his present home at Forbes Hall in Kent to his ancestral home, Eden Castle, in North Devon, buoyed and kept moving by the beloved and well-read parchment which he now held in his hand.
In a blaze of autumn sun and weary of the endlessly rocking carriage, he looked to the parchment for relief, as it had provided him with the same every day since he'd received it over a fortnight ago.
Now, despite his burning eyes and the subtle and clever sense of guilt which had accompanied him with every mile since he'd left Forbes Hall and his burgeoning wife, Eleanor, Richard carefully spread the parchment upon his knees and cursed his failing eyesight, a memento from his scholar's days at Cambridge. He brought the fine, spidery script into focus, though it wasn't necessary, for he knew every precious word of it by heart and viewed it now as he'd first received it, as a literal lifeline, at least temporarily rescuing him from that horrible pit of cloying domesticity which now served as his life at Forbes Hall.
“My Dearest R” was the salutation, and with the mere reading of those words, the scent of the one who had penned them was upon him, filling the carriage with such clarity that it obliterated the miles of heather which stretched across Exmoor on either side.
For a moment Richard closed his eyes, literally unable to go on. Why did it hurt so, man's capacity to love? Yet it had always been thus — with Richard, at least — and not the pleasurable pain often described by poets. For Richard it had always been more pain than pleasure.
Now he looked beyond the salutation and heard the voice speaking behind the words:
My Dearest R, The monster has left his lair for a few weeks. May I suggest an alternative to our customary rendezvous, a journey of longer duration but promising greater rewards? I long to see you in your natural setting, your rightful one, the one which I swear will be yours one day.
Come to Eden on the sixth of November, for one day, two, three — for as many as your other wife will permit.
Come to me, my dearest, and let us make that wretched castle live up to its name, at least for a while.
Your beloved, A
Although Richard had long since finished reading what he knew by heart, he continued to stare at the elegant script
.
Your other wife...
Poor swollen Eleanor. She didn't even suspect, so engrossed was she in her own world of infants.
Come to me, my dearest, and let us make that wretched castle live up to its name...
He smiled. They had their work cut out for them, to make of that place a true Eden. But dear Lord, he was willing to try. With his beloved near, he sometimes felt stronger than he'd ever felt in his life, able to accomplish anything. As for the muddle of his own life, so long as Eleanor wasn't too demanding, he would pretend to be a good husband to her. But if the child she was now carrying was a son, there would be no more physical contact between them. She was perfectly welcome to take a lover, as many as she required, but Richard would not enter her again.
“Where are we now?” he called out to his driver, feeling a desperate need to alter the course of his thoughts.
“Not far, sir — at least, I don't think so. Ain't never been in these parts. I'm a Kentish man - ”
“Keep your eyes open for the turrets. You can't miss them,” Richard shouted back over the whistling wind, holding on now with both hands as the rapidly turning wheels fought for traction in the heavily rutted road.
“Up ahead, sir, I see something. Would that be Eden?”
Excited, Richard drew himself close to the window on the right side of the carriage and looked through the spiraling mists and fog which had not as yet burned off in the brightness of the November sun. Then he saw it. “Eden,” he murmured.
“Yes, that's it,” he shouted to his driver. It was impossible at that moment to chart the antics of his emotions at that ancient sight, the square-towered crenellations protruding up out of the fog.
“Dear God,” he whispered, gripping the window with both hands, feeling his face grow numb under the chill November wind. What a surprise that that cold tomb which contained the reality of every nightmare he'd ever suffered still was capable of moving him.
“Welcome home, sir,” the driver called back to him.
Richard nodded. It was all he could manage.
A few minutes later the driver took the gatehouse at a clattering speed, and Richard leaned forward as the carriage slowed in its turn before the Great-Hall steps. On the first glance up those steps he saw the author of the parchment that had rescued him from Forbes Hall and his swollen wife. Merely standing there he was, hands on slim hips, smiling down as though the sight of Richard had brought him reciprocal pleasure.
Richard pushed open the carriage door even before the driver had brought it to a firm stop and started slowly up the stairs, his hand already extended to the one who was coming down the steps toward him.
Their two hands met first and joined them in a warm embrace. Richard closed his eyes. There it was again, that scent of spice and rose. Grateful for the scent and the one who wore it, he smoothed the straight black hair with his right hand and allowed that hand to fall gently in a caress the length of the back.
Confident they were alone and no one was watching save for the screeching seagulls overhead, Richard drew him closer and whispered his beloved's name.
“Aslam...”
Eden Point November 5, 1874
Alone in the chill, musty interior of the cottage on Eden Rising, Susan sat on the bench which just a few weeks earlier she'd arranged for another. The fire was dead as well, a dead season. Even her heart felt strangely stilled, as though something else within her was providing the impetus for blood and oxygen.
Suddenly she felt a deeper chill and sat on her hands in an attempt to warm them, and wondered what had possessed her to stop off here when Reverend Christopher was waiting for her at this moment down in Mortemouth with a lovely pot of hot tea. Why wasn't she down in Mortemouth instead of up here in this cold and lonely place filled with nothing but bewilderment and the echo of his voice?
Softly she bowed her head. Why had she chosen that last afternoon for a “clear look at his character faults”? Dear God, what had possessed her? He had been ill, terribly ill. Whatever was lacking in his character, couldn't it have waited until he had recovered his health?
Sharply she lifted her head, as though she'd forgotten to breathe. It was a peculiar hurt she was suffering, not of the body, not like fever or a broken limb. This hurt was deep inside and therefore beyond healing.
Thirteen days, that's how long he'd been gone. She'd counted every moment, every hour. Surely he would be in Paris by now. Perhaps he'd already found Elizabeth, and both now were on their way home.
The thought, however illusory, comforted her, and she pushed up from the cold bench and smoothed the band about her waist and, still distracted, took two steps toward the dead fire, turned away, and stood as though warming her back where no fire existed. For the next few minutes she studied the ruined interior of the cottage. Every place she looked, she saw neglect, the entire structure in need of reinforcement from the inside as well as out. Still, it was sturdy-appear-ing and wouldn't take a great deal to...
No! She had no intention of settling in the shadow of Eden — neither the man nor the castle. Besides, she was needed in too many other places to settle comfortably in one. No, it had been a generous gift, and typical of him, but she would look her fill now and never return.
She got up, then paused, hearing something. It sounded like a carriage, distant yet coming steadily toward...
Him? Back already? It was possible. To Paris and back in almost a fortnight? Oh, quite possible.
To the gatehouse now, or so it sounded. Dear God, let it be he. Let her see him just once more, see that he was well and happy and reunited with Elizabeth, who undoubtedly would take excellent and loving care of him. Then Susan would leave his life forever and never again step foot on Eden Point. She couldn't. It would be too painful.
Out of breath, she nonetheless pushed herself harder and faster, making a broad arc around the farmyard, where puddles from yesterday's rain still stood. Proceeding at top speed, aware of her hair tumbling down her back, she hesitated as she approached the sharp corner of the castle itself.
See who it is first, instinct said. And if it is him, restore yourself to a degree of order.
Yes... and besides, her lungs were bursting for lack of air. Thus she came to an abrupt halt just steps away from the corner which gave a complete and uncluttered view of the inner courtyard. For a moment, as the sound of the carriage grew louder, she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the warmth of the sun and tried hard to still the agitation she felt.
Him...
As she heard the carriage slowing for the turn, she drew one last breath, then forced both hands into action straightening her hair, which had tumbled loose down her back. Hair tucked up. Shirtwaist straightened. Dear Lord, she must have resembled a wild banshee, tearing up the road like that.
The carriage had come to a halt. At least she could hear nothing — which she thought strange. Old Bates was fond of shouting orders willy-nilly. Then she remembered. Of course. The castle was empty. No one here to greet them. Then all the more reason to make her presence known. She could be of assistance to them — at least until Elizabeth could form her own staff.
She smiled at her own foolishness and took one step out, her line of vision fixed on the Great-Hall steps, the place where all carriages came to a stop.
But one step was enough, for it had provided her with a quick glance at a carriage she'd never seen before. This one was black and somber and very dusty from the road, as though someone had traveled a long distance without respite.
Who?
Postponing her disappointment, she pressed back against the castle wall and peered out again, just enough to see a man alight from the carriage. Not Mr. Eden. She knew his gait, manner, and profile as well as she knew her own. So, not Mr. Eden, but it was a gentleman she'd never seen before, tall, thin, slightly stooped, dark thinning hair. He stood for a moment, bowed in the carriage door, both hands gripping the sides, his line of vision fixed at an upward angle, as though he were viewing someone who had
just emerged from the empty castle.
Not him...
Then came the first waves of disappointment, an actual pain at the base of her throat. She turned away and fought the weakness as best she could with reason. Of course it wasn't him. He'd not had time to go and come.
Suddenly she covered her mouth with both hands in an attempt to cancel the grief forming in her heart.
What was the matter with her?
Confused and frightened by feelings she'd never experienced before, Susan took one last look at the strange gentleman who had just climbed down from the carriage and who was now staring up at the top of the stairs, where no one...
With a start she leaned farther out. There was someone there, just emerging from the Great-Hall door, a man in a white shirt, coatless, tieless, as though he were in residence in the castle. Yet she knew they had left the castle closed and empty.
He was just standing at the top of the stairs now, though she could feel an incredible bond stretching between the two, both slim, though the gentleman starting up the stairs struck her as the older, for he climbed the stairs with effort, leaning into the ascent with each step — as Mr. Eden used to do.
Why did the thought hurt so? And why was the image that accompanied the thought almost unbearable?
Still in hiding, she watched the strange meeting, the man climbing steadily toward the younger, who, despite the distance, she discerned as being a foreigner, dark-skinned, long straight black hair. She continued to watch the two, mesmerized by their silence. Words usually were exchanged upon greeting, but not these two. Not that they weren't speaking. Volumes were exchanged in that silence.
Then... Contact, an aching meeting of hands first, then the embrace, coming as she knew it would, despite their maleness, for she had recognized in the pair the new pain which had taken up subtle residence within her own soul.
Need. Human need which failed to recognize gender.
Then the kiss, the younger man literally drawing the older man up the stairs and into his arms.
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 23