Promises Unkept

Whom to love?

“Why, yes. I did.” He declared, standing up from his chair and attaining his full height, making her feel even more intimidated. Her toes got curled in anticipation and she cleanly pulled her chin down though not before getting a flash of his brilliant green eyes once. “There is someone here, I believe, you would like to greet.”

Not looking up, she nodded. “Sure. Is that all my lord?”

“Yes.” She heard him say. “That would be all.”

Breathing a soft relief, she turned around to leave but was stopped by Lord Adelwood’s word.

“Where do you think you are going?”

So here he was, trying to vouch her keenness, trying to mock her. Meticulously, she turned around, entirely expecting a sly look on his face but what she found on that_ handsome_ face was, far from deviousness, just  confusion and frown with which he was regarding her. That made her realize how absent minded she was right then.

“Pardon me Sir.” She said after a long blink. “Where am I supposed to expect my visitor?”

“In my parlor.” He replied, gesturing at the door that led to the adjoining room.

His lordship’s private parlor. It had to be someone important.

“Thank you Sir.”

Why was he being so gentle?

***

“Uncle Marks.”

 Eden could not keep her tears to herself the moment she acknowledged who her visitor was. Her uncle had been the last person she would have accounted to visit her. Emotions turned her voice heavy. Her nose and eyes turned scarlet as nostalgia took over her.

Life had been terrible with him but was it any better now? Then had been hope back then....but now; she was simply hopeless.

What if this wrinkly patriarch had been nothing but thoughtless and cruel to her in her life before, what if he had always given her drunken badgering and post drunken abuses back home?  What counted was the present. And he was here to hail her…..that was enough.

“Uncle...” She sniffed again.

As the old man looked up at her hearing her call, his expressionlessness turned into a scowl. But that scowl went unnoticed by Eden. What she saw, or noticed at all, was the weariness of his old, wrinkled face. That his eyes, which were raven like hers before, had shed off their color from age, had turned into pale grey. That his hand was running tremors of old age.

That with her going away, there was no one to take care of him. Anymore.

Not that all this had happened in this one month span. Just that she took the note now.

By the time she had left the door and moved up to him, he had downed three brimming glasses of whiskey and was doing the fourth one already. The glass decanter that rested on the stool infront was already half gone.

“How are you?” she asked softly, kneeling down near his feet.

“Good now that your ominous presence has been lifted off my head.” His harsh remark did nothing to dampen her care for him.

“You are drinking yourself sick.” She scolded lightly, as he gulped down the fourth glass.

“That ain’t any business of yours.” He growled glaring down at his empty glass.

“But it is.” She mumbled, observing him vigilantly with a alertness of child. “I don’t want you to_”

“Stop it, girl and don’t tread on my patience!” He suddenly barked, making her flinch. “I am not here to see yer’ cursed face or entertain yer wellbeing. I had a business here…a darned business that I have already accomplished. Your husband detained me here to…to let you see me. Get lost, so that I can leave. You hear me?”

“What business?” she whispered warily with a broken sigh that was already wavering over the things he had said.

A hard slap was issued onto her face.

Perhaps a deserved one_ for loving the wrong man.

Like nightmare, past crept back to her as the stinging of the slap filled her cheek. The metal ring from his finger had left a deep gash on the corner of her mouth and blood was oozing out of it, like a brook broken free.

Not even rice powder could hide that this time.

“Like I said, that ain’t any business of yours.” The vile old man hissed, pushing her hand off his knee in disgust. She sagged there onto the floor, shocked at the paradox her hope had played onto her.

Why did this particular slap bother her so much when it might have been the thousandth one she had been charged?

Because there was a hope behind it.

There was a greed for fatherly affection behind it.

Hopes are meant to be broken. Like promises.

He was about to get up his chair when he stopped.

“And one more thing_” He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her brutally towards himself, making her whimper in the process. “I know you are working as a maid here. I know this marriage is to be dissolved in some times. So when he leaves you….don’t dare darken my doorstep for shelter. I will flay you alive if you do. Am I clear?”

She nodded, trying to get her hair out of his grip, wincing, crying. Oh, it was only usual. Don’t worry.

“I do not know you from this day on.” He continued. “And if_”

Just then, the door was ripped open, and stepped in a very fiery, tall figure of Lord Stephen Adelwood, his eyes glowering furious green while he was practically emitting a dark aura even though his posture appeared much composed.

“Let her free.” Eden heard his deep, resilient order resonate the room.

After a long moment of ringing quietness, she felt her uncle let her hair loose. Messed, her bun got loose as the black mass cascaded down her back.

Her agonized eyes looked up and she saw him still standing where he was, glaring her uncle. All at once then, his eyes looked down at her.

They softened.

And things were not going to stay the same, anymore.

_________________________________________

Or are they?
Are things still going to stay the same?