Ralphie giggled. ‘As long as I can be there when you do it, honey.’
15
Saturday
Eden was half asleep in the morning light, in the lovely zone between dreaming and waking. It was an important day, she knew, and her mind searched for the reason. Then it hit her. The wedding. Today Mum and Pops were getting married again. And, she sat up in bed, smiling, she had a new sister, a half-sister. How absolutely amazing.
Chloe was gorgeous. Mum knew about it, astonishingly, and everything was going to be OK. Except the thought of her own secret clunked inside her.
I know what you did, Mrs Tallisker.
But her secret seemed transformed, somehow. Last night had done that.
She thought back to Lori, dear, lovely Lori, who’d been part-chambermaid, part-nanny, part-family. She’d been in the bosom of the Robicheaux family for perhaps seven years, always smiling, dark-haired and dark-eyed.
Then Eden thought of Lori getting pregnant. The moral majority had still been standing on the high ground, belittling women who were pregnant and single. Being a single mother was never an easy option and Lori had been in her twenties.
Women were always having to go through hard stuff and having to hide it, because it didn’t suit the patriarchy, Eden reflected grimly. She picked up her phone from where it was charging on the bedside table and looked at it. It was only half seven, probably too early to wake her new sister.
Ralphie was asleep beside her. He slept well. Since the arrival of the anonymous letters, she hadn’t slept well, at all.
Slivers of anger rose in her. She was fed up with the letters, fed up with hiding. Why should she hide the truth?
Her phone rang and she knew the number because the phone flashed it: Rian O’Donoghue, Diarmuid’s henchman.
Oh heck, she thought, her finger hovering over the button. The phone was on silent and it was sheer fluke that she’d seen the number come up. She slipped out of bed, answered the phone and said: ‘Yes,’ quietly, hurrying out of the room so as not to wake Ralphie.
If this was the moment when Rian told her he knew her secret and she was out of the party, well, she’d tell him exactly what he could do with himself. She was pretty sure it was anatomically impossible, unless he was triple jointed, but that was his problem.
‘Eden, it’s Rian,’ he said somewhat unnecessarily.
‘Good morning, Rian. It’s a little early at the weekend for social calls.’ Eden did her best to sound professional.
‘Not a social call,’ said Rian.
He really needed to work on his people skills, Eden thought, but said nothing.
‘I know this is not really in my brief, but I know your parents are getting married today.’
Eden stared at the phone. ‘Yes,’ she said cautiously. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘One of my, er—’ Rian hesitated over the words. ‘A friend of mine met your father late last night and he was a bit over refreshed, shall we say. I know he doesn’t drink anymore and—’
Eden realised that Rian, hard man, second-in-command to her father-in-law, was embarrassed, which was almost sweet. He was trying to be helpful.
‘So he was on the piss last night after the rehearsal dinner?’ she said.
‘Yeah, I knew you’d want to know. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, it’s not fun having that in your family,’ said Rian.
And again Eden stared at the phone. She wanted to saywho
is this Rian and what have you done with the old one? But she didn’t.
‘Thank you,’ she said, sighing. ‘That’s helpful to know. I’d better get over there and sober him up. He’s supposed to be marrying my mother in a few hours, if she wants to marry him.’
‘I’ll tell you from experience,’ said Rian grimly. ‘If they don’t want to stop, you can’t make them. Good luck.’
And he hung up. There was the turn-up for the books, thought Eden. Rian was an actual person after all and not a robot. But that was immaterial right now, because apparently her father had gone out and got completely trolleyed after the revelation that he had a fifth daughter emerged.
