First Impressions (Edenton 1)

“Do you think she would have kept you if you hadn’t worked yourself to the bone for her?”

Eden smiled. “No. She hated lazy people. She never did a lick of work herself, but she expected others to work from

early until late.”

“So maybe it was you and not Mrs. Farrington who made a success of the whole thing.”

“Maybe,” Eden said, smiling.

“All right, so I’ve done all my cheering-up for the day. As fetching as you look in that nightgown—which, by the way, is nearly transparent in the sunlight—why don’t you get dressed and come downstairs and eat?”

“I—” Eden began. Her instinct was to grab a blanket off the chest at the foot of the bed and cover herself, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked up at McBride.

“Oh, no, you don’t. I want nothing given to me out of gratitude for my wisdom. Get dressed, and that’s an order. I’ve already called Granville and told him that you don’t feel well so you’re staying home today. You won’t be meeting any of his egomaniacal clients and trying to design gardens that they’ll never appreciate.”

“You had no right to do that!” Eden said, standing up and glaring at him.

Jared looked at her standing in front of the sun-filled window, wearing just the old nightgown, thin from a hundred washings, and turned pale. He opened his mouth to say something, but then he turned on his heel and left the room. “Ten minutes, Palmer,” he called back to her. “Take more than fifteen and I’ll be back.”

Eden couldn’t help smiling as she closed her bedroom door and went to the shower. Men, and McBride in particular, were a pain in the neck, she thought, but sometimes they could make you feel great. In the shower, with the water turned on as hot as it would go, she washed her hair and lathered her face with a cleansing gel. Soap made her skin too dry, and the last thing she needed right now was flaking skin.

As the water washed over her, she replayed in her mind everything that she and Melissa had said. She hadn’t been a good mother. She should have listened more, cared more, taken Melissa’s complaints more seriously. On the other hand, she was a person as well as a mother, and it still hurt the way her daughter had let her leave New York so easily. When Eden had turned her apartment over to her daughter and the man she’d married, they’d been elated at the idea of being on their own. But it was one thing to dream about being someone’s wife and another to be one.

“Not that I know anything about marriage,” Eden said to herself. In the past, whenever she’d thought about marriage, her first consideration had been her daughter, and Eden had always feared what would happen if she let a third person into their lives.

But that was done, she thought. Now she was free. As she washed the conditioner out of her hair, she thought about Brad. In spite of all that McBride said against him, she liked Brad very much. He was kind, considerate, thoughtful. They liked the same things. She very much liked the subdivision he’d designed. What was it that Drake Haughton had said? That he drew what Brad imagined. Brad was creative and intelligent—and he liked Eden.

Where would we live? she thought, smiling. Here or his house? Here, of course, she thought. Who would want a Victorian house when they could have the eighteenth century? Yes, no question about it, they’d live here. Brad could let his daughter and her husband live in the oversize Granville house, and Minnie could move into the vacant overseer’s house down the road. Yes, that was how it would be, and maybe her life would be perfect. Smiling, she imagined holding a cold drink as she and Brad showed guests around the garden.

By the time Eden got out of the shower, she was well over McBride’s fifteen-minute limit, but she knew he’d only been kidding. Everything McBride said was a joke, wasn’t it? He joked when he was a prisoner in a cellar, joked about death and about everything else. All the world was a joke to him.

As she dressed (this time blow-drying the curlers in her hair so she could take them out) she was glad that she didn’t have to start seeing clients today. It seemed that ever since she’d arrived in Arundel, she’d been on a roller coaster. As she put in earrings (tiny frogs) she smiled at the thought of her daughter’s reaction if she’d told Melissa the truth about why she hadn’t called since she’d been here.

You see, dear, I’m under investigation by the FBI because some spy swallowed my name. In fact, I have a terribly good-looking agent living with me, and another man, or men, I don’t know which, wander around my garden 24/7. No, dear, I’m not having an affair with the good-looking agent, but I am trying to have an affair with the good-looking lawyer Mrs. Farrington hired. But, you know how it is, with FBI cameras watching your every move, it inhibits you, although Braddon—that’s the lawyer—and I have managed a few kisses. No, no, dear, I know that to you I’m old, but these men don’t seem to think so, so don’t worry about me. And, by the way, Mr. McBride—he’s the FBI agent—didn’t press charges when I beat him up, so there’ll be no assault and battery charges on my record to embarrass my grandchild. I think Stuart will appreciate that. And, oh, yes, the FBI cleaned up the house after those criminals nearly destroyed it. No, dearest, I don’t know what they wanted and neither does the FBI. But we—that’s McBride, Brad, and I—think it has to do with the multimillion-dollar necklace that we found last night. That’s why I was sleeping so late this morning. The excitement and all. No, dear, I haven’t gone senile on you. It’s been a very eventful few days. Yes, very exciting, but also exhausting. That’s why Mr. McBride is insisting that I stay home today and not start the new job of designing eighteenth-century–style gardens for Brad’s new subdivision. Oh? Didn’t I tell you about my new job? No, sorry, that’s right, dear, I didn’t call you, but, yes, I have a new job. But I don’t know if I’m going to take it, because last night McBride looked at the will and said I do own the necklace. We were going to talk about that, but we started watching Fawlty Towers and—What’s that? Oh, it’s only an old English TV series. John Cleese and very funny. Anyway, it was nearly three A.M. before McBride went to his room—No, dear, I am not sleeping with the FBI agent. Or the lawyer, for that matter. Anyway, McBride asked me what I was going to do now that I’m going to be a multimillionaire, you know, rather like I won the lottery, and I said I have no idea. So today I think I’m going to work in the garden and think about what I want to do with my life. Things have been happening so fast in the last few days that I haven’t had time to figure out anything. But then, I’ll tell you a little secret. I’m not sure, but I think the necklace is a fake. No, I’m not qualified to make such a judgment. I can tell that it’s old, but I’m not sure if the stones are real or not. But don’t worry. I’m sure the FBI has people who can tell a real jewel from a fake one. Uh-oh, dear, I have to go. Mr. McBride is calling me to breakfast. Or, by now, I guess it’s lunch. See you when I can. Kiss the baby bump for me. Bye.

By the time Eden had finished the little play running through her mind, she was downstairs. McBride was standing by the stove and watching her.

“You don’t get a bite until you tell me what’s making you laugh. I could hear you chuckling all the way down the stairs.”

“Nothing. I was just thinking of what I should have told my daughter.”

“And?”

“Nothing,” she said, looking away. The kitchen door was open. It was cooler than she liked, but it was great gardening weather. She could almost feel the soil in her hands. Too bad she had nothing to plant. Spring made her lust to dump plants out of pots and put them in the ground.

“Strawberry muffins, omelets with onions and green peppers, milk, coffee, tea, cranberry juice with no gin in it. But not one bite until you tell me what was making you laugh.”

“Okay,” Eden said, smiling, then she proceeded to run through the entire minidrama for him. She even held an imaginary telephone to her ear and pantomimed emotions.

As always, Jared was a good audience, and the more he listened, the more he laughed, so the more outrageous she got. By the end he was laughing with his mouth open, showing his strong, straight teeth. At the end, though, his face stilled.

“What?” he whispered when she’d finished.

For a moment, Eden blinked, realizing what she’d seen while she was on the phone to her daughter. At

the time, Melissa’s complaints had so distracted Eden that she hadn’t fully registered what she was thinking. And since then, her thoughts had been on her daughter, not the necklace.

“Where is it?”