Paradeisia: Origin of Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page A

given.  Now you tell me, am I wrong in this?”
    Lady Shrewsbury looked aghast, “You have very stingy words for your new employer.  I suppose you've never heard the phrase 'do not bite the hand that feeds you...'” she stared directly at Henry, “...lest you be flung from the jetliner.”
    Henry appeared fatigued, like a professor with a classroom of unmotivated students, “I ask the question, my feckless Duchess, because in order to be entirely motivated to redressing your mistake, you must, entirely, take the blame for it.
    “Time and time again I've seen it.  Every person in your situation begins with the same problem: they blame others for their errors.  'My accountant wasn't paying attention, politics got in the way, I had twins, the bank wouldn't give me a loan, my father was abusive, I ran out of cash, my wife divorced me, my partner was an idiot, there was a drought, my parents died...'”  He looked the duchess directly in the eye for his next sentence: “‘My nephew was feckless.'  These are all wonderful sentiments if one wants to sooth feelings of self-loathing, but they do nothing to fix problems.   So I ask you again, do you want to fix your mistake?  Were you a feckless duchess?”  He swung his finger like a conductor, “Say 'I was a feckless duchess.'”
    “I will not soil the honor of Shrewsbury by including my title in the matter.  However, I will acknowledge that my actions were unseasonable.”
    Henry raised a single eyebrow, unimpressed, “And do you agree your nephew cannot be blamed?”
    She grinned patronizingly at Henry, “I think you will discover, as I have, that my nephew is extraordinarily gifted.  Regrettably, his gift is not making people money; it is making people smile.”  She raised herself up in her chair, “So, to the extent that I placed my trust in him for the wrong reason, he cannot be blamed.”
    Henry mumbled, “I'll accept that.”
    She said, “So, my nephew makes people smile; you make people money.  The question is if combining your gifts produces results we can all smile at.  This, Mr. Potter, is my chief concern.”
    She leaned back, her nose upturned slightly, a coy grin playing on her lips, “I am placing my good faith in you.  And make no mistake: I will be watching, I will be listening, I will take note of every whisper that I hear.  For the first time in my very long life I have been made a fool, and if I come under the slightest impression that you could turn once into twice, let there be no doubt:” her eyes grew large, “hell has no fury like an old woman scorned.”
     
     
    4085 Woodbridge Street
     
    Wesley knew something beyond the miscarriage was happening to his wife, now leaning back against the bath surround.  The whites of her eyes had turned sallow.  This terrified him, but he went into a total panic when they began sporadically rolling up in her head.   Every a few seconds, her head dropped to her chest and he found himself shaking her to wake her.  He cried her name to her face, but she was disoriented and breathed, “My baby...” 
    Wesley lifted her up and laid her on the bed, the only thing he could think to do.  To his relief, the blue and red lights of the police sent shadows across the bedroom walls, and he left her to let them in.
     
    When he returned with them, she was slumped over the side of the bed, her head and arms dangling.  She had vomited on the floor, and now she was unconscious.
     
    It was surreal to him, like a nightmare.  He felt oddly disconnected from the events around him, as if this just wasn't happening.  It couldn't be happening. 
     
    But it was.
     
    The paramedics came right behind the police and rushed into the room to transfer Sienna onto a stretcher.  He was powerless and lost as he followed them out the door and down the driveway to the ambulance.  Then they were in the ambulance, siren blazing down the road. 
    The paramedics asked him a flurry of questions about her medical