The Women of Eden by Marilyn Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

in the Crimea as first assistant to Mr. Thomas Brassey, though there was a falling out there as well, a disagreement which sent Brassey back to London, and John Murrey Eden to India."
    His fascination mounting, Burke mused, "India. About the mid-fifties? I shouldn't think that that would have been a particularly pleasant place to be."
    Delane agreed. "He was there during the Mutinies and, according to my sources, just barely escaped with his life."
    "Did he go to India with the mihtary?"

    Delane laughed. "Not likely. To this day his most offensive statements concern the British military."
    "Then what was he doing in India?"
    The blank expression on Delane's face was not encouraging. "Then after India, what?" Burke persisted. "Did he return to Eden?"
    Delane shook his head. "No. According to my sources he took up residence with Elizabeth again." His mind seemed to drift again. "A unique woman, this Elizabeth," he murmured, his hands folded before him, his eyes fixed on the carriage floor.
    Respectful of this new mood, Burke waited before questioning on. When still Delane seemed locked in some past reflection, Burke prodded, "How unique, this Elizabeth?"
    "In the way that any woman is unique/' Delane said simply, and was content to let it go at that.
    But Burke was not content to let it go. "Oh, come now, Delane," he chided. "I'm not a schoolboy. Such a pause deserves explanation. I repeat, how was the woman Elizabeth unique? Did you know her?"
    The question seemed to hang unanswered on the air. At last, as though honesty were a habit which it was hard to break, he saw Delane nod.
    So! Somehow there was a connection to be made between Delane and the woman named Elizabeth. Warming to his role as sleuth, and having wondered for years, along with every other scribbler along Fleet Street, what John Thadeus Delane did with the excess sexual energy provided him by an ill and constantly hospitalized wife, Burke leaned forward. "You did know her, didn't you, Delane?"
    "Know her?" Delane repeated, his voice scarcely audible above the rattle of the carriage, "Of course I knew her! At one point even fancied myself in love with her."
    "Go on," Burke invited, respectful of the confession and the new mood within the carriage.
    But abruptly Delane shook his head. "Nothing more to tell," he snapped. "She had been a prostitute in younger days, though quite respectable when I knew her. She was living in a fine house in St. George Street which had been given to her by Lord Kimbrough—"
    The name was lost on Burke, though the reality behind such a generous gift was not.
    "—and she was presiding over one of the most glittering salons in all of London."

    "And you were a member of that salon, I take it," Burke probed.
    "I was," Delane admitted, "and I can't tell you what it meant to me, meant to all of us, to know that there was a safe harbor waiting for us each evening, presided over by one of the most generous hearts it has ever been my good fortune to know."
    "Go on," Burke insisted, feeling his affection for the man vault under the effects of this confession of frailty.
    But the storyteller had reached the end of his tale. "Nothing more to say," Delane said gruffly. "One evening the salon was opened to us and the next evening it was closed. All we heard was that the boy whom she had raised as her son had returned."
    His voice fell silent. His eyes lifted to the ceiling of the carriage, then closed. "God, she was so beautiful," he mourned. "Difficult to describe, the manner in which she—she made everyone feel so—as though you were the only one—an inner harmony and goodness that was so surprising. Not educated, not formally, but perfectly refined, as though—"
    Ultimately his incoherency took a toll and left him looking exhausted. Out of love and respect Burke waited, knowing all too well the pleasurable torment that was plaguing his friend. So! John Thad-eus Delane had been in love, and now, ten years later, he was curious to the point