“The best,” Minnie said, looking at Jared adoringly.
Jared lifted his glass to Eden. “I was impressed,” he said softly, and Eden blushed with the praise.
“To Eden,” Brad said, lifting his glass.
“To the eighteenth century,” she said.
“To Queen Anne, who gave her life so others could use her name,” Jared said.
“To bringing in a profit,” Minnie said, then they all laughed, clinked glasses, and drank.
It was a lovely dinner, Eden thought as she sat in the car beside Jared. Right now, Eden couldn’t feel any anger toward him, as they’d all had such a good time. There’d been no animosity, no lightly veiled threats about who owned whom, no tension. They’d just talked and laughed all evening. There had been a heated discussion about Princess Diana’s death in which Jared had said little, which made her think he knew more than he was telling. Twice, Brad had made halfhearted attempts to get McBride to talk about his experiences as a cop before he retired and moved to Arundel, but Jared wouldn’t tell. He was good at skimming the issue and telling nothing.
It was Jared who brought up the story of the sapphires.
“That old saw?” Brad asked. “Everyone knows that old man Minton sold the necklace.”
“I thought that was a secret!” Eden gasped. “Mrs. Farrington told me that only those in her family knew the truth.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Brad said, confused. “Only the family knows.”
“The family!” Minnie said, looking like she wanted to pull her hair out. “The family. I hate the thing! Marrying into one of ‘the families’ in Arundel is like being initiated into the Mafia.”
“Being part of it got you a place to live,” Brad said calmly. Obviously, he didn’t take aspersions of the family lightly.
“Not fair,” Eden cried. “I was given a place to live when I was desperate, but I’m not part of the family.”
“I think you were,” Brad said. “Everyone knew about Mrs. Farrington’s son, so I think they looked on you as a gift from God. Your daughter became the grandchild that Mrs. Farrington was never going to have. And i
t worked out, since you inherited the house.”
“And the story,” Jared said. “And maybe the sapphires.”
“They were sold,” Brad said again.
Minnie had been looking at her food, thinking about what Eden had said. “Did they ever find him?” she asked softly.
Jared stopped bantering with Brad and looked at her. “Find who?”
Minnie looked up at Eden. “Did they ever find the man who, you know, gave you your daughter and made you desperate?”
Brad and Jared shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.
“They didn’t need to find him,” Eden began. “I always knew who he was. He had a stocking over his head, but I recognized his voice and the scar on his wrist. It was from a hunting accident. I used to stare at it when he passed the offering plate at church.”
That information brought them all to a standstill.
“Wait a minute,” Minnie said. “I’m confused. The story I was told, and I admit that by the time I heard it, it was old and had been through a lot of people, but I was told that you were raped, then thrown out by your horrible family. Oh! Sorry. I didn’t mean that they were—”
“They were horrible,” Eden said softly. “Truly horrible people. I didn’t like what got me away from them, but I’m glad that I was able to escape them. If I’d stayed they might have married me off to someone repulsive.”
Reaching across the table, Brad squeezed her hand. “Let’s change the subject. Tell me about the first garden you plan to design. What—?”
But Jared didn’t want to change the subject. “You know who the rapist was? I didn’t hear that he was prosecuted.”
“He wasn’t,” Eden said. “He had a wife and three kids, and he was the head deacon at our little stone church. My parents said that he was a good man and wouldn’t have done what I was saying he did. They said that I was at fault.”
“Yet another virgin birth,” Minnie said, her mouth in a line.