This Other Eden by Marilyn Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

around—
     
    Ragland
was no longer merely thinking of the scene. He stepped up to the oak as though
under orders to do so. He pressed his face into the shiny black surface, then
slowly raised his arms in embrace. He closed his eyes and discovered that in
such a rigid position it was impossible to turn one's head without scraping the
flesh. He thought he felt the hemp being twisted about his wrists, his ankles
bound in the same fashion. Then as though his senses were suffering from
indecent gluttony, as though he wanted to know all, he heard with perfect
clarity the shirt being torn from his back, the penitent laying himself open to
a peculiar kind of forgiveness, giving pardon to himself, mentally making the
sign of the cross, hearing the crowd grow still, feeling a coolness of air on
his bared back, hearing the heavy step of the man behind him, the practice
lashes of the whip, small circlets of dust rising where the whip struck the
ground. Then silence. Then the upward whir as the thongs were airborne, then-
     
    Hanging
there on the oak in non-existent bondage, old Ragland let out one sharp cry and
wet himself. As the hot urine dripped down his legs, he pushed backward, slightly
demented-appearing, embarrassed and in need of immediate privacy . . .
     
    On
Friday, August the third, 1790, after five weeks of the worst heat wave the
North Devon coast had ever suffered, exactly one hour before the scheduled
public whipping of Marianne Locke, it rained.
     
    The
servants who staffed the castle were held prisoners in the quarters at the end
of the wall by the driving downpour. Nothing stirred at Eden Castle but an
angry nature and an almost half-dead girl who had strangely connived an angel
to see her through the night and who had endured the pestilential room which in
the past had killed strong men.
     
    Not
that she had taken the easy way out in sleep. She hadn't. She had remained
awake and conscious throughout the whole night. She had heard old Ragland
calling to her, the man having the gall to seek comfort from her. But she had
held her tongue, and thus had left him to suffer a hell as bad, if not worse
than her own.
     
    She
had charted every circle of the night watchmen, following the dot of their
lantern light as though they were beacons, and again had strengthened herself
against outcry, refusing to give them that satisfaction, then too fearful of
attracting their attention, of reminding them that a female was in the charnel
house this night.
     
    She
had lain pressed for most of the night against the small slit beneath the door,
rising only when it was necessary to vomit, depositing her sickness in the pile
of putrid straw, then returning, weakened, to the door.
     
    She
listened to the storm, giving in to the one thought which she'd held at bay all
night, the remembrance of her father. Even now, such a thought made her weak. Instead
she concentrated on Thomas Eden, deriving strength from hate. The thought of
the man had a strange effect on her. She remembered his anger at the sight of
her peering down into the excavation of the secret stairway. Of course she knew
what it was for. But what did it matter? She had tried to convey this to him,
but in his distracted state he had misinterpreted her manner for arrogance. It
wasn't until he had approached her, viewing her as though she were nothing more
than one of his London whores, that she had grown genuinely angry. She recalled
the look on his face, as though he were a sorcerer who knew the power of his
horn, approaching her as though she were merely a transaction, scarcely taking
the time to identify her save for her female qualities, where to thrust the
horn, the humbling position, the ancient stance of male superiority-
     
    She
shuddered, remembering, and new, reviving anger surfaced. She had run from him,
a simple act, which apparently in his presence no female had ever done before. He
had caught up with her and she had pushed his hands away, had brought her knee
up