That was the way she tried to remember him, not as the man who had sold her to an inhuman creature, married her off to Spencer Winstowe, and then abandoned her. But she had no curiosity to expend on the cause of such dreams.
During her brief intervals of consciousness, Eden had tormented herself trying to remember what had happened before she and Claudia separated. So much of it was like a nightmare. First Hartley’s appearance… then Claudia insisting that Donal could not be safe with his mother. Eden’s sudden illness, that made her aunt’s suggestion seem the height of good sense. Of necessity.
But Hartley had not followed her to the inn. Perhaps he had followed Donal instead.
The need for grim focus on simple actions kept Eden from driving herself mad with such thoughts. She called for Dalziel and accepted his help, along with Nancy’s, to make her way downstairs to the inn yard. The anxious innkeeper followed, offering every sort of aid but the kind she needed most.
The berline stood waiting with the well-rested horses. Eden fixed her eyes on the coach and took one step after another, leaning heavily on Dalziel’s arm.
A man stepped directly into her path. Dalziel and Nancy stopped, clutching Eden to keep her from falling, and Dalziel opened his mouth to rebuke the human obstruction.
The man turned about. His clothing was of good cut but well worn and too large on his thin frame, his hair in need of cutting, and the valise he carried had seen much abuse.
Even so, Eden recognized him. And all the shocks of the past week crashed in upon her with renewed force. Only Dalziel’s firm grip kept her on her feet.
“Papa,” she whispered.
Had there been any way to do so, Eden would have continued on and ordered Dalziel to drive away. But her father stood there, staring, by turns flushed and pale. And her ravaged body had become paralyzed by a score of conflicting emotions.
Anger was first. Wild, unreasoning anger. Then came joy that he was alive and had returned. Next was grief, and then the lunatic desire to laugh and laugh and laugh.
But such violent emotion sapped too much of her precious strength. She shut it all away in a part of her mind where she could find it again later, and faced him.
His lips moved, forming a name he didn’t speak. His throat worked. She realized with dull amazement that he was afraid. In all her life she could remember seeing him afraid only once before, and that was at the border inn when he’d bargained with Cornelius.
“Eden,” he whispered. “Lass, to see you again…”
“Lord Bradwell?” Dalziel stammered.
A public inn was no place for a painful reunion. “It is all right, Dalziel,” Eden said. “If you would help me to the coach, I shall sit down. Father—” She could not bring herself to call him Papa again. “I am glad to see that you are well. We will have some privacy in the coach.”
As unsteady on his feet as she, Lord Bradwell turned and stumbled after her and Dalziel. Nancy fluttered about her, but once Eden was seated, she asked the abigail and coachman to wait inside the inn.
Her father sat opposite, clasping and unclasping his hands. “I cannot believe it,” he said hoarsely. “I have been searching for you, Eden, all over London. They said you had gone to Hartsmere, so I came north. I was just about to leave the inn when—” He swallowed. “It is a miracle that you are here. I have so much to explain…”
Why did you take my son? Eden bit her tongue to keep from screaming the question. “Where have you been, Father?”
“On the continent. Nowhere, and everywhere. But you… they told me that Winstowe was dead.”
“Yes. I have spent the past ten months at Hartsmere.”
He looked at her as if seeing her clearly for the first time, taking in her half mourning and the signs of recent illness. “You go there now?”
“I am bound for London.” She closed her eyes. Her sickness, which had briefly abated, was seizing upon the strain of this unexpected meeting. “Why did you not write? I did not know if you were alive or dead.”