I know!
I know all the muzzles of your loaded pistols are pointed right at my head, in case I pull some drastic stunt in this chapter and I know the previous chapter was quite...uh...chaotic!
Nonetheless, it's the last and probably the longest chapter out, not counting the Epilogue.
So pull in a thorough breath and go on!
And for my sake, read till the end!
_____________
Things can change in a day.
A few moments and a lifetime is altered.
Irretrievably.
Irrevocably.
So that night, it happened right two hours subsequent to Stephen's falling asleep on the metallic edge of the tub.
***
Eden was buried in the yard of the very church they had both been married. She and Stephen.
Long ago.
How long?
Who knew? Ages perhaps.
Who cared anyway? Time stops for you when you cease to exist.
Her grave was dug out in wet soil and its being a stormy, dark_ bleak evening, the gaping hole in that soft breast of earth was brimming with water, simmering from rain and reflecting the lightening heaven above.
Only Stephen was there.
It was hazy.
Her coffin was lowered down in that mud the way they had lowered Magpie's and eventually covered with slugged soil by a few dark looking men. They patted the grave mound with spades once they were done refilling.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
That had been the sound.
Stephen had then left; mounted upon his horse, Thames and rode off. Soberly. Quietly.
Without a goodbye. Without a 'look back'.
He was riding really, really rough.
His ragged, painful breathing was annoyingly being choked by the raging rain.
Then he came to that one hill.
That one hill.
Where the foxholes had collapsed due to the excessive rain. The road was loose. The rocks were slippery.
The slippery rocks are often dangerous, aren't they?
Time pulled a string.
The metallic hooves of his dark stallion slipped.
One rock and then other.
The animal lurched over sideways, into a crag. Down a cliff.
Thames, before he fell off, tried its best to throw Stephen off its back so that at least the master could be saved.
To be saved, all Stephen had to do was let the harness go.
Let. The. Harness. Go.
But Stephen stubbornly held on.
Suicidally held on.
They both fell.
In the deep depth.
Thames, being heavier, tumbled much deeper. Died after a last deafening unforgivable cry.
Stephen collided onto a mid rock.
His skull crashed on the hardest stone, gashed open, oozing blood like some dark secret.
Stones pelted down upon him, small and big, raining him down with injuries all over.
His ribs fractured in pieces by the brutal descent and the jagged end plunged straight through his lungs. It had led to a profuse visceral bleeding. When he wheezed out a breath, it came out spraying blood all over.
His nose was like a perennial rivulet of fresh, thick blood.
Dried pine needles engraves the side of his face.
A thick branch, sharpened into a spear like structure by timeless rain and weathering sliced into the side of his abdomen, making yet another gaping hole for the blood to drain out.
But then, there was this rain.
It washed away all the memories from his eyes but for one.
It washed away all the blood that his cracked head had spilled but that pain.
It washed away the ominous hemorrhage from gaping fissure of his torso but that ache.
It washed off from his face, the sprayed out blood, the mud streaks, the wetness of eyes_ everything, cleansing him into new as his dark, deep green eyes drifted around him.
He took one last, battling breath from his mouth, as rain assaulted his body.
"Better not to live at all than to live not with you on my side."
Then, silence.
Absoluteness. Mist.
Rain.
And death.
***
Two hours after Stephen went unconscious by his restlessness...
Eden spurted out water, panting in gasps_ mouth parted as she wheezed in her lungs, throwing around her hand in panic.
Where was she? Still in her overflowing grave?
Still in that horrid nightmare?
"Eden!" A divinely familiar, masculine voice was calling her. His voice. "Eden! Look here. Can you hear me? Eden!"
She eyed her surrounding for several moments, in fright and terror, vision blurred as she blinked and blinked and blinked, before realizing that she, actually, was in her _ washroom?
In a bathtub?
And there was someone holding her by her cheeks with an exceedingly gentle firmness. There was another hand that was rubbing her back as she coughed.
There was someone....someone closely seeping his warmth into her body by her side.
There was this someone she had just lost and so badly wanted to rescue and reclaim. To repossess.
To salvage.
And never, never ever let go.
Stephen.
No, that wasn't the word.
Her Stephen.
Blindly reaching out, while she coughed fiercely the water she had accidently breathed in, she felt for him.
He made himself to her hand. She blinked some more before her eyes perceived him, in a bewildered appearance, holding her by her cheeks, his statuesque face looking down at her with agitation and concern.
And, oh, his green burning eyes....
"Let the harness go, damnit." She wheezed clutching him by his collar and pulling him over. "Let the harness go! Why didn't you let the damned harness go? You bastard! Curse you! Why?"
"Eden! Miss Henley! What harness?" He shook her vigorously as she punched his chest in frenzy. "You are dreaming! Look at me! Eden?"
"Oh, don't you 'Eden' me, you ogre! You had to let the holds go! Why didn't you?" She barked meanwhile breathing with difficulty considering the abuses and violence she was throwing at him. "Bleeding bastard! Mindless fool! How dare you_"
His eyes darkened. Face turned somewhat stern.
"Eden! Wake up. Right now!"
"I am...you had to_"
His hand slipping into the back of her neck was all warning she got before he tugged her closer and his mouth landed hard on her lips.
A muffled curse was the last thing she could moan out before her voice faded into nothingness midst their interlocked lips.
His mouth enmeshed with hers intensely making her go shambles in utter shock.
That's how he quietened her.
She had been breathing with difficulty before but now, she had stopped breathing altogether.
She had rather forgotten to.
Such was his fury. Such was his love.
Such was his kiss.
And then, her eyes slipped shut.
A single tear, carried here all the way from the nightmare, escaped her eyes and slipped down her cheek smoothly, but was obstructed where his cheek met hers.
That wetness wet him too.
It was a shared tear. Of hers. To him.
His thumb came up and stole it away. Wiped it away.
Took it away as if it duly belonged to him.
And it duly did.
That was when, for the first time, her lips twitched against his poignant mouth.
His mouth stilled against hers, as if encouraging her to go on, to convulse more of her skin. To let him love her and to love him back.
To show him how to love her.
And how much.
She had still been clutching his collar. Gripping it harder, she brought him closer to her and started kissing him back as coarse as she could.
The force of her heedless tugging slashed open his shirt further, until buttons started to fall out and he was astrayed by her thrilled, ravenous lips.
She kissed him hard, her hand found a tuft of his dark, chocolate hair. She compelled him closer.
With all force she had. All forcefulness she possessed.
The only hindrance between them two was the bronze tub in middle.
She yanked harder at his shirt and he loomed more over her until there was a ripping noise.
Panting, she broke the kiss by tugging her mouth away from his unyielding lips.
She eyed his cleaved hem. Reluctantly, letting his shirt go, she lowered her head and tried to breathe.
He had eyes only for her. He didn't deter from his state.
"Look here!" He commanded, firmly making her face him by propping her chin. "I do not know what harness you talk of_ but if_ to let the harness go means to let you go, I am not letting any harness go. Ever."
"No." She hissed, shaking her head. "You do not understand. You must let it go. You must. That is the only way for me to linger with you forever. If I ever leave, if we ever par_"
"You won't like the consequences, Eden..." He growled against her cheek. "...if you finish that sentence."
"Don't be imbecile! I do not fear your threats. Listen to me." She sneered, pulling away. "Do not act like a bull-baited dickhead and_"
And again, he insolently interrupted her by sealing her lips with his own, this time_ intrusively, in fact, his smoldering tongue entered the beyond of her lips making her gasp and did inside her mouth exploits that provoked her and delighted her all the same.
Meanwhile this kissing, his hand went down into the tub, where his arm wove through her slippery waist and clutching her around, he effortlessly lifted her up and pulled her form out of the tub.
He brought her down on his own body, where she glided efficiently down his bare chest onto his lap, her dripping body made him wet all over, whilst his mouth kept her distracted enough, and he himself settled on the rugged floor of the washroom, leaning against the bath tub.
He bit her sharply on her lips as if in reprimand which made her groan and claw harder at his collars when plucking his mouth away, he hissed, "Keep those lewd filthy insults of yours to yourself, wife."
"As I said." She gazed neat into his green, glaring rainforest eyes. "I do not fear your threats."
His mouth, this time, took her soft jaws in his target making her shiver in arctic expectations. He nibbled at her, clenching her against him all the more, making her lean against his bare chest whole.
"Stop it, Eden. I am not here to nurse you."
"Oh. Tired already, are we?" She asked pulling away and looking at him smugly.
"My strength is not in question, love." He rumbled darkly, narrowing his eyes. "In fact being my wife, you will learn of my extraordinary stamina very soon."
It took Eden a moment to distinguish the meaning of what he had implied.
But soon enough, her cheeks were red and ear burning while rest of her face was wan and subtly, she slipped out of his swallowing hold.
"You should be more modest Sir." She reproached.
"Oh," He shifted beneath her slightly making her shift as well. "But it's not I who is sitting on someone's lap right now."
She slumped hurriedly off him on the floor and tried not to look at him. But it was hard considering how he was staring at her bemusedly. "Don't look at me like that." She snapped. "And don't smile."
"Oh." He blinked innocently. "Afraid already, are we?"
"I am not."
"But you are."
"I am not."
"You are."
"Not."
"Enough." He stood up, picked up a towel and courteously opening it against him, extended his hand to Eden. "Get up Eden. You had a fever. You should change."
"Yes I should." She nodded without getting up and folded her hand across her wet front. "But in front of you? No, thank you very much."
"There is no way I am leaving you alone in this state of frailty."
"There is no way I am stripping in your presence either."
"No need to strip, my dear." He lowered his voice suddenly. "We can do it very subtly. And secretly."
She scowled and tossed her head away, pretending not to hear him. "Leave, Sir."
"Eden." He sighed softly, lowering by her such that she was facing him. "If it's propriety you fear, I assure you, I have seen and touched more of you in these past hours than you would like to believe."
Her turned away eyes now narrowed in alarm and flew to his face. "You...what?"
"Now, no need to get touchy there. We had to obliterate your fever and washing you wet was the only prescription we had."
"You....You did it?"
"Yes." He sounded almost proud while his emerald eyes glittered. "I."
"Why not Mrs. Hopkins or...or Bella or Carol?"
"In sickness and in health...." He murmured, leaning into her. "...those were my solemn promise. Not theirs."
And he kept them.
He kept his promises.
For the very first time.
There was no going back now, was there?
"Oh, you have ruined me irreparably." She whispered shaking her head at him.
"How so?" He raised a brow at her. "A husband cannot possibly ruin his wife. Besides, I grant it to you upon my honor_ you are still as virtuous as before, a respectable man that I am."
"Oh yes?"
"Yes." He nodded. Standing upright, he tugged her along to be up on her feet. "Though my appeal may not let you remain so for long but then, it wouldn't be my fault, would it Eden?"
She demonstrated him aptly then about whose fault it would be but that_ we certainly do not need to know.
Outside, the sun was yet to rise.
***
Eden had been sitting in Stephen's study, that afternoon, cruising through the pages of her 'Dark Horses' when the door suddenly fell open and entered a man, she had not just not expected but also detested from the very fibers of being.
"What are YOU doing here?!?" Clarke's voice boomed through the dark room as his sight met Eden's.
"What do you think I am doing, gentleman?" Eden raised an unimpressed brow at him. "What do you do with a book in your hand? Read it, I suppose."
His dark eyes turned darker. "Inform me if I am at fault_ but you are a member of staff here, aren't you?"
"I am." Eden answered subtly. "And?"
"Such audacity! Get up on your feet, woman!" Clarke sneered lethally but Eden remained where she was and the way she was. "What? Still sitting, I see. Wench, you need be taught a lesson, don't you?"
Perhaps it was the fever from this morning that had got Eden's temper in such volatile, explosive edge but right now, to see Clarke's face and hear his affronts had certainly provoked some deepest odium in her.
"Tell me what do you want." She seethed. "Or be gone."
"Oh ! So full of yourself, are you?" He growled pacing towards her. "That tongue of yours needs be cleansed."
"Yes." She scoffed grudgingly. "And that face of yours needs be slapped. Just because I am a female doesn't give you power to order me around."
Clarke impatiently squeezed his eyes shut as if in effort to keep himself collected, but despite, when his eyes parted open, they were shrieking carnage against her.
"Tell me, woman." He grit out. "Where is your Master?"
"My husband, you mean? Oh, just a call away."
"Your husban...You! You?" Then realization hit him, perhaps, for the first time. "Holy c....You are the one! You are the 'Lady Adelwood'?"
Eden heaved a self satisfied breath in the face of his shock. And awe. "To be sure."
But, thankfully, Eden had expected no better from him even after imparting this kind knowledge to him for the awe on Clarke's face was as short lived as the blinking of her eyes.
"Well." He coughed. "I never knew Stephen had such taste."
This 'such' was spat out with such antipathy that it was quite obvious he meant to declare; 'Such depressed, miserable taste Stephen has!'
"I understand." Eden waved her hand away. "His refined discernment cannot be agreeable to all."
"Ha! Don't you think too highly of yourself, girl?" Clarke smirked eyeing her from top to bottom. "Such plain pity you are. No beauty, no opulence. Not bountiful at all. And I see no color on your face and limbs either."
"Oh yes!" Eden smiled sweetly at him. "Bulls, I have heard, are color blind."
At this point, all the restraint that Clarke was operating under collapsed.
"You will apologize right now!" He roared in a rather intimidating approach.
"Not a chance, you fiend!" Eden bit back smugly.
And a battle was on the verge of eruption when the door opened and Lord Adelwood showed up, with Penfield on his side.
He had just entered the room when he noticed the presence in his room other than that of his wife.
A very red, blazing and fuming Clarke.
Eden, for some cause, right on the contrary, was smiling. Mischievously.
Stephen suspiciously eyed them both as Penfield closed the door behind him.
"Clarke." Lord Adelwood reckoned in a greeting. "I hope you are..er...well."
"I am sure he is." Eden answered instead, her eyes glittered. "Very well infact."
Clarke threw a poisonous glare towards her which Eden pretended not to heed.
A dangerous kind of silence subjugated everything in the room which Lord Adelwood wavered by moving onto Eden's side.
"Well, Clarke." He took Eden's hand in his own making her smile. "Let me introduce you to my_"
"_ Wife. Your wife. Of course. I know." Clarke looker somewhat annoyed, but then, Eden looked no less smug either. "We have talked."
"Yes." Eden squeezed Stephen's hand. "We just had a nice long chat."_in which I had the satisfaction of calling him a bull that he really is.
"Well.." Stephen cleared his throat cautiously, not to provoke Clarke further. He more or less understood what Eden had done. "I am glad."
"Well, Stephen." Clarke raked his fingers through his raven hair. "I got your message about Edwin's visit a day ago."
The smile from Eden's face drained out. Stephen held her hand reassuringly.
Penfield looked uncomfortable but was as silent as a piece of glass.
"And?"
"And_" Clarke sighed. "And I suppose you are still unaware of what the next news about Edwin is."
The pair stiffened.
"What is it?" Stephen prompted, wishing for a moment that Eden was not here, for she had been so sick only this morning.
But in the next moment, he was proud she stood here, by him, as powerfully as himself, in all this chaos.
"He_" Clarke paused, his eyes flitting towards Eden and then back to the floor. "Edwin shot himself dead that night he visited you. At Barnard's inn. Down the way to London."
Silence indoctrinated them all out of words.
Lord Adelwood's knitted brows turned lenient suddenly, his eyes losing the vehemence from it and instead acquiring a new sort of moderation that was hard to explain.
Eden's lips moved but no words came out. She lifted her eyes to Clarke's face.
Clarke's gaze was already pinned on Eden, not with any retort or accusation but with a congenial reception that almost gave him away to be a human than a beast she had always believed him to be.
Perhaps he knew afterall that, a not so beautiful, not so bountiful woman too could have a heart that had been mishandled all along this time.
"He shall be forgiven in death then, I am certain." Eden mumbled, letting Stephen's hand go. "Excuse me, gentlemen."
And she left the room.
***
It had been sun and heavy, grey clouds in succeeding shades that day, and because of the dark grey perspiration hindering the sky, wind had been missing somewhat entirely making the weather humid and way too warm.
After Clarke's visit, Stephen knew that Eden would have been restless and when he had entered her room in very much hope to see her, he had found her absent.
Mrs. Hopkins imparted him that she was trolling in the garden with Pie. Stephen thereafter had proposed to Eden a tiny lake trip which she had readily approved and here they were.
Pie, like a real puppy, had yelped out at the sight of the water (so much, on that) and scuttled as farther from the lake as possible, involving itself into a mouse hunt.
That left Stephen and Eden who, on the other hand, decided to take a deeper tour of the lake and bare feet, he folded up his trousers and she lifted her dress stepping into the tepid, clean running water. The transparently laid rocks beneath their soles were slippery and there were silver and gold fishes, scurrying and darting along their heels as the wandered deeper into the stream.
The massive rock in the middle of the lake was quite a resort for the pair to idle away the rest of their afternoon, with their feet hanging in the lukewarm foil of gushing lake.
The sky was filled with echoes of chirping birds.
Eden had carried some fruits with her, out of which, Stephen chose an apple and Eden picked up the fresh, citrus smelling Orange.
She was somewhat too involved in flaking the thick peel off the fruit so when all his subtle efforts to gain her attention failed; Stephen had to slap the back of her head to make her look up.
The orange almost fell off her snooping fingers which she latched right in time.
"Ow! What the_ Did you just smack me?"
Stephen gave her offended face a very self-satisfied look that made her glare harder at him.
"You wouldn't look at me. There was no other way."
"Well?" Eden huffed, placing her orange securely in her skirt pocket. "What is it? And fast please! I have to devour something, you know."
"Eden..." He started and the intense softness of his gaze told her that it was something serious. "About Edwin. I _"
"Oh no!" Eden laughed helplessly, clutching his hand. "Do not worry about that on my account. I assure you, I am well. And I am not thinking of him in the least."
"But is that all you have to say about it?" He inquired cocking his head. And then, imitated her line. "He shall be forgiven in death then, I am certain."
"Yes." Eden nodded firmly at him. "I meant it when I said it. Although that's not the kind of closure I had expected but then....death, I suppose, clears all debt."
"Yes. I believe it does." He stared down at their entwined fingers and sighed softly. "Nevertheless, if you ever feel like_ anything worth confining, you can confine in me."
So, Eden did confine in him.
She admitted to him that she had been eyeing that apple in his hand for a bite or two.
And wicked as he was, he put up a price of half the orange, to give her two mere bites of the other fruit.
Eden tried to kick his shin sideways but it was hard, she realized, to kick a man she so loved.
And sideways? Oh, impossible!
That's why she punched his arm with her fist.
A fish nibbled at both their toes one by one while they were engaged into a passionate kiss and for some reason, it felt like the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to them either.
The hills were alive with the sound of their laughter and on occasions, Pie woofs.
***
That night, they put a last touch to their relation.
That night, in the aftermath of darkness, beautiful occurrences occurred.
Things changed. Lifetimes altered.
It happened.
That night, in the sad absence of moon, one nightingale nudged the other one into a midnight song.
That night, a slow rain drizzled the warm ambush of earth. Cloud ensnared and rolled noiselessly into the sky with a surprising lack of thunders and lightening.
Wet grasses drenched some more in rain.
It was only supposed to be a good night kiss but soon, they had started what they neither knew how to end.
Yet, afterall, it had been such a long, long time now.
He had been highly aware her restlessness in their kisses.
And then, it so happened, she pushed him and he pulled her.
Bodies collided in a dark, fiery impact.
Both grew desirous.
Clothes started to fall off.
The afterglow sharpened into a melting heat.
The bed creaked.
His smooth bare chest glistened in the single candle light as if polished with high wax. Her pale body silhouetted the moon glow.
Like gold and platinum.
Sun and moon, on a fading evening.
One golden, hot. Another silver, cold.
The ring on both their fingers twinkled like celestial dust.
The burning aches within and their mighty flames around engulfed them both, into a sheer breathlessness, a pleasant irrationality and a severe force of nature pulled them so close to each other, that hereby, nothing could have separated them bodily while their souls were so joint that there was nothing left of distinction between two.
Out of all things beautiful, his eyes were the most, when he had pinned her to the mattress and gazed down into her without letting her know what he saw.
Her lips quivered in her kisses, his fingers trembled too when he touched the sacred, forbidden fragments of her body.
When his utmost summit had touched the deepest depth of her, their bodies had shuddered into climax of, perhaps, everything they had so far endured, the great losses and the insignificant joy, betrayal and friendship, good and bads.
Outside was a world which was in a habit of plotting wars and pretending peace.
Inside, there was no such pretence.
Inside, there were silly smiles and mellow hums and slumbering whispers.
There were suggestions of moles.
Stephen found three beautiful secret moles all through her body.
One on behind her right ear. Another on her left collarbone.
And the third one, that he said was his favorite, he refused to allocate it to her.
He kept his secret, annoying as he was sometimes.
It is a rational thing to say....or irrational maybe, who knows_ but there are promises_ a few, that are better unkept.
Then again, maybe, it never had been about rationality or its lack to begin with.
___________________
And this is it.
There shall be an Epilogue.
But truly, this is supposedly the last chance for you to talk to me if you never have.
I so look forward for your criticism and believe me, I won't mind in least if you didn't like this story at all.
All I need is to know where I went flawful.