Promises Unkept

Rain in Hertfordshire

The glass pane appeared wet from the inside but was wet from the outside. Pearl beads of water drop glided down the transparency, leaving wet trails behind. Light was inside the glass and world was outside. Blur and wet.

Vast and pitiless.

Cruel.

It was raining and it had been raining all along.

Well, this was what rain in Hertfordshire like_ a lamenting, bemoaning, grieving, and howling affair singularly, then all at once. This was what rain in Hertfordshire like_ it could creep beneath your skin and make you damp down to your bones. This was what rain in Hertfordshire like_ it could make you long for sun and at the same time make you wish for the rain to never cease at all. It could make you love puddles and adore thunderstorms.

This was what rain in Hertfordshire like_ it could make a man fall in love with a woman without both their knowledge. Or acceptance.

Rain in Hertfordshire _ it could bring the farther things near. It could make the impossibilities to really happen.

Unaware of all this, while Lord Stephen Adelwood rummaged the taverns of Hertfordshire in the search of a girl he didn’teven really care for_ things were more complicated for Eden.

She stood at the small glass window of the dingy lodge, in the West Brooch Tavern, the valley. It smelled of oil lamp, old undusted rugs, poverty and ale here. It was dirty, and a weakly built structure but with strong bones, only to support this profession. There was a constant noise of busy people outside her room and from the bar beneath. The tavern was so full of activity. Chaos and disorder and intoxication.

 Eden’s arms were folded across her breast, her eyebrows scrunched together and her lips pressed tightly against each other as she watched the stable below.

She was brooding.

It had been six hours since they had left Ashleyton and Eden felt pathetic wondering what Mrs. Hopkins must be thinking of their stretched disappearance. She hoped that Devin had filled Mrs. Hopkins with the lie Maggie had supplied_ the aunt’s place visiting notion but she was not certain whether it would work or not. She was sure that Mrs. Hopkins must be very angry at them both.

She had no premonition, however, that Mrs. Hopkins wasn’t the only one worried and anguished by their unsaid departure.

Besides, her uncle had not woken up once since their arrival and it was_ fearsome.

She glanced down the road once to see if the chaise she had ordered for her uncle had turned up.

It had not.

She let out a frustrated sigh that turned into a smudge of vapor across the glass screen. It had been three long hours since they had been waiting and the chaise was not here on the excuse that there had been a mudslide nearby somewhere.

“Eden stop it!”

Scowling, Eden turned around to face Maggie. “Stop what?”

“Banging your head at the windowpane.”

“I am not banging my_” Eden closed her eyes and gritted her teeth in annoyance. “It’s been six hours Maggie. What do you think will happen?”

“Nothing really.” Maggie muttered indifferently, and leaned back on the chair, nursing her bruised knuckles. “Mrs. Hopkins will lecture us over propriety and scold us for being so late. Nothing a great deal, you see.”

But that was not enough to convince Eden, for instincts told her that_ that was not all to happen. There was something more to come, more than scolds and sermonisations. More than lectures and glares.