Promises Unkept

Forever..... for sometime.

It was simply morbid.

What Eden felt like right now, the maelstrom of words that inexplicably swirled within her skull - those that her husband had admitted down in the altar back at the church, the way he had handled her since...all of it was cruel enough for any girl to soak a mountain soft with her tears.

And especially so, when she held no idea over where her deeds had gone flawful.

But with Eden, the impacts of this disgrace went quite on the opposite extreme.

She suddenly quietened like some immaterial entity. Thoughts, reactions, replies and references stopped streaming her head. The offensive humiliations stopped making any sense, any more. In a way, her head went blank and so did her eyes. The expression she carried was one of unthinking which Lord Adelwood certainly mistook as her audacious overbearing. Her insolence.

But for herself, Eden had nothing to lose. Far less for questions, she had no tears. Not one at all.

She descended the coach stairs once Lord Adelwood was let out and stepped down on the graveled lane, looking at the wide, huge manor which she knew to be the Ashleyton. One of the oldest, richest constructions, this state offered. One of the most beautiful ones.

One, where impoverished people like her had no business to be.

The sun was a comfortable eavesdropper as it rendered the silent chattering of the wind and her cheeks blushed as warmth of it enveloped her body.

"Do you wish to waste the day out there?"

"No Sir." She voiced her words even before she had realized the question.

Her eyes met the vain green ones of her husband and apparently, his lordship didn't take rash replies very kindly on his person. She backed off impulsively, troubled by the intense arrogance his emerald eyes implied. Afraid, in fact.

"You ought not to be so impertinent." He hissed, stepping nearer to her, towering her with his lean, impressive height. "Especially around your husband."

Stone and gravel crunched beneath her sole as she retreated further behind, until her back was against the coach but her eyes never fell away from his gaze. They leveled him.

"Noted, my lord." She mumbled. Again. Impertinently.

By now, he was fuming, she could tell. His eyes grew hellish green and his jaw was set in hard composure. He shook his head with a conceited air and then, just in exasperation or perhaps annoyance, he threw his hand up in the air.

This gesture however gave Eden the usual impression of being hit and impulsively, she crossed her hand over her face in defense.

One big moment passed away. Several such slipped by. But no strike came down upon her.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and to her great embarrassment, noticed the way her fingers quivered. But then, it had always been like that. Some fear do not fade with age. They just grow on. And on. Till they become you. She lowered her hands slowly, only to see an astounded Lord Stephen Adelwood gaping at her with a triggered air and stunned pair of eyes.

He backed off two steps or so hastily and his gaze fell on the ground.

"I ....I will never do that." He whispered, more like telling himself so than assuring her that. "I will never assault a woman."

She was surprised somewhat at his sudden gentry, his straightforwardness but that was a surprise too short-lived.

"Contain yourself, my lord." She mumbled. "I didn't mean to dart an insult on your principles. My fear was impulsive." And Habitual.