The Eden Passion (35 page)

"A fall," he said, and tried to turn her attention away. "Tell me of the Harringtons," he proposed in a playful mood, "then I'll tell you about the scar."

She shrugged. "A good family they was, in the beginning. Quite

noble, till her ladyship strayed over to Ireland and brought back his lordship."

"They're Irish?"

"His lordship is. Black Irish is what we call him. But her ladyship is good solid English." She leaned close, as though to share an intimate secret. "It was the witchcraft that done it, the Catholic witchcraft. Oh, he worked it on her right enough and come back with her from Ireland."

She leaned closer. "They say he keeps the Virgin Mary's finger with him at all times."

"The . . . what?"

She nodded broadly. "Her finger. He carries it with him in a little gold and jeweled case and it gives him magic powers. Devil powers, some say."

John listened to the madness and mourned the loss of her good sense.

"'Course, like I say, they're harmless enough," she went on, "though some think different. And generally they're kind as well. Once, twice, on some special festival day, Catholic day," she added, clearly condemning, "they open the gates at Harrington Hall and invite all us plain folk to come in." Somberly she shook her head. "I went once with me mum when I was little. A spooky place, it is, with Mary statues all over, and candles burning." She stared glumly into the fire. "We ain't been since that once. Me mum says they're after our souls, that's what."

John watched her closely and wondered to what degree her bizarre tale was truth or fiction. "Are there . . . children?" he asked.

"One," the girl replied, drawing her knees up, enjoying her position of authority. "Last Easter they found her before the altar of the cathedral, meowing like a cat. On all fours, she was, crawling around through the arrangements of lilies, and meowing like a cat"

"How old is she?"

"Oh, a child is all, really, thirteen, maybe fourteen by now."

"Would you know her name?"

"Who doesn't? Lila, they named her. And there ain't been no more since."

Lila. You'll pass this way again. Next time, look for me at Harrington Hall.

"Lila, yes, that's what they call her," the girl went on. "And she's forever gettin' loose. There's an old man who is supposed to keep his

eyes on her, but sometimes she's too quick. Once they found her all the way over to Stonehenge."

It was several moments before he realized she'd ceased speaking. Then he saw her face, a frightened expression. "Gawd, I hope I ain't said too much. You . . . wouldn't be friends of them, now, would you?"

The earnest nature of her inquiry made him laugh. "No, I assure you, I'm not a friend of theirs. I was just passing through and heard the name and was curious."

Relieved, she clasped her knees and carefully tucked her long black skirts about her legs. "Well, if you wish, sir, I could go on all night about the Harringtons, but. . ."

No, he had no desire for her to go on all night. Now his close proximity to the fire made the blanket altogether unnecessary. In fact, if anything, it was overwarm. Slowly he unwrapped the blanket and pushed it to one side.

At first he thought he saw shock in her face, a tentative movement backward, which he halted by reaching for her hand. Would it be the same, he wondered, or was that mysterious ecstasy only possible with . . . ?

Harriet. He merely thought her name and suffered a small death and withdrew his hand from the girl's arm.

No longer retreating, she knelt before him, one hand fumbling with the buttons on her high collar. "I ain't a . . . virgin, sir," she whispered. "Don't pretend to be one . . ."

He looked at her, his memories still punishing him.

"Generally," she went on, "it's old men we get here, trying to outran their wives, or merchants whose bellies protrude beyond the reach of their. . ."

Her hands were still moving down the buttons, the black fabric falling away, revealing freckled shoulders. "Most always," she went on, not looking at him, "I tell 'em they must put a bob on that table there."

"I have no intention of leaving a bob on any table," he said quietly.

The dress undone, she pushed it off her shoulders, revealing small breasts. "I have no intention of asking you." She smiled. "A girl does it for herself now and then, if you get what I mean."

Then because she was near and apparently willing, and he was in need of finding out if it was a matter of one woman, or if any woman would do, he guided her gently backward on the floor before

the fire and tried to approach her slowly as Harriet had taught him. But his need was great, and hers apparently greater. As her legs wrapped about his waist, he closed his eyes and felt the release, but little else.

"I'm . . . sorry/' he whispered close to her ear.

Apparently no apology was necessary. As he raised himself above her, she grinned. "What for, sir? We've the whole night, we do," and she wrapped her arms about his neck and again drew him downward.

Amazed that he'd brought her pleasure without half-trying, he tried again, hearing that distant soft voice of instruction in his ear.

A few minutes later, "Oh, lord, sir," the girl beneath him cried out.

Smiling into the darkness of her hair, he sent the instructor's voice away and the loneliness with it, until the sound of the rain blended with their thrashing, and nothing mattered but the fire and the warmth and the receptive female body beneath him.

London, Late June 1852

With the proliferation of railways, the coach companies, sensing the end, had clearly allowed their conveyances to go to seed. John had considered the comfort of one of the new shiny trains, but had lacked the fare.

Now, after the most torturous journey he'd ever made in his life, he alighted from the Salisbury-to-London stage and limped toward the White Bear Terminus in Piccadilly.

As he moved through the crush of foot traffic, he wondered bleakly if he even had enough coin in his pocket to cover the modest cost of a pint of ale. His throat was parched, the late-June sun high and hot at midafternoon. Clearly he did not have enough for the comfort of a conveyance, so he'd have to walk all the way to Ber-mondsey, and God only knew what hideous poverty he'd find when he got there, Elizabeth still trying to operate his father's Common Kitchen, undoubtedly half-starved herself.

His annoyance mounting, he stepped to one side out of the crush of foot traffic and into a quiet harbor near an old costermonger hawking onions. He plunged one hand down into his pockets, his fingers finding a single halfpenny. In the heat of the pavement, with the smell of pickled onions filling his nostrils, he closed his eyes and felt momentarily defeated. What a strange journey it had been.

He keeps the Virgin Mary's finger with him at all times . . . LUa's her name . . . they found her meowing before the altar of the . . .

He shook his head, dismissing the curious interlude, preferring to recall instead the willing little serving maid who had stayed with him all night.

Standing on the crowded pavement, he was aware that only in her embrace had the past released its hold on him. Then he must remember the antidote and pray that the world was filled with willing and able females.

Of course the relief hadn't lasted. No sooner had he climbed aboard that dismal coach than the feelings of grief had returned, the realization that with each turn of those coach wheels he was being carried farther and farther away from Eden, that golden dream which had obsessed him for most of his life, now denied to him, perhaps for all time.

By dusk he'd reached the Thames, and all his thoughts were moving in one direction, toward Bermondsey, toward that small timber-frame house that his father had purchased years ago with the remainder of the moneys from the sale of the house on Oxford Street. And to Elizabeth, perhaps the only true mother he would ever know.

As the river rushed beneath him, fresh sorrow rose within him, and he thought again of Elizabeth. Hadn't she always comforted him as a child, loved him out of his sadness, spoken coolly to him of God and grace and duty?

Hungry for that saintly presence, he pushed away from the side of the bridge and the currents of water—like his thoughts, moving too fast for coherent understanding—and he ran all the way, not stopping once for breath until he rounded the corner and saw the house, as humble and as simple and as good as Elizabeth herself, his refuge, his last hope.

Curious, how heavy her thoughts had been all day of Edward. She'd kept four appointments—Lord Kimbrough, Lord Bolton, Sir Embry, and Reverend Hawkins—good lovers, all, any one of whom in the past had been able to coax her out of her loneliness.

But today they had been simply ordeals to get through, though they'd been most generous with her, Lord Bolton arriving first, this morning at ten, bearing three dozen red roses in a silver urn. Then Lord Kimbrough, with his constant pleas that she accept without further hesitation the handsome rooms on Park Lane, overlooking Hyde Park.

To the new flat, she'd said no. There still was too much of Edward in these rooms. To the pearl necklace, she'd said yes, and had lovingly tucked it away in her rosewood jewel box, a gift from another client.

Now, weary at dusk, she eased down into the elegant brass hip-

bath, a gift from Mr. Jeffries, and allowed the perfumed fragrance of steaming lavender water to envelop her. To one side, her eye fell on the hand-painted Japanese screen, another gift, and from there she indulged herself in an inspection of her bedchamber.

A splendid bedchamber it was now, not at all in keeping with the plain exterior of the house. And in all honesty she could not say that her new luxuries had been "hard-earned." This life suited her very well, allowed her to fight off the loneliness which still affected her, evil moments when, on thinking of the past, her heart seemed to sit like a stone in her breast. Only in her awareness that others suffered as much, if not more, had she been able to find relief.

And profitable. There was that to be said for her new life and profession. Again from where she sat, relaxing in the tub, she lovingly cataloged the mahogany table and sideboard, the new armchair and sofa covered with pale rose damask, and the variety of little tables and cabinets.

By craning her neck, she could see into the front parlor, the long velvet drapes at the windows, patterned carpet of intricate frond and lily design, and there, her new prize, the lovely upright piano, a gift only last week from Henry Cardew. And next to the piano, her own bureau for writing and her needlework table, and the elegant wallpaper, heavily patterned in damask and floral design.

Her eyes satiated, she leaned back in the hipbath as she beheld the center of her profession, the massive four-poster bed, constructed of mahogany and rosewood, with side curtains of velvet which had been delivered to her last month with a simple card, no signature, and a loving message, "For your blessed comfort."

To this day she had no idea who her beneficiary was. She'd delicately questioned all of her gentlemen, and all had displayed a convincing ignorance.

At the end of her inspection, as she was preparing to sink deeper into the soothing water, her eye fell on the small trunk in the far corner of the room, Edward's trunk, looking ordinary and out of place amidst the new elegance. Within the instant, her mood of self-satisfaction faded.

Would there never be an end to it, to the almost penal servitude which his memory demanded of her? How many times she had considered removing the trunk. It did not belong here, certainly not in this room.

Abruptly her thoughts relapsed into silence, and she stared into

the still water. How was it possible that she could cure unhappiness for others, yet be so unhappy herself?

But there was no answer, and as she reached for the sponge, she clung to only one awareness, that in a very real way she was loved, treasured in certain cases, her presence sought out by gentlemen of the highest caliber. And she served them in her own way, and God and the world and Edward must understand that, and she owed no one explanation or apology, and her greatest rewards were not the new luxuries which now surrounded her, but rather the blessed look of relief on a furrowed brow, the slow unclasping of a fist, and the grateful tears which on occasion had streamed from the most manly face.

Her defense over, she bathed herself carefully, keenly aware of the needs of her next visitor, his note just visible on the silver tray which rested on the sideboard. Delivered by special courier, written in bold, familiar hand, it said simply, "In from Hawarden. Catherine ill again. Must see you at five this evening. Please. W.G."

Now, if she hurried, she might have time before Willie's arrival to read the latest London Times. He appreciated her being well-informed, clearly enjoying using her as a sounding board.

Then hurry she did, concluded her bath and stepped out onto the soft carpet, drying carefully, then dragging the Japanese screen forward until it obscured all items of her bath.

From her wardrobe she withdrew the dressing gown which she'd made months ago from Willie's gift of Florentine lace. She wore it for no one else. Though she'd attached a full silk petticoat to the waist, she'd left the top unlined, and if anyone chose to look, he might see her flesh beneath the patterned lace.

The clock on the mantel said four-forty-five. Fifteen minutes in which to gather herself together and perhaps scan the newspapers so that she might speak intelligently with Willie. And fifteen minutes in which to send the ghost of Edward away.

To that end she went about the comfortable parlor making small adjustments to the clutter of knickknacks. From the sideboard, intent on keeping busy, she spied her two large potted palms, pushed away from the window and the direct rays of high summer sun. Now at dusk the light was soft and diffuse, and she went forward hurriedly to push them back in front of the window.

As she tugged the first palm into place, she stopped to adjust the folds of velvet drapes. From this angle through the window she saw a figure standing across the lane. She pulled back in annoyance. Jack