The Women of Eden (73 page)

In relief she cried herself out, fortified by three words: "It doesn't matter." A short while later he lowered her to the pillow, his hands smoothing her hair. She marveled at the flow of strength coming from him to her and she found the courage to say, "I will tell you about it—someday. I want to speak of it."

He nodded. "Someday, when we are walking with our grandchildren and they are running ahead of us, then you can tell me."

"Grandchildren?"

"Of course!" He grinned. "Following children and both following the day you become my wife."

A dog barked outside the window. A carriage rattled past. Then all the street sounds fell silent as though in awe of his simple words. Mary tried to speak. But she could find nothing to express the joy in her heart. Then she was in his arms again, marveling at the word.

Wife. His wife—

"Will you," he asked shyly, "marry me?"

Did he require an answer? Then she would give him one and, separating herself from his embrace and taking his face between her hands, she kissed him and confessed quietly, "I have no hfe without you. Of course I'll marry you."

He enclosed her in his arms. With a thought of returning just a degree of the comfort that he had given to her, she drew his head down until it was resting on her breast. . . .

St. George Street 1,11

For two reasons, and two reasons only, Elizabeth had agreed to see John this evening. Even then, after responding "Yes" to Alex Aid-well's eloquent plea on John's behalf, she now found herself regretting her decision.

One, she was worried sick about the missing Mary, who was still missing, despite the five private investigators whom John had turned loose on her trail. She knew, for Alex had told her, that John had returned only yesterday from Cheltenham. Perhaps he had news.

She sipped at her sherry and tried to clear her head for the impending encounter and, without warning, a fragment of old love surfaced and forced her into a painful collision with her second reason for having agreed to receive John this evening.

Lovel It was that simple. In spite of everything, she had raised him and in a way was responsible for what he was, though Charhe Bradlaugh had tried to talk her out of that "bit of foolishness."

Still, there was the truth of it, and with Richard's mysterious departure, Andrew and Dhari's emigration, Lila's death and now Mary's absence, she could understand the degree of pain he must be suffering.

"He's here, Miss Elizabeth." The voice belonged to Doris, who had done little to hide her feelings in the announcement.

"Show him in immediately."

Then the bell sounded and, as Doris hurried out of sight toward the door, Elizabeth drained her sherry and offered up a quick prayer

for patience, for understanding, in the name of the deep love they once had shared. Still looking toward the archway, she started forward, baffled.

This side of the archway she stopped, having found him wearily removing his cloak and gloves at the pace of a man twice his age. For just an instant her heart went out to him. "John—" she began, and fought the impulse to go to his side, and stood back as he passed before her without acknowledging her, and moved the length of the room toward the fire.

When he still did not speak or recognize her in any way, she went to the sideboard, poured a snifter of brandy and carried it like a peace offering to the fireplace. "Here," she said, "it will warm you."

He looked down on her, as though surprised he was not alone. As he took the snifter he spoke his first words. "Thank you for receiving me."

The simple expression of gratitude moved her and she caught a glimpse of the old John, capable of great love and consideration. As she sat in her customary chair before the fire, she was on the verge of asking if he would like food.

But before she could speak he looked out over the drawing room. "I understand there was quite a large reception here earher this afternoon."

A harmless comment, though it did imply that his spies had been busy. "Yes," she confirmed. "A Frenchwoman visiting London for the first time. Her name is—"

"I know her name," he interrupted, "and I know the guest list as well, and I know the purpose of the meeting."

Elizabeth laughed. "Well, then, there's little need to discuss it, is there? Tell me what you found in Cheltenham? Did you see—"

He looked directly at her, the fatigue on his face hardening into censure. "Are you getting involved in that nonsense all over again?"

Taken aback by his change of mood, she stammered, "What— nonsense?"

"You know perfectly well. Less than three years ago you brought embarrassment to the entire family with your public involvement in that stupid franchise. My God, I would have thought you had learned your lesson."

He was ranging broadly back and forth before the fireplace. She watched as long as she could, then tried to force his mind to the

matter at hand. "Please, tell me what you learned in Cheltenham. I've been so worried."

"Why?"

"Why?" she repeated, astonished at the question. "Because Mary is missing, God knows where."

"God may not know," he said, facing her, "but I think you do."

In the face of this accusation, she found herself incapable of a reply. She abandoned her chair, feeling a need for distance. As she retreated he started speaking again, pursuing her halfway across the room. "I had an interesting conversation with Miss Veal," he said. "It seems that on the morning of Mary's disappearance an American gentleman posing as a journalist with a London newspaper paid a visit to the school. He was there, or so he said, to do a story on the various institutions for young ladies."

His voice fell. "Don't you think it curious, Elizabeth, that he should start with a remote school buried in the Cotswolds?"

With her head bowed against his unspoken accusation, she briefly regretted her decision to see him alone. Then, angered by the realization that she was frightened by his presence, she turned to face him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I believe you do," he said. "Since my return to London yesterday I've sent inquiry to every newspaper in this city. No one was assigned to do a story on schools for women. What does that tell you?"

Anxiety increasing, she moved away to the sofa, still feeling the need for distance. "It—tells me nothing. What should it tell me?"

"Betrayal," he said flatly, rising from his chair and walking toward her. "You see, I know everything. I know it was the American, the same one who was at Eden last spring. I should have killed him then," he added calmly. "The same man whom Mary met repeatedly in the park last summer, another betrayal," he added, his voice rising as though he were warming to his subject, "and the same man who paid you a visit not too long ago and obtained precisely the information he needed and who now has spirited her off somewhere, the Eden name trampled underfoot in the process, Mary's whoredom complete."

"John, please—"

As she tried to blunt his rising anger, she saw that she'd only fanned the flames and, as he strode rapidly toward her, she grasped a small pillow as though that soft object would provide her with a degree of protection.

"Of course, I have only myself to blame/' he said, standing less than two feet away. "How foolish I was to have entrusted her to you. A whore can only create a whore, isn't that right? With what efficiency did you make her into your own image! All the time I was trying to protect and defend her, you were working against me, giving her dangerous freedom, filling her head with romantic rubbish, turning her against me."

The words were hard enough to bear, but when she felt his hand tighten on her arm, she gave a soft cry and felt herself being drawn violently toward him, his face close, a deranged face intent on inflicting pain.

"Slut!" he whispered. "First you betrayed my father with every cock in London. Then you corrupted the only pure thing in my life. Why?" he demanded pathetically. "What did I ever do to you but try to lift you out of your own degradation?"

Response was beyond her, her terror so great that she tried to wrench free from his grasp. But he continued to hold her, dropping the brandy snifter to the floor, holding her with both hands, in spite of her pleas that he let her go.

"Go where?" he demanded sarcastically. "To Mary? Oh, I have no doubt that you know precisely where she is, that you stood silently by and allowed her to make a fool of me. Where is the love nest? I'd like to know. Do you watch them as they copulate? Have you given her careful instructions on how to discard the unwanted seed, or can the Eden family now look forward to an American bastard?"

"John, please," she begged. "You don't know what you are saying."

"I know very well what I'm saying. You asked me to speak my mind. Would you like to hear more?"

"No."

"Can you deny the truth of anything I've said?"

"I do not know where Mary is."

"Do you deny that the man came here and that you told him where she was?"

"They are—in love—"

"Then you did see him! You did betray me!"

"Yes!" She was only half-aware of his hand lifting, and when the blow came, a stunning blow to the side of her face, she fell backward into the sofa, her hand moving reflexively to the pain.

Half-turned away and fully prepared to cry out if he struck her again, she clasped her face and tasted blood where her teeth had cut

into her tongue and saw him at last retreat, though now he was looking down on her as though she were something dead to be discarded on the refuse heap.

In defense against such a look, she drew herself up, in spite of her trembling, and delivered herself of a simple announcement to the man walking away toward the door.

"You should know one thing more, John," she said. "Mr. Stanhope has in his possession two notes: the one that he allegedly wrote to Mary and the one that she wrote to him."

Because of her own disintegration, she could not with accuracy discern his reaction. But he appeared to be unconcerned and astonished that she would delay him with such insignificant information.

"The night he was here," she went on, "we determined with little difficulty the false nature of both notes and the true hand behind them."

She paused, still unable to believe the accusation she was about to level. "We were left with only one conclusion, that you—arranged Mary's tragedy, that you were responsible for—"

Incredibly, he smiled. "Of course I was. And I would do it again. My only regret is that the villains did not finish the job and kill her, for she's dead to me now, along with all the hopes I once had for her."

Then he was gone. In a state of shock she listened to his footsteps on the front stairs, the sound of the carriage starting forward, then diminishing, then silence.

A half an hour later she still was seated on the sofa where he had left her, her lower lip rimmed with dried blood, a swelling bruise on her cheek, though all these discomforts were nothing compared to the silent battle she fought with herself. On one side the impulse to hate, on the other the need to forgive, on the insistent basis that the once vulnerable little boy was now pitifully, tragically insane.

Almost paralyzed with fear for what the future might bring, she bowed her head and begged God's forgiveness and begged Him further to have mercy on John.

Oxford February 5, 1871

Burke stood on the pavement before his carriage in front of the New Hope Inn and tucked the fur rug about Mary's legs and for his effort received her hght kiss on his forehead, and a look of joy in her eyes, despite her pale complexion and the residual weakness which still attended her.

"Are you certain you are capable of traveling?" he asked, concerned, recalhng the debate which they had held for the last three days.

"Yes"—she smiled with conviction—"anywhere, as long as you are with me."

He grasped her hand and tried to determine if she really was capable of traveling, or whether she had urged their departure after having heard him express concern for his mother.

During one of their long afternoon talks he had told Mary everything, commencing with the war which had destroyed his home in America, his mother's illness, the apparent abandonment of his father, and his exile in London. Confident of her love, he'd even confessed to his role as Lord Ripples, claiming full credit for the newspaper column which had so angered John Murrey Eden.

At first she had not beheved him. But then she had, and she'd laughed at the irony, though she'd grown quiet at the mention of her cousin's name. Burke suspected that she had yet to fully beheve his involvement in her ordeal.

No matter. They would deal with that later. The first priority had been to nurse her back to a semblance of health, then to make for London, where they could take safe refuge in his Mayfair house and

there, enjojdng a degree of security in comfortable surroundings, allow Mary a slow and leisured recuperation, so that together they might plot their future.

Lost in his own thoughts, he was unaware of the manner in which he was mindlessly arranging and rearranging the fur rug over her.

Not until she grasped his hand, thus summoning his attention, did he look up. "Enough," she whispered. "Old Giffen is waiting to say his goodbyes, and I'm most eager to meet your mother."

Recalling the condition in which he'd last seen his mother, and suffering a small sinking of spirits, he withdrew from the caniage and turned to face the grinning man standing in the door of the inn.

"Giffen," he called out, summoning the man forward. He saw a small basket clutched in his host's hand and knew that it probably was the last of the many thoughtful considerations the man had showered on them both for the last three weeks.

Burke wondered how he could ever say an adequate thank you. As Giffen came forward, Burke noticed a shyness in his manner that he'd never seen before, as though he, too, were moved by their imminent departure.

"Just a little something for the road, Mr. Bennett." Giffen grinned and extended the basket. "A nice round of Cheddar and two freshly baked meat pies."