The Prince of Eden (14 page)

His head fell to one side. One hand moved quickly up to the injured flesh. When he looked back at her, she saw moisture in the corners of his eyes. But he was smiling. "If that made you feel better, madam, I'm glad to have been of service."

Conscience-stricken, she moved backward as though fearful of striking him again. Her voice, when she spoke, was barely audible. "You are never," she whispered, "to speak like that to me again."

"Not speak the truth," he asked, mocking, "to my own mother?"

"Your words are not the truth," she protested.

"They are, as I see it and know it. You would have no family at all, madam, if it weren't for the Cranfords. And I warn you. Dismiss either of them and you'll lose what little family you have now. Jennifer will never come home, and I—"

The battle could not go on. She walked away hurriedly. "Leave me now. We are accomplishing nothing."

Without looking, she heard his footsteps move to the door. There he spoke again. "The matter is not closed," he warned. "Your life is over. One day, perhaps soon, you will join that old man out there in the graveyard. Pray God, you do it in time for me to salvage his property, salvage at least a shred of what was once an honorable and respected name."

"Get out," she whispered.

"I'm gone, madam," he replied lightly from the door. "It's unfortunate our meeting took this turn. I had intended to invite you to share luncheon. The Cranfords have prepared a picnic for the headlands. Seeing your present mood, I doubt if you'd appreciate the company."

She heard him pause, then heard the door close. Crumpled over the bureau, she found she could not breathe. In all that grand chamber there was not sufficient air to fill her lungs. Gasping, she raised up, and for her efforts suffered a severe pain across the top of her head, the discomfort spreading down into her shoulders, then up again into her

jaws. It lasted only a moment, then almost frantically she glanced over her shoulder, as though fearful that he still was in the room with her.

But he wasn't. She was alone. She pressed her hands together, moaning almost soundlessly. Where was everyone? Mrs. Greenbell? Edward? Thomas?

Softly she slipped from the chair and went down to her knees, bent over. Was it possible that she had failed so miserably?

No answers in the quiet room. Nor did she want answers. All she desired was for the hurt to cease, for the breath to be restored to her lungs, for the sun to rise again on a world as lovely and as safe as she had enjoyed while Thomas lived.

Into her distress, a thought crept like a lifeline. Perhaps the trouble came from looking forward. Perhaps she had reached the age when Fate was trying to advise her to leave the future alone. It did not belong to her. She had no business with it. Look back. There was the safe domain, the lovely world of parties and balls and handsome, witty men and elegant ladies and glorious passionate affairs of the heart, a period beginning with May roses and ending with May jasmine.

But the mood that was upon her now was winter in its coldest shape. Then let it be spring. Abruptly she was aware of her position on the floor. What in the name of God was she doing? She was Lady Eden, the Countess Dowager of Eden Castle, with warm and dear friends who understood her and respected her and loved her.

Almost feverishly, she withdrew paper and quill. The melancholy was over. Her hand still shook, yet with flowering script, she wrote, "My dearest, dearest, William Pitch."

Standing just beyond the closed door, Caleb Cranford had waited, listening until he'd heard the resounding slap. The boy had moved too fast. Damn it! Was he totally dense?

He had no appetite for the scene that would inevitably follow, remorse and tears, and hurriedly he left his listening post, his elongated figure moving like a praying mantis down the stone corridors of Eden Castle. This unexpected emotional outburst would have to be reported immediately.

He found Sophia in the private kitchen of their first-floor apartments, putting the finishing touches on the picnic hamper that was to have been shared with both James and the Countess. As he came hurriedly into the narrow little converted room, she looked up from pouring wine from the decanter into a flagon. At first their sentences overlapped, so eager were they to communicate.

"It did not go well," Caleb commenced. "The boy moved too—"

"What happened? When I left, she was ripe—"

"They quarreled—"

"Oh God, that will serve no purpose—"

"I told him that. He seemed to want to—"

"What happened?"

As though suddenly suffering a loss of energy, Caleb sank wearily into the chair before the fireplace. He shook his head and smoothed back his long black hair. "There was a blow," he reported. Quickly he looked up to see what her reaction would be.

And equally as carefully she seemed to mask it. "Delivered by whom?" she inquired, resuming her work, meticulously cleaning the side of the decanter.

"I couldn't see, madam," he informed her. "Shortly after the meeting commenced, I was asked to leave."

She nodded as though understanding. "As was I. She seemed in ill spirits this morning."

"Then what do we do now?" he inquired, sitting up in the chair. "Should the bridge be mended?"

She did not answer right away, but continued to pack the hamper, carefully arranging the boiled eggs, the rounds of cheese, the wheat buns fresh from the oven.

Still Caleb waited, searching her face for the least sign, as he'd done since they were children, imprisoned together behind the double bars of a poverty-ridden preacher's house and the bleak, windswept moors. Even as children, they had plotted their escape. Now they were so close. "Sophia?" he murmured, leaning further up in the chair. "What should we do?"

Daintily she popped a crust of wheat bun into her mouth and smiled at him. "Do, Caleb, what shall we do?" The smile broadened. "Nothing. I despise open warfare, as you do. But in this instance, it might be the wisest course." She shrugged and came gently toward him. "It was inevitable, I'm afraid. I had hoped to postpone it until after James's engagement. But for that occasion the old woman will be decent. I'm certain of it."

She knelt before him, her eyes holding him fast, one hand gently massaging his upper leg. How he loved her when she was in this mood. "All we must do, dearest brother, is stay to our course. With or without the Countess Dowager's blessing, there will be a lawsuit. The fisherman's daughter can't keep the grave waiting forever. And one day, with God on our side, we shall assist Lord Eden with the running of his property."

Caleb gazed down on her strong and determined face. How calm she

was, how confident, and what would he do without her. Eloquent woman, dearest sister.

With assuaging love, he gathered her to him and held her fast, detesting the need for secrecy in their passion. Where would he find a truer lover? Nowhere! Holding her close, he recalled fondly the first time they had indulged as mere children of twelve and thirteen, on a high summer day, bathing naked in a remote moorland stream, swollen by winter thaw. What had started in youthful curiosity had concluded in depths of passion that neither had dreamed possible. On that occasion they had pledged ever-lasting love, and in all the intervening years they had never betrayed one another.

"Dearest Sophia," he murmured, close to her ear, feeling himself as aroused now as he had been that first day as a boy of thirteen.

Abruptly, though with a coquettish smile, she disengaged herself from his embrace. As she straightened her apron over the lavender taffeta, she scolded softly, "There's work to be done." As she moved back to the picnic hamper, she smiled at him over her shoulder. "The boy will be along shortly, in need of comfort. We must save our energies for him."

He received her words like a necessary burden, though he left the chair and came up behind her, his hands reaching for and covering her breasts. "Then tonight?" he proposed gently.

She laughed. "Of course, tonight. Now, let me finish this and prepare yourself. By my estimation, the next knock at that door will be young James, in sore need."

Begrudgingly Caleb did as he was told. As he adjusted his coat and trousers, he continued to watch her, seeing not a sister, but a wife.

As she had predicted, a knock sounded at the door. He looked sharply up and caught her eye. "James?" he whispered.

The smile on her face hardened. She tucked a linen cloth around the top of the hamper, then looked directly at him.

"The future, dearest," she murmured. "Answer it quickly ..."

,/SJ6'

The man was a dwarf with the rough script of the ages written on his face. Atop his left shoulder he carried a hump. His face was a scraggle of gray, unkempt beard. He was missing two fingers on one hand and three on the other. Yet he answered to the name of St. Peter. And St. Peter he was.

For a lost number of hours Edward had lain on the floor, studying the man. In the beginning he had been attended by De Quincey himself, who had brought him to this place, a pedant of a man who had spouted endless quotes in Greek and Latin, a fountain of words.

Only vaguely did Edward remember the beginning of the flight, De Quincey encountering him in the garden, inviting him to accompany him to—what had he said—cloudland? Then the stiff", awkward carriage ride, John Murrey depositing them on a strange lane named Toadley, about a block distant from the Embankment, a lane of old Elizabethan structures in various states of neglect and decay.

But with perfect confidence, De Quincey had waited until Edward^s carriage had turned the corner, then he'd led the way toward one of the old mansions. There had been something so eager in his manner that Edward had succumbed. They had picked their way across the debris of fallen statuary on the front terraces, following a darkened path which led, as well as Edward could remember, to the deserted manse.

Here the man had knocked twice on the door and shortly thereafter, St. Peter had appeared. And here he was again, bending over Edward, extending to him the keys to Paradise.

"Here, gintleman," St. Peter smiled. "Here's the last of yur wings."

As he extended the ruby-red draught, Edward eagerly took it. He thought it peculiar the way St. Peter held the glass, supported awkwardly by his remaining fingers. Then, drink. He was beginning to see too much.

St. Peter continued to hover, a friendly misshapen angel in the small darkened room. "That's the last," he repeated with a smile. "The other gintleman, he dun left. Said I was to look after yourn. And he most sartunly paid for your pleasure. But that's the last."

After Edward had drained the liquid, the old dwarf leaned close and retrieved the glass. A toothless smile was upon his face. "For a vargin, you took to it right enow," he grinned.

Edward returned the smile, leaning back on the floor, surrendering to the pleasant sensation, the lassitude in his limbs. "And where did the gentleman go?" he murmured, not really missing the flood of words, but wanting to thank him.

St. Peter straightened up, scratched intensely at his hump. "All he said was dooty calls. It's nuthin' to me, though he's a good customer, a real gintleman." He gestured with his mutilated hands to the small barren chamber. "I save this here always for him. A queer one, hisself Time passes and I never seed him, then he appears, among such nobs like yourself A good paying customer. True gintleman—"

Edward nodded. To everything. The bliss was spreading. Now, again, he was happy. See-saw, Marjory Daw, sold her bed and lay pn straw. He lay back on his own straw, grinning up at St. Peter. What a glorious figure of a man, with his missing fingers and corrupted back.

Then, bowing, St. Peter left his sight.

At the height of the opium trance, his dreams were calm and lovely. The broad swell and agitation of the storm had subsided. The legions that had camped in his brain were gone. His sleep was still tumultuous, but it was the splendid tumult of Paradise.

Beyond him, just out of sight, and almost beyond his hearing or caring, he heard St. Peter again. "The last, Mr. Gintleman. The last of your wings. Your beni-factor said no more. Not fur now. There's those who have hurd of you and will cum lookin'. No more, Mr. Gintleman. St. Peter say no more."