Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5)

by Marilyn Harris

  John Murrey Eden. John had written this letter. Again Alex gaped down, stunned at the addressee... Mr. William Gladstone?

  Carefully he took the letter out of the heavy parchment envelope and stood with his back to the fire and read the familiar handwriting.

  “My Dear Mr. Gladstone,” the salutation read, and Alex smiled, recalling the past stormy history that had existed between John and “the people's Willie,” a mutual loathing if there ever was one. Then Alex felt his pulse quicken and his eyes read faster and faster, unable to believe what he was reading.

  “...her execution by firing squad is scheduled for the morning of November 15.”

  Her... execution?

  He looked up quickly at Jason, who seemed to know the nature of the message.

  “Did anyone read this besides Aslam?”

  “Lord Richard Eden,” said Jason.

  Alex looked up sharply again. “Richard's in London? When?”

  “Last evening, sir.”

  “Why? I thought that Lady Eleanor was...”

  Oh, Lord, would Alex never learn? There were some questions, some subjects, one did not discuss with servants. And this was certainly one of them.

  “No, he said nothing to me, sir,” Jason replied with admirable diplomacy. “All that was requested of me was that I deliver this to you and that you in turn deliver it to Mr. Gladstone at the earliest possible convenience.”

  “Of course,” Alex murmured, reading on to the end, John asking-no, John demanding — intervention on behalf of the English government for the blatant mistreatment of a British citizen by a foreign government.

  “All right,” Alex said with dispatch. “Did you bring a carriage?”

  “No, sir. Just a mount. I figured I could - ”

  “Quite right. Is he winded?”

  “Blaze? Go on. He's tethered out front.”

  With only the briefest of stops in his bedchamber to slip on jodhpurs and boots, Alex rushed out the door and saw before him on the darkened pavement Jason's magnificent Blaze. A horse and a half, Alex thought as he strained upward for the stirrup of the enormous chestnut stallion. Once he was up, the horse turned skittish, as though aware a stranger was aboard.

  “E-easy,” Alex soothed, leaned forward to pat the massive neck, and urged the animal forward.

  Execution by firing squad...

  Dear God...

  Suddenly Alex brought his heels down and the horse shot forward, speed increasing until the shop windows were a blur on either side, the echo of the horseshoes on cobbles like the reports of rapidly firing guns.

  Grosvenor Square, London November 12, 1874

  “Will he be all right?” Lord Richard asked Dr. Jacobs as he raised up from examining Charley Spade, whose bruised body was a mute map of the poor man's fall from his horse and subsequent assaults.

  Dr. Jacobs, sleepy-eyed and sullen from his early-morning arousal, nodded and slowly lifted the gauze and oil with which he'd treated the worst lacerations. “Oh, I'm sure he'll be fine,” the old man said, and Lord Richard observed the cuffs of a nightshirt protruding from beneath the black coat.

  Richard was relieved and looked down on the young man who had been delivered to the doorstoop of the Grosvenor Square mansion without fanfare or explication, simply dumped, as it were, without a stitch on, bereft of everything save for the lady's cape and the leather pouch about his neck, which apparently the assailants had been in the process of removing as well, for half the strap had been cut away.

  From the shadows near the door came a clipped and familiar voice. “Thank you for coming, doctor. My clerk will be around in the morning to compensate you for your lost sleep.”

  Aslam. As always, safe in shadow. And at the mention of compensation, Dr. Jacobs nodded, walked to the door, then advised, “Have one of your female servants look to his head bandage in the morning and, if draining, replace it with clean linen.”

  After he left, there was no sound in the room. Richard returned to the couch where young Charley Spade had been placed. On the opposite wall in the deep fire well a fire crackled. Only then did Richard realize how strange it might have appeared to Dr. Jacobs, both he and Aslam in their dressing gowns.

  No! Not strange. Richard was a house guest in the residence now occupied by the firm hand which so ably was conducting the family business in the absence of its founder.

  Would he never move away from that door?

  Richard continued to wait, ready to take his cue from Aslam, but there was no predicting what the man was doing or thinking or what his mood would be when he deigned to speak.

  “Are you feeling well, Richard?” Aslam asked at last. “Perhaps Dr. Jacobs should have - ”

  “I’m well.” Richard smiled, renewed by the young man's appearance. Forbes Hall in Kent and all the various albatrosses contained therein were momentarily forgotten in the slow, elegant approach of this most English of all Englishmen.

  “What do you make of him?” Aslam asked, slowly encircling the couch on which lay the still-senseless Charley Spade.

  “What's to make of him?” Richard shrugged. “Clearly he's one of John's men, bearing tragic news, one more accounting for John as he banks the fires of hell.”

  A little amazed at the degree of bitterness which had surfaced in his voice, Richard moved quickly away from the couch in a direct line to the sideboard, where he poured two clarets and carefully carried them back to where Aslam was standing, hands in pockets, staring down on Charley Spade.

  “Will he sleep forever?” he asked as he took one of the clarets. “There are questions I must ask.”

  “You'll have your chance, but probably not before this evening.”

  “He's in no condition to ride - ”

  “Ride where?” Richard asked, momentarily forgetting the entire purpose for Charley Spade's presence in London. Then he remembered. “God, no. But someone must. Gladstone's response...”

  “I don't think he will,” Aslam said quietly, moving away from the couch and taking the glass of claret with him to the fire.

  Surprised, Richard looked up. “Why not?”

  From the fire Aslam smiled. “Because he's not in London.”

  Richard started forward. Perhaps Aslam had simply heard a rumor. “Where is he?” he asked.

  “In Wales. On a walking tour/' came the soft reply. “My clerk had occasion to confer with one of his clerks last week. He was told then Gladstone's office would be closed until early December. He's quite fond of walking, you know.”

  Distracted, Richard nodded, though his thoughts had already crossed the channel to a single cell somewhere in that unhappy city that now was Paris. “Elizabeth...” he murmured, still unable to believe the letter, wishing, along with Aslam, that Charley Spade would awaken so he could respond to direct questions. “Then why,” he asked suddenly, “did you have Jason take the letter to Aldwell if you knew...?”

  “Because I want Aldwell to learn it for himself, so he can truthfully report to John that every possible effort was made. I want my word to count for nothing. In fact, I would much prefer not even - ”

  Suddenly a low groan came from the couch. The giant was stirring. “Oh, Gawd!” he groaned again.

  Richard moved closer, wanting to question the man. “God was with you,” he said gently, bending low over the head which thrashed upon the pillow, then grew still out of respect for the pain which obviously was shattering his skull.

  “What... hap...?'” Charley tried to say, and at last opened his eyes and took one look around, and apparently decided he hadn't an idea in hell where he was.

  Richard saw the confusion blend with pain and fear and moved closer in an attempt to alleviate at least two of the man's discomforts. “You're in London, Charley, in the house that belongs to Mr. John Murrey Eden. You were brought here by a man and a woman who failed to identify themselves...” As he talked, Richard carefully charted the changes in the young man's face. But of changes there were few until Richard spoke the words “..
.thieves and cutthroats...”

  Then Charley moaned again as though briefly reliving the most terrible moments of his attack.

  “Charley, would you like a brandy?” Richard offered kindly.

  With the offer the remembrance of the attack was dissipated. “That... would be helpful,” Charley murmured.

  “Very well.” Richard nodded. As he went to the sideboard, he exchanged a smile with Aslam, who continued to stand before the fire, apparently content to let Richard conduct the interrogation.

  “Better?” Richard asked after Charley had sniffed and swallowed and coughed and swallowed again.

  The man nodded, and the brandy did seem to have cleared his head, for now he looked about the room with new alertness, clutching at the hem of the blanket with both hands, as though he had just become aware of his nakedness.

  “Me... clothes...?” he gasped, and looked up searchingly at Richard.

  “Gone, I'm afraid,” Richard said sympathetically. “The same ruffians who knocked you from your mount and took... everything. But you are safe here, and I will personally see to a complete new wardrobe and horse and anything else you might require when the time comes.”

  This seemed to soothe the man, though he continued to look nervously about the room until his eyes at last landed on Aslam. Suddenly, fresh terror surfaced from somewhere and Charley Spade struggled up from the couch, his eyes fixed on Aslam. “Him! It was him who robbed me. I swear it!” he gasped. Then he repeated the accusation louder. “I swear he was the one. What's he doing here? Come to finish the job?” he demanded, half raised on his elbows.

  But Richard stepped forward, soothing. “You must lie still and rest. We need to ask you some very important questions concerning Mr. Eden and Elizabeth. So would you...?”

  But the man wouldn't, so ready and excited he was to identify one of the culprits.

  Again Richard tried to soothe and explain. “Clearly what has happened,” he began, “is a case of mistaken identity. Someone who resembled Aslam was one of your assailants.” He waited, trying to read the perplexed expression on Charley's face. “Do you understand?” he asked.

  He gestured toward the young man near the fire, who had yet to respond to the false charge in any way. “This is Mr. Eden's adopted son, Charley, the man who is conducting Mr. Eden's business affairs in Mr. Eden's absence. Now do you understand?”

  Slowly the man nodded, but not before first scrutinizing Aslam with a last thorough look. “May have been someone else,” he muttered. “Looked just like him.”

  “Of course,” Richard agreed. “Now, do you mind if I ask you a few questions about what you found in Paris?”

  Charley Spade sank slowly back into the comfort of the pillow and shook his head. “What we found, sir, can be summed up in one word: Hell! That's what we found.”

  “And how is John? Mr. Eden, I mean.”

  “Oh, not good, sir, not good at all. Sometimes he looks...”

  “He looks what, Mr. Spade?” Richard prodded, curious.

  Charley shrugged. “You know, lost, like he's lost his compass, if you know what I mean.”

  Suddenly there was a direct question coming from near the fireplace. “What is the nature of Mr. Eden's illness, sir?” Aslam asked with clipped politeness.

  “Seizure, sir, least that's what Miss Mantle calls it.”

  “Who is Miss Mantle?”

  “A nurse.” Charley grinned. “A circuit nurse, sir, who does more good in a day than most folk do in a lifetime. I don't know what the West Country would do without - ”

  “Are they serious? These seizures.”

  A quick look of indignation crossed Charley's face. “Right serious, sir, and the next one — according to Miss Mantle — could kill him if he's not... Abruptly Charley stopped talking, as though a new fear had just occurred to him. “It was me who carried him out of that wretched place where he found Miss Elizabeth. Bleeding, he was, and four French soldiers following after him, ready to pounce again and finish him off, and he just hanging there between them, looking half-dead.”

  Something about the crude description caused Richard to feel weak. “Elizabeth?” he asked quietly.

  Charley hesitated. “Well, now, sir, I never saw her for myself, nor did old Bates. The bastard general who runs that foul pit only let Mr. Eden go down. But he was gone ever so long, and when he come up, it's like I said, he had had him an altercation with someone - ”

  “Elizabeth,” Richard repeated, trying to keep the man on track.

  “Quite bad, sir, or so I understood Mr. Eden to tell old Bates. She'd lost flesh, he said, and turned total white on the head and... Oh, yes, he said they had manacled her ankles so she couldn't escape.”

  Suddenly, to Richard's complete shock, the large man started to bawl noisily, easily as a child does, without shame or apology. “Oh, sir, it grieves me to talk about it.”

  If Charley Spade was having trouble accepting the impending tragedy, Richard wasn't faring so well himself. He too turned away.

  “What are the charges brought against her?” If there was any significant emotion in Aslam's voice, Richard could not detect it.

  “Murder, sir,” Charley replied promptly, sniffling noisily and wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Whom?” Aslam quizzed further.

  Charley shrugged. “Some frog. You can be sure he deserved it,” he added, bristling with hostility.

  “Was it a jury trial?” Aslam asked further, but apparently Charley had no knowledge of the nature of the trial.

  “Oh, Im sure I don't know, sir,” he moaned. “All I know is I must be on the road no later than midnight tonight, and in me pocket I must have a letter from Mr. William Gladstone, 'cause I promised Mr. Eden. Can I make it, sir?” Charley asked, now half-raised on his elbows. “Can I be on the road by — ?”

  “Do you feel up to another ride?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “Then I see no reason...”

  Aslam stepped forward with a suggestion. “Perhaps Jason should go with you, in case...”

  Charley Spade looked from the shadows where the voice had originated to Richard, who sat close to the couch. “Who's... Jason?”

  “Jason was Mr. Eden's London coachman, a good man and a strapping one.”

  Charley blinked rapidly, as though someone had just challenged him. “Don't need no one else,” he muttered.

  “You could have used assistance last evening,” came the voice from the shadows.

  “Can he ride?” Charley asked with new belligerence. “'Cause I don't plan to slow for no man.”

  Richard tried to calm the man. “If you don't wish - ”

  The voice from the shadows became more insistent. “But I do.”

  Puzzled, Richard looked in that direction. “I... don't understand.”

  Without a pause, Aslam explained. “If anything goes wrong, I don't want John to think anyone here contributed to the inevitable tragedy.” He paused. “Mr. Spade, Jason can ride, I assure you. Furthermore, he can proceed if you... in any way falter again. Do you understand?”

  From the expression on Charley's face, Richard wasn't absolutely certain he did. But at least he wasn't protesting anymore. And now Richard fully understood. It could end only one way, with a volley of bullets, and when John surfaced from his grief long enough to search for a culprit, as was always John's custom, then Aslam wanted to give him no cause to look to London.

  “Then it's settled,” Aslam said, finally crossing to the couch.

  “There is a trunk of garments on the floor below. Please help yourself to whatever you wish. There are boots there as well. As soon as Jason returns...

  As Aslam laid plans with dispatch, Richard saw new confusion cutting across Charley Spade's face. “Wait a minute, sir,” he protested. “I got to get Mr. Gladstone's response.”

  “Of course,” Aslam said, and moved back into the shadows. “Mr. Aldwell is at this minute seeing the prime minister. In the meantime, it won't
hurt, will it, for you to prepare yourself, so that when word does arrive, you are immediately ready to ride?”

  For a moment it looked as though Charley was trying very hard to find something in the quiet voice to argue with. But apparently he could find nothing, and at last stood. “Where did you say this here trunk was?” he muttered, still clutching the blanket.

  “On the floor below,” Aslam repeated. “Go along with you, and, as I said, take what you want. As soon as Aldwell returns - ”

  “With the response from Gladstone,” Charley announced defiantly.

  There was a pause. “Perhaps,” Aslam replied, and this seemed to satisfy Charley, who at last pushed up from the couch, wobbled a bit, and left the room.

  Richard held his position by the couch and stared down with unwarranted interest at the mussed linen and coverlet, seeing neither. “She will... die, won't she?” he asked.

  At first there was no response. Then: “Perhaps my clerk was mistaken. Perhaps Gladstone changed his plans and is at home and at this moment writing...

  Did he believe his own words? Or had they been spoken solely for Richard's comfort?

  “Not necessary,” Richard said. “You know how I feel about false hope.”

  “As we all do. But at this point we can't be certain if it's false, can we?”

  La Rochelle House of Detention, Paris November 13, 1874

  “Are you frightened?”

  Elizabeth looked up at the question and shifted upon the straw and massaged her ankles, grateful to Madame Charvin for having the manacles removed.

  “Yes,” she replied honestly, “though sometimes I feel as though I’ve used up all my fear and what I feel now is a kind of numbness. And sadness, that too.” She spoke carefully, trying to be as articulate as possible, not necessarily for Madame Charvin's benefit, but for her own. She still couldn't quite understand why her life was ending here in this place, in this fashion.

  Madame Charvin, as though aware of the importance of her own question, did not push for further explication and contented herself with admiring the lovely wax flowers which Elizabeth had just presented to her.