Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1

by Bingham, Charlotte

  The train began to slow down as it approached the next station, Short Cross Halt. As she prepared to get out, Kate’s eye was caught by a headline in the newspaper hiding the passenger opposite her. PEER KILLED IN EXPLOSION. There was a picture of a fair-haired, handsome and immaculately dressed Englishman under the headline, who turned out to be a Lord Tetherington. She climbed out from the train giving no further thought to the story. Nor did it cross her mind that the man waiting to drive her to Eden Park somewhere in Gloucester was none other than her mother’s lover.

  He was reading a newspaper when Kate identified him from his car and description, half seated on one front wing with his spectacles pushed up on to his head while he digested the story. For a moment Kate hesitated before introducing herself, and during that moment Jack Ward saw her, got up, put his spectacles back on, took her suitcase and opened a rear passenger door for her to get in the car.

  ‘I can’t take you all the way,’ he said once they were motoring. ‘Something’s come up. But don’t worry, I’ll see you’re safely delivered.’

  Kate made no comment, only staring out of the car window in some amazement. She had a very highly developed sense of direction as well as a first class knowledge of geography, the result being that after the first half hour of her journey she realised there was something radically wrong with their route.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said to her driver from her position in the back seat. ‘Aren’t we headed for Gloucester?’

  ‘Not exactly. No.’

  Kate’s heart began to beat faster, but she was determined to have her say.

  ‘I was told I was being taken to Gloucester and for the last half hour or so I have had the distinct impression we’re headed south, not north.’

  ‘I appreciate the point, Miss Maddox. The change in your arrangements is because I can only take you a certain part of the way. In fact I’m going to bail out in the next town and hand you over to a colleague.’

  Her escort’s polite tone soothed her for a while, until she saw they were passing into a town that had every appearance of not being in the Cotswolds.

  ‘Dinton?’ she exclaimed. ‘But that’s in Kent, isn’t it?’

  ‘As ever was,’ her driver agreed, peering out of his side window for the required landmark.

  ‘It certainly isn’t on the way to Gloucester.’

  ‘It most certainly is not.’

  ‘Can you explain, please? Or am I not allowed to know?’

  Having spotted the pub sign for which he was looking, Jack Ward pulled over to park at the kerb outside. He looked at Kate in the mirror for a moment before speaking.

  ‘All I can tell you is that it is important that no one knows where you are going or indeed where you are going to be stationed in advance,’ he said quietly, still looking at her in his rear view mirror. ‘It’s the same for everyone, have no fear. Now, here’s your new driver …’ He nodded at the man hurrying out of the pub, someone who had obviously just finished a hasty lunch, judging from the way he was wiping his mouth on his pocket handkerchief.

  Jack Ward got out of the car, closed the door, had a few words of conversation with his colleague then nodded a curt goodbye to Kate, who was doing her best not to look as utterly bewildered as she felt.

  ‘Well then, on to the next phase, eh?’ her new driver greeted her. ‘Home, James, and no sparing the horses, what?’

  Kate said nothing. She just sat back in her seat and wondered what on earth her mother had involved her in, and more importantly – why.

  Chapter Nine

  When she received the telephone call and had digested the information given to her by some attaché at the British Embassy in Rome, Poppy sat down in a chair by the drawing room window and stared out at the winter landscape of Mellerfont Park, which was now doing its best to turn into spring. She found herself strangely uncertain as to whether to laugh or to cry at what she had just been told.

  Basil was dead.

  As she said it again to herself, she suddenly shivered, because it was the first death of anyone known to her, or even more important associated with her, that she had experienced. Suddenly the word death took on a quite different meaning, moving from something abstract that happened to other people to something positive and altogether nearer home.

  Basil was dead.

  Now she wanted to laugh, or at the very least smile. She had been praying each and every night for her release, for something to happen that would enable her to escape from a house she had come quickly to hate quite as much as her husband, whom upon close examination of her emotions she now found she actually abhorred.

  Basil was dead.

  The tears began to roll down her cheeks, slowly but remorselessly. She wiped them away carefully with a spotless white handkerchief, but still they fell, even though she knew she wasn’t sad, but ecstatic. It was as if these tears that were falling were outside of her, as if they didn’t belong to her but were tokens for the moment, symbols that she wasn’t really the cold-hearted, insensitive, unloving young woman she had come to fear she might be.

  Basil was dead.

  And Basil had been her husband. She had married him to please her mother and father, she had even thought for a moment that she loved him – and perhaps she still did. Perhaps all that had been needed was for her to prompt Basil into adopting some sort of acceptable attitude towards her, or for her to help him see that she loved him so that he would stop being insufferable and cold and become the entertaining, clever, witty and shrewd person she had thought he was when she first met him and allowed him to woo her. But it was too late now.

  Basil was dead.

  She tried to imagine him dead. She closed her eyes and tried to see him laid out in his beautiful clothes – with his hair perfectly done as always, his skin shining with good health, the handkerchief in his pocket flopping out with just the right amount of linen showing, his handmade shoes immaculately polished and that look of sublime indifference in his eyes. Except those cold blue eyes were now for ever closed – because …

  Basil was dead.

  With a shock Poppy opened her eyes and stared across the empty drawing room. Swallowing hard, and trying to stop herself from shaking, she hurried across to the drinks tray and poured herself a very large gin and tonic, after which she took a cigarette out of the engraved silver box on a side table and lit it, choking at first on the unaccustomed smoke and then puffing at the cigarette carefully as she tried to get used to the taste. The novelty of these actions worked, for in another minute she had stopped shaking.

  ‘Basil is dead,’ she said quietly. ‘And I am free. Basil is dead – and I am free.’

  She remembered then what the attaché at the Embassy had told her, and when she recalled it she began to shake violently. For Basil would not be laid out perfectly dressed, with his hair immaculate and his shoes shining like leather mirrors, because Basil was not only dead, he was obliterated.

  ‘Sadly formal identification was not possible, Lady Tetherington,’ the voice had said quietly in her ear. ‘Due to the nature of the incident, your late husband’s car plunging off the mountain road and crashing in flames so far below, the Italian police have informed us that unfortunately the body was burned beyond recognition. Identification was made from personal effects – such as your late husband’s signet ring, and his watch – and of course reports from eye witnesses who saw Lord Tetherington getting into his car at the Villa Maria prior to leaving his hosts.’

  ‘Who exactly made the identification?’ Poppy had asked, curious as to who knew her husband well enough to be able to say with certainty that the ring and the watch had indeed belonged to Basil.

  ‘The Marchesa d’Albioni,’ the voice had replied. ‘Who perhaps was known to you formerly as Lady Gloria Devine. Your husband had been staying at the villa belonging to the Albionis prior to the accident.’

  The Marchesa d’Albioni, Poppy thought. Lady Gloria Devine. I shall be staying in Venice with Gloria d’Albioni. There had been
rumours about Basil, tittle-tattle Poppy had overheard at the end of the Season once her engagement to Basil had become public, word that he had enjoyed the company of many glamorous and well-connected Society women, Gloria d’Albioni being often mentioned. Poppy made a private resolution to contact the Marchesa when it was appropriate. After all, Basil had told her he was going to be in Venice, yet his car had crashed on the precipitous mountain roads that ran along the Amalfi coastline. What was he doing so far south?

  I shall be in Venice, was all he had said. I shall not leave you a number because there will be no need.

  For some reason Poppy found herself frowning, as if suspecting something untoward, yet there was absolutely no reason for her to have doubts. Basil was accustomed to visiting Europe, and even though travel was becoming increasingly difficult he was so well connected that papers were always easily available to him. She remembered him remarking on this fact when she had attempted to show concern about his plans.

  There is absolutely no need for you to concern yourself, he had replied with just a hint of impatience. I go where I please. I have impeccable credentials and even more impeccable connections.

  Even so, now Basil lay dead, smashed to pieces on the rocks of Amalfi and burned beyond recognition in the fire, but with his death, it had to be faced, Poppy was free.

  She stood up, preparing to refresh her glass, only to find it taken from her by Craddock who had silently appeared, as always, as if from nowhere.

  ‘Milady?’ he asked, over-loudly as usual, making Poppy flinch. ‘Please. Allow me.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Poppy said, putting a hand to her throat in her surprise.

  ‘I am never very far away, milady, not when Liddle is on holiday,’ the under-butler replied in his loud voice, before walking over to the drinks table. ‘Gin and tonic, I believe, milady. I took the liberty of bringing in some fresh lemon.’

  Poppy looked around the room, expecting to see an array of spy holes suddenly visible in the panelling, but other than a pass door in the corner that was still swinging slightly on its hinges there was nothing untoward to be seen.

  ‘I have to go to London, Craddock,’ she said to the under-butler’s back. ‘Can you please make the necessary arrangements?’

  ‘Of course, milady,’ Craddock boomed, carefully preparing the perfect drink. ‘Although if I may say so, people are being discouraged from making any unnecessary journeys to the cities, London most especially.’

  ‘This is hardly an unnecessary journey, given the circumstances,’ Poppy corrected him, although wisely not going into any further details. ‘So please make arrangements for me to go to London tomorrow.’

  ‘I am sure you would prefer to be driven, milady?’ Craddock boomed again, bringing Poppy her drink on a small silver tray. ‘I understand the train services have deteriorated to the point of being practically unreliable. It has taken Mr Liddle a day and a half to reach Devon, I understand. I am sure Leon would be more than happy to drive you down.’

  ‘Is there anyone else who could take me, Craddock? I wouldn’t like to bother Leon – knowing how much he hates to leave the place,’ Poppy added, sounding feeble even to her own ears.

  ‘I shall enquire, milady. But I would suggest that if he is willing to do so, Leon is by far and away the best chauffeur on the estate.’

  Craddock bowed politely and disappeared back through his pass door, leaving Poppy to herself. Although Craddock’s booming voice got her down on occasions, he was infinitely preferable to Leon. She actually feared going south with Leon, most especially because she knew he would be difficult to shake off. Something told her that Leon was used to playing a far more complicated role than merely that of a chauffeur. Yet if she was to bolt, she would have to try to do it without alerting the staff’s suspicions, and further resistance to the idea of Leon’s driving her might do exactly that. Basil might be dead, but his henchmen were all too alive.

  She put her drink down beside her and patted her knee for George to come and sit with her. The little dog looked round from his place in front of the fire, yawned, then rolled over on to his back, as if to show he was quite happy where he was. Poppy smiled at him, and despite his resistance picked him up, stroking the top of his silky head. She had no need to be frightened, she told herself, and yet she was, perhaps even more than when Basil was alive. She felt there was something terribly wrong, something going on in the house, which was more than the usual unease brought about by sudden death.

  George heard something long before Poppy. She awoke to his growling, a fierce sound from such a small dog. At once she put her hand on his neck to quieten him, holding his collar between two long fingers and stroking his head while she sat up in bed trying to hear whatever it was that had alerted him. She could hear nothing at all, not one sound from anywhere. The house was as quiet as she had ever heard it, yet George continued to growl as resolutely as ever. Curiosity inevitably getting the better of her common sense, Poppy slipped out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown and, with George still in her arms, tiptoed out on to the landing.

  She held George firmly, while putting a hand over his muzzle with the intention of stifling any noise. He might be small, but he had a vicious set of teeth and was quick off the mark, and definitely able to produce a valuable distraction. She knew she should have stayed in her room, but something was driving her forward to find out what, if anything, was going on downstairs in the dark, echoing, cold and silent house, and that something must have been the power of the Fates.

  When she reached the bottom of the stairs she noticed a faint light coming from under Basil’s study door. She peered through the crack in the door to see, standing by her late husband’s desk, the silhouette of a man who was obviously searching for something, a torch in one hand, head bent over as with his other hand he opened drawer after drawer, putting the documents he found inside them on the desk before riffling through them.

  Poppy watched in silent fascination, her hand still covering George’s muzzle, while the intruder systematically rifled first the desk and then the cabinets and shelves behind him. Soon the desk was piled high with papers and files, while the man continued his search, moving more quickly as he failed to find that for which he was so obviously looking. Poppy thought she knew where it might be, in the safe hidden by the small oil painting directly behind the desk where she had often seen Basil stowing documents as she was entering the room. He had never seemed to mind, or if he did he certainly never showed it, simply locking the safe and nonchalantly closing the picture over it with a bored expression, as if to say that whatever Poppy saw him do mattered less to him than if she had been a servant.

  But now the intruder had found the whereabouts of the safe and was directing the light from his torch on to it to examine the locking mechanism. Poppy at last came to her senses, standing up suddenly and realising that however much she had hated Basil she couldn’t possibly just go on watching someone burgle her late husband’s house without raising some sort of alarm. After all, he might well be armed and dangerous, and once he was unable to break open the safe, which Poppy felt he was bound to do, as well as failing to find anything of value in the desk or cabinets he might move into other rooms, or go in search of someone in the house who just might know where any items of value were – say Poppy herself. After all, women married to aristocrats who lived in large mansions usually had jewellery of value.

  Determined now to hurry as silently as she could to the servants’ quarters in order to raise Craddock and a couple of the younger male members of staff, Poppy took one last look through the crack in the door to check on the position of the intruder, at which point the man turned away from the wall safe, allowing the light from his torch momentarily to light his features. Seeing who it was, Poppy immediately slipped into the study, closing the door tightly behind her.

  ‘Don’t say a word!’ She removed her hand from poor George’s muzzle and put a finger to her lips.

  The man looked at her, not
betraying any of the surprise Poppy felt he surely must be feeling. Then he flashed his torch to check her identity before he spoke, and kept the beam shining in her eyes.

  ‘Go back to your room,’ a familiar voice advised. ‘You haven’t seen me.’

  ‘I think I have the right to ask what you are doing here, Mr Ward,’ Poppy replied, her voice low, but unable to keep a measure of indignation from it. ‘Or would you rather I simply went and called for help?’

  ‘I know it must look a trifle strange, but believe me it is not,’ Jack replied, still holding the torch trained on Poppy. ‘Now please go back to your room and forget you ever saw me.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘If you refuse it’s going to complicate matters.’

  ‘All I have to do is walk out of this door and raise the alarm.’

  ‘And all I have to do is take this gun out of my pocket and tell you that you will do no such thing.’

  Poppy now found herself looking at the business end of a small revolver Jack Ward had produced from his coat pocket.

  ‘I assure you I will shoot if I have to, Lady Tetherington,’ he continued coldly. ‘I won’t necessarily kill you, but I will shoot all the same.’

  ‘Who are you anyway?’ Poppy said, putting her hand up to shield her eyes from the glare of the torch. ‘And what the heck do you mean by threatening me? In my own house?’

  ‘Just go back to bed, Lady Tetherington,’ Jack Ward repeated. ‘You and your little dog.’

  ‘Not until you tell me what you are doing here.’

  ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘You’re not a burglar. At least not the kind of ordinary burglar I would expect to find stealing.’

  ‘Go back to bed.’