First Impressions (Edenton 1)

Gracey died when Melissa was eleven, and after that Eden lost contact with the town. Over time she just assumed that dear Mrs. Farrington had died and that Alester had finally got his hands on the lovely old house. Yet, somehow, Mrs. Farrington had outlived him.

Eden looked down at the letter. It was short, stating only that Mrs. Farrington’s son had died “a number of years ago” and had left no issue, so Mrs. Farrington was willing the house and contents

to Eden Palmer. When Eden saw that the letter was signed by Mr. Braddon Granville, esquire, she smiled. The grandson of one of the “beautiful Granville boys.”

Of course Eden couldn’t possibly keep the house. Too much to maintain. Maybe she’d will it to a historical society so they could lead tours through it. Yes, that was a good idea. In the 1700s there had been hundreds of plantations along the river, but the houses had been pulled down, burned down, and bulldozed over the centuries. Now there were few houses like Farrington Manor left. It was, for the most part, an untouched house. Yes, there were two bathrooms in the house, and electricity too—but the paneling remained untouched from the time the house was built in 1720.

Or was it? Eden thought. Was the house the same now as it was those many years ago? What had been done to that beautiful old house in the past twenty-two years? Maybe she’d ask for some time off from work and go to North Carolina to see the house. Just see it, then fly right back to New York so she’d be here when Melissa had her baby. Heaven knew that Stuart wouldn’t be any good in the delivery room. He’d leave Melissa by herself to sweat and cry and…

“If I weren’t there, maybe he would go into the delivery room,” Eden whispered aloud. Maybe if she wasn’t there, always between the two of them, maybe they’d make themselves into a family. Maybe if Stuart had to support his wife and child he’d get the courage to go to his boss and ask for that promotion.

Eden sat down hard on the chair by her bed. The problem with being a single mother to an only child was that your lives got entwined with each other’s in a very deep way. Right now, she couldn’t believe what was going through her head. Leave Melissa? They’d been separated only once, and that was when Melissa went to New York to be near Stuart. During that year there had been endless phone calls, and Eden had flown to the city three times. Every extra penny she’d earned had gone to the airlines. Eden’s attachment to Melissa was what had ultimately caused her breakup with Steve. “She’s a grown woman,” Steve had shouted. “Let her live her own life!” “She will always be my baby,” Eden had answered. She’d returned his ring the next week.

But now Melissa was married and going to have her own child. And Melissa was caught between her love for her mother and for her husband.

Suddenly Eden could see her own part in what must be great stress to Melissa. Stuart tried to get his wife to eat healthy food while she was pregnant; Eden filled the refrigerator with pastries and chocolate. Did Stuart not look in the refrigerator because he knew what was in there?

Eden disliked Stuart because he made no effort to get them their own place to live, but now Eden remembered one night of hearing soft sobs from Melissa. Eden had been about to knock on their bedroom door when she heard Melissa say, “But she’d be so lonely if we left her. You don’t understand that I’m all she has. I’m her whole life. And I owe everything to her.”

At the time, Eden had smiled at what she’d heard and gone back to her own room. But now she didn’t like the memory. Had it been Melissa who’d kept them from moving into their own apartment?

Epiphany. It was one of those blinding moments when people truly see themselves as they really are—and Eden didn’t like what she saw. Yes, Melissa was her whole life. All of it. But now there was Stuart. Had Eden treated him as a usurper?

“The book!” Eden said aloud, the memory startling her. When she’d moved to New York, out of the back of a closet she’d pulled an old file box that she hadn’t looked inside in years. In her frantic haste in leaving Mrs. Farrington’s house on that night, she’d accidentally picked up the box she’d labeled PERTINENT INFORMATION. In her five and a half years of cataloging and listening to Mrs. Farrington, Eden had filled many notebooks with interesting facts about the family. There had been some beautiful letters written by a bride to her new husband who was serving in the Confederate Army. She wrote him one last letter after she found out he’d been killed, put it with their letters, and tied them up with ribbons. Even though she’d only been a teenager, Eden had realized that what she was reading could be made into a biography of the family, and she intended to write it, once the cataloging was done. She’d put all her notes and hundreds of photocopies into one box, which she’d accidentally taken when she’d left. But she never opened the box until many years later, when she got to New York. Eden had at last opened the box and started reading the notes she’d made, as well as looking over the huge pile of photocopies. Before she knew what she was doing, she was putting all the material in chronological order and writing introductions to each section. She spent several Saturdays in the New York Public Library, looking up facts so she could tell what was going on in the world at the time of the events in the lives of the Farringtons.

One day in her second year at the publishing house, Eden had stopped by the office of one of the nonfiction editors and asked her to have a look at what she’d written. Three days later the editor said she’d like to publish the book but couldn’t because they’d all be sued. “You can’t say those things about living people,” she’d told Eden. “Wait until they’re dead, then you can say anything.”

Disappointed, Eden had taken the manuscript home with the intention of taking out all the things that could get her into trouble, such as Mrs. Farrington’s love affairs. After hours of dulling the book down, she’d put her laptop aside and turned on the TV. The book was ruined, lifeless, and she knew it. But after Jay Leno’s opening monologue, she had an idea. What about turning it into fiction? A novel? She picked up her laptop again and began a ‘search and replace’ for the names and other identifying information. The sun came up, and she was still writing.

Six weeks later, she handed the manuscript to a fiction editor who had agreed to read it as a favor to Eden. Next morning the editor had burst into Eden’s office to tell her she wanted to publish the book. Eden had acted cool, keeping her composure, but now she knew how people felt when she called them and asked to publish their books: screaming, crying, general hysterics.

The bad part was that Eden had no one to share the wonderful news with. She wanted to tell Melissa, but her daughter would tell Stuart, and his jealousy would ruin what should have been a wonderful event. And he would put Melissa between them.

The book was now due to come out in three months. Advance reader copies had already been printed and sent out to critics and libraries all over the United States. So far, the comments had been favorable. Actually, they were great. She told herself that the book would never hit the best-seller lists, but she hoped that it would do well. The few people in her publishing house who’d read the book had certainly liked it. If someone came into her office laughing, you could bet that he’d read it. “Bisexual lover” became a catchphrase around the publishing house.

It wouldn’t be long before Eden would have to tell Melissa and Stuart about the book, and until this moment she had thought of her book as yet another triumph over Stuart’s arrogance. But right now, Eden wasn’t seeing it as a triumph. Right now she was seeing her success as another page in her daughter’s divorce decree.

Standing up, Eden knew what she had to do. Mrs. Farrington had saved the life of Eden and her unborn child, and now it just might be possible that Mrs. Farrington had saved a marriage and preserved a good mother-daughter relationship.

Eden took a deep breath and put on a brave face. She had to prepare herself for the coming storm. When she told them she was leaving, there’d be tears from her daughter and triumph from Stuart. Eden had to be strong.

Chapter Two

AS Eden walked down King Street in Arundel, North Carolina, she thought that the best thing about historic towns was that they looked better the older they got. It was twenty-two years since she’d been here, yet the town had improved with age. The brick sidewalks were more bowed from the roots of the trees that had buckled them, and the old houses were even more precious and rare.

Smiling, feeling better than she had in years, Eden turned the heavy brass knob of the door to the law office of Mr. Braddon Granville and went inside. There was a small reception area, decorated in reproduction Colonial furniture, and a huge multipaned window that looked out on downtown Arundel. No one was behind the desk, so Eden stood in front of the window and looked out at the pretty little town, the water of the sound glistening to her left.

She’d arrived in Raleigh last night, had rented a car and driven to Arundel. She was staying in the restored Tredwell house at one of the many bed-and-breakfasts in town. It had been a lovely, warm spring evening, and part of her had wanted to go outside and look around, but she hadn’t. She was still in shock over the way the news of her leaving New York had been received by her daughter. Eden didn’t like to think so, but Melissa had seemed almost glad that her mother was going. It seemed that all the things that had been a revelation to Eden had been part of her daughter’s life for some time. Melissa, seemingly so young and still seeming to need her mother, had been quietly thrilled that she was at last going to be mistress of her own household. She was going to live alone with her husband, and he was going to start being her baby coach.

The minute Eden told them she was moving, Stuart got out pen, paper, and a calculator and started figuring out the rent they’d pay her for the apartment. There was no question that they’d remain. After an initial show of tears and some hugs, Melissa began to talk of curtains and wall paint.

Fifteen minutes after she had made her announcement, Eden crept back to her bedroom, feeling as though she was the only one who hadn’t understood what was going on. After a restless night, she went to her publishing house the next morning and told them her news. As she’d known there would be, another editor was ready and more than willing to take over her stable of writers. It took only a week to sort things out. Eden would become a freelance reader for her publishing house, and a freelance copy editor too. They would send her manuscripts, and she’d comb through them to make sure the author didn’t have someone wearing a wristwatch in 1610. Or, more likely, that a character went to a party wearing a red dress, then left wearing a green pantsuit.

It had all been amazingly easy. Eight days after s

he’d received the letter, Eden was packed and ready to leave. She’d called Braddon Granville’s office to ask him if the house was livable.

“Yes, quite livable,” he’d said in a deep, pleasant voice. “Mrs. Farrington did some major renovations after her son died. It seems that a teapot she owned had been made by Paul Revere, so she sold it for quite a lot of money. Sorry, but none of the proceeds are left. She spent every cent renovating the house. Between you and me, Ms. Palmer, I think she wanted to leave the house in good shape for you.”