“Madame, please!” Bates interrupted, indicating the atrocity which she had witlessly brought to Mr. Eden.
“Of course,” she murmured, appalled at her own stupidity. Thinking to remove the painful object from Mr. Eden's sight, she reached across for the wicker case.
But Mr. Eden was grasping it with both hands.
Bates interceded. “Sir, let her remove it. You don't - ”
Whatever it was Bates thought Mr. Eden didn't want or need was never stated. Suddenly, with surprising strength, Mr. Eden successfully ensnared the case and drew it to his side. His left arm wrapped around it in a protective gesture while the other slowly touched the stained fabric.
For a moment Madame Charvin looked between Bates and Mr. Eden, praying for direction, for an excuse to vacate this unhappy place. At last it came from Bates, who reached a hand up and gestured for her to come forward.
She did willingly, taking only a brief backward look at the man bent over the soiled, stained dress.
“I'm... so sorry,” she muttered as Bates took her arm to turn her away, though as he did, a sudden cry came from the front of the carriage.
“Sir!” The alarmed voice belonged to Bates, who stepped forward. Madame Charvin saw the cause of their alarm — Mr. Eden himself, who had now stepped out through the opposite door of the carriage, still clutching the wicker case, directly into the early-evening traffic of the street.
“Sir!” Bates called again, panic rising in his voice as he hurried back to the pavement, prepared to step off into the same flow of carriages and wagons which now, with some difficulty, were trying to avoid the man as he stumbled toward the far curb.
“Wait, sir!” Charley Spade called down, looking at Bates this time. “I’ll go.” With that, Madame Charvin saw him jump down from his high seat.
The old man, Bates, called up something to the black man, instructing him to stay with the carriage, then he too started across, both men in pursuit of the man who had already disappeared into the pedestrian traffic across the way.
She turned once, without direction, on the cobbles. Where was he going? Where did he hope to find safety and comfort in this insane world? Where was she to go? How would an old woman survive, unprotected?
She stood for a moment, head cocked to one side as though awaiting an answer. But there was none, save for the bells of Saint Germain des Pres announcing evening matins. Of what earthly good were bells when the soul was deaf?
She bowed her head and started slowly down the street in search of a reason to be alive.
“After him! Quick!” Bates shouted, literally shoving Charley Spade ahead of him. My God, what would they do if...?
“Hurry! Find him!” It was unthinkable what had happened. One moment Mr. Eden had been sitting docilely in the carriage awaiting departure for England, and the next...
Breathless from his sprint, Bates drew to one side in an attempt to catch his breath, at the same time craning his neck to see up ahead over the onslaught of people.
Where were they?
Surely Charley Spade could overtake him. Mr. Eden had not had more than a few minutes’ head start.
As the pedestrian traffic around him increased, Bates clung to the red-brick wall for a moment longer, feeling curiously numb, as though a decision had been made.
Transitions! God, how he hated them, always had. And what in the name of God had possessed Mr. Eden to bolt? And what if Charley Spade could not find him and bring him back? And what would a half-dead man, who did not know the language nor care to know it, do in Paris? And who would understand the mysterious and grisly contents of that wicker case?
Bates continued to cling to the brick wall, and realized he was afraid. Not for himself. He could always hang on to some small piece of sanity for the simple reason he'd never had the courage to invest that much of himself in life.
Rather, he was afraid for John Murrey Eden, who had made it a habit of investing all he had in every aspect of life, who had started on a descent this night from which Bates feared no man could rise intact.
Grosvenor Square, London December 5, 1874
With the unhappy impatience of a man who was one place and knew he was needed elsewhere, Lord Richard read the hastily penned note from Bates for the third time and found it made no more sense than it had when Aslam had first thrust it at him earlier this evening.
Disappeared?
That was the most puzzling word of all. “Mr. Eden just... disappeared.”
Lord Richard stood up from the narrow confinement of the writing bureau, feeling an uncomfortable mix of anger and apprehension begin to build inside him. Would he never be free of John Murrey Eden? Since they had first met as mutually unhappy boys that stormy night at Eden Castle so long ago, John had always managed to occupy one-half of Richard's consciousness, either in love or hate.
Now he paced restlessly before the dying fire, listening for the familiar sound of a boot on the stairs outside the door.
Aslam.
He should have been home by now. A late-night dinner meeting with the board of directors of the Great Northern Assurance firm had called him away. They were courting Aslam, hoping to woo a small percentage of the firm's massive profits for private investment.
Thinking on the young man, Richard glanced quickly toward the door, then looked back into the fire, suffering a twinge of guilt. He shouldn't be here at all, what with Eleanor's confinement due to end any day. He should be in Kent with her at Forbes Hall.
Eleanor. Her first child. It had been a difficult pregnancy and surely would be a difficult delivery. He did love her, he thought with curious sorrow. He desperately wanted the child to be a son, next in the long line of barons and earls that stretched unbroken back to the tenth century. In that roundabout way his tumbling thoughts brought him directly back to the tragic letter from old Bates which had just been delivered by special courier this afternoon.
If something had happened to John, Eden Castle was his again, and his son's.
“My Dear Sirs,” Bates's letter began, penned in a neat though broad penmanship. The first paragraph tended toward fulsomeness and social amenities, the old man informing them of Parisian weather and Parisian temperament. Then, without warning, came the most incredible line in the letter: “Following Elizabeth Eden's execution by firing squad, Mr. John Murrey Eden disappeared into the congestion of evening traffic, and despite the concerted efforts of myself and Jason and a colleague from Eden Point, Mr. Charley Spade, we have been unable to trace him.”
There was more, but each time Richard read the letter, he found it increasingly difficult to get past that paragraph unscathed. Every sentence, every word, carried with it a complete set of hazards.
Following Elizabeth Eden's execution by firing squad...
Suddenly Richard felt weak. “Dear God,” he prayed. He bowed his head and thought of the date inscribed on the letter: November 20, five days after the execution. Was the message still true? Was John still missing?
Listen! There was a footstep. Aslam? He couldn't tell, looked in that direction and suffered a split-second image of Eleanor, swollen and uncomfortable with child, missing him — at least, that's what she'd wept out last week as he was preparing for this brief sojourn. Business, he had told her, comfortable with his lie, for it had turned out to be business, family business, though he hadn't known that when he'd left Kent. Still, there it was, a family decision pressing, which could...
He sat up straight and heard it again, hesitant footsteps coming up the stairs. Not Aslam, who frequently took them two at a time.
A knock at the door, followed by a crackling, very breathless oil female voice. “Mr. Alex Aldwell, wanting to see you, Lord Richarc What words shall I use?”
Richard stared a moment longer at the letter, only then remembe ing he'd sent a message around to Aldwell's flat, asking him to cons around to the Grosvenor Square house as soon as possible. Wih regret he remembered he'd told Aldwell nothing of the contents tf the message, which meant
there was Aldwell's grief and shock to le dealt with, and like everyone else who had known Elizabeth Edei, Aldwell's heart had been taken prisoner years ago.
“Send him up right away,” he called through the closed door.
A few moments later he heard new movement on the stairs, head a forceful knock on the door, and even as he was in the process rf calling out “Come,” the door opened and there was Alex.
“Well, where are they?” he demanded. “I came as fast as I couH. I had a damned meeting over in Southwark, but I felt they'd understand, and Elizabeth particularly. I'm sure she remembers what it was like in those good early days of the John Murrey firm. No rest for the evil. And John, is he...?” Aldwell looked around the room, confused.
“Alex,” Richard began, thinking, after a brief warning of lad news, to let the man read the letter for himself.
“Well, where are they?” Aldwell demanded again, hands on hps, clearly ready for a reunion. “Come on, Richard, where are they lading?” Aldwell grinned. “In the bedchamber?”
He took three steps toward the door, then slowly stopped. “Where are...?” he tried to ask, obviously couldn't, and took one additional look about the large room. “You sent a... note,” he jaid feebly.
Richard again decided not to interrupt, to say nothing until iUex indicated with his silence he was ready to be told.
Then it came, a sudden draining of all life, though his eyes seened to have found the crumpled letter in Richard's hand. “I... trust your wife is well, Lord Richard,” he said with strange formality, approaching the fireplace and gently taking the letter from Richard, though not looking at it immediately.
“As well as can be expected,” Richard answered. “Delivery soon, we hope.”
“So!” Alex exclaimed nervously, lifted the letter, and read.
When several minutes later no sound had broken the silence, Richard stirred himself from his close vigil on the fire and saw Aid-
well slumped on the sofa, his head down, still clutching the letter.
“I'm... sorry,” Richard began, moving toward the collapsed man. “I should have been more... specific.”
Disjointedly Alex shook his head and turned away, as though speech were still beyond him.
“Did you read the letter in its entirety?” Richard asked, following after the man to the sideboard, where he was in the process of pouring himself a brandy. Good. It would help to clear both the head and the heart.
“I read it.” Alex nodded, draining the glass with one swallow.
“And...?”
“And what?”
“What is your opinion?”
Aldwell looked at his empty glass as though he were contemplating another. “I have no opinion,” he said gruffly, moving away from the sideboard, as though away from temptation. “He killed her,” he accused suddenly, seeking the safe warmth of the fireplace. “I heard him that morning,” he confessed, “years ago. He was a madman, insane, he was,” Aldwell went on. “He'd had a couch moved down to the library, you see, claiming that... Lila was up there, his dead wife, and she wanted him dead as well...”
The large man spoke slowly, each word individually pronounced. “And all he did all day long and all night was stare up at that goddamned painting and talk to it.
“If it hadn't been for Elizabeth...” Again his voice broke.
Richard returned to the sofa, mindless with grief.
“Well,” Aldwell said at last, a degree of dispatch in his voice, as though he knew better than anyone the futility of what they were doing, “if you're asking me direct what I think should be done about... the disappearing man...” The emphasis on the word “disappearing” was weighted with sarcasm. “In my opinion...” He paused, as though assessing privately what he was about to state publicly.
Into this new silence Richard heard a steady, measured tread on the stairs and recognized it immediately. “Aslam,” he murmured to Aldwell, who, looking up, had already heard it as well.
“Has he... seen...? Does he know?” Aldwell asked as Richard started toward the door.
“Oh, yes. It was addressed to him.”
At that moment the door was pushed open, and there he was, tall, slim, sober, those dark eyes immediately recording everything.
“The meeting,” Richard began. “How was the board of directors?”
“Satisfactory,” came the blunt reply as Aslam meticulously closed the door. “Good evening, Aldwell. I'm glad you're here. We'll need two recording clerks tomorrow morning at the general board meeting. I will make a major proposition concerning the disbursement of stock dividends.”
Richard saw Aldwell nod. He saw both men carefully avoid eye contact with each other, neither speaking on any subject at all, as though the most logical one, John Murrey Eden, must be avoided at all costs.
Fascinated by this unexpected drama, Richard perched on the back of the sofa and wondered how he would manage going through it all again — for Eleanor would have to be told. After the birth of the baby, of course.
Abruptly his thoughts came to a halt. Aslam was adjusting the small gas lamp and opening a large brown envelope, looking for all the world like a man preparing to work.
Richard returned to the sofa and lifted Bates's letter into the air. “I think before we get settled into other activities, we have an important piece of unfinished business.”
Both men looked up. Alex turned slowly, a weariness to his face, as though memory had assaulted him again and taken a toll. “Eden's ill-equipped to handle... things on his own,” Aldwell muttered. “If he's truly taken off on his own, then he will be dead shortly, if not already.”
Richard saw Aslam sit up straight, the writing portfolio totally forgotten. “Do you think that's possible? The fact of his death, I mean.”
Alex nodded. “Of course. He was ill when he left here. Elizabeth's death...” Again something overtook him and all he could do was shake his head.
“Then I suggest we do nothing,” came the clear, clipped voice of the man behind the desk, who had once again begun to thumb through the large file. Richard detected a new pleasure in Aslam's voice, as though the thought of John dead was extremely pleasing to him.
Still, to do nothing...
“I don't think we want to do that, Aslam. Some effort should be made...”
The young man looked serenely up at the challenge. “And why not?” Aslam replied lightly. “I have no intention of providing old Bates and his two cohorts with a French holiday while John does what he's done best all his life, which is to stage his own drama to the amusement of no one but himself.” He paused and again looked searchingly, hopefully at Aldwell. “Do you really think he might be dead?”
Alex nodded. “If not now, soon. He's cut off, you see. No way to communicate, no funds, according to Bates.” He shrugged. “Oh, God!” he breathed heavily, as though the thought were insupportable.
So grief lurked just beneath the death sentence as well as the condemnation.
“Can old Bates be trusted?” Aslam asked, his voice low.
Alex looked up, puzzled. “I don't under - ”
“Can we believe what he says?”
“Well, I'm not certain we have any reason to doubt his word. Why would he make up something like...?” Alex looked merely puzzled at the dark-skinned young man. “If he is alive — I can speak with a degree of certainty — he is suffering - ”
“John adores suffering,” Aslam broke in. “It is by far his favorite pastime.”
“Aslam, please...” Alex requested.
“And his second favorite pastime,” Aslam went on, “is to inflict suffering on others.”
Richard exchanged a quick glance with Aldwell, as though the large man were seeking advice on how and what he should do.
“Do what you will.” Aslam stood up and headed toward the bedchamber door. “You will anyway.” At the door he stopped and turned back. “I doubt if either of you knows John Murrey Eden in precisely the same manner as I do. But I can assure you he wil
l do as he wishes in all matters. If he wishes to disappear, as Bates's letter naively suggested, he will remain out of sight until he is ready to be found. If he's still alive, that is. And nothing you can do will aid the process in any way. Still, do what you will. I want no part in it...”
With that he closed the door behind him, leaving Aldwell and Richard staring at the closed door.
Richard was on the verge of apologizing for him when he looked around to see Aldwell rereading Bates's letter. Finally Alex drew his heavy black jacket more closely about him and started toward the outer door. “I will be leaving in the morning on the packet from Dover” he said softly to Richard. “Tell Aslam I will take my own funds for now but expect full compensation in the future. I will return as soon as I hire a competent investigator who will bring us proof of either his life or his death. Also, I will see to it Bates understands precisely what I want him to do.”
Puzzled at this contradiction of intent, Richard asked, “Why must you go? We could hire a man from London, send a courier with funds, even instruct Bates to...”
But all the time he spoke, Aldwell was shaking his head. “No,” he said as Richard fell silent. “I must go. But Fm not going for John. You must make that clear to Aslam. John Murrey Eden can rot in his own private hell — if he hasn't already — as far as I'm concerned.” Without looking up, he concluded, “I’m doing it for Elizabeth. She never ceased to love him, and if she were here now...” His voice broke.
Richard had thought to say something else, but before he could organize his thoughts, Aldwell was on his way down the steps. Struggling to keep his mind away from dangerous images, Richard bolted the door, thinking as soon as he'd had one small fortifying brandy he'd join Aslam in the bedchamber. But as he turned, his eye fell on Bates's abandoned letter.
I'm not going for John Murrey Eden, who can rot in his own hell. I'm going for Elizabeth.
No matter what he did or what he thought, he could not rid his mind of the image of the woman as she once had been, as she'd entered his life, graced it, warmed it, and left it forever richer.
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 38
