Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5)

by Marilyn Harris

  Until...

  He groaned softly, bowed his head, and consciously tried to open his eyes but couldn't, as though the scene were holding him against his wishes, certainly against his better judgment.

  “Dinner, sir. Sorry to be late. Couldn't get the...”

  Where was he? Whose voice was that?

  “Are you well, sir? Why don't you let Maudie — ?”

  “Get out!” he whispered, never raising his voice, confident this old woman would obey him — and she did.

  The scene faded mercifully, to leave him leaning heavily on his elbows, his hands serving as blinders in a futile attempt not to see his home — or what was left of it after John Murrey Eden had finished exploiting it.

  No, it was gone now, blessedly, but he was newly aware of the depth of his hate for John Murrey Eden. He had been the trespasser, the corrupter, the very embodiment of the English conqueror, who had marched into Aslam's quiet, sun-drenched country, had proceeded to take any and everything he wanted, from jewels to women to territory to privilege, with no thought or consideration for right or ownership or consequences.

  Aslam rubbed his eyes, weary of reliving the past, the origin of his hate for John, and stared straight down into his plate filled with one boiled egg and a small mound of buttered noodles. His hands shook as he pushed up from the table and the bland, uneaten food. Later. Perhaps later. He walked to the high windows and stared down at the empty street. At the far end of the crescent he saw a black-clad figure, a curious black lace parasol hoisted aloft in weak protection against the persistent sleet. There was no special reason why this particular woman caught his eye, except for the fact she had the street and the pavement all to herself.

  He paused a moment longer to watch her, thought of her sex and found a new reason to loathe her, a total stranger. As she drew nearer, he noticed wiry tufts of red hair visible beneath the prim broad-brimmed black hat, saw clearly the gewgaws about her neck, chains, pendants, drops, an imprisonment of cheap jewelry, all worn with a distinct air of pride, as though confident of her extreme beauty and good taste.

  What in the...?

  In surprise, he leaned forward as he saw the woman pause before his Grosvenor Square mansion, her eyes squinting at the facade of the house. Then she started up the steps, lowering her parasol and shaking off the moisture which had accumulated.

  Enough, he scolded, blotting her from view by returning to the table and his now cold meal, finding everything on the plate as repulsive as the woman, yet knowing he had to have sustenance of some sort, as it was his intention to pass the rest of this miserable day sorting through the countless blueprints which cluttered his desk. Sometimes it seemed to him a simple matter to make all of London part of his new empire, not just the limited John Murrey firm.

  He heard the bell ring. The woman from the street. Then it occurred to him — she was a friend of Maudie Canfield's, who probably had invited her for Christmas dinner in the basement kitchen. At first Aslam was tempted to give in to anger, then changed his mind. Maudie Canfield had served him well and loyally for the last four years. She hated John Murrey Eden with admirable and vocal force, having suffered repeatedly from his displays of temper when he was in residence here. No, let old Maudie have her friend in for the day. He would require nothing more of either of them.

  He drew the platter of cold food closer and speared the egg, drawing the sharp blade of a knife through it twice, feeling the slight resistance of the hard yolk. The quartered egg, chewed but once, then swallowed, slid thickly down his throat, followed by another quarter, then another, until all was devoured, simply because the body required it to function. He experienced neither taste nor pleasure. All he required to nurture and sustain him was his deep and abiding hate for John Murrey Eden. If he was truly at last dead — and Aslam firmly believed he was — his one hope now was it had been a prolonged and painful death.

  What relief, what pleasure that thought brought him, his only true pleasure on this abysmal and pointless Christian holiday.

  At sixty, Maudie Canfield puffed her way up the kitchen stairs, heading toward the front door of the Grosvenor Square mansion, where the bell had already rung twice and undoubtedly would do so a third time.

  “I'm coming,” she called ahead to the impatience on the other side of the door, wondering who it could be on this day. Standing before the front door, she fumbled with the latch, peering closer through the smoked glass to see only black shadows in the shape of a woman's full skirts, a cape and umbrella.

  Female? What female would be out and about today? The latch slid and fell free and she drew open the door. “Yes?” she demanded harshly, peering through the slot, seeing the woman whole now and finding the reality even more bizarre than the shadows. It was a woman, all right, but she looked more like a traveling jeweler, one of those colorful peddlers who wear their wares.

  “What is it?” Maudie demanded after she had stared all she wanted.

  “I have come to see Mr. Eden. If you will...”

  Now, that was a strange bit of news. Why would Master Aslam be meeting a woman like this?

  “Is he... expecting you?” Maudie asked.

  “Of course!” the woman snapped. “Just announce me. Tell him Rose O'Donnell is here — with news,” she added pointedly.

  Maudie decided that the woman was not to be trusted.

  “Well?” Rose O'Donnell demanded. “Are you going to leave me freezing on your stoop, or do you know the amenities?”

  “Come,” Maudie muttered, a little less than hospitably. She stepped back from the open door, beginning to shiver herself. “You wait here,” she ordered with new sternness, and closed the heavy door behind her.

  At the dining-room door Maudie lifted her right hand and knocked once. No response.

  She tried again, and waited, looking back over her shoulder at the woman, who was giving the black-and-white-marble reception hall a pretty thorough going-over. As Maudie knocked the third time, the aggressive woman glanced angrily in her direction, as though the lack of response was her fault, along with everything else.

  “Let me,” she said, and swept toward Maudie, dislodging her from her position at the door. To Maudie's horror, the woman knocked but once, then pushed open the door and swept into the dining hall without even having received permission to enter.

  “No,” Maudie gasped, but it was too late.

  “Sir,” Maudie began apologetically, and let the word carry her all the way across the threshold, heading toward the cold, rigid figure who was staring at the crude woman as though she were an apparition. The woman's face wore the same expression.

  “Who is he?” she demanded with an arrogance that made Maudie flinch.

  “Master Aslam, this woman says - ”

  “Where is Mr. Eden?” the woman interrupted, striding closer to the end of the table, where Aslam continued to sit in a state of stunned horror.

  Quickly Maudie stepped into the breach. “This is Mr. Eden,” Maudie said quizzically. “I thought you said - ”

  “That... is... not... Mr. Eden,” Rose O'Donnell pronounced. “Where is Mr. Eden?” she demanded again, holding her ground, studying Aslam with a condemning eye.

  “Get out!”

  There was neither volume nor threat in his command. It simply came with all the deadly swift accuracy of a thrown knife.

  Unfortunately, Mrs. O'Donnell went right on speaking. “I demand to see Mr. Eden,” she announced, her voice taking on a screech-owl quality. “I have struck a bargain with the gentleman and I am here to deliver my part of the bargain. Now, if one of you will be so good as to - ”

  At that moment a voice cut through the babbling female voice. “I am Mr. Eden,” was all it said, as though that were sufficient.

  And to most rational people it might have been sufficient, but to Rose O’Donnell it wasn’t.

  “How amusingl What precisely is going on here? I know Mr. Eden personally, you see. Therefore, I cannot be duped. And further, I know you for
what you are, despite your English clothes. You’re a nigger, plain and simple, probably in the employ of Mr. Eden, who will be very displeased when I tell him what his servants are - ”

  Suddenly Aslam’s hand moved like a lightning bolt toward the side of Rose O’Donnell’s overrouged cheek to deliver itself of a single blow which echoed about the quiet dining hall like the report of a gun.

  There were two gasps. One of shock coming from Maudie herself, for in all her sixty years she’d never seen a man strike a woman. The second gasp came from Rose O’Donnell, who had fallen to one side under the force of the blow and now clung weeping to the back of one of the chairs.

  “Madam,” he said, his tone quiet, his manner almost polite, “I repeat, I am Mr. Eden, and I have struck no bargain with you. If you are referring to Mr. John Murrey Eden, then I fear your bargain, whatever its nature, is as worthless as the man with whom you struck it. Mr. Eden is dead and therefore relieved of the temptation to be dishonorable again.”

  Maudie listened. Mr. Eden dead? She’d not heard that before. In fact she’d thought Mr. Aldwell had run off to Paris in an attempt to find Mr. Eden.

  Aslam stepped through the door now and took three steps across the entrance hall before he turned back. His words were for Maudie. “Get her out of here,” he said, his voice low, “and never open the front door to strangers again.”

  “Sir, she claimed she knew you.”

  “A false claim.”

  “I’m sorry - ”

  “Get her out of here. Is that clear?”

  Oh, it was clear, all right, despite the sobs coming from the woman in the dining hall. Maudie glanced first at the man walking up the stairs, head erect, then back to the sound of complete ruin coming from behind her.

  “Mrs. O'Donnell,” Maudie began, with the intention of offering comfort before she ushered her out, but at the moment she spoke the name, the woman, whose face now bore the imprint of a single hand, rose hastily from the chair, her hands trying to cover her tear-streaked face.

  “I’ll tell the police, I will,” she sobbed. “And how was I to know Mr. Eden was...?” Apparently she couldn't bring herself to say the word, and rushed past Maudie in a straight path to the doors. With some difficulty she drew one open just wide enough to slip through it.

  By the time Maudie reached the door, Rose O'Donnell was halfway down the stairs, her head bowed, still holding her injured face.

  Forbes Hall, Kent December 25, 1874

  In her extremity Lady Eleanor Forbes Eden looked up from the massive four-poster, no longer embarrassed by her bared, heaving belly. She grasped the ends of the twisted cloth which she held between her clenched teeth and saw a semicircle of strangers staring down on her naked body. Three women — two she'd never seen before — and the short, plump, elfin figure of old Dr. Brackish, who had prowled these Kentish woods for as long as Eleanor could remember, setting bones, stitching cuts, delivering babes.

  Suddenly she felt an upheaval in the lower part of her stomach, a pain as sharp as she'd ever experienced in her life, and the awful sensation that the thrashing infant was trying to escape through the wall of her abdomen.

  She gave in to one short moan, bit down harder on the twisted cloth, and felt the two strange women draw her legs farther apart and prop them up.

  “Brandy, doctor?” Mrs. Eunice asked quietly, wiping at Eleanor's brow. Eleanor knew Mrs. Eunice and liked her, the most experienced midwife in Kent, who had spent the last few days talking to Eleanor, telling her what she could expect at the time of delivery.

  In answer to her question, the doctor shook his head. “Not yet,”

  he said, giving Eleanor an encouraging smile. “She's a brave girl, and it's a peer of the realm she's bringing forth. Now, she doesn't want to be half-senseless for this momentous occasion, now, does she?”

  The old man's question was aimed directly down on Eleanor, who shook her head weakly and wondered how long before the next upheaval, how long would it go on before the “peer” arrived, and would it be male? Oh, please, God, yes! Where was Richard? Why couldn't he have seen fit to be here for the birth of his son?

  At this last painful question, she groaned in a way that had nothing to do with her physical ordeal. She felt the old doctor's hand on her stomach again, fingers splayed as though by merely feeling the angry infant he could predict and prophesy.

  “Not long, my dear,” he comforted. Then, as though the old man had read her thoughts — or else was responding to local gossips, who knew all too well Lady Eleanor's husband, Lord Richard, spent more time in London than he did at Forbes Hall — he added softly, “I do believe the lad's waiting for his father to arrive.”

  Then we all may be here for a while, Eleanor thought, enjoying the unexpected wave of humor.

  The lad's waiting for his father to arrive.

  Lad. Son. The next heir to Eden Castle and Eden Point, one continuous line which stretched back to the beginnings of recorded English history.

  She gasped with delight and felt strong enough to survive any pain.

  “A smile, that's a good sign, my lady,” Mrs. Eunice murmured close beside the bed. “I don't have to ask what you were thinking on. I've delivered too many babes not to recognize a mother's love for her own babe.”

  Eleanor nodded. “I was thinking of him.” She smiled. “Thinking of all he could become.” Across the bedchamber she saw the doctor conferring with the two strange women.

  Suddenly the infant pressed down with such force she couldn't catch her breath. As the pain increased, she leaned back against the pillow and bit down hard, though not on the twisted cloth. Mrs. Eunice had removed it during her moments of ease and she bit down on her own lip instead and tasted blood.

  “Flat!” Dr. Brackish called out with a degree of urgency.

  She felt Mrs. Eunice remove the large feather pillow at her back and ease her down. For several moments the two worked in silence while the other strange women stood at the foot of the bed and watched.

  Why watch? And what right did they have to be here? And where was Richard?

  At the height of the pain she thought the saddest thought of all, the fact that, despite everything, she had loved him and no other since that hot September day during the Eden Festivities when John Murrey Eden had invited her parents into the small library at Eden and had emerged four hours later with a marital contract.

  “Better?” The gentle inquiry came from Mrs. Eunice.

  “Not long now,” promised Dr. Brackish. “The lad is growing impatient.”

  The lad. She liked that.

  Geoffrey Richard Forbes Eden, a combination of two houses. And if the thrashing infant were female? Well, she hadn’t even considered that possibility.

  Then her thoughts of heirs and names were cut short by a series of convulsive pains, like waves breaking on a beach, each wave coming faster than the one before it, perspiration covering her face like sea spray.

  “Push, Lady Eleanor. Remember we talked about...”

  Yes, she remembered, and grabbed fistfuls of bed linens and tried to push against the pain. At the height of agony, she calmly opened her eyes and felt herself bathed in cold sweat, felt hands pulling at something between her legs.

  “Now, push, Lady Eleanor!”

  At the doctor's urgent command she flattened her head against the bed and bore down as hard as she could on the now squalling, angry infant, who tore at her as though birth was a destiny he'd not quite reckoned with. But it was too late, for suddenly she felt a great rushing and heard the squalling at the same time rise to a shriek. Sweat burned her eyes. She closed them and tried to steady her breathing, waiting less than patiently for the doctor's voice.

  “Lady Eleanor, may I present your son, Lord Eden?”

  She opened her eyes and saw a red, bloodied, and squiggly piece of infuriated human flesh held suspended in the doctor's hands, while, curiously, the two strange women made notations in small black notebooks.

  “Who...?” she began
, wishing they would depart and give her her son.

  Mrs. Eunice stepped close. “They are official verifiers from Hastings, my lady, hired by Lord Eden to witness and record the birth of his son. You know, quite necessary where lineage is involved.”

  Eleanor gaped upward, unable for the moment to believe the woman. No, she didn't know. Richard couldn't manage to be here himself, but he'd thought to hire two strange women to witness and testify to the successful delivery of her son.

  Her anger crested, as recently the pain had. It was her son, for she had done the work. She opened her eyes to keep careful watch on the two women, who were now examining the small and bloodied hands, recording everything so there could be no question — when Lord Richard did deign to arrive — that this was his son and not an impostor brought in at the last minute.

  “Tell them to finish quickly,” she ordered. “Then give me my son.” The tone of her voice caught the attention of all, even the repulsive ladies, who gazed down on her with surprise.

  While she waited out the official inspection, she asked Mrs. Eunice to pass the word of the birth of her son to the servants waiting outside the door, many of whom had been with her family since her birth, and who would be happy and relieved to hear of her safe delivery.

  “A Christmas babe,” Mrs. Eunice beamed. “A good omen.”

  “I hope so,” Eleanor murmured, waiting less than patiently for the two women, who now were in close examination of the infant's genitals, to finish.

  Poor thing, Eleanor mourned, regretting his first moments of consciousness would be to submit to such a crude and cold human act.

  Talbot House, Dublin January 4, 1875

  “That’s what the man said, Lord Harrington, the madman, I might add, who only a few moments after that dared to lift his hand in violence against me.”