The Women of Eden (24 page)

By merely running his tongue over the bruised flesh, he discovered that he was capable of resurrecting the entire evening—the orchestra, the scent of roses coming in through the doors, and ultimately that one remarkable face, the enchantment of Jeremy Sims' Song and Supper Club miraculously transplanted to an outpost called Eden.

"Burke, you must believe me. I don't think the darkies can be trusted."

In response to her accusation, he tried to offer comfort. "Why can't they be trusted. Mother? We've trusted them for years. They love you dearly as I do, and would do nothing—"

"No, Burke," she pleaded, half rising from her chair. "They refuse to—" Abruptly she stopped, spying Charles standing silently at the door. At the sight of him, she sat back down, the bow-shaped painted lips parted, and from them issued a soft moan.

Over the half-formed accusation, Burke saw Florence join Charles at the door. She stood as though assessing the situation, then moved steadily to his mother's side.

"Come, Miss CaroHne," she soothed, "we'll walk in the garden if you wish. WTiat pale cheeks my pretty has! Mr. Sun needs to touch them, that's what. Come."

As the maternal voice cut through the silence, Burke saw his

mother glance up at her old maid, a combination of longing and resentment on her face.

"It is in my head, isn't it, Florence?" he heard her plaintively ask as they passed through the door.

"Of course it is, Miss Caroline. You trust old Florence, you hear. After all, who dressed you on your wedding day?"

"You did."

As the two female voices, one strong, one weak, drifted out into the entrance hall, Burke closed his eyes. Perhaps it was time to write to his father again, though a hell of a lot of good that would do. Gazing at the distorted reflection of the dining room on the side of the coffee service, he saw Charles step forward on the opposite side of the table.

"Will you be in this morning, Mr. Burke?"

"For a while, yes."

"To callers?"

"Depends on who they are, Charles. I have work."

"Mr. Delane, sir. He's waiting in the library."

Abruptly Burke turned. "My God, why didn't you tell me?"

"You were breakfasting, sir, and you need one good meal a day."

But Burke didn't wait for the rest of the boyhood lecture. He suffered a brief mental confusion. Who precisely had been "freed" in the recent hostilities? No matter. The one man he wanted to see more than any in the world was John Thadeus Delane. They had had the opportunity to exchange only a few words that last night at Eden before the watchmen had escorted Burke out. Burke had assumed that Delane would be staying for the entire second week of the Eden Festivities.

He moved out of the room at a rapid pace, and a few seconds later pushed open the library door, where he saw his friend standing in solemn scrutiny of the pavement beyond the lace curtains.

At his entrance, Delane turned and on his face Burke saw the same gloomy expression which he'd last seen at Eden.

Burke smiled, a little amazed that Delane had not enjoyed the theatrical as much as he. "You're certain you weren't seen entering this house?" Burke joked. "I suspect that Mr. Eden will see to it that I become a social leper."

Ignoring the joke, Delane took his outstretched hand and earnestly inquired, "Are you well? Have you seen a physician?"

"Oh, Lord, Delane—you're not serious."

*'It was a considerable blow.'*

*'It was nothing, and I enjoy my bruised jaw as a soldier enjoys his battle wounds, with the sense of danger past and hard-eamed dignity."

Up close he saw that Delane was still reeling from the incident. In fact he looked worse than Burke, his eyes buried in hollows, his clothes mussed.

"Come," Burke oflFered kindly, 'let me summon Charles. You look as though you could use—"

"No, no. I require nothing," Delane said. "Nothing, that is, except the ability to comprehend."

It was as Burke suspected. The foolish incident was weighing more heavily upon Delane than it was on him.

As they settled into the sofa before the dead fire, Burke asked quietly, "When did you arrive, and why did you leave Eden?"

With a half-smile, Delane said, "I arrived late last night in a carriage borrowed from the madman himself, and I left the next day after your departure because no civilized man would—"

"Oh, civilization has nothing to do with it, Delane. The man felt compelled to protect what was his. I was the interloper."

"You bear him no ill will?" Delane asked in amazement. "My God, man, you were publicly humiliated!"

Burke laughed outright. "You obviously suffered greater humiliation than I did, my friend. In fact I thoroughly enjoyed it, wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Delane cast him a glance which suggested that he was in the presence of another madman. Confronted with such an expression, Burke tried to explain his feelings. "Ah, now you see we come to one of the basic differences between the English and the Americans. As tools of arbitration, a man's fists are hard to beat. There's something very honest about a good blow delivered in righteous anger. Of course, it seldom solves anything, but it does have a way of clearing the air and defining the game."

Delane shuddered. "Barbaric. And you're no better-"

"Nor am I worse." Burke smiled, saddened to see that the man had lost his sense of humor someplace along the road back from Eden. "Oh, come, Delane, it was great sport and you know it, and the prize was certainly worthwhile."

"The-prize?"

"Lady Mary! Surely you don't think I'd engage in battle without a prize."

Delane looked directly at him, a slow dawning on his face. *Tou're not—surely you don't mean—you're not going to try to see her again?"

"Of course I'm going to see her again," Burke replied expansively.

Aware that Delane was staring at him, he left the sofa, feeling momentarily weakened, as though the mere thought of her was capable of draining him. His steps took him to the window where, for the first time, he realized the incredible obstacles in his path. If she remained at Eden, he would have no chance at all of contacting her again. But if she returned to London in the company of—

"Delane, where did you say your friend lived?"

"My-"

"Elizabeth."

Delane turned around in the sofa, the confusion on his face mounting. "In—London."

"Where in London?"

"St. George Street. Number Seven, I believe."

"Thank you."

"You are mad," Delane pronounced with conviction. "I expected to find you this morning in the company of your solicitor, preparing to bring suit against Eden. You have grounds, you know-unprovoked assault."

"There you're wrong again, Delane," Burke said from the window. "I worked very hard to provoke that assault, even threw a punch of my own."

"Why?"

"There are one of two ways you can come to know a man," Burke said. "Either through his love, which I'll admit is the most desirable, or through his hate." He approached Delane with the sofa between them. "From the manner in which we were being ignored, I determined early on that there was a strong possibility that John Murrey Eden was capable of loving no one but himself." He shrugged and leaned against the back of the sofa. "Then what was left?"

"Yet, you intend to take no action?"

"No, there will be no charges. Burke Stanhope will do nothing. But Lord Ripples—"

All at once the mystery left Delanc's face and was replaced by a smile of astonishment. "Then you'll write something?"

"Write something!" Burke parroted. "Ripples is already hard at work, Delane, and if you'll get out of here, I can promise that he'll deliver copy to you that will cause Shockwaves which will be felt all the way to Eden Point."

Delane grinned, as though in the heat of the melodrama he had forgotten the entire point of the trip to Eden, though he prudently warned, "No libel, Burke, nothing that will enable him to drag us into court."

As the man came around the sofa, Burke rested his arm affectionately on his shoulders. "Have you forgotten that I learned the libel laws at your knee, Delane, and forgotten as well the words of your predecessor, Thomas Barnes . . ." He lifted his head so that Delane might hear again the full quote on which he'd based his entire professional life.

"The first duty of the Press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the events of the times, and instantly, by disclosing them, to make them the common property of the people. The Press lives by disclosures. . . ."

Delane listened carefully. At the end of the quote, he made a strange comment. "Then why do I feel like a traitor?" he asked softly.

Taken aback, Burke withdrew his arm. "I don't know. You're far better equipped to answer that than I." When doubt still raged across his face, Burke reminded him, "You are not obliged to print everything that Lord Ripples writes."

"No!" Delane said, as though enjoying a sudden resolution. "The man is arrogance itself, the worst combination of aggression and righteous zeal, which has left us with enemies all over the world. No," he repeated, "tell Lord Ripples that all I ask is that he write the truth as he saw it during those few days at Eden."

"He has never done less."

The two men stared at each other, as though in that instant they both were aware of the incendiary nature of their profession.

"Well, then, be about it," Delane concluded, hurrying toward the door. He stopped and turned back. 'Tour—mother?" he inquired politely.

"The same."

"I'm sorry."

Burke saw a look of sympathy on that weary face. How good it was to have at least one friend.

**And you're sure you're not injured?" Delane inquired further.

"A badge of honor." Burke smiled. "I will nurse it with pleasure.**

There was another pause. "And you will try to see the young lady again?"

"As soon as possible."

Delane shook his head, then he was gone. Burke stood on the closed side of the door, effortlessly seeing her face in the spill of morning sun at his feet.

Why the attraction? Because from the beginning, when he'd first seen her months ago at Jeremy Sims' and when he'd last seen her at Eden Castle, the one quality that she'd tried to keep hidden, and which even her beauty and sweet voice could not mask, was her own soul-shattering loneliness. For Burke it had been like looking into a mirror. . . .

Eden Castle May 16, 1870

Lady Eleanor Forbes, daughter of a penniless English peer, knew precisely what she had to do. She'd been trained from birth to "marry well."

Seated in the Banqueting Hall of Eden Castle with Lord Richard on her left and John Murrey Eden on her right at the head of the table, she glanced about at the magnificent hall and decided with admirable pragmatism that there was money here, if nothing else.

A peculiar evening, she thought further, the vast table set for over seventy-five guests, yet less than twenty seated awkwardly about, their eyes never lifting to their host, strangers all as far as she was concerned, with the exception of Lord Richard, whom she'd met briefly at their arrival that afternoon. Of course she knew John Murrey Eden, that remarkable gentleman with whom she'd danced repeatedly during the London season and who was a friend of her father's and a frequent visitor at their country home in Kent.

She knew he was married and had looked forward to meeting his wife. But she was not present at this evening's meal. Only old women sat at this table, like her mother seated opposite her, more Grandmama than Mama. Both her parents were approaching seventy, Eleanor a "late mistake."

Preceding her had been three brothers, the eldest dead and buried in a place called Sebastopol in the Crimea; the second, Peter, a gentleman sailor at Osborne; and the third, Percy, a charming though hapless gambler who had come close to exhausting the already depleted family coffers.

So it was left to Eleanor now, the "mistake," to please the Edens

and convince at least one of them that she was '^suitable*' and would "breed well."

"Lord Richard," she said quietly, for the silence about the table seemed to forbid speaking aloud, "I noticed from my window upstairs a narrow path which appeared to lead down the side of the chffs. Where does it go?"

"Mortemouth," the man replied, politely enough, though not raising his eyes to her, which she considered a waste, for with the help of her maid she had groomed herself carefully and knew that she was pleasing, and knew further the precise points of her attraction: a flawless white complexion complemented by coal black hair, lavender eyes the color of heather, and a full body which had been carefully sculpted by many missed meals. Her gown was white, French silk, fit for a bride, as her mother had hopefully pointed out.

"Mr. Eden—" She smiled, trying again to her right this time, the handsome bearded countenance of the man about whom all of London had gossiped at one time or another. "Forgive me if Fm forward, but I had hoped to have the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Eden. Is she-"

"111," the man replied, steadily eating as though the consumption of the lobster mayonnaise on his plate were the most important thing in the world.

"I'm sorry," she murmured and looked up, pleased to see Mr. Eden staring at her.

"Forgive my preoccupation this evening," he said, touching her hand where it rested on the table. "I'm certain that you did not travel all the way from London to be cast into gloom. Come, Richard, we're both failing as hosts and, in the presence of such beauty, that is unforgivable."

"I propose a toast," Mr. Eden pronounced, full-voiced with a suddenness which caused heads to snap the length of the table. "To all our guests who have done us the honor of journeying to Eden!"

He held his glass until the others followed suit and, to an uneven chorus of murmured approval, Eleanor tipped her glass and merely tasted the vi^ne, aware that there would be other toasts and, if she were to accomplish her goal, she needed a clear head and a steady eye.

But she was wrong on the first count. There were no further toasts, and she watched Mr. Eden sit back in his chair, the gloom about him deep and spreading.