Read Online Eden's Garden by Juliet Greenwood - Free Book Online

Nainie’s stroke, change had been impossible. Both David and Rhiannon had been in agreement: Plas Eden was Nainie’s life, the guardian of her memories. While Nainie was alive, nothing in the family part of the house could change.
    ‘Kettle’s on,’ came a distant voice, echoing through the panelled corridors as Rhiannon pushed open the heavy oak door into the hallway.
    ‘Thanks! Be with you in a minute,’ she called back, keeping her tone deliberately light. Rhiannon shivered slightly as she carefully stored her painting materials in a cupboard under the wide sweep of stairs, amongst the collection of boots and old coats half smothering a child’s sledge still kept there, just in case. However much she tried to push the fact from her mind, change was unmistakeably in the air, unsettling every part of her.
    Rhiannon quickly made her way along the corridors to the large and well-worn kitchen. An ancient Rayburn, battered but still going strong, clicked and whirred gently to itself in the corner amidst the scrubbed pine of the units. A rack for drying clothes hung just above, festooned with dried bunches of rosemary and last year’s lavender.
    ‘Huw’s gone,’ came David’s voice from the sunroom that led off from the kitchen. She could hear the strain beneath the attempts to be cheerful.
    ‘Yes I know. Coffee?’
    ‘I was going to make it.’
    Rhiannon smiled. The coffee had indeed been ground and measured and mugs set out on a wooden tray. ‘So you have, cariad . I only need to pour the water. You stay where you are. I can manage that.’
    ‘Hrmmph,’ came a grunt from the sunroom. No sounds of David struggling to his feet. Rhiannon frowned to herself. That was unlike David: the afternoon with Huw must have seriously taken it out of him.
    On second thoughts, she reached down the tin with the remains of a spiced-apple cake. The topping had turned out far too sweet, but she had a feeling that neither of them would notice. There are times when only serious amounts of sugar will do.
    ‘Hello Hodge.’ The sounds of the cake tin being opened brought the arrival of a black Labrador-type dog of uncertain parentage, yawning and stretching as he reached her side. A damp nose butted her nearest hand, feathered tail batting slowly against the table leg in appreciative greeting.
    Fitting the cake amongst the mugs, Rhiannon carried the tray down the two steps to the sunroom, Hodge trotting along in adoration – and not a little hope – behind her.
    David was sitting in one of the ancient armchairs, his bad leg propped up on a stool. He looked up from scowling at his laptop as she appeared. ‘How did the painting go?’
    ‘Not bad. The light was beautiful this afternoon.’ She placed the tray on a low coffee table set next to David’s chair. His face was drawn and grey, the faint lines at the corners of his mouth tight. She hadn’t seen him like this since those first weeks after he’d been released from hospital, when there had been a metal brace running the length of his shin, keeping his shattered bones in place. The attaching rods had protruded from the flesh like an instrument of torture. David had never complained, but she knew him well enough to know when he was in pain.
    ‘Good.’ David closed up his laptop and placed it amongst the books and papers on a folding table that had been positioned on the other side of his chair. ‘Come over here, Hodge, and stop eying that cake. You always were a dog with a one-track mind.’
    Rhiannon poured the coffee in silence, as David concentrated on fussing Hodge’s ears. They couldn’t put this off forever. One of them had to start somewhere.
    ‘Huw came to see me as he was leaving,’ she remarked, placing David’s mug within easy reach.
    ‘He did?’ David paused, hand half-outstretched towards his drink. The frown was back, deeper this time. ‘And what had he got to say for himself?’
    ‘Only to tell me what you were discussing.’
    ‘Damn Huw!’ David