Promises Unkept

Whom to love?

“Mrs. Hopkins.”

“Good that you came for yourself Eden.” The lady spoke on the dot. “Lord Adelwood has asked for your instant presence in his study.”

Heart thudding across her breast, Eden turned a bit more colorless than she already was. “Is something wrong?”

“How would I know? You must ask Lord Adelwood himself. Go.”

However much she wanted to stay here and hideaway behind those apple trees so that no one would find her and interrupt her peace, Eden knew she couldn’t.

He was the master and he had to be obliged.

She was the maid and she had to oblige.

“Get going girl.” Mrs. Hopkins interjected. “His Lordship shouldn’t be made to wait. His time has a value.”

And hers?

Her time?

Wasn’t it as valuable too? Weren’t they all subjected a leave for two hours?

Eden gulped hard, clenching her fists on her sides. She envied Maggie. She envied the other servants. Why wasn’t it them? Why her?

But not daring to trample more of Mrs. Hopkins’ patience, Eden slowly turned away and started walking towards the manor.

Every new step was heavier than the former one. Oh, how she wished she had never known Lord Adelwood the way she did. Intimately. He was her husband.

Was that even believable?

She entered the manor from the service door. The central gate_ which was as magnificent as that of a royal palace_ was not to be treaded onto by minors like her.

In the shadowed coolness of the interiors, she crossed the servant’s quarter, dropping by her room to dispose the shawl and then, she was in the majors of the mansion.

She knew where the study was, she had scrubbed its floor once, during his absence. With a throbbing heart, she went upstairs and end number of corridors later, she was at his door.

She knocked.

Twice.

No respond came. She lifted her numbed hand to knock for the third time when, just before her knocking, his robust, refined voice reverberated her ears.

“Yes, step in please!”

Please.

She entered, keeping her eyes to the floor, hands folded in her front, head dipped low. That was his influence on her. His power on her.

“Good evening my lord.” She mumbled because there was nothing else to say. And a stretched moment later, he said it too.

“Good evening.…Eden.”

She looked up, after a sucked in breathe that she could not relay beyond her throat.

Firstly, because for the first time, he had addressed her so softly.

And second, because for the first time, he had called her her name. It sounded as if he had done it intentionally. To make her look up. To make her see him. In the tousle of his address, in the far detachedness of her name the way he said it, she had sensed that.

When she looked up, she saw him in silhouettes. He was sitting on his high chair that was facing away from her, towards the window. He had a paper in his hand and his chin rested upon his fist, his elbow propped up onto the arm of the chair.

That only meant that he had not seen her yet. Or perhaps, he simply didn’t want to.

“You called for me, Sir?” she inquired, trying to sound as small as possible.