The Eden Passion (85 page)

men focused rigidly on the door, on the sound, growing louder, as though someone with great effort was slowly sliding the bolt.

So intense was his focus that Richard felt his eyes blur. Had he imagined it? Had they both imagined it? All at once the noise ceased, and in the silence he looked at John, saw him standing rigidly as though he were afraid to move.

Then Richard heard a new sound, the creaking of hinges, and with held breath he witnessed a miracle, the door beginning to open, ever so slowly, an inch at a time, then stopping abruptly, revealing only a thin black crack.

Lazarus. . .

John stepped forward, throwing back one command. "Leave us," he whispered. "Leave us," he repeated.

Readily and joyfully Richard obliged, walking backward for a few steps, still not absolutely certain that he was to believe what he was seeing, that solitary crack growing no larger, but large enough, a miraculous signal that the prisoner was weary of her prison.

At the far end of the corridor, Richard looked back and saw John, his head bowed, as though he knew he was facing the most incomprehensible ordeal of his life.

Coming from the Great Hall below, Richard could hear the distant laughter, new bonds of friendship being formed, the artisans eagerly discussing changes and renovations, all sounds of a new dawn, the long dark winter over.

Again he looked back down the corridor, aware that he shouldn't be watching, but watching anyway, that sense of intimacy increasing along with the peculiar weight of hesitancy which seemed to be pressing against John.

Go to her, Richard prayed. In God's name, go to her. If anyone could draw her out of her prison, it would be John.

He looked down the corridor, felt the tension of waiting increasing, spreading.

Go to her, he prayed fiercely.

John lifted his head; one hand reached out.

Then he went in. . . .

(Continued from front flap)

beautiful and too-willing arms of his aunt, Lady Harriet.

Even as Harriet finds pleasure in this clandestine affair, she sets in motion a search to unravel John's mysterious past—only to reveal a fatal secret that plunges the lovers into an ungodly nightmare. For Harriet, the nightmare leads to cruel self-torture; for John, to murder and a ten-year odyssey that takes him halfway around the world in pursuit of his fortune and his vanquished honor.

Marilyn Harris has written four previous novels in addition to This Other Eden and The Prince of Eden. She resides in Norman, Oklahoma, with her husband and two children.

Jacket painting by Jerry Harston

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