First Impressions

  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.”

  Eden had nearly started crying on the telephone. At least someone loved her! She could hear her daughter and Stuart in the living room talking in low whispers. They had four wallpaper books and eight fabric sample books on the floor and were planning what they were going to do to the apartment as soon as Eden left.

  “Ms. Palmer?”

  “Yes, I’m here. It’s been an emotional time for me to hear that my friend died. We didn’t see each other for years, but I cared a great deal for her.”

  “She was a wonderful woman, but she’d had a full life. My grandfather cried like a baby at her funeral.”

  “He’s still alive?” Eden asked, wiping at her eyes with a tissue.

  “Yes and no. Alzheimer’s. He can’t remember yesterday, but he remembers fifty years ago quite well. Unfortunately, some of his memories are, well, of an embarrassing nature. We caught him telling his twelve-year-old great-granddaughter about his trysts with Alice Farrington under a weeping willow tree.”

  Eden couldn’t help but laugh.

  “So you heard the story too.”

  Eden could hear the smile in his voice. She also heard something else. Was he flirting? Just then one of Melissa’s giggles came from the living room; Eden had never felt more unwanted in her life. “We’ll have to compare notes of what we heard,” she said, her voice lowered.

  “I’d like that very much. Perhaps over dinner one night.”

  “That would be perfect,” Eden said in her softest voice, just as she heard Melissa say, “Stuart, quit that! She’ll hear us.”

  “I’ll look forward to meeting you on the sixth,” he said, and they hung up.

  “Well, well, well,” Eden said. One of the descendants of the beautiful Granville boys had asked her on a date. After a moment’s elation, Eden sighed. “He’s probably married and has six kids,” she mumbled. “And dinner is purely professional.”

  “Are you Ms. Palmer?” Eden turned to see a young woman, about Melissa’s age, with a file folder in her hand. She looked Eden up and down hard, as though scrutinizing her.

  “Yes, I’m Eden Palmer.”

  The girl held out her hand to shake. “I’m Camden Granville.” She nodded toward the closed door behind her. “He’s my father.” Again she looked at Eden hard. “He’s fifty-four, in perfect health, and he has been a widower for three years now. He has all his teeth, doesn’t smoke, and he’d like to meet a woman who can talk about something outside this town.”

  Eden blinked for a moment, then laughed. “I’ll see what I can do, about talking about something outside of this town, that is. Maybe I should mention Madison Avenue, or complain about taxi service. This jacket has a Bergdorf’s label. Think I should show it to him?”

  The girl didn’t smile. “How are your teeth?”

  “All mine, as is my hair.”

  “Good,” the girl said, still not smiling, then she opened the door and motioned for Eden to go inside.

  Behind the big mahogany desk sat a very good-looking man. He was broad-shouldered with a thick chest, and his suit fit him perfectly. He had a thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair. Very handsome indeed. He got up to shake her hand, then motioned her to a seat across from his desk.

  “Did my daughter put you through it?” he asked.

  “Completely. I’m to show you my teeth and the label inside my jacket.”

  “I can do without the jacket, but I’d like to get a much closer look at your teeth.”

  In spite of herself, Eden blushed. She’d meant to make a joke, not a sexual innuendo. It had been a long time since a man had made a pass at her. In New York, she’d had about three dates, each leading nowhere. The city was full of young, beautiful, young, gorgeous, young women. Eden felt that she’d never had a chance.

  “So,” he said, looking down at a file folder on his desk. “Mrs. Farrington left you everything. Did you know that it took me over a year to find you? You did a good job of disappearing. It was Henry Walters who said it was his guess that you were in publishing.”

  “Henry,” Eden said, smiling. “He always was impressed with my ability to spell.”

  “Henry was impressed with everything about you. You were a young girl in a terrible situation, but you managed to make the best of it. He said you cataloged all the Farrington papers and became a good friend to cantankerous old Mrs. Farrington in the process.”

  “No, not cantankerous. She was kind and generous and easy to love.” Eden looked down at her hands on her lap. This man’s compliments and his open appraisal of her as a woman were making her feel shy. He really was very good-looking. And she was also cursed with her memories of what Mrs. Farrington had told her about the Granville boys. Was this man as good a lover as his grandfather and great-uncle had been?

  He was smiling. “I heard she used to greet trespassers with a shotgun.”

  Eden lost her smile. “She was a woman alone, and that house is well off the road. You can’t imagine the number of drunken fishermen who would show up there at three on a Saturday morning, wanting to put their boats in the river at Mrs. Farrington’s dock. And of course there were all those stupid stories about the sapphire necklace that was supposed to be hidden on the property somewhere. Mrs. Farrington had a lot to deal with.”

  Braddon Granville was looking at her with interest. “I see,” he said, then smiled when Eden lowered her head, her face turning red. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get to know her until after you had left.”

  When he reached into his desk and pulled out a set of keys, Eden felt her heart leap. There was the little silver angel that she’d seen in Mrs. Farrington’s hands so often.

  He held the keys for several moments, seeming to be reluctant to pass them on. “If I didn’t have clients coming down from Virginia today, I’d drive you out to the house myself, just to make sure it’s safe.”

  “Have things in Arundel changed that much?” She wasn’t serious in her question. As far as she’d seen, very little had changed.

  “You remember the cabin near the old house?”

  Cabin? she thought, then smiled. “The washhouse?”

  He smiled back. “Yes, the washhouse. You sound like one of the old-timers around here.” All the buildings around the plantations kept the names of their original uses, no matter what had been done to them. “After Alester Farrington died—” He looked up when Eden drew in her breath.

  “What happened to Mrs. Farrington after I left? I had to leave because…” She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t want to disparage Mrs. Farrington’s son.

  “Yes, I was told why you left. I think your daughter is a few years older than mine. Cammie is twenty-four.”

  “Melissa is twenty-seven and about to have a baby in a few months.”

  “Grandkids are wonderful.”

  “I’m looking forward to my first one. But what happened to Mrs. Farrington and her son?”

  He looked down at his desk for a few moments. “It was all rather unpleasant. There was an incident in town. A child…”

  Eden’s mouth hardened.

  “The child wasn’t hurt, just scared. She had some scratches on her, and her clothes had been torn, but she was okay. She said she escaped from an old shack by pulling a board off the wall. She identified the man who took her from the street by his photograph.”

  “Alester Farrington?”

  “Yes. The police went after him, but when they got to Farrington Manor, they found out that he’d fallen off the pier at the back of the
house, hit his head, and drowned.” Mr. Granville lowered his voice. “I can tell you that there wasn’t much investigation into that accident.”

  “No, there shouldn’t have been,” Eden said. She knew in her heart that Mrs. Farrington had stopped her son from ever hurting another child.

  “She lived alone out there for years after that. Waiting to die, my grandfather said. She wouldn’t see anyone. She hired someone to bring her groceries, but that was all. I used to go check on her every other week, but I can’t say that we ever became friends. She was my client only because my father had retired.” He smiled. “She said I wasn’t nearly as handsome as my grandfather was.”

  “Yes, she’d say that.” Eden wanted to change the subject or she’d start crying. “You said on the phone that the house is in good shape. What about the furniture? I’m afraid that what little furniture I own I left in New York with my daughter and her husband.”

  “Ah, the things we do for our children. The house is fully furnished, but I know that the son sold off the best pieces.” He was still holding the keys, turning them around in his hands. “You wouldn’t like to stay in town until this afternoon, would you? I could go out to the house with you then.”

  “No,” she said, then leaned forward and took the keys out of his hands. Eden knew without a doubt that she was going to start crying as soon as she saw the place, and she didn’t want anyone to see her. “What about tomorrow?” she asked. “I’ll get groceries today and make some soup. How does homemade soup and some fresh bread sound?”