#i understand the footman for leaving and not wanting to deal with them

[polin-erospsyche]

Ok it’s so small but amongst his shameless flirting of the first two episodes there’s something the struck me and it is this

Like COLIN FOR F* SAKE! THE HAND, you shameless little shit. She’s not yours yet. You could at least TRY to keep your hands to yourself a little longer.

[bethanydelleman]

Ranking Jane Austen heroines/women on how good of a mother they’d be?

As with the men, I think they would all be good mothers, though in different ways.

Elizabeth Bennet: Soccer mom, she wasn't given the opportunity to have a structured education herself, it will be different for her kids. She's hiring the best governess she can find (after Darcy does a full background check), she's encouraging her kids to do extracurriculars, they will speak six languages that she doesn't understand or else! Has a minor panic attack if she says anything that sounds even remotely like something either of her parents would say.

Jane Bennet: Gentle mom, she cannot imagine punishing her children, she just has a killer disappointed face (she is unaware of this). Encourages her children to always try to understand both sides of the story. Will eventually fall for a lie one of her children tells and be devastated when she figures out the truth.

Anne Elliot: Perfect mother, there is indeed no one so proper, so capable as Anne. She has also watched her sister do everything wrong and she knows exactly how to do it right.

Emma Woodhouse: Scatterbrained mom, makes a resolution to teach her daughter fancy work but then gets distracted and the sampler is left half finished. Promised to read with her son but they only make it halfway through the novel. Good thing she hired an excellent "Miss Taylor" to pick up the slack! And despite her occasional screw-ups, her kids love her to pieces. They just better be on guard when they hit 18 and she starts trying to marry them off.

Marianne Dashwood: Crunchy mom, or whatever the Regency period equivalent would be. She wants her kids to feel the dead leaves between their toes, she encourages them to write poetry and play moving ballads. Otherwise, a lot like her own mother (they have very similar personalities)

Elinor Dashwood: I-Say-I-Love-You-With-Food Mom, she may not be exactly emotionally available, but she orders her daughter's favourite meal when she's sad and there are tiny hearts in the stiches of her son's clothes. She makes sure her kids are provided for, educated, and healthy. When she asks if they are hungry, they know she's saying, "I love you."

Fanny Price: Nurturing mom, she will be everything for those children that Edmund and William were to her, but nothing like Sir Thomas, Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris or her own parents. She has a good deal of experience from nursing her own siblings so it's a pretty smooth beginning.

Catherine Morland: Overconfident mom, Catherine has been there and done that, she has six younger brothers and sisters after all, she's READY! This will be easy! All you have to do is make sure the baby is fed, washed, changed, and napped... oh... it's a lot harder to do this when you have only slept for 2.5 hours last night... (I know she would have servants, but still, being a new mother is tough!)

Bonus: Jane Fairfax tries to keep Frank from spoiling the kids, but it is literally impossible. He keeps buying them huge presents and then she would be the bad guy for saying no. Also, she knows that Frank lost their child in Kensington Gardens (twice), that's why she always insists he take a footman now.

Bonus bonus: Harriet Smith has a special box where she keeps all the 'treasures' her kids collect. It is her most precious possession.

[butterflybuckethat]

Confession - Part II

(gif not mine, found on WeHeartIt)

Notes: Anthony x Reader

🦋 Part I 🦋 Masterlist 🦋

Anthony was at your door the following morning, with a jar of marmalade and a large box tucked under his arm. "Dear boy! Please, come in. We do not receive visitors terribly often, especially not those bringing gifts," Aunt Marjorie gushed. She welcomed him into the drawing-room. "I understand pear marmalade is your favorite Lady Marjorie, and yours as well Lady Victoria," he bowed his head in humility and Victoria blushed so dark she was nearly purple. You rolled your eyes, knowing how little he thought of them. "Well," Marjorie spoke, offering him a seat right next to you, "that is very kind of you. Shall we have tea?" She stepped into the hall to speak to a footman, having recently decided that the bell hurt her ears, before poking her head back in, "Oh, Victoria! Why don't you fetch your violin? I'm sure Lord Bridgerton would love to hear you play." And soon enough, you were alone with him. "What are you doing here?" you whisper yelled. "I came to apologize."

"You must have felt very guilty, indeed, to enter my aunt's home." "Oh, I don't know," he crossed his legs and leaned into the corner of the divan, "they are a little...eccentric, but all in all lovely." "Come off it," you scoffed. "Charming." "This is your apology?" "No," Anthony sat up, "I brought you-" "Et voila!" Marjorie burst through the doorway followed by a few footmen carrying pots of tea and a tray of biscuits and pastries. You exhaled a cleansing breath and pasted on a contented smile. Then, Victoria played her violin for nearly an hour. She really was quite good and it was clear she rarely had an audience, so you were more than happy to give her your full attention, especially if it meant taking it away from Anthony. When she finally finished, you thought that Anthony would be sent home. This was a sincerely prolonged visit, especially since it seemed to have absolutely no purpose- in the eyes of your relatives, at least. But Marjorie seemed intent on prolonging it even further: "Lord Bridgerton, would you be interested in seeing my rose bushes? They just came into bloom." "I'm not sure Aunt Marjorie, it looks as if it might rain-" "I would love to," he replied because of course, he did. You all stepped out onto the damp grass of the gardens. You held your skirts in your right hand and Anthony fell into step beside you as Marjorie talked animatedly up ahead. "You didn't have to leave yesterday," Anthony said. "I shouldn't have come." "It was nice seeing you. I wouldn't have known you were back otherwise." "I wouldn't have had to leave if you weren't so damn full of yourself," you had to keep a neutral expression, but your heart was pounding in your ears. "I already apologized for that." "You didn't, actually," you were on the brink of boiling over, "instead you condescended to me about your knowing what is good for me better than I do." "Have you ever stopped to consider that I might?" his face was impassive but there was an edge to his voice. You stopped dead in your tracks and turned to him. "You are so arrogant." "And what does that make you?" "Don't lag behind now!" Marjorie called, "We are nearly there!" You relented first, catching up to your aunt and cousin. You walked a few more feet until you reached the prized rose bush- it wasn't actually prized, she would have to leave the house or, at least, be comfortable letting people in for that to happen. "Isn't it marvelous?" crooned Marjorie. "Marvelous indeed, mother," Victoria stood smiling with her hands clasped behind her back, the perfect English woman. You were sure she could find a husband if that was something she truly wanted, you could even help her. Perhaps, you would inquire. "I certainly agree," Anthony bobbed his head. "And you, Y/N?" Aunt Marjorie really did need a great deal of validation about her flowers. "They are absolute perfection," and you weren't lying either. She worked very hard on them and it definitely paid off. In fact, this rose bush was the catalyst for all her recluse behavior: one summer her gardener fell ill and sent his brother-in-law to fill in. The way she tells it, the young man completely massacred her flowers and she dismissed him and nearly half her staff on the spot. She never went back. Maybe you should poison the plant, might do your family some good. "Are you listening?" Marjorie was explaining her gardening process, all her little tricks. You had heard this hundreds of times. "I'm sorry, I'm feeling a little faint," it was the perfect excuse. Marjorie made a bit of a fuss, which you insisted was not necessary, and Victoria accompanied you inside.

"Lord Bridgerton is very handsome," Victoria commented. You were sitting across from her back in the sitting room, happy with how this all worked out: Anthony stuck listening to gardening advice and you sitting comfortably indoors. You made some noise in agreement, not ready to fully articulate how much you actually did agree. "Would you like to get married, Victoria?" she was older than you but certainly still young, not yet thirty. "I am not sure," she blushed deeply, "I am quite pleased with my life." "Well if you should ever like my help as a matchmaker, I would be more than happy to give it," truthfully, you didn't know that many men but you would make it work, for her. She offered a silent thank you but quickly changed the topic. "What do you think is in the box?" she pointed to the large white box that Anthony came in with, sitting on the edge of a low table. "I have no idea," you put it on your lap, "it is very light." There was a note taped to it, it read, "Inside is all the love I could not profess..." You threw off the top and stared at the crumpled balls of paper inside. There were so many: some torn, some flattened, most with smudged it but it was clear that these were his responses. Your eyes tore through them, countless "I love yous;" "stay with mes," even a couple "marry mes." You didn't know you were crying until Victoria sat next to you, asking what happened. Salty tears dripped on Anthony's script and you pushed them away from you. These were to be preserved, cherished. Anthony and Marjorie came through the door. "How are you?" your aunt asked but you ignored her, looking straight at Anthony. "I didn't know how else to explain," he pressed his lips together. You could feel your cousin looking between the two of you, letters in hand, and assumed her mother was acting similarly. He took long strides to you and got on his knees by your feet, "please," he took your hands, "tell me you love me." "I love you," you breathed. It was like a reflex. You had wanted this for so long and finally, it was happening. "It was torture without you. I'd go into town or attend parties, always expecting to catch a glimpse of you but I never did. It was as if I couldn't accept that you were gone. Writing these letters..." he took a breath, "I sincerely believed that you going to Paris was the best thing for you but writing these letters, accepting that you would be out of my life forever," his voice faltered, "killed me. I know you need time to forgive me and I cannot promise that I will be any less stubborn, but I could not take it if you left me again. I love you, and I would be honored to have you as my wife." "Was that a proposal?" you laughed merrily, not caring about your wet cheeks. "A response to yours," and his smile was so hopeful and sincere that you had to kiss him. And kiss him you did. Victoria was sighing and Marjorie was clapping, water in her eyes as well, and your heart swelled. You pulled back from Anthony, arms still around his neck, and giggled, "Nothing would make me happier than to be your wife."

[ckbookish]

Alfred Pennyworth has never scooped snow

I’m going to try and new thing.  So on Discord I do long, stinking head canons, or as Batbirdies has called them mini fic head canons.  So I thought it would be fun to post one here.

Alfred Pennyworth has never in his life scooped snow.  It started when he lived in England.  First him and his mom lived on a counsel housing estate which had gardener that took care of things and they lived in the south so they didn’t get a lot of snow anyway.  Never really more than a  light dusting.

Then when he worked at MI5 he had a small but very nice flat in London.  So again never had to shovel snow. 

When he left her majesties service and moved to New Jersey for a calm job buttling for a wealthy family. He for one was excited to put all of the training he had done for an undercover operation to good use-- for something besides assassinating a corrupt businessman-- and working for what seemed to be a genuinely nice young family.  But also.... he was very excited at the size of the staff he would be managing.

He had a team of cooks, three maids, a gardener, a footman, a head house keeper.  Yes, Alfred was looking forward to letting his (still young but slightly bad) joints rest.  New Jersey was cold, colder even then where he grew up in England, and it snowed heavily his first seven winters at the Wayne Manor, but that was for the gardener to deal with.  Then the Wayne’s died.  

Slowly the staff left, one by one, as the house felt colder and the need for a full team disappeared.  There were no house party’s to cater, no guests to change the sheets for.  In fact half the house was covered in drop cloths to keep out the dust.  

The first snow of the year was harsh.  Bruce had a fever from staying out at his parents graves for too long in the cold wet snow, so Alfred—not wanting to leave him alone— hired a snow removal service to come deal with the mess.  

As Bruce gets older he seemed to grown to hate the cold white snow more and more.  Alfred who had continued to hire a crew to remove it— he was too busy washing clothes and cooking to do it—decided that they would go on a trip during winter to somewhere warmer and sunny.  Alfred had hoped it would help Bruce with his depression.

Bruce leaves and Alfred is left in that big house by himself.  He is to tired and worried to go out and shovel when the first snow hits.  He doesn’t call the crew, or book a service.  He goes to bed, the snow still everywhere.  

He wakes up the next morning and looks out the wind only to find it magically removed.  Alfred blinks and checks the accounts.  Someone accessed the house maintenance account and booked a service, but he knows it wasn’t him.

Bruce returns, he is different, still sad but this time he seems to have a direction.  Alfred doesn’t understand what he is doing.  

Snow falls and Alfred goes to book a service to come remove it.  He looks out the window and only to see Bruce out side with the gardener’s old shovel.  He’s not wearing a coat.  He’s not even wearing a top.  Alfred opens up the window and shouts ‘what in heavens name are you doing sir?!’

Bruce looks up at him and just replies ‘training’

Spring comes and Alfred still doesn’t understand what Bruce needs ‘cold resistance training’ for, but the weather is getting warmer and so he hopes that next year Bruce will forget about whatever strange ‘training’ he’s taken up.

Alfred finds the Batcave.  He no longer thinks Bruce is sane.  But by golly he needs to put stitches on that, ‘so will you stop whinging, sir!’

Bruce brings home a boy three weeks after he sees the boy’s parents die and he thinks we’ll here we go again.

Winter returns and Alfred is filled with dread.  He goes to the window ready to see Bruce outside half dressed shoveling again. Alfred double takes. 

Dick Grayson is running around holding a large snow shovel.  Alfred’s eyes widen.  Bruce is chasing after him with a fistful of snow in a gloved hand.  Dick scoops snow up with the shovel and flings it with all his might back at Bruce.

Alfred goes to the kitchen and starts coffee and a large pot of tea. When Dick comes in shaking with equal amounts of cold and excitement, Alfred asks him if he had fun.

‘Sure did.  I was laughing so hard I think I in hailed some snow up my nose. Alf!’

Bruce comes in and Alfred notices he’s wearing a mismatched set of gloves and one of Dick’s scarves.

‘Alfred did you know Brucester doesn’t have a snow coat?’  Dick asked amazed by the lack of such a necessary item.  ‘I lent him one of my scarves and gloves.  But we need to go to the store and get him some, because he said there were too small.’  

Alfred looks over at Bruce his face is rather flushed but Alfred doesn’t think it’s from the cold.

The snow is shoveled that year in uneven lines and has patches where it hasn’t been removed properly at all.  But Alfred thinks it’s the best it’s ever looked.

[kathonyxbee]

“I’m not jealous. Truly.”

Hello, hello!

Happy Kathony Week!!! 🐝🌷⛈

Here is my entry for the prompt: “jealousy and all its cousins” (Day 1)

Set post-wedding, pre-ILY. When Kate joins Daphne at Lady Danbury's soirée, she hears a lot about Anthony's reputation as a Rake which causes certain feelings to gnaw at her. It's a good thing Anthony can read her so well and knows just the way to convince her otherwise.

Or, Kate is jealous and Anthony has no problem telling her he wants her, but can't tell her he loves her.

“Don’t cause too much trouble tonight, will you?” Anthony requested from where he sat in a chair on the other side of their room, Newton yapping at his feet. He was already dressed for the evening, though they weren’t attending together. Anthony was heading for White’s with his brothers, while Kate was off with Daphne, the Duchess of Hastings and her sister-in-law, at Lady Danbury’s Soirée. She’d been surprised when the invitation had arrived, and had been considering whether or not to refuse, trying to figure out what was appropriate now that she was Lady Bridgerton, but Daphne had dropped by the other day, and after she’d told Kate what Lady Danbury’s Soirée for the Married Ladies of the Ton involved, Kate had eagerly accepted the invitation. So, here she was, getting ready while her husband lounged around, watching her.

“Hmph,” Kate huffed as her maid applied the finishing touches to her hairstyle while she tried to pick one of the flower headpieces to pin to her hair. Her curly hair had been tamed into an intricate, braided updo, leaving a few curls framing her face, just how Anthony liked it. Which, was ridiculous in and of itself as they weren’t even attending together, but a part of her rather liked pleasing him as much as she enjoyed teasing him. Hopefully, she would be able to do both. Her gaze flickered to Anthony’s, briefly, “cause trouble?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Who? Me? Impossible,” she quipped drily.

“Nice try, Kate,” he deadpanned, rolling his eyes before glancing, briefly, at his pocket watch, his eyebrow creasing slightly.

“Besides,” she murmured, “this is a gathering for the married ladies of the ton. It shall be a most lovely and perfectly innocent evening, indeed,” she told him, though her lip twitched slightly because from the little Daphne had told her, she knew it was going to be anything but. Still, it was nice to make Anthony squirm, a little.

He scoffed, “now, why do I doubt that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, dear husband,” she retorted sweetly, catching his gaze briefly, and a shiver ran down her spine at the way he was looking at her. She turned to her maid, “would you please excuse us?” she whispered quietly. The maid glanced between the two of them for a moment before curtsying and scurrying off, understanding that it was best for her to leave.

As soon as the door was shut, Anthony leapt to his feet and strode over to her, positioning himself right behind her, and she could feel him breathing heavily in her ear.

“Are you sure about that, dear wife?” he growled as he ran his hands down her arms, his teeth lightly grazing her skin, sending another shiver down her spine.

“Quite sure,” she quipped drily, trying to sound nonchalant, but her body reacted to the proximity between them, and she stiffened, a shiver running down her spine. Anthony merely hummed in her ear, though he didn’t seem convinced.

Slowly, he reached for one of the flower pins on her dressing table, and picked one that matched the color of her dress before gently pinning it to her hair, his finger brushing against her ear, causing a shiver to run down her spine. Her husband did that to her, the insufferable man.

“Thank you,” she breathed out as she peered at their reflection in her vanity mirror. They did look good together, almost but not quite the same height, her dark skin in contrast with his pale one, but oddly enough they fit. More than that, it felt right to have Anthony by her side, behind her, to be on his arm. So, perhaps it wasn’t that bad to be married to him, even if he she would have no love. He was still attentive, and gentle, and the nicest man in all of London.

Anthony pressed a quick, chaste kiss to her temple. “You look rather exquisite, dear wife,” he murmured in her ear, and she blushed, slightly, because every time he complimented her it felt like the first time. And, damn him for being so good with him because he was making it more and more difficult not to fall in love with him.

“Not so bad yourself, dear husband. Not that it matters, as you’re only going to your club,” she quipped, small smirk tugging at the corner of her lips as she put on her earrings.

“Is that so?” he remarked, sounding mock hurt as he helped her with her necklace, fastening it around her neck.

“Mm. Thank you.”

There was a knock on the door, interrupting them.

“Enter!” Anthony barked, and once more her ladies’ maid returned.

She bobbed a curtsy, “my lord, my lady, the Duchess of Hastings is here,” she announced.

“Thank you,” Kate murmured, flashing her a smile. “The Viscount and I shall join her in a moment,” she added, dismissing her, and the maid nodded, bobbed a curtsy once more before leaving. Kate turned to her husband. “Well, that is my cue to leave,” she told him, grabbing her gloves from the table, slipping them on. Anthony was already ready to go, and he offered her his arm.

“Shall we, wife?”

“Of course, husband,” she muttered primly as she took his arm, the two of them making their way downstairs to the drawing room where Daphne, the Duchess of Hastings was waiting.

She stood as soon as they arrived, eager to greet them.

“Brother! Kate!” she exclaimed, immediately pulling Anthony in for a hug, exchanging cheek kisses with him.

“Sister,” Anthony muttered with a smile.

Daphne then turned to Kate, pulling her in for a hug as well.

“Daphne, how lovely to see you,” she said, exchanging cheek kisses with her sister-in-law. “Thank you for inviting me to attend,” she added.

“Nonsense! Lady Danbury is the one who sends out the invitations, and she is rather fond of you and your sister,” Daphne shrugged, brushing her off. “I’m just glad to have another familiar face there.”

“Likewise,” Kate nodded. “Thank you for agreeing to take me with you, though.”

“Of course,” her sister-in-law smiled. “That way, we’ll be able to get to know each other better, won’t we?”

“Of course.”

Anthony glanced between them, furrowing his brow slightly, that little crease between his eyebrows deepening slightly. “I must admit, I am a little worried at the thought of the two of you spending an extended amount of time together,” he remarked, his lips twitching slightly.

Daphne laughed, obviously amused while Kate cackled.

“Not to worry, brother, I shall bring your wife back in one piece,” she declared with a wink.

“Well, forgive me, sister, if I don’t trust you on it,” he retorted.

Kate snorted. “Do not fret, Anthony,” she said sweetly, patting his arm lightly. “We shall both act appropriately, as all married women do.”

Anthony scoffed, “appropriate. You. I’ll believe it when I see it, you menace,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.

She grinned wickedly, “ah, but that’s why you won’t see it, husband,” she muttered sweetly.

“All right, all right, you two,” Daphne cleared her throat. “I believe that’s enough innuendos; he is my brother after all. Unfortunately.”

Kate chuckled. Anthony scowled.

“You know, I’m not sure I like your friendship with my wife, Daff,” he glared.

“Is that so?” Daphne raised an eyebrow. “I can say the same about yourself and my husband, brother,” she added, her tone too sweet to be genuine. Kate had to admit, she was enjoying this bit of sibling rivalry. Anthony just grunted. Daphne clapped her hands together. “Well, we should be going, Kate. My carriage is waiting for us,” she announced.

“Of course,” she smiled.

Anthony nodded, “I shall escort you, then head off myself.”

The three of them made their way out, Kate’s arm looped through Anthony’s while Daphne walked next to her, prattling on quietly about her new baby and what her husband, Simon, the Duke of Hastings, was doing at their Clyvedon estate, dealing with some tenant issues.

***

The carriage ride had been pleasant, Daphne and Kate both chatting the entire time, Daphne regaling her with stories of their family, about Anthony, and the others, too, about herself and her husband and their daughter, Amelia.

Soon, they arrived at Danbury house, the home of the dowager Lady Danbury, a footman announcing their arrival before a butler led them inside, and Kate could see Daphne practically brimming with excitement, the other woman practically bouncing.

She chuckled at Kate’s confused look, “don’t get me wrong, I adore my daughter and love spending every waking moment with her, but I miss my freedom a little, too. Being out in society. Lady Danbury’s soirees are absolutely delightful. Come,” she said, gesturing for Kate as the butler opened the doors.

Lady Danbury was there to greet them, a vision in burgundy, her hair flawless, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She beckoned for both of them to join her, and they did, Daphne beaming excitedly.

“Your Grace, Lady Bridgerton what a delight to have you here tonight,” she greeted them with a smile. “Welcome to my Den of Inequity,” she smirked. “Please, come,” she added, and began leading them further into the room, Daphne grabbing onto Kate, looping her arm around hers.

The room was lavish, beautifully decorated, with string music playing in the background, and tables throughout. Each table was occupied by a group of women, society ladies, drinking and laughing and playing card games. Kate’s brow furrowed briefly as she passed by them, especially when she heard her own name – the Young Lady Bridgerton – being whispered, but she ignored it, instead following along with Daphne and Lady Danbury.

Lady Danbury led them to a table occupied by three other women, whose faces immediately lit up upon seeing Daphne.

“Daphne!” they exclaimed, and exchanged quick greetings with her, hugging and exchanging pleasantries before their attention turned to Kate. Kate, who suddenly felt inadequate in front of these beautiful, extravagant women of the ton, wishing she’d worn more jewels, a fancier dress.

Lady Danbury cleared her throat, “ladies, may I introduce you to the newest member of our ranks. Kate, Viscountess Bridgerton,” she announced, gesturing at Kate, who forced a smile, exchanging a look with Daphne who flashed her a more encouraging smile in return. “Kate, these are Lady Trowbridge, Lucy Granville and Kitty Langham,” Lady Danbury added, introducing them.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Kate said with a soft smile, and the three women nodded, smiling at her.

Daphne latched onto her once more, pulling her to two empty chairs with a “come, Kate,” that Kate couldn’t refuse.

“The rules of the game are simple,” Daphne explained as Lady Danbury took a seat herself, “each turn, all you have to do is place your token on the card you believe the dealer will turn over.”

“Now, ladies,” Lady Danbury drawled, “place your bets.”

They did as told, Kate taking a moment to look over the cards before placing her token on an ace of spades.

Kitty, the General’s wife, and a good friend of Daphne’s, offered her a drink, “takes away the sting of losing,” she explained with a smile.

Daphne giggled, “I doubt that is necessary, Kitty. My sister-in-law is quite competitive and she’s good at winning.”

“The Duchess is right,” Lady Danbury piped up. “Kate was the one who bet on this year’s Royal Ascot winner,” she explained with a smirk. “And, against her now-husband, the Viscount, too,” she added, an amused glint in her eyes.

Kate grinned.

“And she’s been collecting her winnings ever since their wedding night, I’m sure,” Lucy Granville added, earning a giggle from the other ladies.

“Of course. The Viscount has much to offer,” Lady Trowbridge added, and Kate stiffened slightly.

“And, how would you know?” Lucy quipped, glancing at the blonde, who merely smirked knowingly. Kate tried not to look at either of the women, in particular Lady Trowbridge, and instead took a swig of her drink, the alcohol burning her throat, but she didn’t care.

“Well, everyone is aware of the Viscount’s reputation,” Kitty chimed in, probably trying to ease the tension. “A Rake. I’m sure your sister-in-law understands, right Daphne? The Duke was quite the rake, himself, wasn’t he?” she added, taking a sip of her drink. “And, now he is a devoted husband and father.”

Daphne chuckled, “yes, he was. Reformed rakes really do make the best of husbands, don’t they, Kate?”

Kate smiled, though it was probably more of a grimace. “Indeed, they are,” she muttered, taking a sip of her own drink.

The dealer turned the cards over, and Kate grinned when she turned out to be right. She did like to win, after all.

“Again!” she exclaimed, laughing in delight, her desire to win outshining that small, jealous voice in the back of her head.

“My, my, Lady Bridgerton,” Kitty drawled, “it seems you are the star of the evening.”

“Well, I do enjoy a bit of competition,” she quipped, lips curving into a smirk.

Daphne snorted, “she does! She fits in quite nicely with us Bridgertons, you know. She was this year’s Pall Mall victor,” she said with a wink.

“Ah, the famous Bridgerton Pall Mall,” Kitty nodded. “The ton only hears of it, but the Bridgertons are known to be quite competitive.”

Kate nodded, “that they are. But, I happen to be quite competitive myself. And, besting one’s husband is the best win of all,” she said with a smirk.

“Oh! Were you engaged then? We all heard the engagement occurred at Aubrey Hall but didn’t know of the circumstances. Was marriage part of the terms of the game?”

“No, we got engaged after I sank my husband’s ball into the lake, but now that we are husband and wife victory in Pall Mall and all other things shall be that much sweeter,” she remarked, taking another sip of her drink.

The ladies gasped, obviously delighted by this small tidbit about what happened between them, and Kate couldn’t help but feel a small thrill.

“Yes,” Daphne beamed, “my brother has certainly found his match in Kate,” she gushed, sending Kate a wink.

Kate won the next round, too, this time placing her token on an eight of hearts.

But, the whispers and innuendos didn’t stop there, and soon Kate realized that other tables, too, whispered when they thought she couldn’t hear them. They whispered about her, about how she wasn’t Edwina, about Anthony, too, and his rakish exploits from before. An opera singer, an artist, a tailor, visits to brothels, and even a widow or two. And, later when Kate had won most of the games, she felt anything but a victor.

***

She’d bid goodnight to Daphne downstairs, and hoped that her husband was either not home or fast asleep, but alas he wasn’t. He was waiting for her, in their bedroom, lounging on the bed. She dismissed the maid, not wanting to deal with more questions. She would manage on her own.

She flashed him a tired smile in greeting, “good evening, Anthony.”

“Hello, wife,” he smirked. “Did you have a good evening? Enjoyed yourself?”

She hummed, “indeed I did. Did you?” She glanced at him as she slipped off her gloves, laying them on the table, then began taking off her jewelry, her earrings clattering against her other jewels. She reached to unclasp her necklace, but Anthony came to stand beside her, gently taking it from her hands and unclasping it himself before handing it to her.

“So, what do the ladies of the ton do without their men?” he wondered, obviously curious as he wordlessly unpinned the flower from her hair.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she quipped, smirking slightly, but it felt flat, like she wasn’t quite into it.

“Oh, I would,” he grinned as he helped her undo her updo, her curls falling down her shoulders. “Well?”

She chuckled, “ah, but then where would be the fun in these gatherings? Us married ladies gather to gossip about our husbands, among other things, and our husbands must not know,” she retorted.

“Kate…” he groaned.

“A secret is a secret, dear husband,” she reminded him with a smirk. Anthony merely huffed, pouting petulantly in response. “Oh, that is very becoming of you, Lord Bridgerton,” she added, rolling her eyes.

Anthony glared, “you are an absolute menace, did you know that?”

“So you’ve mentioned a few times,” she grumbled. She sighed as she looked back into the mirror, her mind going back to the gathering, to the events of the night, and in particular the whispers and innuendos.

Anthony noticed her stiffen, saw the sad look in her eyes, and tried catching her gaze in the mirror, but she couldn’t, couldn’t bear to look at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, coming to stand behind her once more.

“Nothing,” she muttered with a forced smile. “All is well. I’m just tired, Anthony,” she told him, but unfortunately her husband could read her, and he knew something was wrong.

“Kate,” he drawled, “what happened?”

“Nothing, it’s just-” she stopped herself, her lip caught between her teeth. He raised an eyebrow, nudging her lightly to continue. “Nothing, truly. It is just that… well, you were the topic of quite a few conversations this evening, but it’s fine,” she told him, her words coming out in a rush, and she could feel her cheeks flush.

But Anthony knew what she meant almost immediately, his forehead creasing only briefly in confusion before he frowned, muttering a quiet “oh.”

“I told you, it is nothing for you to worry about, we should just get ready for bed,” she told him in a dismissive tone, trying to brush it off. But she should have known. Anthony Bridgerton was not one to let it go.

“Kate,” he said slowly, “are you jealous?”

“Of course not!” she snapped, maybe a little too harshly. “I’m not jealous, don’t be ridiculous,” she told him.

“Kate, you were aware of my reputation before we married. Wasn’t that the reason you objected to my courting your sister?”

She rolled her eyes, “of course. That is exactly the point. As I said, I’m not jealous. Truly,” she told him, but even as she said it, she was lying through her teeth. And Anthony knew that. They both knew it.

She tried to step aside, but he stopped her, his hands gripping her arms gently, though she continued to face the mirror.

“Kate, we both know that isn’t true,” he said softly, and she could feel his breath in her ear, but still she didn’t meet his gaze.

“Anthony,” she groaned, breathlessly.

“Kate,” he whispered into her ear, his teeth lightly grazing her skin before he turned her around, but still she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Kate, what did they say? Tell me.” His tone was desperate, willing her to tell him, his fingers reaching to rest under her chin, forcing her to look up and meet his gaze. “Look at me, Kate,” he demanded, his tone pleading, and when she did, she saw his eyes burning with emotion, and she felt her resolve weaken.

“Nothing specific,” she whispered, “nothing to my face. But they kept talking. About you. Your… reputation,” she admitted, averting her gaze, and she heard him sigh heavily.  

“Kate, you knew-” he started, his forehead creasing in frustration.  

“They mentioned a woman you were once fond of. Sienna Rosso. An opera singer. It seems you have a type,” she muttered, reaching to cup his cheek gently.

“Had,” he mumbled.

She met his gaze once more. “Had?” she repeated.

He nodded, “had,” he said, his voice firm. He spun her around so her back was to him once more before he pressed his body against hers, his mouth next to her ear. “Now, I have a different type.” He smirked, “a beautiful, insufferable and competitive menace who drives me utterly insane with desire,” he said, breathlessly as he brushed his lips against her ear, nipping lightly on her earlobe, causing her to let out a small giggle. “I want you,” he muttered as he pressed a kiss to her jaw. And another. And another, trailing kisses along her jaw. “I desire you,” he whispered as he kissed along her neck. “All the time. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day,” he murmured against her skin as his lips brushed over her collarbone. “I- I need you,” he stuttered, and Kate’s heart skipped a beat. “I need you, Kate,” he repeated, his voice hoarse, and she shivered, as he removed his hands from her arms. “I.” Kiss. “Want.” Kiss. “You.” Another kiss. “Always.” He continued in this manner, peppering kisses all over her skin, his hands expertly unbuttoning her dress, letting it pool at her feet before he spun her around once more, so she was facing him this time.

“Anthony,” she muttered breathlessly as he cupped her cheeks, his fingers firm but gentle on her skin.

“Kate,” he breathed out. “Listen to me,” he urged, “and listen closely. Sienna is my past. Just like all those other women the ton whispers about. My past. But they do not matter. She does not matter. You matter, Kate. You are my present and my future. You are my always. I will always want you, Kate. You are the bane of my existence and the object of my desires,” he said, his voice hoarse, his dark brown eyes blazing, urging her to believe him. “All at once.”

Kate felt her breath knocked out of her, and she gasped quietly before reaching for him, her own arms winding around his neck, pulling him to her.

“Anthony,” she muttered against his lips, her nose bumping against his, their foreheads touching, “I need you.”

He picked her up effortlessly, his deft fingers already undoing the laces of her corset, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, felt him press against her thigh, hard. He needed her just as much. It was clear in his tone, in his eyes, in the way he kissed her, hungry and desperate, like a man drowning.

“I need you, too, Kate,” he whispered before capturing her lips with his own. “You have no idea how much.”

And Kate had to admit that a little jealousy had come in handy. Very handy. Especially as her husband gasped her name in pleasure.

[maybe-theres-hope]

Of Will and Wildflowers, Part 1

Tarlos | period drama/grudging acquaintances to lovers | Part 1/3 

Read on ao3

Thank you to @oquinn53 and @resiotcage for cheerleading and reading ahead of time. You both give me the motivation to keep going. 

Title by @oquinn53 :)

By law, TK Strand cannot inherit his father’s railroad empire until he marries. He has absolutely no intention of finding a husband on their trip down to Texas, but he finds himself blindsided by Mr. Carlos Reyes, only son of Doña Marialena Reyes. The problem is that Mr. Reyes resents the Strands coming to buy up parcels of his family’s cattle estate to build a rail line on. TK is perfectly happy to leave him to stew in his anger, as he has no use to see the man after the end of the week. However, TK will find that the heart wants what it wants, and there’s rarely anything one can do about it. 

Set in 1885

Below is an excerpt, full part 1 from the beginning is under the cut!

TK was astonished at his father’s ability to forgive anyone almost anything, but this was almost too far. Mr. Reyes had barely said a word at dinner, and that was only after he’d been forcibly pulled into conversation by Christina. Even then he’d talked of nothing but the weather and cattle movements, and he’d offered a mild chuckle at Elena’s story of her first time riding a horse. He’d spent the rest of the evening simultaneously staring at and avoiding TK.

TK knew this because he’d been doing the same, though he would sooner saw off his own hand than admit to it.

“He insulted us and called us names. He besmirched our honor. He wears brocade to ride in! What on earth makes him a good man?” TK huffed out a breath. He turned to see his father just smiling at him.

“He’s a good judge of a room, anyway. He seldom looked away from you,” Owen ribbed. TK could now see where this was heading. His own father was just as bad as the Doña trying to play matchmaker.

“Parents are far too successful in matching their children up economically, but when it comes to romance, parents are no better off than if they hadn’t known another eligible soul in the world,” TK recited.

“Oh, come now son, I’m not that insensitive! He’s handsome isn’t he?” his father returned, finally dropping the ruse and showing his true colors.

“Handsomeness does not a happy home make,” TK recited again.

“You’ve been reading too many Dame Juliette columns.”

“And you’ve been trying to plot my marriage since we were on the train, and the minute you saw a handsome son on this estate you’ve sealed my fate, have you?” TK groused.

At this, Owen softened his face. “I am sorry for being a bit pushy, but Mr. Reyes is the first man you’ve so much as made eye contact with of late. Is it so odd to wonder what about him brought you out of your self-imposed melancholy?”

“Who said I was out of my melancholy?”

“Your eyes whenever they met his.” Owen’s face was serious, no longer teasing.

“He makes me angry, is all. Anger is an emotion.”

“Yes. Yes it is.” And with that, Owen turned to climb into his own bed, the conversation abruptly halted and TK left wondering what his father thought he’d concluded from their exchange.

Lying on his own mattress across the hall, TK wondered at emotion. Sure, anger was an emotion. A useful one. But so was love, and he was determined to hold out for it.

Part 1

“Ms. Mercer’s proposal looks promising,” Owen says, mostly to himself but loud enough to include TK in the conversation, should he wish to participate. “And Mr. and Mr. Felton-Lowman have quite a sprawl, though it does look to contain more elevation than I was hoping. I thought all of Texas was supposed to be flat?” Owen muses as he tosses the papers back onto his makeshift desk.

TK is only half listening, choosing instead to stare morosely out the window at the passing countryside of the American South, eyes at intervals tracking livestock in the fields and lingering drips from this morning’s light storm rolling down the glass window of the lavish Pullman they’ve commandeered as their vessel for this journey. His father, bless his soul, had tried to get TK to care more about the business as of late, and truth be told, TK was very interested in the workings of his father’s company and he did take great pride in being able to inherit it someday and make his father proud. It was just that recently, he’d had his heart thoroughly crushed by an absolute rake of a man and he’d rather wallow in self pity than think about geological surveys and boundaries for livestock movements.

TK heard his father sigh, a sure sign that a lecture was coming soon. TK took a breath and held it.

“I wish you’d forget about that awful boy, Tyler. You wouldn’t have wanted a life with him anyway. His family was barely polite at best, and scandalous at their worst. Honestly, you got out on the good side of things.” TK wanted to say that he didn’t care about things like status and scandal, he cared about love and commitment.

Turns out all Alexander had been able to commit to was his harem of stable boys and footmen that TK had known nothing about until it was too late.

TK blew out his breath. He knew his father meant well. Owen Strand was not overbearing as some other fathers were, especially with an only child upon whom everything rested. He wished his son to be happy and settled, is all. TK knew this, and still he couldn’t help his sullen reply.

“Yes, father, I shall just forget. Forget every sweet nothing and every second and third dance. Forget every promise and every earnest declaration. Forget that it was all a lie. Yes, my mind shall be rid of Alexander’s presence by sundown. Then we shall celebrate. How simple.” He knew he was being unreasonable, but he wanted to be angry for a while. He’d only found Alexander with Mrs. Howell’s second footman three days earlier. It still stung.

As the train rattled on, closer to a place that TK was of a mind to understand was so far from proper civilization as to be considered exotic, he felt his father’s disappointment cling to him. That hurt worse than what he’d seen Alexander and the footman doing--which was something for which he was sure a name had not been invented yet.

“I’m sorry, father. It’s just that you’ve set this deadline for me with no explanation as to why, and I don’t want to let you down but I’m afraid I’ll never find the right man for me. I had thought it would be Mr. Thompson, but I was mistaken. Sorely mistaken.”

At this, TK looked up to catch his father’s soft look of commiseration. “I know you’re feeling overwhelmed, but you are getting on in age. Most boys are married off by three and twenty, and you’ve gone nearly four years past that. I’m not going to be around forever, you know. You need to secure a match that makes you happy, but you’ll need to do it sooner rather than later.”

“Why, father? Why must I rush such a momentous decision? You are in perfect health! I have another five or ten at least!” At this, he caught a very minute shift in his father’s countenance, something like pain, but it was gone in an instant. His father was the most stoic man TK had ever had occasion to meet; if he was in pain at all, no one would ever know. It must have been a trick of the flickering pre-dusk light coming through the windows of the train car. Owen took on a playful tone.

“Five or ten? What respectable young lad would want to marry a man of thirty-five? You’d practically be spinster by then,” he joked fondly.

“You’re a good deal past thirty-five and I’ve still seen twenty year old Miss Brinkman making eyes at you across the dancefloor of an evening. If I’ve inherited your genes I’ve nothing to fear,” TK shot back with a barely there smirk.

“Thank heaven for us all, but you’ve got your mother’s beauty. I couldn’t have asked for better,” Owen said quietly. TK’s mother had been gone these past ten years. A bout with pneumonia that the doctors could not cure had taken her from them. “But you do have my charm, I’ll allow you that. You should put it to use down south. Perhaps a cattle baron might catch your eye?”

“Oh by God, no. I couldn’t imagine whiling away my days on a smelly farm trying to read reports by moonlight and taking my sullen and fatigued husband to bed only for him to fall asleep minutes after his head hits the pillow. No romance in hard labor, that’s for sure.” TK shuddered a bit to think of life on an actual farm, constantly smelling of hay and manure like some streetsweeper back in Manhattan.

“I do believe successful cattle barons can afford more than a few tawdry tallows, Tyler,” Owen quipped with a smirk before turning his attention back to the maps and surveys scattered in front of him. The conversation that, just moments ago, had been fraught with uncertainty and earnestness seemed to flutter into the wind. TK and his father were like that most times: they’d lay things out on the table between them, and if it clearly couldn’t be resolved in a single good-natured quarrel, they both gave themselves time to regroup to resume the discussion at a later date.

For this particular subject, TK was coming to think of that ‘later date’ as a cuff slowly tightening around his wrist, the chain binding him to his destiny getting shorter and shorter.

He looked down at his hands, privileged hands that hadn’t had to do much manual labor in his life, save for the few times his father took him to the yards to show him how things were run. Owen, on the other hand, was an entirely self-made man, who saved and invested his earnings working for Vanderbilt and made enough to purchase his first railcar at just twenty. He contracted it with the Erie and charged passengers thirty-five cents for passage between New York and Boston. From there it only grew, to what was now a very respectable business, looking to lay lines of their own. Perhaps not the largest--that was still Vanderbilt’s claim--but certainly a player on the board.

And it would all be TK’s if he could just hurry up and fall in love already.

_______

The carriage from the station drove them twenty miles through gorgeous hill country. The cattle and horses grazed on rolling plains that swelled gently as they approached the horizon. It was warm, but not unbearable, which TK attributed to the absence of industry steaming and smoking and saturating the very air in one’s lungs as it did in Manhattan. Furthermore, despite the over-abundance of livestock surrounding them, the smell was far more pleasant than he was used to. TK could not help but conclude upon this observation that maybe it was not the horses that stunk, but the people. After all, fresh air was a luxury very few could afford, and they usually had to go thousands of miles to get it, such as he and his father were doing now.

Still, he held to his earlier affirmation that he could not see himself making a life in a place such as this. Despite the fact that he’d concluded they apparently smelled horrid, TK loved being around people. He supposed that was to be attributed to being an only child, and having no siblings underfoot to raise ruckus and otherwise pierce the silence that hung heavy over their home of late. Even though he’d not experienced that kind of life, he’d always hoped to make a large family of his own, his husband and he adopting ten or more children to raise and fawn over. TK had never considered for a moment that he wouldn’t be a father, regardless of his proclivity for finding only men attractive in any way. Some of that persuasion chose to remain as partners only, bequeathing their fortunes, such as they were, to their universities or other charitable pursuits. But TK had always wanted a house full of mouths to feed and hearts to warm.

He dreamed about the day when he could look over at his husband, gray-haired and body-bent, and smile at what they’d created.

Except it did not seem as though he would be acquiring a husband any time soon, and that thought vexed him more than he let on to his father. Yes, he agreed that he was getting on in years as far as marriageable age for young bachelors was concerned, but his one universal truth was that he would not settle for someone who was not the love of his life. That conviction, though others called it foolish, was the great constant that ran through every interaction TK had with any handsome man he happened upon.

He was determined to uphold that promise to himself, no matter how many years passed. If the right one came along, he’d know it. No matter for the moment, anyway, as he was doubly sure he’d not meet the love of his life in the middle of cattle country.

As the carriage rounded another gentle swell, a rather large bright structure came into view. TK put his hand up to shield his eyes for a moment, as it seemed the very sun shone out of the building. As they drew closer to the drive—lined with giant oak trees on each side like twenty such sentries—it became apparent that the house was not radiating light, but reflecting it. Every upright surface was covered with glittering textured limestone, something TK had seen here and there on their travels through the southern states. Also something they had encountered before was a grievously oversized stoop—which these people called porches—that spanned the entire width of the house, and it was evident that it wrapped around to the sides as well. It was dotted here and there with rocking chairs and benches, each with a wool blanket or cushion thrown haphazardly onto the seat to aid the sitter’s comfort on the otherwise hard wood surface.

They reached the house after a long drive up, and the carriage deposited them at the bottom of the steps up to the grand estate. TK had seen mansions in Manhattan and beyond, but this house was like a full government building. It was massive. He wondered how many people lived here.

As their driver helped them from the carriage and began to let down their luggage, a shriek of delight could be heard just inside the door. TK jumped for a moment, not expecting such a sound in such a peaceful place, before he was bombarded with the view of three bright young ladies in finely detailed seersucker and bustled skirts.  

“Oh, you’ve arrived at last!” the one who looked to be the eldest exclaimed. She was tall, at least half a foot taller than the other two, with ink black hair tied up in neat chignon. Her sleeves accented delicate wrists and her waist was nipped down modestly. She smiled like TK and his father arriving was akin to a grand parade, when really they resembled world-weary travelers who could barely un-stoop their backs from so long inside the carriage. The other two young ladies—girls really—giggled behind their hands. They bore a strong resemblance to the elder; certainly they were all sisters.

Ever the gentleman, TK removed his hat to gesture to the ladies, who gave curtsies in answer. Owen did the same, and received curtsies that went just a bit deeper. “Good afternoon, ladies,” Owen called with a smile. “I was told I could meet directly with Doña Marialena upon our arrival.” He quirked his eyebrow up in question, even though it was perfectly plain that none of these girls was old enough to be the proprietor of this estate, unless they had been sorely deceived. TK thought he might admire someone capable of extending that sort of ruse for as long as they’d been corresponding with the Doña. But alas, a moment later, a much older woman who resembled quite strikingly all three ladies gathered on the porch emerged from the wide open front door.

The Doña was an intimidating woman on her own, but the height afforded her by their current positions made it seem even more so. TK tucked his hat into his elbow and bowed low, following his father’s action. The older woman bent her knees a bit, and TK noticed she did not descend the steps to meet them, but instead kept her position above, behind her daughters.

“Welcome to La Hacienda Reyes, gentlemen,” she intoned in a very slightly accented, gravelly voice. It should have sounded harsh, but it just sounded well-used, as though she’d employed it many times to shout at her daughters for their impropriety at scurrying out to meet guests on the lawn without their bonnets, as she looked apt to do right this very second. TK did not mind their state of dress so much, as rules were getting a little more lax for the younger set these days, especially in the city. Though, now that he thought about it, these country folk might be a mite more traditional, but he let the thought fade into obscurity as the Doña smiled softly down at him a moment later, as if sharing a secret.

He and Owen approached the steps as the Doña descended to meet them. Owen made their introductions as TK took her hand in his, giving a small bow as was customary. He let his father lead the conversation as he made his way over to the daughters assembled on the lawn. He kissed each of their hands in turn, learning that their names were Christina, Elena, and Raquel, from eldest to youngest. He was also informed that Christina was not the eldest in the household; her sister Rosa was ten years her senior and married, and she and her wife were summering on the East Coast.

As Christina regaled TK with how wonderful and filled with revelry their visit was to be, a lone figure appeared at the edge of his vision, galloping up quite swiftly on horseback. The animal was beautiful, sleek and black and moving with its rider as though they were one. As they drew closer, Christina also lit on to the approaching figure.

“Oh, there’s my brother. Mamà will have his head for not meeting you directly, as the man of the house should. Even though he won’t inherit, she still insists he accompany her when seeing to the business of the estate, especially when Rosa is away.”

“I’m sure he had urgent business to attend,” TK offered, however he did not know what kind of business a man in fine brocade—as he could now see the golden threads shining in the Texas sun—would have out in the fields. “We did arrive earlier than expected, I believe. Our apologies.”

“Oh, no. He wished to stay away. I’m of right mind to assume he thought we’d already be inside by now and that’s why he’s made his appearance, and he’ll be sorely thwarted to see us still about.” She fought to hide a smirk, and TK was intrigued. However, he didn’t have time to contemplate on the apparent lack of manners of the man of the house before the man in question was upon them.

He was invariably handsome, that much was clear on his approach. He had tanned skin that shone in the rays of the afternoon sun, and curls atop his beautiful head that caught that same light and transformed into blacks and browns and golds as he moved. He was fit and tall, as TK could tell even from his seat on the horse, and he commanded an air about him that sang with regality. As he disembarked from the saddle, TK was struck dumb at the fluidity of his movements. It was as if he was still galloping along with the horse, moving slowly and rapidly at the same time, body deliberately placing itself where it needed to be rather than flinging his limbs about as some proud men were wont to do when they felt the urge to assert their authority.

As he turned to face the gathered group and at last revealed his face from a close angle, TK was struck dumb. This man was gorgeous. Exquisite. A dream made flesh. TK could all of a sudden imagine what this man looked like when he smiled, when he was upset, when he was elated, when he cried. He could picture a thousand candlelit dinners at the Fifth Avenue Hotel across from this man, surreptitiously dragging their toes against one another under the table, faces and hearts alight with the impropriety of doing such a thing in public, but being too enamored of each other to care.

He could picture all of this so clearly and crisply that he could almost smell the gardenia adorning the little vase upon the table. That was, until the man opened his mouth.

“Gentlemen,” he spit, as though the word were a curse upon their persons. He turned to the Doña and intoned in a volume that was surely meant to be overheard but made as if to seem secretive, “Mother, I thought you said only one was coming. We must entertain two greedy industrialist blackguards for the whole of the week when we’ve not even fully migrated the herd?”

At this, Doña Marialena did not even flinch. She simply leaned in closer to her son and spit out a quick succession of words no doubt meant to silence his gaucherie, but which only served to wind his already pinched countenance into a tighter knot. When their short exchange had ceased, he looked mildly chastised but still as though he would rather be anywhere than here, meeting TK and his father on the front lawn. However, after receiving that nearly silent dressing down from his mother in front of their guests, he screwed his face into a more acceptable visage, and approached Owen, who was holding out his hand.

Doña Marialena made their introductions, “Carlos, this is Owen Strand and his son, TK. Mr. Strand, this is my son Carlos. Please excuse his horrendous manners.”

Carlos took Owen’s hand. “Welcome to our Hacienda, sirs. You are from New York, is that correct?”

“We are. Nearly a fortnight’s journey to get here, but it was beautiful country to pass through,” Owen answered in a friendly tone, unfettered by the exchange of impropriety that had just taken place and determined to move into more friendly territory.

“Ah, well. Let us hope your trip was not in vain,” Carlos answered with a barely there sneer. He turned to TK and offered his hand as Owen and the women turned to shuffle inside the house.

“It’s a pleasure, Mr. Reyes. I hope we can find some mutual agreement that is beneficial to all in this endeavor,” TK said solemnly while shaking the man’s hand. He’d abruptly become determined to dispense with all amorous thoughts of this abhorrent man. He and his father were here to do business, attend a party or two, and leave with contract in hand, and nothing more.

“There is nothing beneficial to my family about breaking off pieces of our home to sell to ardent capitalists,” Carlos hissed in a volume meant only for TK. “My grandfather’s blood is boiling in his grave as we speak.”

“Well then I suppose it is advantageous for us that you are not the one making decisions about the estate. Your mother seems quite keen to receive the compensation of ‘ardent capitalists’, as you say. Perhaps there are some issues with the household which require assistance which you, as third born, were not made privy to, sir.” TK could not help himself, and shot back the jab without thinking it through. It was ill-bred talk of money in the open, and much more so to bring it up in a first meeting, but Mr. Reyes was the one who’d alluded to finances first, so TK felt little remorse upon seeing the other man’s face flash with indignation.

Mr. Reyes looked as though he wished to lob one last verbal volley at TK, but seemed to think better of it which was a surprise given his utter lack of tact until that moment. He turned away from TK with a last look of barely tempered rage in his brown eyes and made his way up the steps and into the house.

TK followed, determined not to ponder on why that look had given him gooseflesh in a way that did not suggest fear for one’s life, but rather intrigue at what other thinly veiled emotions his own words could make those eyes flash with.

_______

Dinner was a modestly lavish affair. The table was adorned with yellow roses, to symbolize friendship and cooperation, which TK thought was a nice touch from the staff yet ultimately ineffective.

Well, possibly not entirely ineffective, as his father was currently wooing and entertaining the four women at the table with his usual easy charm, and they all seemed to be devouring his anecdotes and quips with good spirts.

It was Mr. Reyes that seemed out of sorts with the rest of the party. Even TK himself was beginning to forget their fraught exchange on the lawn and give in to the revelry of the evening. Truth be told he was glad to be at table with someone other than his father, who tended to give him pitiful looks and well-meaning advice about his recently broken heart. TK also had to admit that along with the laughing women, even Carlos himself was a nice change. His presence gave TK something to focus on other than thinking of his failed chance at happiness.

As it was, TK had already forgotten that he’d vowed he would not focus on Mr. Reyes at all.

“Your father tells me you are six-and-twenty and still a bachelor? How ever have you managed that?” The Doña asked across the table. Given his current preoccupation, TK didn’t even take the slightest bit of offense from the statement. It was helped along by the kind look in her eyes.

He gave a bashful chuckle. “Hard work and perseverance, ma’am,” he joked, and the table laughed along with him, save for one. “I’ve simply not encountered the right match, I’m afraid.”

“If he was married to the work, I’d be less anxious, but alas…” Owen trailed off with a good natured smile. Even with all his father’s nagging, TK knew in his heart that his father wanted his son to be happy and unhurried in choosing a husband.

“I’m holding out for my perfect compliment. Is that so naive?”

“Maybe not for a man in such good standing as you. I’m sure you have suitors left and right vying for your attention, Mr. Strand,” Elena said from across the table.

“I’m afraid at the moment I am quite unadorned with neither suitors nor passing interest,” he answered her.

“I, too, am similarly afflicted,” Elena mourned with a sigh. TK thought she couldn’t have been more than seven-and-ten, quite young to be so concerned. Then again he thought perhaps the country was different than the city. The Doña was mature to be sure, but she looked much younger than he’d thought a woman with a child of more than thirty years—as had been hinted about the absent Rosa—would look. She must have been wed around Elena’s age after all.

“Oh hush, sister. Your situation is not nearly as dire as mine,” Christina said. She placed the back of her hand to her forehead in an affected swoon. “Whenever shall I leave the nest?”

“When someone who possesses such a lack of wits that it precludes them from knowing better comes to sweep you off your feet,” said Raquel. Her sister gave her a scathing look before smirking and presumably kicking her lightly under the table. The younger sister just giggled and went back to her meal.

As TK watched the family interact, lightly teasing each other good-naturedly but never outright insulting each other, he could sense the love and connection among them. Oh, how he longed for a large family such as this someday. Surrounded by his children and their love for each other that ran so deep as to assure each and every one of them that no matter what was said in jest, they were always seeded first in the minds of the rest.

Even with all the lighthearted conversation going on at table, the sole Reyes son was still silent. TK thought it odd that such a stoic, contemptible man could be born into a family of such vibrant women; he was surrounded by their vivacity every day and still he was unmoved to even smile into his potatoes at their revelry. The rest of them also seemed to sense that Mr. Reyes did not wish to partake in the lively conversation, as none of them moved to include him. The Doña glanced to her son every now and then, and TK couldn’t have said her expression looked reproachful (as he would have agreeably afforded her) but it did not look content either.

Perhaps this was not usual behavior for Mr. Reyes. If that was so, then it really was the Strands’ arrival that had put him out of sorts and TK had no recourse to remedy that at present. He and his father were here for business that must be conducted, and Mr. Reyes would just have to live with that.

The Doña had apparently noticed TK going quiet among the ruckus and subsequently had noticed his earlier gaze flickering around the family accompanied by a soft smile. It seemed as though she’d misinterpreted his attentions, however.

“Perhaps the perfect compliment is sooner encountered than you think.” She gave a very slight incline of her head, seemingly meant to indicate Christina, who was sitting to her right and had proceeded to blush so profusely TK was momentarily concerned for her health. He endeavored to be diplomatic but firm against the Doña’s clear initiative, which was impossible for anyone at the table to miss.

“Ah, your family is lovely, Doña, but I fear your son and I would need to converse at length before we could find views on which we do not differ at the moment.” It was part lighthearted joke, part barely concealed jab at Carlos, and part signal of his preferences, so as not to invite any more ideas about betrothing him to one of the daughters.

Alas, he did not miss the Doña’s sharp eye turn to her son before landing back on himself in quick succession. Given their greeting, the Doña should not rightly expect there to be any amorous feeling available between them. Her face relaxed after a moment, and she returned her gaze to the rest of the table. TK did not feel cowed, per se, but the weight of her scrutiny could still be felt upon his cheeks. He was immediately given to wonder what could be contained behind those steady brown eyes, so like her son’s.

As the conversation resumed—Christina was finally ribbing her brother for his lack of mirth this evening—yet again TK found himself studying Carlos Reyes, handsome specimen that he was. But the cut of a man’s jaw and the shine of his eyes did not a welcome companion make, in TK’s view. Sure, he’d lost himself for a moment in the man’s fluidity of movement, the low timbre of his voice, the fire in his expression. But the measure of a man is in his actions, not his appearance. A man can appear any way he wants to; it is his behavior that epitomizes his character. Carlos Reyes had shown himself to be headstrong, closed-off, and prejudiced. TK had no use for such a personality. Carlos could while and wallow away his days alone for all TK cared. He would leave here with no attachments and that would not be a hardship.

Just at that moment, the man in question met his eyes. They stared for a moment, caught in some trap of unconscious strain, seemingly bound to the attempt to find the measure of each other in a single look. When TK looked away first, he felt as if he’d lost some contest.

When he chanced a glance toward the man again, he found his gaze hadn’t wavered but was now more open than it had been since they’d met, which admittedly was not to say much.

Later that night, when Christina had shown them to their guest rooms, Owen made an observation as they dressed for bed.

“The girls are quite well-bred,” he stated, apropos of nothing. The caliber of the family had no bearing on the land, therefore it was of little interest to them in coming into this negotiation. At least, that is what TK believed. His father, it was apparent, thought differently. “And Doña Marialena is a fine head of the household. She has taught her children well.”

At this, TK scoffed.

“And her son is quite adept, don’t you agree?” Owen continued as he hung his dinner jacket away. “A good man who knows the value of family and home.”

TK could not let this statement slide. “A good man? He’s an absolute cad!”

“Oh? He was perfectly cordial during dinner. There was that snafu when we arrived, but that was cleared up quickly. I say, he’s a fine man.” TK was astonished at his father’s ability to forgive anyone almost anything, but this was almost too far. Mr. Reyes had barely said a word at dinner, and that was only after he’d been forcibly pulled into conversation by Christina. Even then he’d talked of nothing but the weather and cattle movements, and he’d offered a mild chuckle at Elena’s story of her first time riding a horse. He’d spent the rest of the evening simultaneously staring at and avoiding TK.

TK knew this because he’d been doing the same, though he would sooner saw off his own hand than admit to it.

“He insulted us and called us names. He besmirched our honor. He wears brocade to ride in! What on earth makes him a good man?” TK huffed out a breath. He turned to see his father just smiling at him.

“He’s a good judge of a room, anyway. He seldom looked away from you,” Owen ribbed. TK could now see where this was heading. His own father was just as bad as the Doña trying to play matchmaker.

“Parents are far too successful in matching their children up economically, but when it comes to romance, parents are no better off than if they hadn’t known another eligible soul in the world,” TK recited.

“Oh, come now son, I’m not that insensitive! He’s handsome isn’t he?” his father returned, finally dropping the ruse and showing his true colors.

“Handsomeness does not a happy home make,” TK recited again.

“You’ve been reading too many Dame Juliette columns.”

“And you’ve been trying to plot my marriage since we were on the train, and the minute you saw a handsome son on this estate you’ve sealed my fate, have you?” TK groused.

At this, Owen softened his face. “I am sorry for being a bit pushy, but Mr. Reyes is the first man you’ve so much as made eye contact with of late. Is it so odd to wonder what about him brought you out of your self-imposed melancholy?”

“Who said I was out of my melancholy?”

“Your eyes whenever they met his.” Owen’s face was serious, no longer teasing.

“He makes me angry, is all. Anger is an emotion.”

“Yes. Yes it is.” And with that, Owen turned to climb into his own bed, the conversation abruptly halted and TK left wondering what his father thought he’d concluded from their exchange.

Lying on his own mattress across the hall, TK wondered at emotion. Sure, anger was an emotion. A useful one. But so was love, and he was determined to hold out for it.

_______

The morning after their first night in La Hacienda Reyes, TK woke with renewed energy to be devoted to forgetting Carlos Reyes even existed.

This endeavor proved extremely difficult when upon descending the stairs to the foyer, the man in question was seemingly awaiting him, pacing across the marble floor with agitated clicks of his boots. The sight brought TK up short, and he consequently forgot that his father was just behind him, causing Owen to collide into his back and sending TK tripping down the last two steps—

Straight into Mr. Reyes’ arms. They were pressed together so tightly for a moment that TK swore he could feel the other man’s exhales as they left his nostrils, softly caressing TK’s cheek as they went. One of his hands was gripped tightly on TK’s shoulder while the other had instantly wound its way around his waist to steady him.

It took TK an inordinate amount of time to catch his breath, all the while feeling that very firm body against his. As his senses returned, he felt himself blaze with the most furious blush at the proximity, and hurried to right himself. He nearly butted his head into the other man’s nose in the process, but proceeded to stand upright without further incident. He set about straightening his waistcoat before looking up and catching Mr. Reyes’ eye almost by mistake.

The other man seemed just as red in the face as he. They held each other’s gaze for a split second longer before TK was violently reminded that the incident had not happened in private, but that the whole of the ghastly encounter was overseen by his own father.

Owen asked, much too late in TK’s opinion, “Are you alright son? I apologize for being so clumsy there,” he added in address to Mr. Reyes.

The man of the house was the first of the pair at the bottom of the stairs to regain use of his tongue. “It’s quite alright, sir. No harm done.”

“That’s true, as you were here to prevent it. Lucky, that.”

TK thought to himself that he would like to disappear from this mortal plane rather than be party to his father’s smug innuendos, especially after their conversation last night and TK’s renewed vows of thoroughly avoiding the man of this house.

Mr Reyes, however, seemed unattuned to Mr. Strand’s jabs, and simply addressed them both again cordially.

“Good morning to you both, I hope you slept well.” They replied that they had, as was proper, despite TK’s own thoughts. He wasn’t about to share that . “I’ve actually come to offer you a tour of the grounds at my mother’s behest, and also in apology for my unmitigated rudeness upon your arrival.”

TK was inclined to believe the apology was also at the Doña’s behest, if not absolutely forced. She seemed a formidable enough woman to demand decorum from her adult son.

“I understand your company is pursuing the land in the northwest quadrant of the estate. It would be my pleasure to take you there so that you can survey at your leisure.”

“So early?” Owen asked. They had not yet broke fast.

“Yes sir, in order to avoid the humidity of midday, I thought we’d ride out closer to dawn. Our cook has packed some provisions in lieu of the breakfast meal.” At this, he gestured to a medium sized basket atop a side table by the door, apparently from which the scent of bacon—as TK had just caught on the air—was emanating.

To be quite honest with himself—which he would admit much, much later was not very honest at all—TK was not at all looking forward to spending the morning with Mr. Reyes and his ridiculously dashing seat on a horse. His father being there would temper his mood, but he’d rather spend the day walking about on his own, soaking in the fresh air and solitude of the country. Or even alongside his father and the Doña, negotiating the sale of her land, as Owen had expressed his desire that TK begin immersing himself in the business and he saw no better time than now, in avoidance of any extra time spent in Mr. Reyes’ presence.

The man made him hot around the collar and jittery, and the real problem was that TK was even more angry that neither of those emotions were particularly loathsome at the moment and he could not explain to himself why.

“That sounds like an excellent idea, Mr. Reyes. Unfortunately, I really must sit down with your mother and ask her about some specifics regarding the provenances, so I must decline your kind offer.” At this, he turned to TK, who was already giving him wide eyes of panic before he even opened his mouth. “TK, would you be so kind as to accompany Mr. Reyes around the property? You know the general gist of what we are looking for, and you can report back to me with what you find. I’d really appreciate your help on this, TK.”

The man was practically grinning like a fool. TK thought he might keel over right there on the marble tiles of the Reyes’ foyer.

Mr. Reyes’ face was unreadable at the moment, but TK could imagine the line of his thoughts. The two of them no more wanted to spend time with each other alone than either would want a hole in the head.

Mr. Reyes, however, was the first to recover from the abrupt change in plan, with a direct capitulation that TK could have punched him for, had he been a less tactful man. “That…would be agreeable,” he said haltingly. He turned to look at TK, who schooled his countenance into something less vile than he felt this turn of events warranted. “Would that please you, Mr. Strand?”

Would it please him? Absolutely not.

“Of course, Mr. Reyes,” he said tightly, resigned to his fate. “I look forward to seeing your lovely estate and hearing its history.”

Mr. Reyes looked almost surprised at his cordiality, and TK congratulated himself on his capability of social falsehood.

_______

Their journey was to take them from the back of the house out and around the northwest corner of the ranchland where they would stop to breakfast at a small manmade lake and then south to the orchards, through which they would find themselves back at the west side of the house. All told, Carlos informed him, the trip would take them for six miles. TK resigned himself to a morning of misery, and judging by his would-be companion’s face, he was not alone in that regard.

Their basket of provisions securely fastened to Mr. Reyes’ saddle, and both saddles securely fastened to their mares, the pair set off in silence other than Owen’s shout of farewell from the porch.

They strolled along at a leisurely pace—too slow for TK’s regard—for quite a while before either spoke. Mr. Reyes looked over to TK with a judgemental eye before saying, “Watch for snakes in the grass. Flor will not spook at them, but she will spook if you do.”

“I’m not afraid of snakes,” TK snapped, although he couldn’t rightly say he’d ever seen one up close. “Furthermore, I am high on this horse, why would I worry about something as low as a snake?”

“Rattlers can jump. They’ll have your boot off and will have half devoured your leg before you can think to turn the horse.”

TK whirled to look at him, consequently causing Flor to twist toward Mr. Reyes and Jimena, putting them much closer than TK would like after their bout that morning. He knew his face was a mask of barely concealed horror, the image Mr. Reyes’ words had conjured up no less than tremendously frightening to a city gentleman.

Mr. Reyes’ face, however, was all mirth; his cheeks were reddening in the effort of holding back his obvious laughter, which he gave up the moment TK noticed his ruse.

“That was a bold-faced lie and you are a scoundrel for it,” TK muttered, feeling teased.

“I’ll take that judgement just to see the terror on your face again,” Mr. Reyes laughed. TK was determined not to acknowledge that the man had a nice laugh, a full bodied, soft-edged one that sent warmth down to the tips of TK’s toes. TK was also determined to keep the scowl upon his face for the whole of this journey, never mind the wrinkles he was likely to develop. Curse this loathsome cowboy and his ill intentions and his shining curls and his full lips. They lapsed into silence again for another half mile.

In his endeavor to ignore his companion, TK failed to notice how he was being closely regarded by said companion. He should have been able to feel the gaze upon the side of his face like sunlight as heavy and warm as it was, but alas he remained ignorant of it in favor of the beautiful countryside.

TK began to notice little strains of wildflowers growing on the gentle swells of hills here and there, their elevations no more than four or five feet. It was like looking at someone’s floral bedding that had been disturbed in sleep and not righted in the morning; soft, loved, and lived in, a safe place to come back to at the end of the day, a warm comfort to calm the tumultuous stresses one was apt to battle in the waking hours.

“The red and orange ones that reach toward the sky are called Indian Paintbrush,” Mr. Reyes intoned softly causing TK to turn his gaze away from the flowers in a startle. It had been so quiet he’d almost forgotten his company. “There,” Mr. Reyes pointed, urging TK to return his focus to the flowers. “That line there is all paintbrush. And the purple spiked ones are Horsemint.”

“Why are they so named? Do they taste of mint?” TK wondered aloud.

“I’m…not sure. I’ve never had occasion or urge to eat one. Perhaps the name means only horses would taste the mint, but Flor and Jimena do not seem so inclined either.” His chuckle was tacked on at the end, but it didn’t feel accusatory this time. It sounded as if TK had honestly stumped him with his question and he was considering the answer in earnest, but had ultimately come up short of a correct guess.

TK focused again on the sweeping little hills as they continued to trot along. “And the pink ones? What are they called?”

“Ah, I believe those are Evening Primrose. Those are the most prominent of the wildflowers here, as I’m sure you can tell. Quite boring to look at compared to the others, but a constant nonetheless.” His tone gave TK the impression that he, too, found the fields of flowers calming. It would make sense, seeing as this was his homeland. Or…was it?

“Have you always lived here? Or did your family come into the property recently?”

“My great-grandfather purchased the land at a pretty steep discount in twenty-six, just a couple of years after the Colonization Law took effect. He came far enough north that he wouldn’t be too crowded in with the rest of his countrymen, and settled the bit to the south of us, where the house is located. He did build it, but it was not as large as it is now. It’s been expanded with both generations since, I believe.”

“Your great-grandfather came from Mexico to settle?”

“Technically, this was Mexico still when he came, since the war for Independence was not won until thirty-six. But yes, he came from Guadalajara. He thought less over cultivated land would suit better for cattle ranching, and it turns out he was right. We now have three hundred head.” His voice was proud as he recounted the story, and TK was drawn in by the clear reverence he had for his family history. He wanted to hear more, so he asked after how the estate came to be so large.

“My grandfather negotiated the rest of the land from the tribes settled here at the time, which admittedly were so few in number that the endeavor was swift. He offered them fifty head and a handsome cash sum as well, and the deal was struck in accord. The tribe moved north to the central territories and are still there today I believe. We’ve had a few high ranking members as visitors in my youth, and they were always amiable and welcome.”

Mr. Reyes’ soft smile had drawn TK’s attention again and this time he let himself look. The man practically glowed as he talked of his heritage, his family, and it was rather intoxicating. TK wanted to ask after more, but it seemed they’d reach the aforementioned lake that they were to stop and break their fast beside. He allowed Flor to carry them to a stop at a suitable spot and dismounted, again allowing himself to watch as Mr. Reyes did the same. He was taken in by the same fluidity and grace as he had been the day previous, before their awful actual meeting.

TK was finding it hard to remember Mr. Reyes being crass yesterday, no matter how hard he tried.

In tandem, they  spread out an extra saddle blanket in the grass, still slightly damp from the morning dew. Their provisions were divvied up and tea was poured into metal cups, and TK was just about to take his first sip when Mr. Reyes spoke, and his tone bade TK listen carefully.

“Mr. Strand—“

Without rightfully thinking about it, TK interrupted him with, “Please, you should call me TK. Well, my name is Tyler, but only my father calls me that. Friends call me TK.”

Mr. Reyes looked taken aback for a moment, possibly at the implication of friends , but TK kept his face impassive. He’d not have them making a mountain out of a grain of sand such as a name. They were to be business acquaintances anyway, and they should address each other as such. All of Owen’s partners called him by his first name, so TK took a page from his book by extending the offer. It would help keep his mind firmly on their business relationship.

It absolutely was not so he could hear his name, both sharp consonants of it, softened in Mr. Reyes’ steady timbre.

“TK,” he corrected, and the named man swallowed a sigh at being proven right about the sound of it coming off those lips. “I would like to—that is, I am committed to—well, what I would like to say is—“ he halted, frowning down at an apple clutched in his own hand. He set the apple aside, and turned to TK directly.

“TK, I mean to sincerely apologize for my behavior yesterday. It was rude and judgmental without cause, and I am sorry. I hope you can forgive me that transgression, as I do hope we are able to work together seamlessly in this partnership.”

It seemed sincere, TK thought. The man’s eyes were fervent and his face was open in a way it hadn’t been since the Strands had arrived. For a moment, TK was lost in those eyes that reflected the climbing sunrise off the water of the small lake like Mr. Reyes was radiating the warmth of goodwill through his very irises. His eyes were soft, inviting, shining with their earnestness. It was a long moment before he spoke, which Mr. Reyes seemed to take as reservation but was in fact TK pure preoccupation with studying the man’s face at the most inappropriate of times.

“I do hope I haven’t ruined things between my family and yours,” Mr. Reyes went on. “It’s just that I—well I’m quite attached to my home here and my pride is tied up in what my forefathers accomplished.”

“To see it broken up and sold off is to admit defeat that this generation could not hold the line,” TK finished for him, and his eyes grew wide.

“Yes, precisely.”

“I have misgivings about that kind of thing also. My father built such a tremendous enterprise—nothing like the Vanderbilts of course, but sprawling in reach nonetheless. I…find myself at times overwhelmed with the prospect of taking it on alone.” It must have been the country air, the absence of all human life for a few miles, and the still burgeoning sunrise combined that made his tongue so loose with such intimate thoughts. Surely he was losing control of his faculties if he was given to sharing his heart in this way, TK mused.

Even so, Mr. Reyes’ face had not closed off yet; it remained open and inviting to those thoughts and perhaps welling up with some of his own to share, now that the barrier had lost a few bricks and they could see each other over their respective sides of the wall they’d built over the previous day and evening.

“But, you won’t do it alone, will you? You cannot inherit until you marry, by law,” Mr. Reyes reminded him. Those deep brown eyes were on him again, somehow more liquid than before. TK must be imagining things now. He blinked the line of thought away.

“Yes, that’s true. But who’s to say I’ll marry a man who wants to be involved in the railroad business? My true love may be a man of the arts, constantly shut away in his studio creating pieces to adorn our home and teaching our children to appreciate the craft of them. Or he may be a man strongly devoted to politics and spend months away from home campaigning for the betterment of the American people. Or he may prefer the country life to the city, and I must remain in the city for the business for the bulk of the year. So you see, I may yet end up running the business alone, even if my life will not be spent in solitude. If I marry for love, I’ll be glad of that connection regardless if I get help with the business. Help is not what I’ll be marrying; it will be companionship outside of worldly endeavors that will make it worthwhile.” The picture he’d painted for himself inside his head was content, and he noticed he’d closed his eyes for a moment while he’d intimated the details to Mr. Reyes.

When he opened his eyes and refocused on his company, he saw Mr. Reyes duck his head slightly, a faint blush high on his tanned cheekbones. TK wondered if the other man was embarrassed of the intimate turn their conversation had taken, and hurried to move them to more casual topics.

“I do apologize, Mr. Reyes, I did not mean to be overly familiar with you. God above, it must be the early hour that has me as yet unable to master all my faculties.”

“No, please, do not apologize. I simply—that is—I do…admire your candor and conviction. Marrying for love is not rare, but it is not the standard. To be so assured of your path in life is enviable. I admit I haven’t given much thought to it myself.”

“You don’t think of who you’ll marry?” TK asked. He’d thought of nothing else since he was a boy.

At this, Mr. Reyes’ eyes turned down for a moment, a cloud of something passing over his features before the sun shone through his expression again. “Not in the sense you’ve described, no. I supposed I always knew I would marry, because I knew I would not inherit the estate—though I do envy Rosa a bit—but I’ve never imagined what kind of man I would spend my life with. I always assumed I’d know who he was when he came along.”

Their eyes met and for a moment not even the crickets or birds or any other constantly buzzing creature could be heard. TK was the first to break it, albeit in a slightly hushed tone.

“And he hasn’t come along yet?” he asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Mr. Reyes answered. He looked disinclined to elaborate. They gazed at each other a moment longer before Mr. Reyes broke the contact and gestured to their spread. “We should partake of Mrs. Smith’s generous meal. It seems she packed for much more than three this morning,” he laughed, and it only sounded a little forced. “I assure you, the fresh bacon cooked in rosemary will change your perspective on life the moment it hits your tongue.”

TK took the change in subject gracefully, also keen to step back from the precipice they’d found themselves on much too early in their acquaintance, truth be told. They’d forgotten themselves but no harm had been done, and they could go on as intended—as short-term business collaborators only.

_______

They rode the rest of the way around the western perimeter as the sun reached higher in the sky, Mr. Reyes pointing out landmarks here and there. Ostensibly this outing was for TK to survey the land for it’s viability for their project, and he was doing so, but he was also enamored with Mr. Reyes’ ability to guide them along with enthusiasm and grace. It was very clear the man loved his home and was deeply proud of it, and TK was entranced when he talked.

By the time they reached the apple orchard, TK had stopped deluding himself that he wasn’t fond of Mr. Reyes. He’d had his misgivings from the beginning, and for good reason, but there was a good man underneath the initial prickliness. Mr. Reyes could be likened to a cat protecting its young. Docile for the most part until his family was threatened, and TK could see where he’d felt that way initially. Mr. Reyes had come around quickly though and TK was not sure how much of that was due to his mother’s insistence and how much was just their conversation on this journey around the property in the early morning light.

“It smells so heavenly here,” TK mused aloud as the horses picked their way between the lines of trees. To be able to be abreast of each other to properly hold a conversation, the horses were so close that occasionally TK’s knee or thigh brushed against Mr. Reyes’. It startled him each time, even though he’d come to expect it. He supposed it startled his body but not his mind, which was a disconcerting feeling indeed, but not altogether unpleasant.

“They are called Gala apples. They thrive quite well here in the moderate rain. Would you like to try one?” Mr. Reyes asked. TK nodded with a small smile, and watched as Mr. Reyes dismounted Jimena and left her untethered. He turned back to TK and held out his hand. “Come along, it tastes better if you fetch it from the tree yourself,” he teased.

TK stared at the outstretched hand before taking it and dismounting gracefully, coming familiarly close to Mr. Reyes for the second time that day. This time, only their hands were touching as opposed to their whole bodies—as they had been on the stairs that morning—but it felt almost more intimate. TK noticed that they’d paused to regard one another again as they had multiple times on this journey. However, as they had done each time, they broke their gazes and their contact and went on as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The only problem was that each time it happened—and this incident more than all he rest—set his heart aflutter in such a way as to distract from all else in the moment. It took him increasingly longer to come back to himself each time.

He watched as Mr. Reyes took a wooden-runged ladder from a pile on the ground and set it against the trunk of the nearest tree. Deftly, he climbed a few feet, reached up, and plucked a ripe bit of fruit from one of the lower branches before coming down off the ladder assuredly, his steps practiced as if he’d done this a thousand times before. Perhaps he had.

TK held his hand out for the fruit, but Mr. Reyes pulled it back and away. “Ah, ah. This one is mine. I told you, it tastes better if you fetch it yourself. I set your example, now it’s your turn,” he said, spitefully taking bite out of his prize, then using it to gesture to the ladder.

Unfettered by Mr. Reyes’ teasing, TK was determined to show that he could keep up with his companion’s prowess. He approached the ladder, assessing it for any weak points before tentatively stepping onto the first rung. It bowed gently under his weight, and he paused a moment to gather himself.

He felt a hand upon his hip and froze for a moment, feeling distinctly untethered. Looking down, TK saw Mr. Reyes’ earnest eyes on him, one hand steadying TK on the ladder and the other still casually consuming his fruit. He gave TK a reassuring smile and nodded in the direction of the tree, encouraging.

The climb to the correct height took TK a bit longer than it had the cowboy who was used to such endeavors, but he managed. He plucked a juicy-looking specimen from a close branch before carefully climbing down, deliberately placing each footfall for optimum support from the wooden rungs below him. It was slow and arduous, but he accomplished it.

Once landed on the ground, he held up his spoil triumphantly. Mr. Reyes smiled.

“And now, Mr. City Gentleman, you have farmed apples!” He declared.

TK bit his lip for a half-second before being unable to hold back his mirthful laughter. His eyes crinkled and his cheeks ached with it, and it felt so good that he didn’t notice his companion was gazing at him once more, admiration and awe in his expression. When his laughter came down to a more manageable level a few seconds later, they were caught in each other once again, as they had been many times that day. TK’s smile was still spread across his face and he looked up through his lashes at Mr. Reyes to see a serenity over his countenance that had yet to be shown since they’d known each other.

It was beautiful.

Just as quickly as the moment had began, it passed, with Mr. Reyes fingering his collar away from his neck in what seemed like a nervous gesture. “The heat is beginning to get oppressive,” he offered in explanation, though said heat was not yet unbearable in the slightest. “We should retreat to the safety of the house.”

“That sounds like a good idea. I wonder if our parents have concluded their negotiations for the day. I’d like to convene with my father to let him know what I’ve seen.”

“Of course, well. Shall we?” Mr. Reyes gestured down the path between the trees, Jimena’s reins held loosely in his hand as he led her on foot. TK grabbed Flor’s lead and followed in quiet contemplation. He realized his manners had slipped.

“Thank you, Mr. Reyes, for this tour. It was enlightening, as well as a pleasant diversion.”

“You are most welcome. And please, call me Carlos. After all, we are to be friends, as you put it.” His smile was radiant.

“Carlos,” TK tried out the name on his tongue with a nod. It tasted like the smoothest brandy, and TK felt like he was already drunk off of one sip.

“I wanted to reiterate my apology, to make sure it is clear. I judged you and your father before I allowed you to state your intentions. Your plans for the land, so far as you’ve told me, will not impact our operation negatively and I get the distinct feeling it is your mission to keep things that way as you work your way across the country. So I thank you for your discretion, and I once again humbly ask you to forgive my behavior yesterday.”

“It is already forgiven!” TK tells him, wanting to put any and all ill will behind them after such a glorious morning. “Do not worry over it any longer. Let us be friends from this day forth.”

Carlos smiled so wide it momentarily arrested TK’s heart.

They reached the house in due course to find Elena on the porch frantically waving a piece of paper in her delicate hands. They tethered the horses to the post off the side of the house and approached. The girl looked as if she could barely form words through her excitement.

“Carlos!” She cried as they ascended the steps and removed their hats. “Guess who’s coming to the ball tomorrow night!”

“I’m sure you will tell me without me having to guess,” her brother teased good-naturedly, sharing a conspiratorial smile with TK as they passed into the foyer.

“Mr. de Castillo,” Elena said, giving the name a weight that surely meant something, but which TK could not discern. He’d never heard the name before, but then again he did not know the upper class set of this region well enough to know their names and statuses that might warrant such excitement.

When TK turned to face Carlos, he wondered what Elena could find so appealing that her brother seemed to find mildly horrifying, judging by his expression. His eyes cut to TK and they almost looked…guilty.

Elena went on, oblivious to her brother’s distress. “His letter is posted from Santa Fe nearly two weeks ago, and he says he should arrive just in time to dress and attend. Isn’t that marvelous news, Carlos? He hasn’t come east since the fall. Oh how we’ve all missed him.” She put emphasis on certain parts of her sentence that didn’t entirely make sense to TK, but he could feel a growing lump in the pit of his stomach as he watched Carlos’ face drain of color slightly.

“He sounds like a character who’s good to know, if his presence at a dance excites you this much,” he offered to Elena to try and ease the focus off of Carlos, for he seemed unable to speak at that moment.

“Oh, it’s not me he excites,” Elena said, cutting her eyes to TK’s right, smirking but saying nothing more. TK did not turn to look at Carlos again, because that lump in his stomach was getting heavier the more Elena talked and he was not rightfully sure he could put a name to it just yet. Looking at Carlos’ guilty face was surely to spell it out quicker than he’d like. He halted his train of thought and plowed on.

“Well, I look forward to meeting this esteemed Mr. de Castillo. You said he’s not come east—do you mean to say he is from the west coast?”

“Yes, San Fransisco! His father rushed there in forty-nine and made quite the coup. They’re able to give the Rockefellers a run for their money, I’d wager,” she said. “And he’s so handsome as well.”

That bit tacked on at the end was again delivered with a weighted look at Carlos which TK again ignored.

He was saved from replying to Elena’s last comment by his father and the Doña appearing in the foyer.

“What’s got everyone in a fuss?” Owen asked.

“Mr. Fernando de Castillo is coming to the ball tomorrow night!” Elena exclaimed, elated to share her momentous news with anyone who would listen.

“De Castillo…” Owen pondered, “Is that Isador de Castillo’s boy? Of San Fransisco?”

“Yes, the very same. Mr. de Castillo the younger visits us quite often, as he’s got business back east with his company and likes to stop for a week or so on his way through. We’ve all grown quite fond of him, especially Car—“

“That’s quite enough, Elena. The Mr.’s Strand are not interested in country gossip. Run along and find Constance to start your lessons. Your sisters are already studying while you’ve been flitting about.” The Doña’s voice was firm and clearly dismissive. She glanced at her son and TK in turn, before turning her attention back to Owen. “Mr. Strand, might we all go into the drawing room for tea? Our sons can regale us of their journey around the property.”

Owen’s smile was wide and eager as he looked to the two young men. “Of course, I cannot wait to hear your thoughts on the land, TK. The Doña and I will also impart to you what we’ve agreed upon thus far, though there are still the finer details to work out.”

Carlos immediately followed Owen into the room off the left side of the foyer, barely sparing TK a glance in contrast to all their lingering looks throughout the morning. That, combined with Elena’s cryptic words regarding their future guest, unsettled TK more than he would have liked. Still, he was determined to soldier on in his mission to become good friends and business partners with Carlos and the rest of the Reyes’, and he’d not let a silly thing like a matter of the heart—which may not even exist—get in his way.

[kian-bera]

May 12th

Philip Hamilton has done it again with his flashing smile. Gosh I swear that boy can do anything he puts his mind to. His smile is soft, and his eyes dazzling. My face goes red anytime he speaks to me. I know I would never be allowed to court him though. Our father’s hate each other, and so we have to stay away from each other. Unless there is a party both men are invited to attend. It is not easy, but I think Philip and I can make it work. If he loves me like I love him, we will find a way. He is my Romeo, the Hamilton’s the Montagues, my own the Capulets, May we not have to die for our families to see that we will do whatever it takes to be together. I pray, one day, our father’s will see past their differences for our sake.’

~Yourself, Theodosia

I finished with mathematics and glanced around the room. The dull brown walls seemed to enclose around me, so I got up leaving my work behind. I knew father would be upset if I did not finish, but I did not care. Getting antsy at being stuck inside the house, I stepped outside to take a breath of fresh air. He was there, leaning against the post that lined the front of our yard. I knew I should not have, but I ran to Philip. He picked me up and swirled me around in the air.

His curly hair blew in the wind as it began to pick up with the incoming storm. The sky began to darken, thunder rolling in the distance. Philip wrapped his arms around my waist.

“You know if my father catches you here, you will be in so much trouble.” I told Philip, sweeping a loose piece of hair from his face.

“I know, but I wanted to see you.” Philip told me, his palms were sweaty as he took his hands in mine. “You know there is a ball coming up at my grandparents. I was wondering if somehow, the most beautiful girl in the world might accompany me to this ball.” Philip asked.

“I do not Philip. I would have to ask my father.” I began to tell him.

“Your father is coming to the ball. I overheard my grandfather speaking to him the other day.” Philip told me, squeezing my hands. “So would you like to sneak around the party and be my date?” I just nodded. How could I say no to Philip?

“I would love to be your date to the ball.” The smile that crossed his face made my stomach flutter. His dimples appeared as his smile got larger. What happened next I was not expecting, Philip pulled me close and kissed me on the lips. I wanted to pull away, but the soft, warm breath from his own lips made me melt. I gently put my arms around his neck, kissing him back.

After what felt an eternity, Philip and I pulled away. His face was red, I felt embarrassment rush over mine as well. Philip mumbled a sorry, glancing away from my face. I put my hand under his chin, lifting his face back to meet my own.

“Philip, do not apologize, I love every second of that.” I told my suitor. Philip’s smile then turned to a frown. I turned around and saw my father coming towards the door. Philip bolted, waving as he ran home. I could not help but smile after Philip. My father came up behind me, hugging me.

“Who was that?” He asked, laying his head on my shoulder.

“No one father, just a boy I met at the market the other day. You are not exactly a small name, so many people know where we live.” I told my father. I knew that lying to him was bad, but I had to keep our secret. If my father ever found out, I have a feeling Philip would not be alive long.

The next time I saw Philip, he was in the theater. I was sitting up in a box seat, so I had the entire room in view. Philip’s face was red, angry red. He was shouting at a man, I did not know. I wanted more than anything to go over and stop Philip. I knew my father would be upset though. The only thing I could truly make out was the man biting his thumb at Philip as my lover stormed out. I knew my father must have seen as he started to snicker.

I wanted more than anything than to run to Philip, to help him deal with the man he was arguing with. Many people had turned to see the commotion. Philip eventually stormed out, his body was tense from frustration. One of his friends, a wild person, followed him patting his back and pointing to me. I hoped my father did not see.

My luck was shot as my father tapped my shoulder. He began to ask me why Philip and his friend were pointing at me. To my luck, the show began so my father went quiet. When we arrived home, my father went straight to his study. I knew he had a big case in the morning, so I did not want to bother him while he was working.

I went up to my room and plopped down on the bed. I glanced over to see my candle was almost burnt out. I went down the hall to grab a new one in case the one currently occupying the stand went out.

Weeks passed and Philip still visited when my father was away or inside doing work. I did my best to keep Philip quiet. One day my father came home early, and we were in my room. I heard Philip curse under his breath as he placed his shirt and jacket back onto his body. I laced my corset back up, placing my jacket back over the restraint.

My heart began to quicken as I heard my father coming up the stairs. I knew he would want to speak with me after a long day of work. Quickly thinking, I ran out to the hall to greet my father. His eyes were dull, and his shoulders were sagging.

“Father what is wrong?” I asked him, hugging.

“I lost the case. And innocent man is going to hang for murder.” My father told me. I helped him to his bedroom and sat him down on his bed. I went over to the wash basin and wet a cloth. Squeezing it out, I brought it back over to my father, gently patting his head. My father laid back on the bed taking my hands in his own.

“You can not win every case father. You know as well as I do that God has a plan for everything. Maybe this will help you win another case down the road.” I heard the stairs squeak as Philip crept downstairs to leave.

“Oh, I have a surprise for you darling. I will show you tomorrow. I needed to fix something on it first before I could show you.” My father told me, smiling. I had a feeling I knew what it was, I saw my father with the dress a few days ago. The dress belonged to my mother. The orange silk and lace used to bring out the gold flecks in her eyes. It was always my favorite dress. I remember once my mother let me try it on, I was five at the time, the dress swallowed me whole.

The next day was a bit of a blur. I woke up earlier to my father cooking a proper breakfast, which he never does. He laid out eggs, bacon, and toast as he smiled and whistled Yankee Doodle. I thought it was odd, but I did not question the song choice. After yesterday, I was just glad to see him happy.

After breakfast we went down to the dress shop. I was right about the dress, but I pretended to be happy for my father’s sake. The tailor had me try it on in the back room. The orange silk slid against my body as I fit everything into place. The gold embroideries flickered in the light of the pale room. I came out and my father gasped.

I did a little twirl for them before stepping away. The tailor came over and checked to make sure all the seams were tightly in place from where he had taken the dress in. I have had no children yet, so my hips were not as wide as my mother’s were. I did one more twirl before heading back to change into my dress I came in with.

Once the dress was packaged, we headed down to the dress shop. I was allowed to get a pair of gloves to go with the dress. I found a pair of golden gloves that matched the trimming and embroidery. They were expensive, but my father did not mind. He wanted me to be happy. I wish I could tell him that the key to my true happiness laid in the hands of a young Philip Hamilton. I was so glad for the ball to have finally arrived. I would get to see the love of my life and ask him about the argument in the theater.

When we arrived, there must have been hundreds of people in and around the house. I let the footman help me from the carriage so I would not ruin my dress. I did not know how I expected to find Philip in this crowd. That was until I saw his brother Alexander junior. He was pestering his older brother. Philip’s hands were twitching as he did when he was annoyed.

I watched my father walk into the house before sliding over to Philip. His eyes went wide as he saw me walk up. He began to sweat and gave a nervous laugh.

“Wow.” It was the only word that escaped his mouth. His mouth kept twitching, I figured he might have wanted to say more, but didn’t know the words to say. Alexander slapped his back before walking away with a smirk on his face.

“Are you enjoying the party?” I asked Philip trying to snap him from his daze.

“The party? Oh yes, the party is great. Theo you look absolutely stunning. The gold, it really brings out the golden flecks in your eyes.” I blushed. I did not know what to say or do.

“THEODOSIA IS THAT PHILIP HAMILTON!” My heart dropped as I heard the voice of my father. Where he came from I have no idea, I’ve been watching the area around us. I saw a flash of blue from the corner of my eye. Philip has fled. I still needed to ask him about the argument at the theater. “Please tell me that was not Philip Hamilton I just saw talking to you.”

I had two choices, I could tell my father I loved Philip, or I could keep our love a secret. My heart was torn, but our parents needed to find out the truth. They could do whatever they pleased, but Philip and I love each other.

“Father please listen. I know what you are going to say, but you need to understand. Philip Hamilton and I love each other more than anything in the world. We have for at least the past year. I could not imagine my life without Philip.” I stopped waiting for my father’s response. He stood there for a second before walking away. I thought maybe he had given up, before he came back with a young man about my age. He seemed way too excited to be meeting me.

“Theodosia, this is Joseph Alston.” My father told me.

“Joseph pleasure you meet you.” He bowed, before taking my hand, kissing it lightly. I could not help but blush. He was very handsome, but he was not Philip. Philip is who I loved. Once my father left, I thanked Joseph for his time and left, but to my dismay he came running after me.

“Theodosia, can I talk to you for a second?” Joseph asked as I stopped to talk to him. “Your father said if I would like to ask for your hand in marriage I could, so would you marry me?” I stood there appalled before slapping Joseph and running off. I could not believe my father would do that to me. I ran off to find Philip.

I found Philip sitting by a secluded pond in a nearby park. I sat next to him, laying my head on his shoulder.

“Hey Philip?” I asked, kissing his cheek.

“Yes?”

“What is wrong? You look like you want to cry.”

“I overheard the marriage arrangement thing earlier.”

“I said no, I do not care. I love you Philip. You know that more than anything. Now what was the fight about in the theater?” I asked him.

“This man, his name is George Eacker, he said some crap about my father at a function at school. I was not about to let my father’s name be tarnished by the bastard. I may or may not have challenged him to a duel.” I sat there stunned. I did not know what to say to Philip. I knew I could not talk him out of the duel. I had to try though.

“Philip is there any way I could talk you out of it for my sake. What if you die? I would be alone.”

“You would have Joseph.”

“I do not want Joseph. I want you. Please do not go to the duel.” I pleaded with Philip.

“Theo, if I do not go. I will lose any honor I have left. Theo I have to go. I promise I will come back home safe.” Philip kissed me, the heat from his breath made me melt, again. It reminded me of all of the reasons I loved Philip so much.

“Let me come with you then, if by some chance you die, I want to be you. You deserve to have someone you love beside you.” I told Philip kissing him again. Philip pulled away and let out a sigh. I could see the anguish in his face. He wanted to go, but he did not want me to be hurt.

“I will be careful, I promise. I talked to my uncle about the whole situation. He told me if I drew first, shoot to the sky. Eacker can not do anything after that moment.”

“Why did you not talk to your father?” I asked.

“My father would have tried to talk me out of it, especially since my Aunt Peggy recently died. Or he would have offered to go in my place since the comment was about him in the first place. That is why I did not tell my father.” Philip explained. Philip picked up a rock and tried to skip across the water, but the rock was too round.

I just nodded at this reasoning, but his father needed to know. I knew Mister Hamilton had been in many duels and maybe he knew a way out without it tarnishing Philip’s reputation.

“I need to go get a drink, I am parched. Will you wait for me here?” I questioned Philip. Philip just nodded, pulling his knees to his chest.

I sat up and carefully got up off the ground. I did not want to ruin this dress. Once I reached the house, I went inside looking for Philip’s father. I knew Philip would get mad at me for going behind his back, but I had to try and save him. I navigated my way around parlors and made my way to the main hall. I saw Mister and Misses Hamilton on the far edge talking to some of their friends.

I carefully made my way over avoiding my father and Joseph. They were talking to Philip Schuyler thanking him for the party. Once I made my way over. Misses Hamilton saw me and waved me over. Our mother’s never cared for the feud between their husbands. They thought it was stupid.

“Hello Theodosia dear. Your mother’s dress looks absolutely stunning on you, you look just like her.” I giggled and smiled. I had always been told that growing up that I was my mother’s mini me.

“Thank you Misses Hamilton. I actually need to speak to your husband. It is urgent.” The Hamilton’s tilted their heads at each other but Mister Hamilton thankfully followed me to a small balcony outside.

“What is it dear?” Mister Hamilton asked.

“Philip has gotten himself in a duel. He did not want to tell you since he knew you would try to talk him out of the duel. I know he will get mad at me for this, but I want him to stay safe.” I told Mister Hamilton.

“Thank you Theodosia, and you are right, he needs to be home safe. I do not think my dear Elizabeth can take another heartbreak after having just lost her sister. I will have a talk with him, who helped him with the duel?”

“His uncle, but I am sure there are many on his mother’s side of the family.” I told him.

“Yes but one he would go to for a situation. Like this, thank you again. I can tell him that his Uncle John told me.” Mister Hamilton said before walking away. I went back outside to find Philip but he was gone. I walked around the pond once to see if he had maybe moved, but he had not. I went back to the party and ate some food. I had hoped that maybe Philip would have come back.

I stepped upstairs and slid into an empty bedroom. I closed the door behind me and put a chair up against the handle. I went over to the window and gently opened it letting the cool summer breeze into the room.

“After all, you look as glorious above me as an angel in heaven sailing through the lazy clouds would look to mortals gazing up in wonder.” I heard a voice far below the window. I saw Philip and giggled.

“Romeo, oh Romeo, where Art thou Romeo? Disown your family and refuse your name. Or, if not, then swear that you love me and I will stop being a Burr.”

“You know the full quote?” Philip asked.

“We share a love. Of course I do.” I said to Philip as he smiled up at me. A voice called out from below and I saw his father walking towards Philip. I stepped inside the closed the window not wanting to hear the argument that was about to occur.

Taking away the chair, I roamed the halls until I found myself in the kitchen. I saw all the desserts lined up against the wall. My mouth began to water as more cakes were brought from the counters.

“Ma’am are you okay? Why are you not upstairs enjoying the party?” I glanced over and saw one of the chefs placing down a cake.

“Oh I am sorry. I was wandering around the halls and I guess I wondered in here by mistake. I am sorry. I will leave now.” I turned around and almost fell. The head of the kitchen helped me to a chair. She set down a plate of food in front of me and suggested I ate.

I had not eaten all day, with the exception of some odivers earlier. I slowly ate the food because I did not want to cause a stomach ache. Once I ate, the kitchen head helped me back to the party.

“Thank you Misses...I don’t not believe I caught your name.” I said tilting my head.

“Miss...and Miss Hedley.” She smiled at me, and left to go finish dessert.

“Thank you Miss Hedley.” I yelled after her before entering back into the party. I walked into the crowd which seemed to have cleared out a little. I went to find my father was talking to a lady who has been frequenting the house. I did not know her name, but she seemed like a nice lady.

A gunshot was heard from outside and everyone screamed and started to panic. Mister Schuyler tried to calm everyone down, but it failed. Most people ran out the house. I followed my father from where the shit was fired. I saw Philip on the ground. He was fine, but the man across from was on the ground, surrounded by red.

I felt sick and ran back inside. Many witnesses saw the shooting so I knew something bad was going to happen. He would most likely be hung as murder was illegal in New York. I saw Philip look at me, he was scared. He sat there shaking.

”Theo, Theo are you okay my darling?” I heard my name called and slowly opened my eyes. Philip sat next to me. I immediately saw him, hugging him tightly.

[upstartpoodle]

Moving Forward (Prologue)

Rating: T

Relationships: Dwight & George, George & Ross, George & Cary, past George/Elizabeth

Summary: When George saves Ross' life from the French General, Hanson decides to take immediate revenge. Stuck at Nampara, seriously injured, he and the Poldarks must learn to get along as he recovers in order to eliminate the threat that Hanson and his brother pose for good.

@harry-leroy, @forcebros, @ticketybooser I’ve finally decided to start posting the post s5 AU, if only to encourage me to get on and write the rest of it ha.

AO3

***

“Well, gentlemen, now that this…inconvenient matter is being dealt with, I think it is time that I take my leave.”

Sir George Warleggan forced his knee to stop bobbing nervously up and down as the loathsome Mr Merceron stood from his seat in Trenwith’s parlour, the smug, self-satisfied look on his weathered face quite horrible to behold. His mind was in a whirl at the sight—had been ever since the man had suggested passing on proof of Ross Poldark’s attempt at espionage to General Toussaint, thereby likely seeing his longstanding rival killed and the report of the proposed French invasion of the south west suppressed. He had not, at first, quite believed that such a thing was being said to him. As unscrupulous as he had often been in his own business dealings, a scheme which would leave a man, however disliked, dead by collaborating with one who meant both his home county and his country at large great harm was going a little too far even for him. And yet, it seemed as if Merceron and his horrid brother were quite satisfied to use the French to rid themselves of a nuisance to them, consequences be damned, and it had left George without the slightest idea of what to say or do in response to their plots.

“Will you not stay for another drink?” his uncle asked, eyebrow raised. George glanced over at him, trying for what seemed like the hundredth time that evening to gauge his feelings with regards to the night’s rather alarming proceedings. Cary did not appear to be overtly concerned—he was of a kind with Merceron when it came to ruthlessness, in ways that had made his nephew uncomfortable in the past on a number of occasions—but not so long ago he had agreed that some distance from the two men would be preferable, for the sake of their own reputations if nothing else. For what, then, did he wish now?

Merceron seemed about to reply to the offer, but whether it had been to accept or deny it, they never found out, for George cut across him as politely as he could.

“Uncle, I am sure Mr Merceron is tired after the day’s events,” he said. “It is very late, and he shall no doubt wish to return to his lodgings in Truro.”

Despite his courteous words, his tone brooked no argument. There was a short pause, before Merceron inclined his head in George’s direction. There was a slight smile upon his face, but the twist of his lips greater resembled a grimace, his eyes cold, like two pieces of hard flint set deep beneath the ridge of his cruel brow.

“You are quite right,” he agreed, and though his tone was mild, George sensed that he was not entirely pleased. “I must return to Truro. Mr Warleggan—(he nodded to Cary)—when we next meet, I hope that our…little problem will be no more, and our reputations shall be restored. Sir George, if you would perhaps be so kind as to show me to the door? There is a matter I wish to discuss with you.”

“By all means.” The request was not quite polite, and George would have very much liked to refuse, but the look in Merceron’s eye told him that he would not leave until he got what he wanted. With that in mind, he pushed himself out of his seat and followed out through the door and into the hall.

“I sense, Sir George,” Merceron remarked once the door to the parlour had been closed behind him with a soft click, “that you are not entirely comfortable with this plan.”

George opened his mouth to deny it, but Merceron held up a hand to silence him. He glared at the man, wishing to make it abundantly clear that he did not appreciate being shushed like a contrary child.

“I understand why you might be concerned—(George had to bite his tongue to stop himself from retorting “that, I very much doubt”)—but I assure you, none of this shall ever be attached to your name. If all goes well, nobody will even know that anyone was involved at all, save for Poldark and the General, of course. Enys might suspect something, but who would listen to his word over mine?”

George was sorely tempted to point out that as the Enyses had, in spreading the word about Merceron’s mistreatment of his prisoners, managed to do some severe damage to the man’s reputation, it was quite possible that Dwight’s testimony would be taken very seriously, if not by various official persons, then by the court of public opinion. Still, he did not think it wise to rile the man, nor to remind him of the fact that Ross was not his sole enemy in Cornwall, and so he quashed the urge before he could make any imprudent observations.

“And if all does not go well?,” he said instead. “If your brother is caught, if his part in this scheme is discovered, it will not take long for your name to be connected to the whole business as well.”

Merceron smiled then, that cold, cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He looked like a shark, George thought, cruel and emotionless.

“Oh, there shall be no risk of that, Sir George,” he replied. “If my half-brother should be so foolish as to be caught in the act, so to speak, I shall be the first to condemn him for his deplorable plots. I am well-known amongst those who matter as a man dedicated to the service of His Majesty and this country against the Jacobins and their sympathisers, and Ralph and I have never been…close. Naturally, no suspicion shall be attached to me.”

What you are is a traitor, George thought. A filthy, cruel, horrid traitor and an arrogant hypocrite, prepared to torture those you deem Jacobin criminals whilst using those of the same sympathies to rid yourself of a man whom you have deemed troublesome to you, who would be willing—even happy—to abandon your family, loathsome though he is, to the consequences of your shared scheme, just as long as you remain unscathed. It was then that he realised that he could not simply sit at Trenwith, hoping that this whole mess would somehow resolve itself. He would have to do something, would have to intervene. But how?

“I see,” he returned, trying to keep the coldness out of his voice. If he wished for Merceron to leave, he would have to let him believe that he had succeeded in persuading him not to protest the plan. “Well, please do not let me keep you, Mr Merceron. The roads here can be dangerous so late at night, and I should not wish to delay your return to Truro.”

Merceron did not move, staring at him narrowly.

“I should be pleased to hear that I have set your mind at ease on the matter,” he said. “It is unwise for allies to disagree when one wishes for one’s plans to succeed.”

George swallowed, mind racing. He needed to think of a plan of his own, needed to get rid of Merceron before it became too late to act.

“I see that there is little risk of the reputations of my family and myself being harmed by tonight’s events, whatever they may be” he lied through his teeth. “And if you feel that Mr Hanson’s actions, no matter how successful they are, shall not reflect on either of our…sympathies, I have no further objections to offer you.”

Merceron nodded, brisk and satisfied.

“Good, good,” he said. “Well, Sir George, I shall take my leave of you. If you do not object, I will take the liberty of calling upon you in the morning, where I hope to bring you good news.”

With those words, he turned on his heel and left through the heavy front door, without waiting to hear any potential objections to his visiting the next day that might have been issued. His departure did little to ease George’s mind, however. He had wasted too much time dithering, and he needed to act at once. A vague plan was beginning to form in his mind, but did he have the nerve or the daring to carry it out?

“Trigg!,” he called into the shadows once he was entirely sure that Merceron was gone. “Trigg!”

“Sir?” The footman stepped silently out into the candlelight, livery immaculate and face expressionless underneath his powdered wig.

“Trigg, would you be so good as to fetch me a pistol?,” he said, then, remembering that Hanson had been armed when he left Trenwith, amended his request. “Actually, it might be best if you bring me two.”

Trigg, who was usually so poised and professional, seemed to choose that moment to forget all the training he had ever received. He stared openly at his employer, utterly baffled.

“Two…pistols, sir?,” he asked, dumbfounded. “But whatever might you do with two pistols?”

His confusion was understandable—George had never been a shooting man, and even if he were, it was hardly likely that he would be inclined to shoot pheasant or whatever it was that such people hunted in pitch darkness—but the urgency of the situation had lead him to be, perhaps unfairly, a little short with the man.

“What one usually does with pistols, I imagine,” he replied, a bite of impatience in his voice. “I certainly don’t intend to dance the gavotte with them.”

Unfortunately, this only served to make Trigg more baffled.

“Should I call for Dr Enys, sir?”

George fought the urge to throw up his hands in frustration. Would this be his lot in life now—condemned to have his staff finding evidence that he was deranged in every out of the ordinary request he ever made? He heard the grandfather clock in the parlour begin to chime. No time, no time.

“For goodness’ sake, man,” he snapped. “I assure you I am not suffering under some unexpected fit of lunacy. Now please, make haste. I must go to Nampara, and as it is likely currently inhabited by an angry French General and a man with two pistols and no morals to speak of, it would be imprudent of me to arrive there unarmed.”

Some measure of comprehension began to dawn on Trigg’s face, clearly possessed of some inclination of what the two half-brothers had been planning, and, for once, George thanked God and the Devil for servants who listened at doors. If he wished to protest the prospect of his master flinging himself into imminent danger, he quickly masked any sign of it, and with a polite “of course, sir”, we went about his task with all possible swiftness. George felt himself relax only marginally.

“George!” Any relief that he had felt at Trigg obeying his orders was stamped out as his uncle stepped suddenly out through the parlour door to join him in the hall, a dark, angry look on his sour face. “What the devil are you doing?!”

George could only presume that Cary had overheard the last part of his exchange with Trigg, and from his expression, had been none too pleased with its contents. He swallowed nervously. The footman was one thing, but how on earth was he going to persuade his uncle?

“I am going to Nampara,” he said as calmly as he could. “This plan… Uncle, surely you see that they have gone too far?”

“It is perhaps a little…,” Cary conceded, just barely, working his jaw in displeasure. “But that is no reason for you to put yourself in danger! You—”

“But do you not see?!,” George exclaimed in exasperation. He needed to go, before it was too late. “These ‘Merceron devils’, as you term them, will put us all in danger if their scheme succeeds. What do you suppose General Toussard shall do should his plans remain undiscovered? You know he harbours ill intentions towards Cornwall, and to England, and I cannot in good conscience allow knowledge of his dealings to be suppressed.”

Cary threw up his hands in frustration.

“But why must it be you?!,” he barked. “What possible—?”

“Who else will intervene? Merceron has ensured well enough that nobody else will know of it.”

His uncle looked as if he were about to say something, but at that moment, Trigg returned with two loaded pistols in his hands. George moved to take them, but Cary’s hand shot out to seize his upper arm, stopping him in his tracks. He fought back a wince as the bony fingers dug into his flesh.

“I will not permit this” the man growled, eyes flashing, giving him a little shake to emphasise his words. George sent him a defiant look, tugging his arm sharply out of his grip.

“It is not for you to permit me anything,” he replied caustically. “I am no longer a child that you may scold into submission. Or do you perhaps mean to become my jailer once more? You will not find that so easy whilst I have all my wits about me.”

He had not forgotten the man’s role in subjecting him to the awful treatments of Dr Penrose, and apparently, neither had his uncle, for an uncomfortable look that seemed ill-suited to his dour countenance stole across his face, effectively silencing his protests. George sent him one last glare, before taking the pistols from Trigg, who had been standing silently to the side, pretending not to notice that his two employers were arguing fiercely in front of him. It seemed that Cary was not completely finished, however, for, before George could reach the door, he spoke once more.

“For God’s sake, nephew, do not do this!,” he cried. “Not for the sake of a man like Poldark!”

George turned back to meet his gaze, one hand resting against the heavy wooden door.

“It is not for his sake that I am doing this.”

And with that, he stepped through the doorway and out into the cold night air, without looking back.

***

He rode as fast as he could, glad of the full moon that hung high in the night sky—he wouldn’t have fancied his chances of arriving on time without it, at least not without running the risk of plummeting straight over a cliff in the dark. As it was, he made good time to Nampara, only allowing his horse to slow when the shambling old house came into sight. He thought he could just about make out a light in the window as he dismounted, but as he approached, nervously adjusting his grip on the two pistols Trigg had given him, he saw that something was wrong. Even though there was a low fire crackling in the grate of the parlour, there was nobody in the room. Nor could he hear any kind of movement from the house. Was he already too late? There didn’t seem to be any sign of a struggle, but nevertheless neither Ross nor Hanson were there. In that case, where could they be?

It was then that he noticed the faint sound of metal clashing upon metal drifting on the wind from a nearby barn. Was that…? He strained his ears, and again and again he heard it, clearer and more distinct now that he was listening for it. He crept forward cautiously, his grip on the two pistols white-knuckled, and, careful not to be heard or seen, slipped through the doorway and into the cavernous darkness, lit only by the thin beams of moonlight shining through the slats of the worn roof.

Well, he thought as he took in the scene that lay before him. You wanted to find both Ross and Hanson, and now you have. The reason behind that sound of clashing metal had become apparently clear the moment he had stepped into the barn—Ross was engaged in a fierce duel with a man whom George could only presume was General Toussaint, blades flashing as they danced furiously in the faint moonlight. Beyond them stood Hanson and—much to his surprise—Demelza, who looked pale and drawn and worried. Hanson still had one of his pistols, he saw, and was watching the two men fight with the calculating precision of a snake waiting to strike.

All of a sudden, it seemed as if Ross were about to overpower the General, and it was then that Hanson uncoiled, levelling his pistol directly between the man’s shoulders. George knew that he could no longer afford to wait. Almost without thinking, he raised the first pistol and pulled the trigger.

The bang was deafening, and so startled by it were the other inhabitants of the barn that they barely seemed to notice as General Toussaint crumpled into a heap on the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Ross staggered forward as his opponent collapsed, searching about him for the source of the noise. His expression of wide-eyed astonishment, so out of place on his usually scowling countenance, would have amused George in any other situation, but a movement out of the corner of his eye, past the other man’s shoulder, had caught his attention. Hanson. The man had floundered at the sight of him, stunned by the sudden turn of events, but as the General crumpled down upon the floor, and he came to understand exactly what it was that had happened, his expression turned black with rage. The movement which had caught George’s eye, he realised, was the pistol meant for Ross having found a new target. In a split second, he knew what the man was about to do. Eyes wide and alarmed, he pointed his second gun towards his would-be assailant and, forcing down the instinct to hesitate, pulled the trigger.

In the chaos of the moment, it was unclear which of them had fired first. Sparks flew, and George felt the smell of gunpowder sting in his nose, Hanson’s yell of pain echoing in his ears amid the reverberations of the shots. Other people were shouting as well, he thought, but it all seemed strangely distant as he noticed a sudden, sharp pain in his side. The pistols slipped from his hand as the world tilted alarmingly, but there was no accompanying thud to the ground, as if someone had caught him from behind. More shouting, desperate and urgent, but his world had narrowed entirely to that pain, a strange darkness beginning to encroach on his vision. There was a reason why he should try to fight it, he thought, but he could not remember why. Yes, why?

Well, at least I might see Elizabeth again, was the last thing he thought before he allowed the blackness to swallow him whole.

[imaginepirates]

Norri x Pregnant! Reader.

I am unmotivated and very sorry. This is for @elenawrit, now that I've gotten around to it. It's one where the reader is having a hard time telling James that they're pregnant. Sorry again for awful formatting; I can only use mobile rn.

2100 words

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You had known for a week. The first morning spent kneeling over the chamber pot had been an awful one; you’d been afraid that you were sick. The third morning, your brain began to make sense of things. You should’ve seen it coming, being a married woman, and yet you had been utterly taken by surprise. 

Your husband didn’t know. James was off too early in the mornings to catch you retching in the bathroom, and he often came home after you’d fallen asleep waiting for him. He was worked harder than any man you knew. There had been more frequent pirate sightings in the last weeks, and the navy was taking every precaution. You hoped that James would be promoted for his extra hours. He worked hard, and came home worn out each night. 

What you wouldn’t give for him to have some time off. With the state of things, it wasn’t likely, but you desperately needed time to talk to him. With each passing day, you grew weary with keeping secrets from him. He needed to know of your pregnancy, but you feared that you’d never find the right time to tell him. 

With James constantly away, you went to your friend Elizabeth. She hadn’t married yet, and she had little knowledge when it came to children, but her company was sure to bring you some peace of mind. It always had, in the past, when you were afraid of this or that. You had been thick as thieves for most of your young lives, and she was the one you went to when you fell in love with James. 

Each time you found yourself at the sprawling estate, you looked up to the house sitting among the gardens. It was a grand place, to be sure; like a palace among the vibrant reds, yellows, and greens. Elizabeth reminded you of a princess, too. She was composed and put together, and there was nothing she couldn’t do with effortless grace. You’d envied her in your younger years, but she had always claimed you were the smarter of the pair, and many seemed to agree. 

It was one of the things you loved about James. He wasn’t deterred by intelligent conversation with a woman. Men tended to frown upon your interests in the studies of history and mathematics. James was different. He’d always indulged you, and lacking the classical education of the lords around him, he’d articulated his interest in what you could teach him. The navy didn’t take time to teach history, though James was perfectly proficient in sums and beyond. He would often talk of triangulating a ship’s location. Once, he’d actually taught you how to do it, and it was one of the moments you blamed for loving him. 

Standing under the balcony and before the great doors of the Swann estate once again,  memories melted from your mind. There was only apprehension left in you. Elizabeth could surely comfort you, but when you went back home, would worries worm their way back into your mind? Until you could speak to your husband of your condition, there would be no peace for you. 

The footman let you in and directed you up the stairs. Half way up, Elizabeth came out to meet you. She leaned over the bannister and called out to you. “Y/N! How are you?” She grabbed your hand, tucking your arm in hers as she led you back to her bedroom. 

“Sick with worry as usual. I’m afraid I’ll never see James’ face again with all the work he’s doing. Lord, I’ll be showing before I can even tell him!” You placed a hand on your stomach. 

“The navy can’t keep him busy forever.”

“I fear they will.”

“You should write to his superiors. They would understand.”

“I’m not sure they would.” You didn’t want to voice it, but the admiral in charge wasn’t a kind man, and he was the last person on earth you wanted to write to. Likely he’d burn the letter before opening it. “It’s lonely without him.”

Elizabeth held you by the shoulders. “I know. Hopefully, the pirate problem will be solved quickly.”

“Oh Liz, what if they send him away? I can’t bear the thought of him out on some ship fighting when I’m with his child. He’d return to find me pregnant, if he returned at all.” Something about your condition made you worry more about your husband. In all the years he’d served, nothing had happened to him. He was good at his job; it was doubtful that anything would befall him. 

Elizabeth laid a hand on your arm. You’d gone through it all before. For a while, the two of you sat in silence. You felt awful for putting your worries on your friend. Hopefully, you could return the gesture someday. 

“What should I name the child?” You tried to change the topic to something happier. 

“That’s your decision. And James’.” 

“What would you name your children?”

“I haven’t particularly thought of it. I think, if it were to be a girl, I’d name them after my mother.”

“I think I’d name her Charlotte,” you said. “I wouldn’t know what to name a son. I think I’d leave it up to James.”

“Would he name the child after his father?”

“I doubt it.” James hated talking about his father. Every word seemed a bad memory. 

You left Elizabeth’s estate feeling much better. Your house still felt a little empty when you returned, but you did your best to ignore it. You curled up in a chair with your book, sometimes looking up to watch the breeze blow through the flowers. You dozed off, and that was how James found you when he returned home. 

You vaguely felt hands lifting you from the chair. Bleary, you woke tucked against James’ chest. You shifted in his arms just enough for him to know you were awake, and smiled down at you. You kissed his jaw, and he set you down on the bed. Looking through the curtains, you watched the sun setting. 

“You’re home earlier than usual,” you said with some confusion. 

James’ expression soured. “It would seem that I have business to attend to on the open waters.”

You lifted yourself to a sitting position, a frown forming on your face. “How soon?”

“Two days,” James said miserably. 

“Two days?” You wrapped your arms around him. He was just as sad as you were. “I can’t believe it. They’ve never given you such short notice before.”

“Nobody’s happy. I’m sorry, Y/N.” He let his face fall into his hands a moment. When he straightened back up, he said, “It is what it is.”

“But you’re all so tired! It’ll put you all in danger is what it’ll do. You boys don’t have the energy you need to fight. You’ve been worked to the bone these past few weeks; I don’t think any of you have it in you to sail.”

“I’ve been tired before.” The look on his face spoke his displeasure. He didn’t want to go. 

You sighed. “At least come to bed with me. You need some sleep. Tell me, have they given you leave tomorrow before the voyage?” A little fluttering in your chest began. You would have to tell him on the morrow; you couldn’t put it off any longer. 

“I do.” He sounded a bit relieved. “I might have to go in a short while in the afternoon, though, to supervise provision loading. I am the captain, after all.”

“Of course.”

James didn’t even try to hide how tired he was. You combed your fingers through his hair and kissed his face, eventually settling down with your head on his chest. He toyed with the ends of your hair. He was stiff; he was always stiff when he had to leave. It reminded you both how lucky you were. 

You didn’t remember falling asleep, but you awoke still curled against him. He snored gently, and you watched him for a while before calling a servant to get breakfast. You ate with the windows open, a fresh breeze carrying the sounds of singing birds and thrumming cicadas. The tropics were abuzz with noise. 

You spent the day relaxing, just the two of you. You discussed the latest news from London and the East India Company’s newest trade deals. It seemed that they had finally established a firm hold on some land in Africa, and that they were trying to get certain types of tea from China. Just like the British, you thought, to be so invested in new types of tea. 

It was a pleasant day, but a worm crawled through your stomach. You still hadn’t told him. You didn’t know why it was so hard, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. You didn’t want to worry him more than he already was. 

The sun set too soon. James was just putting something in his office when you slipped into bed. Anxiety grasped at your chest. When he came into the room, he sat on the bed and kissed you. He was a sweet, gentle man, and his affections were always pure. 

Soon enough, his kisses had deepened, and he moved to unbutton his waistcoat. It had been a long time since you’d last lain with him. He hardly ever came home before you were asleep. 

You gasped when he sucked at the skin on your neck. “I hope you don’t mind,” he whispered. 

“I suppose I won’t be going out in public tomorrow,” you replied.  

He hummed. “I should buy you more dresses with high collars.” He smirked, which was maddeningly attractive, and something he hardly ever did. 

You feigned shock. “Why, you scandal!”

He chuckled, only to go back to kissing you. You curled your fingers into his hair, and he took it as a sign to begin unlacing your bodice. 

“James.” Your voice was soft, and you weren’t sure he’d heard you. “James.”

He looked up. The worry must have been evident on your face, as he cupped your check with a hand. “Yes?” 

“Can we talk?” You felt rather small and frightened, even though you shouldn’t have. 

“Of course.” His brows knit together. He shifted his weight, coming to sit beside you. 

You took a breath before continuing. “I don’t mean to worry you, and I know this is really the wrong time to tell you...” His face had grown only more concerned. You grabbed his hand, running your fingers gently over his knuckles. “I-” you faltered. “I’m with child.”

James’ mouth formed a small ‘o’, clearly taken aback. He turned away for a moment, processing the information. Watching him, a smile began to creep over his face, and he turned beaming towards you. He grabbed your face with both hands and kissed you excitedly. You laughed against his mouth, and you broke away smiling. It felt good to have gotten the news off your chest. 

His smile faded and he began to look concerned again. “Tomorrow... I don’t like to leave you here alone.”

“Don’t worry too much about me. It’s you I’m worried about. I want you to come back to me.”

“I always have.”

You stared at each other a long time before falling into a fitful sleep. You knew that when you woke, you would have to say goodbye. 

James left. He returned a month later, and you met him at the docks. People smiled at you, noting the swell in your stomach. You were showing, and it had become the talk of town. Waiting at the docks was torture. Even when the ship had been tied down, and the gangplank laid, the knot in your stomach wouldn’t unravel. It was only when James stepped off deck that you relaxed.

You could tell he was trying to keep his professionalism about him, but he was practically jogging over to where you stood. He had you in his arms in an instant, and his face was buried against your neck. It seemed like hours before he let you go, though you knew it had only been a few minutes. He pressed a kiss to your lips, and then, dropping to a knee, kissed your stomach. By the time he looked back up at you, there were tears in his eyes.

He stood again, taking your hands in his. “The admiral has been generous.” He planted a kiss on your nose. “It seems I have a month off to care for my wife. I’m rather looking forward to it.”

You gasped in delight. You hadn’t expected such a thing, and were elated. He smiled down at you, and you heard a few congratulations from other officers. 

You were just glad to have him home.  

[blueboxesandtrafficcones]

The Nuptial Necessity - Chapter 25

A 12xRose Human AU

Despite an unglamorous job description, Rose loves the work she does with The Thistle Foundation, a charity founded by her best friend’s great-uncle.  It doesn’t hurt that her boss, her friend’s father, is easy on the eyes.  With a great job, wonderful friends and a loving family, life couldn’t be better – except for having someone to share it with.

All of that is threatened, though, when the great-uncle dies – and sets a strange condition for his nephew to inherit, jeopardizing the Foundation and Rose’s future, sparking a chain of events that might just get her everything she dreamed of and more.

Chapters will be posted on Saturdays and Tuesdays.  Many thanks to my beta, @stupidsatsuma

Rated: Explicit, for eventual smut

@doctorroseprompts

AO3  |  Masterlist

—

Tuesday, cont’d

Malcolm checked his watch once again, leg bouncing anxiously as he waited.  He wasn’t an idiot; it was clear that Rose was upset, but she wouldn’t talk to him.  He also knew that Sarah’s excuse to disappear into the kitchen was just that, and he was absolutely certain that the two of them were huddled somewhere out of sight, talking- probably about him.

Don’t you dare make Rose cry, he silently warned his old friend, narrowed gaze watching the hall to the toilets.  The last thing he wanted was for her to be upset, especially at him.  It always broke his heart to see her in tears, and he hated the idea it would be his fault.

Once the ten minute mark passed he had had enough, and throwing down his napkin, stalked across the small shop and around the corner, only to find an unexpected sight- the two women clinging to each other, sobbing with laughter, Sarah in the middle of gasping out a story he couldn’t quite make out but had Rose howling.

“What the fuck is this?”

Rather than startle them apart his bark had the opposite effect, sending them into fresh gales of laughter.

“What?”

More laughter.

“What?”

Releasing her grasp on Sarah Rose staggered forward to him, practically throwing herself in his arms.  “Oh, I love her,” she wheezed, sagging against him.  “We should have her over for dinner.”

What?  “Sure, if you want,” he said uncertainly, entirely lost on how they’d gotten to this point.  “What happened?”

“She- and I- so we- and then- oh, you had to be there,” Rose sighed, nestling her head against his chest.  “Did you really pose nude for an art class?”

“I needed the money,” he defended himself automatically, wrapping his arms around her and glaring over her head at Sarah, who was watching them with a smirk.  “What have you been telling her?”

“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” his old friend promised, raising her hands as if in defense.  “Things she needs to know.”

Malcolm harrumphed at that, entirely certain their definitions would be wildly different, hers far more embarrassing for him.  “It’s all lies,” he peered down at Rose.  “Don’t believe a word.”

She grinned up at him, licking her lips.  “You know,” she whispered, “I did study art history in uni, and toyed with being an artist myself.  It seems only fair that you pose nude for me.”

Narrowing his eyes at her, he tilted his head in thought.  “I’ve done some sketches myself, so I’ll make you a deal- you pose for me, I’ll pose for you.”

“Deal,” she didn’t hesitate.  “Oooh, don’t you have a really old car?  Other than Bessie, I mean?”

“We have a 1953 Rolls Royce?”

Her lips curled up.  “You know that scene in Titanic?”

He shivered in delight at the idea, already able to see it playing out in delicious ways.  “Fuck yes.”

And just like that, things between them were fine.

-

Soon enough they were on their way, with tentative plans for Sarah Jane to join them for dinner on Thursday.  Malcolm drove once again, but slower this time, and Rose was all too happy to put her hand in his when he offered it.

“I’m sorry about Sarah,” he said somewhat tentatively.  “If she hurt you, or embarrassed you.”

Having been watching the water on their left, she had to turn her head to face him.  “It’s okay,” she decided after a moment of consideration.  “Yes, in the beginning, it was a bit weird, and I felt left out, but… in the end she was lovely.”  She debated silently about telling him what Sarah Jane had said in regards to Wallace’s ‘plans’, but settled against it.  She could always tell him later, and things just felt too fragile at the moment.  If it wasn’t love for him, she didn’t want to tip her hand – if all he wanted was a bit of fun, to lean into the ‘honeymooners’ idea, well… that was fine.  She’d take what she could get, enjoy the here and now, and worry about the future later.

Malcolm squeezed her hand, raising it to his mouth and pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles.  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.  “It was nice to catch up with her, but that’s no excuse for ignoring you.  Thank you for being so understanding.”

“I was just surprised,” she turned further into him, taking advantage of the bench seat to curl into his side.  “And a little put off by her thinking I was Clara.”

He opened and closed his mouth several times before settling for a shrug.  “There’s too many possible answers to that that would now be weird to say after last night,” he admitted.  “I’m going to leave it alone, but I want you to know I had good comebacks.”

Rose glanced out the windshield, noting they were on a relatively straight patch at the moment with no cars to be seen.  Taking a chance, she moved closer and purred in his ear, “I’m sure you’d have given it to me good.”  To highlight her point, she caught his earlobe gently between her teeth, free hand settling on his lap.

“Holy fuck,” Malcolm gasped, veering sharply in response before getting the car back under control.  By the time he had she was back on her side of the bench, sitting prim and proper and innocent as could be.  “What was that?!”

She just laughed, leaning back against the seat and stretching her legs out in front of her.

-

Malcolm pulled into the driveway faster than necessary, tires squealing slightly as he braked and threw it into park.  Practically jumping out of the car he moved around to Rose’s door to open it for her, helping her down a bit more brusquely than wise- but her half-laugh half-gasp of his name told him he was forgiven.  Leaving the keys in the ignition for the footman to deal with, he hurried her into the house, ignoring her giggled protests.

“What’s the rush?” she laughed, as he guided her expertly through the house, calling on half-forgotten knowledge from misspent summers long past.  “Malcolm.”

“In here.”  Here was a small broom closet under the stairs, just barely big enough for them to stand up in, provided they stayed close.  He backed her against the door, leaning down to hover his lips over hers.  “Rose.”

“Malcolm.”

“Say yes,” he breathed, one hand skimming down her waist to her knee, applying a light pressure there in encouragement.  “Oh, fuck, please say yes.”

She giggled, leaning back against the door, moving her feet apart before raising her knee to hook over his hip.  “We’ll have to be quiet.”

He moved with her, pressing himself against her and groaning, burying his face in her neck to lay wet kisses there.  “That’s not a yes.”  He wanted her, desperately, but more than that he wanted her to want him.

“Ah.”  Rose wrapped her arms around him, bumping her hips up against him once, twice, three times, drawing a wretched moan from him.  “Well, then- yes.”

-

Biting her lip, Rose shifted on the couch, rubbing her thighs together.  She’d finally reached the part in her romance novel where the heroine gave into her desire for the love interest, and it was exceptionally steamy, especially after her own encounter that afternoon in the hall closet.

“Alright?” Malcolm asked, and she peeked over the top of the book to find him watching her.

“Mhmm.”  Putting her book aside, she sat up and turned, sitting flush next to him, hip to hip.  “What’cha doing?”

He gestured down towards the papers scattered on the table.  “Reviewing the paperwork still.  This is about the rents- I don’t want to bore you.”

“Tell me anyway.”

He raised his eyebrow, looking at her skeptically.  “You want to hear about rent and tenants?”

“You said I would be handling some of the management stuff as Lady Gallifrey,” she reminded him.  “I should know about it- I want to know about it.  I want you to teach me.”

“It’s not the most interesting thing in the world.”

She nudged him with her shoulder, grinning.  “Yeah, but it’s funny- many things are infinitely more interesting when told in a sexy Scottish accent.”

“You think my accent’s sexy?”  He sounded genuinely surprised, and she laughed out loud.

“I think everything’s sexy about you – including your accent.  Body.  Mind.  Now come on, teach me.”

“Alright.”  Not looking convinced of her interest, he nonetheless played along, rifling through his paperwork for a moment before pulling out a piece of paper that looked like a summary.  “So, here’s how this works.  The property’s about four thousand acres-”

-

Taking the time to pamper herself before bed, it was the first time Rose really had by herself to consider everything that had happened over the past few days.  From successfully seducing Malcolm on Saturday, arriving in Scotland on Sunday, yesterday’s horseback riding and “riding lessons”, to this afternoon’s outing… it had been a virtual whirlwind, and as the dust metaphorically settled around her as she washed her hair, she found herself standing in a fog, uncertain of the safest path ahead.

That wasn’t strictly true – the safest path ahead was to have her things moved to the other room, stop shagging Malcolm, and wait for the five years to pass.

That wasn’t what she wanted, though.

Okay, what’s relatively safe but let’s us keep having sex?

If she were honest with herself, she wanted it all.  A real marriage, filled with love and laughter and happiness and babies (and sex).  And she wanted it with Malcolm – only Malcolm.  The only problem was, she had no idea what he wanted, and what she might have to sacrifice for them to find a happy compromise.  Realistically, though, she knew what she would be willing to give up – children.  It would hurt, and she would have to live vicariously through Clara, but that was something she’d rather not have with him than have with someone else.

At the end of the day, it came down to love – did he love her as she did him?  She couldn’t tell, and he hadn’t said.  He acted like he did, but that had all started after the Gala, and she couldn’t be certain it wasn’t a function of their bedroom activities.  Did the new intimacy between them free him to show her how he felt, or was he acting that way to keep her in his bed?

She had no idea.

As soon as she was dry she reached for her mobile, texting Clara I need to talk to you.  Picking up the blow dryer, she was almost finished by the time she got a response, but it wasn’t what she wanted.

We’re doing an overnight field trip in a museum, I can’t get away.  Is tomorrow afternoon okay?

Shit.  Biting her lip, Rose shrugged.  What harm could one more night do? she thought pessimistically.  At least if she didn’t confront him, she couldn’t be rejected, and the sex was incredible.  Fine, she replied, let me know the second you’re free.

Once she was ready except for her pajamas, she examined her options with her hands on her hips.  She’d brought two sets in, unable to choose, and all of her ruminating hadn’t helped a lick.  One was a simple cotton nightgown, the same from the night before that he’d seemed to like well enough, while the other was overtly sexy, a red satin lined with lace that screamed fuck me – she’d bought it on sale a few days after Valentine’s Day, after all.

“Rose?  Everything okay?” Malcolm knocked on the door, startling her.  “You’re not upset about Sarah, are you?”

“No, I’m okay,” she called back.  “Just a moment.”

Closing her eyes she reached forward, fingers closing around fabric – satin.

Alright, then.

Pulling it on over her head and smoothing it down, she had to admit she did look good in it.  Skipping the matching knickers, she pulled on the robe that went with it instead, tying it tightly before picking up her discarded options and returning to the bedroom.

“So, Jack arranged for us to go to the distillery tomorrow,” Malcolm said as soon as she opened the door.

“That sounds nice,” she replied, dumping her armful of clothes on top of the dresser to deal with tomorrow.  “Do we get a sample?”

He started to laugh, stopping abruptly when she pulled off the dressing gown and climbed into bed.  “Uh, yep,” he swallowed hard, eyes firmly south of hers.  “Of course.  Samples… samples are good.”  His gaze slowly rose to meet her own, and he looked delightfully punch-drunk at the sight of her.  “Tired?”

She slid down on the mattress, turning to face him and propping herself up on her elbow.  “Nope,” she popped the p, grinning.  “Not yet.  Got any suggestions of things to do that’ll tire me out?”

She shrieked with laughter when he pounced on her just as she’d hoped, fingers digging into her sides as he started a tickle war.

It was fair to say by the end, they’d both won.

Several times.

[hannahmcne]

Her Royal Highness - Chapter 5

True to Adam's word, Mal's door handle was fixed bright and early the next morning. After dinner and before bed, Sophia had helped Mal personalize her phone more, going as far as to add a few game apps and a drawing system. She also showed Mal how to access the music that the castle had purchased, which Mal didn't like much. It made for good background music, but she could only listen to 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'A Whole New World' so many times. She missed her old Isle music, a few tracks of which she and her friends had recorded. Ben would probably have a heart attack if he heard her singing about how 'Rotten to the Core' she was though.

She asked Sophia for a map of the Castle. Sophia texted her a picture and explained that they further she got from the main halls, the more finicky the magic of the castle became. Walls were sometimes not where they were supposed to be and doors only unlocked half of themselves, the like. However, Mal was confident she could navigate the palace by herself. To prove it to herself, she figured out how to find the time the sun would rise with her phone and set an alarm for thirty minutes before.

When she got up, the world was still dark. The hallways were musty. Kind Sophia had asked one of the palace servants to leave the castle and get some clothes for her. She now wore an elbow-length purple tee with several thin, decorative belts crossing her middle and black high-waisted jeans that were easy to move around in. There were about four other casual outfits in her closet now. Sophia was trying to find some dressier gowns for Mal to wear to accompany Ben places though Mal doubted she'd wear them.

Mal used the phone to skillfully navigate the passages of the castle. She found her way past the library, and then to the main hall. An older man with a mop looked startled to see her. She gave him a sarcastic salute when he said good morning, and they ignored each other as she walked outside.

The sky was beginning to grey with streaks of pink edging their way onto the horizon. Dew stuck to the grass. She couldn't see very far, but she did notice the edge of the castle exterior wall was very jagged and the paint was peeling off the edges of the bricks. Perfect for climbing. She made her way through a flower bed and put a foot on the brick. She'd be climbing on her toes all the way up, but hopefully, it would be worth it. Also, hopefully, Belle and Adam wouldn't kick her out for parkouring their home.

She began to climb. About halfway up, she realized that the world had gotten exponentially brighter, and quickened her pace. Near the top, her foot slipped off for a nanosecond, but she used her arms to haul her body to the rest of the top.

Once on the roof, it was easy to walk around and find a nice place to watch the sun rise over the hills. She ended up picking a place where the front circle drive was still visible, and where she was centered above the porch as the sun came up.

The sky turned from dull blue-grey to a stunning purple, and then to fuschia. Mal sat with her knees tucked up under her arms. She shivered some, but she'd been exposed to far harsher circumstances on the Isle.

The sky slipped out of a short yellow phase and began to turn its normal brilliant blue. Mal began to consider climbing down, but then she saw movement at the end of the driveway. As it got closer, she squinted to make out its shape. It was a carriage. One that was obviously for royalty. All thoughts of leaving left her mind as she watched the carriage come closer to the Castle.

Who would be calling on the Royals this early in the morning? Was it the Fairy Godmother?

The carriage stopped in the middle of the circular drive and a footman hopped out to let a figure out of the car. The palace roof was so high up that Mal couldn't make out the figure at all.

The person walked up the steps and Mal observed they were wearing heels from their shadow. A girl, probably. Maybe a guy. She'd known guys on the Isle to enjoy wearing heels.

The person disappeared from her view as they walked up to the palace doors. Mal bit her cheek without knowing why.

The world got drastically warmer as soon as the sun was up. Mal looked at all the pale skin that was exposed on her and knew she'd burn to a crisp if she didn't leave soon. Her phone made a movement in her pocket – a buzzing – and she pulled it out to examine it with a critical eye. As per usual, the screen lit up at the movement. A message underneath Sophia's name was asking where she was. She noticed the time was almost 7:30. Oops.

She swiped in her password to message Sophia, but then a message from Ben came through. "Are you on the roof?" He asked.

"How'd you know?" She asked him.

"Holy crap, how did you get up there?"

"I climbed."

"Oh my gosh."

She rolled her eyes and put her phone back in her pocket, completely forgetting to text Sophia. Her phone buzzed during her descent, but she couldn't exactly see what anyone was saying to her while she was trying to not fall to her death, could she?

Her phone responded to her inactivity by vibrating so much it fell out of her pocket when she was about ten feet above the ground. Mal cursed, having come to like the screen with the map inside of it, and jumped the last few feet to make it to the ground quicker. Her phone was fine if a little dirty. Several texts were there, but they looked different. There was more than one person texting her at a time. The message notification said they were sending things to a group.

Ben: "Found Mal. She didn't leave; she's just on the roof"

Belle: "The roof?"

Adam: "Are you yanking my chain?"

Ben: "She said she climbed."

Mal bit her lip and let her thumbs hover over the screen before she typed out: "I'm down now." Hopefully, the Royals weren't angry. She probably should have left a note.

The carriage was waiting out front. She couldn't see any people from here, so she just assumed that they'd seen her and went on with her life. She let herself back into the palace through the front doors and walked right into a war zone.

Ben was in the room having a very… heated debate with an older girl in pink, who wore sequined sunglasses and a pink pantsuit. Her brown hair was up in a ponytail, and her face was currently twisted into a frown. She looked almost twenty, the same age as Ben.

"I don't understand!" She wailed. "Don't you love me anymore?" She leaned forward and grabbed the folds of Ben's suit. Mal raised her eyebrows and started to try and slip away through a side door. She almost felt bad for Ben having to deal with her.

"It's not about that, Audrey. I'm engaged now. I have to think about my future, and right now, that's her-" Ben droned on for a few seconds about things that weren't really important while Mal made no effort to stop eavesdropping. She began to creep towards an adjoining door on the right side of the entryway. When she reached the door, she turned around. Mal made eye contact with Ben, gave him a weak smile, and made a slashing motion at her throat. He narrowed his eyes as she opened the door quietly and started to leave.

"In fact, there's my fiancé right now! Mal!" He called. Mal froze with the door half open and one foot hidden behind it. She turned around. Audrey, the prince's former girlfriend, if she was to interpret the situation correctly, had frozen in place with her hands firmly on Ben's lapel and her head focused on Mal. There was no way she could escape now. Mal sighed and let the door swing closed.

"Good morning Mal," Ben greeted with a winning smile. And not 'winning' as in 'he could win a prize with that smile'. Winning in that he was completely aware he'd just foiled her plan for escape. "Mal, this is Audrey. Audrey, this is Mal. Did you have a nice climb Mal?" The way he spoke made it sound as if her sunrise excursion had been completely done with the knowledge and approval of the palace.

"I did," Mal admitted. She glared at the king sassily. "The sunrise was lovely."

"Mal," Audrey drawled distastefully. "You have dirt on your shirt." Mal looked down and discovered a smudge of black over her left shoulder. She shrugged.

"It must be from the gutter. I shouldered it on my way up." Mal said, not bothering to brush at it at all. Ben winced at her words and drew a hand over his face. He was embarrassed by that? Oh boy, was Mal going to make him regret not letting her leave... She turned and focused on Audrey with a fake smile.

"Do you think it's fitting for the future queen of Auradon to be scaling the castle walls?" Audrey asked. She flipped her sunglasses up to reveal narrowed eyes and Mal felt a challenge she was not going to back down from.

"Better than being stuck inside all day." She met Ben's eyes after that comment. He squirmed in his shoes. "Stuff like that helps me stay fit."

"I don't believe I've seen you before." Audrey glared. "Who are your parents? Where do you come from?"

Ben tensed. Mal opened her mouth to answer Audrey, but Ben jumped in.

"Audrey is, uh, the daughter of Aurora. You know, Sleeping Beauty." Ben coughed and wrung his hands.

As if the situation couldn't get any worse. Mal turned to Ben and gave him her best you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me look. "Aurora?" She repeated.

"Yeah!" Audrey jumped in enthusiastically. "My mom is one of the most famous royals in the land. She's my hero." The brunette clasped a hand to her heart as if she were a proud parent watching a toddler wobble on their feet for the first time.

Mal stared. "But she didn't do anything. Your dad is the one who broke the curse."

Audrey looked miffed. "Yes, but she is one of the kindest, most beautiful souls around. I aspire to be just like her."

Ben leaned his head back just a tad, like he wanted to groan but was resisting. Mal pasted on a fake smile and stuck out her hand. "Well, Audrey, I'm Mal." Audrey shook Mal's hand at a weird angle and with a suspicious glance towards Ben. "My mother's also quite famous." Mal continued. She released Audrey's hand and Audrey withdrew it to rest it on her hip. "Actually, you might have heard of her. She's known by many names, but she was named Maleficent at birth."

Audrey turned a peculiar shade of yellow.

"You know," Mal continued. "The Mistress of all Evil?"

Audrey took a step back. "What are you doing here?"

Ben took Mal's arm and wrapped it around his elbow. Mal gave him a look and almost withdrew, but then she saw how it made Audrey retreat further. She tried to relax as Ben used his other hand to start rubbing little circles into the area underneath her bicep. "The crown thought it would be an excellent match to help to repair relationships with the second generation over there," Ben said with confidence. "She's already taken and passed all of the required tests, including the goodness test." Those last words he put particular emphasis on, though Mal felt another surge of anger towards him.

"You-you're serious?" Audrey stammered. "How long has this been a plan?"

Mal opened her mouth to say: "a few days", but Ben jumped in and quickly said: "Almost two months. I was informed just after you left last time and have been waiting to tell you." Mal glanced sideways at him. Liar. Huh, she hadn't thought he'd had the guts. The tension in the arm Ben had wrapped around his started to ebb away.

It must have been a while since the prince had last talked to his girlfriend. She bought the lie entirely. Ben unlooped his arm from Mal's and went to go put a hand on Audrey's shoulder gingerly. He held her at arms' length even though she was trying to lean into him. "Now Audrey," Ben began. "I know this must be hard for you, but I must have your word that you won't take this joyous news any farther than your parents. It's for Mal's privacy protection while we train her to be the new queen. This is still under intense secrecy, but I thought you deserved to know since, of course, this means our relationship has to end. We can still be friends though."

Mal watched how Audrey's eyes flickered between them, and swallowed as she stepped forward and put a hand on Ben's shoulder. Audrey visibly took a step back and Mal realized that the battle was won. The pink princess looked absolutely stunned. She nodded though. "Yes, friends." She tried to pull out from under Ben's hand and reached for the doorknob, but Ben held onto her shoulder.

"Your word, Audrey?" He prompted.

Audrey's eyes hit the floor, and she grimaced like she was in pain. "You have my word, Ben."

Ben released her with a smile. Mal came up behind him and wrapped her arm back through his elbow. Audrey immediately opened the door and stepped outside. They barely had time to exchange goodbyes before Audrey was gone. Mal released herself from Ben and stood outside the window as she watched Audrey's carriage pull away.

"Interesting girl," Mal commented.

Ben breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah. I'm glad we're over."

Mal looked over her shoulder at him as he came to watch the dust settle. "I'm still angry at you." She told him. "You ruined a perfectly good escape plan."

"Why should you get to escape, and I have to face her? Besides, she backed down the moment she saw you. I think your appearance scared her." Ben raised his eyebrow comedically.

Mal sighed. "Is that supposed to be a nice way of saying I look like crap?"

Ben laughed. "You've got something right…" He reached for her face. Mal snapped out of his reach by reflex, then leaned forward and allowed him to rub at something under her left eye. His eyes didn't linger any longer than needed to rub at something thick, dark brown, and sticky on her cheek.

"Great." She murmured. "I met the daughter of my mother's enemy with black on my face."

"It wasn't too bad, and you did great." He pulled his hand away, and they waited in that close space, thinking that the other was going to say something. Mal leaned against the wall, but the distance didn't change. Ben leaned with her.

"You still owe me one." Mal murmured.

"Can we call it even? You kind of scared me out of my mind when I woke up and learned you were gone. I thought you'd left and I wouldn't be able to be king and in a few years I'd begin to suffer intense pains and yeah, I was panicking." Ben moved his hands as he talked. He made figures in the air and gestured wildly.

"I'm glad to see I was missed," Mal commented dryly. "Yeah, we can call it even." She hesitated. "Is your dad going to kill me for being on the roof?"

Ben shook his head. "No. They'll be worried of course. We don't want you to get hurt. I'd be more worried about Sophia if I were you. She was the one who discovered your room empty and she flipped out."

"Poor Sophia." Mal frowned. "She's super nice. I like her."

"I have a feeling she's going to start working just for you. Sort of like how Lumiere always talks to and listens to my mom. He's her servant." Ben chuckled.

"Do you have a favorite?" Mal asked. Ben shook his head.

"I loved talking to Chip, but he left a few years ago. He races horses in Cinderellasburg now. He never liked the castle much."

"I see he and I have much in common," Mal commented.

"Well, he was one of the prisoners here. He was eight and frozen in time along with the rest of the palace." Ben paused. "Do you not like the palace?"

Mal furrowed her brow and stepped away from Ben. She gestured around the magnificent room. "I can't explain it. It has a feeling that makes me feel unwelcome. I think it's the fact it was cursed so many years ago. I can just feel that magic and it makes me feel like I should leave." She turned back to Ben. "I think that feeling will fade and it's just initial contact sickness, but the entire castle seems to be pushing me away from itself."

Ben was studying her. He seemed to be lost in thought. "Do you have any magical potential?" He asked cautiously.

Mal wondered for a second if she should tell him, but the Fairy Godmother hadn't appeared upset or even surprised. She swallowed. "Yes, I do." She informed Ben. "Is that a problem?"

Ben held his hands up in immediate defense. "No, not at all! However, fun fact, that means you're technically the first top royal with magical potential in this new era of Auradon. How cool is that?"

Mal relaxed. "Um, cool I guess." She eyed the curve of Ben's neck. "I assumed you'd be worried."

He shrugged. "I know you're a good person." He explained as he leaned against the wall.

Mal furrowed her brow and crossed her arms. "How do you know?" She asked.

He smiled at her. "I see it in you. You focus on fairness and you are aware of the people around you." His smile suddenly broadened, and Mal shrunk from it. "You're going to make an excellent queen. Really." He closed the space in between them so that he could squeeze her arm comfortingly. Then, he paused. "I mean... if you choose to stay and rule."

Mal snorted. "I think that choice has been made for me." She stuck a thumb behind her back at the door and began to chew on a lock of her hair. "Audrey knows I'm going to be queen."

Ben shook his head. "You can still choose. And I promise I won't judge you for that choice."

Mal bit her cheek. Ben's hand was still on her arm, so she reached over with her other hand and began to fiddle with his wrist cuff. A thought occurred to her.

"Ben?" She whispered. She heard him make a quiet sound in response. "What do you think I should choose?"

Ben stilled. "Are you asking advice? Or what do I want you to do?"

"Both," Mal answered.

There was a moments' pause as Ben pushed her hair out of her face, moved his hand out of her reach, and put it on her shoulder. Both he and his dad had a thing with shoulders, she was noticing.

"I want you to be happy." He admitted as he touched her collarbone with his thumb a little. Mal shrank from his touch. She observed the careful way Ben examined her and "I want happiness, and I want you to have it too. You deserve it. As far as if you should stay or go, it might be a little easier for you to help me make changes if you stay. You could be an astounding force for good if you wanted. But if you choose to go, then you could see what the people of Auradon are like. You could get to know them, understand them like you understand the Isle's people."

Mal scoffed. "Like I need to know about Auradon. Audrey was more than enough for me."

Ben laughed. His laugh made her feel better.

"I like what you said, about being a force for good. Because I know there are so many things that need to be changed for the Isle. There are so many innocent people over there who are maimed every day, and we need to fix it." Her eyes grew distant as she thought of Evie, Jay, and Carlos. Several ideas popped into her A smile grew on Ben's face.

"Will you stay?" He asked her.

"I think so." She confirmed. "Am I allowed to change my mind afterword?"

"Of course," Ben responded promptly. "Just be aware it'll be a lot harder to change your mind after we tell everyone you're going to be queen."

"I get it, I get it." Mal chuckled. Ben laughed and moved his arm to loop Mal's through it. Mal grimaced, but let him keep his hold.

"May I escort this fine lady to breakfast?" He asked.

"Fine Lady? Where?" Mal laughed. "Go ahead. I still don't know where I'm going."

Ben laughed and took her through a side door. "You know, it's funny. The Fairy Godmother used to say the same thing about the castle that you said. She said it was almost like the castle didn't want her here. It did get better as the years went on."

"The castle must still have a lot of magic residue on it." Mal reasoned. "I bet I'd feel more comfortable in my room if I charmed one or two things because then there'd be two enchantresses' work there."

"When did you learn you had magical potential?" Ben asked.

"Well, I was able to make my eyes glow on the Isle, but I didn't really understand I had spell potential until like, yesterday," Mal said, trailing her fingers on the wall behind her as she walked.

"So it's been one day, and you're already calling yourself an enchantress?" Ben joked. "Have you even cast any spells yet?"

Mal was silent. Ben began to laugh so hard he had to stop walking so he wouldn't trip.

"I fixed my hair!" Mal defended herself. When Ben continued to laugh, she scowled. "The first real spell I'm going to cast is going to be a silencing curse on you!" She threatened.

Ben finally composed himself enough to show her the rest of the way to breakfast. Belle and Adam were already there, eating oatmeal as they typed away on their cell phones. Ben pulled Mal's chair out for her and went to go sit beside his mother. The first thing Adam said to her was: "The roof?"

Mal felt her pale cheeks go a little red. "Sorry." She said.

Ben stole a few sausages from a plate in the middle of the table, and then a few strips of bacon. "She was watching the sunrise." He explained.

Belle nodded as she took a sip of orange juice. "That's a good place to do it." She reasoned. "How'd you get up?"

"I climbed the brick overlay on the side of the castle." She paused. "How did you know I was on the roof, Ben?"

Ben raised his eyebrows and sighed irritably. "The first thing out of Audrey's mouth was: 'Someone's on the roof.' Since that isn't exactly a daily occurrence, I figured I'd better make sure it wasn't you."

Belle chuckled. "Well, just make sure you're being careful as you climb. Please don't slip and hurt yourself." She looked around a basket of bread to Ben. "Pass the butter please." She asked him.

Adam gave his wife a look as if to say: 'we're really going to allow this?', but he didn't say anything else.

________________________________________________________________

A few days later, Mal was able to stop using her phone to help her find places like her room, the library, the dining room, and the front entryway. There was no set pattern to the castle beside the four main wings. After that, each corridor seemed to stretch out randomly into whatever space was available. Some rooms were cut into perfect squares, others into almost stars, and one very strange room had a small triangle notch in the wall that was open enough for someone to squeeze their shoulders into. As Sophia promised, the further Mal ventured from the main entryway, the more finicky the castle became. Eventually, for fear of getting lost, she kept close to the main part of the castle.

Climbing to see the sunrise became a thing for her. On the third day, she slipped out of the castle soundlessly and kicked dew off the grass as she walked. She went to the place she'd been climbing up the last few days and hooked her fingers around the brick overlay. She ignored the aching in her arms as she climbed and glanced to the east every so often to make sure she wasn't going too slowly. As she put a hand over the gutter and onto the roofing, a hand appeared in her face.

Mal's grip slipped. "Waah!" She screamed as she dropped a scary foot back until someone seized her hand. Ben peered over the edge of the roof, looking white.

"Sorry!" He exclaimed. "Here, let me help you up."

"You almost just killed me!" Mal sputtered, squeezing the life and breath out of his hand. He hauled her up and over the gutter and set her carefully on the roof. Then, he wiped his brow off and took a deep breath.

"You okay?" Ben whispered.

"What are you doing up here?" Mal gasped as she tried to take several deep breaths.

"Sightseeing." Ben chuckled. He wiped his hands off on his pants and sat down on the edge of the roof.

Mal stared at him incredulously. Was that sarcasm she'd just heard? "What?" She whispered. "How did you get up here?"

Ben glanced sideways at her and smirked. "I climbed." He huffed.

And just like that, a smile was spreading over her mouth and she couldn't stop it, no matter how hard she tried. Mal snorted. "Har, har." She whispered and pulled her legs up from the edge. Ben ran his hands through his hair, messing it up even more than it was, and the irregular look made her heart skip a thud or two.

Ben gestured out to the skyline. "I, uh, thought it'd be cool to join you, and I brought food." Ben pointed up the roof a bit, to where a backpack was stuffed to the brim with items. Mal exhaled and got to her feet. Her cheeks felt awfully warm.

"Food?' She asked. "Why would you climb the roof at five a.m with food?"

"Because if I climbed the roof without food at five a.m, you might've made me go back down." Ben quipped. Mal chuckled. He stood up and the two walked toward the backpack. ben bent down and began to pull items out. Blankets and food, mostly. His phone was tucked into the side of the backpack. Ben spread out a blanket on the tiling and offered her his hand. Mal ignored it and sat down underneath his arm. Ben rolled his eyes and handed her a large, fuzzy orange fruit.

"What are these?" Mal asked as she rubbed the itchy fuzz off on the sleeve of her purple shirt.

"Peaches," Ben answered, sitting down opposite her. He peeled a layer of skin off of his peach with the fuzz still attached.

Mal tossed the fruit from one hand to the other in thought. "They're warm." She murmured.

"Try it." Ben rolled his eyes.

Mal took a bite and felt her mouth flood with sweet juice from the fruit. Sticky golden nectar ran down her chin and onto her clothes. Ben laughed at her. "How do you eat these?'" She exclaimed in frustration.

"With your mouth." Ben quipped. Mal groaned. She watched as Ben split his fruit down the center. In the middle was an ugly pit, which he yanked out to reveal red surroundings. She followed his example and soon they were both sitting together, watching the sky turn pink and eating warm peaches.

"You've gotten a lot more sarcastic since I got here," Mal noted, watching a red streak grow across the sky.

"I'm usually one to make a lot of dad jokes, but you arriving threw off my game." Ben nodded.

"You'd probably like Isle humor a lot." Mal theorized. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Ben perked up a bit.

"I'll take your word for it." He said with a sideways smile, trying to sound casual. Mal turned her feet towards him and toasted her half of her peach sarcastically.

"You seem to be pretty interested in the Isle." She murmured. "Most people shy away from me when I talk about it."

"Yeah." Ben agreed sheepishly. "It's fascinating. I've always been really interested in people and, yeah, the Isle. It's interesting to me, the different cultures and rules and such." He launched the core to his peach out over the gutter and to the grounds below.

"It's a different world." Mal murmured.

"Yeah," Ben repeated. "It's almost like its own country."

Mal furrowed her brow. It was almost like the Isle was its own country. A country run by gangs who existed in a polluted state of deterioration. And with this acknowledgment came an idea. "Ben," She whispered. "Does the spell outline that I have to be the queen of Auradon? Or is it just the Isle?"

Ben thought for a moment and then shook his head. "No, you have to have to say over Auradon. Like, you have to have ruling and judging power. The ability to sign laws and acts into order is just one of the things I know Maleficent specified in her spell trauncts." He gestured to his backpack on her left side. "Can you pass me another peach?" He asked.

Mal dug in the backpack for another warm fruit, trying to hide the disappointment welling up in her. She palmed the fruit to Ben with a sigh. "I was just wondering if we could just take the Isle off of Auradon instead of..." She trailed off. They both knew where she was headed with this anyways.

"Yeah." Ben sighed. "I mean, no, we can't do that. But yeah, I get what you mean."

"Yeah," Mal echoed glumly.

"But," Ben started, then paused. "Maybe..." He trailed off.

"What?" Mal asked, making a face.

"If we break off the Isle of the Lost off of the Mainland, thereby making you a separate queen, then we could get married with you as a Consort Queen," Ben explained.

"Which means?" Mal prompted.

Ben set his peach between his feet and began to use his hands to illustrate his point. "It's a thing royal couples do when they don't want kingdom borders to change upon a union. Basically, you could technically pass laws and rule Auradon, the whole shebang, but I would have to be gone first. Until then, you're just a normal person according to Auradon. You just live in the palace and are married to the king. I think it's referred to as a junior partnership."

Mal furrowed her brow. "Wouldn't Auradon be angry?" She asked. "You lose the Isle and then all I would have to do is kill you to take over the kingdom?"

Ben shrugged. "I don't know how they'd react." He said. Then, he hesitated. "You aren't planning on killing me, are you?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That'd be the evil thing to do." Mal shrugged.

Ben snorted and rolled his eyes. "No then. Consort queen also means that if I happened to die for any reason, you'd be in charge of Auradon." He explained.

"Ugh." Mal made a face. "All that work." Even though, technically, if he died, she'd die too. She paused and began to twiddle her sticky thumbs. "How long do you think this will last?" She asked, letting her voice drop back to a whisper.

"A year?" Ben theorized. "Maybe two." He studied the roof tiles and began to peel the skin off his peach.

"And after that?" Mal asked, finally looking up to meet his gaze. He felt her eyes on him and looked up. "I become the queen who didn't rule for two years and Auradon never learns what happened? They go on thinking we parted ways because our marriage failed?"

"You don't have to make it sound like such a poisonous thing." Ben sighed. He offered her the second half of his peach, but she shook her head.

"You're right." She acknowledged. "It's just... hard."

"Yeah." Ben agreed with a sigh.

The sun's rays peeked out over the horizon and the frost began to melt off of the gutters. Ben reached around Mal for another blanket and spread it out over his legs. Then, he took a second, black blanket, and set it carefully on her shoulders, even going so far as to pull her hair out from under it.

Mal fiddled with the hem of the blanket and cleared her throat. For the first time, she voiced a fear she had. "What if they never break the curse?" She asked. "We can't masquerade forever. Are you really going to make me stay here, never doing anything, pretending to be a queen? And Auradon will have expectations. You're supposed to sire an heir for the future rise and fall of the kingdom and that idea appeals about a solid negative to me." Mal tapped Ben's leg with her toes and raised her eyebrow at him.

Ben looked back out at the sunrise. "I don't know." He confessed. His tone of voice announced that he, too, had been worried about it.

Mal continued on. "And if you do make me stay, what next for the Isle?"

"The Isle?" Ben asked, glancing at Mal.

"My homeland? The Isle?" Mal rolled her eyes.

"If we break it off, that means it's its own country." Ben reasoned. "The only way you could get rid of it is to abdicate to Auradon."

"So, I'm the puppet government." Mal rolled her eyes.

"No, you're the actual government with close ties to Auradon." Ben rolled his eyes. Mal hummed suspiciously. "I think you could fix the Isle." Ben shrugged, ignoring her skepticism.

"Doubtful." Mal disagreed. The sun was almost halfway over the horizon now.

"Oh no." Ben shook his head. "Come one, two years from now, and the Isle will be completely different. Trust me."

Mal didn't say anything more. She pulled the hems of the blankets taut across her chest and watched the sky turn its bidaily daily light show as Ben ate his peach behind her. This was nice. It was nice to not yell at him. It was nice to be listened to. She'd never had someone take her ideas and make them into a plan. She'd never climbed a palace to discover a prince. Even the small things were new. She'd never even had someone lift a blanket around her shoulders.

Mal curled up her feet and laid her head on her knees. The sun rose on a new day and an upcoming queen.

________________________________________________________________

Remember Doug? Mal didn't. She'd completely forgotten about the man who'd sent her an entire paragraph in response to just her name. However, after her first week was over, the King and Queen decided it was time to invite Doug over.

Doug arrived during lunch, which Mal felt was a normal time to receive guests. Lunch was the most inconspicuous meal of the day when you had already figured out if the day was going to be a good or a bad one, and before you had any concrete plans so you could be a little more flexible. Mal appreciated lunchtimes a lot.

Doug wore a plaid shirt that was rolled up to his elbows since August in Auradon was hot enough to bake cookies outside. (This wasn't an exaggeration. Mal saw some of the servant's children baking cookies by leaving them outside in aluminum-foil-lined boxes.) He had a bow tie and glasses, and hair the color of sand. He was also a very nervous man. When he shook hands with Mal, he quivered. He stuttered and went back and forth, steamrolling his own sentences. Sometimes, Mal couldn't understand what he was saying. She just smiled and nodded. That seemed to make Doug less nervous.

Doug worked for the crown. A very small part of his job was to go to all the new royals in all the small kingdoms and teach them how to file paperwork through to Beast's Castle, how to cc emails and be the all-around IT guy. So it only made sense that he and Adam had teamed up to show Ben how to run things, and now Ben and Doug (mostly Doug) were going to team up and show her how to do things.

After lunch, Ben showed her and Doug upstairs and into the King's office. There were papers, envelopes, and little calendar magnets everywhere. Mal made a gentle humming sound as Doug groaned and pulled a fancy black hole-punch out of his bag. Except it wasn't a hole punch. As Ben showed Mal around the office and pointed to where things were supposed to go, Doug picked up whatever papers he could find and scanned them through what now appeared to be a portable, backwards printer. The pictures appeared on Adam's desktop computer as Doug scanned them. Finally, the two men ushered Mal into King Adam's incredibly tall swivel seat. Mal tried to not feel awkward as the two men hovered beside her and showed her how to get the desktop to automatically search for duplicate documents and sort them into folders based on what they were while her feet dangled at least four inches above the flooring. The computer also had this handy thing that made it so everything could be sorted by dates so that everything Doug had just barely scanned in would appear at the top of the relevant folder after it had been sorted.

"Why do we still use paper?" Mal asked.

"Because when a king signs something it's considered a magical lock. We haven't figured out how to replicate that effect on computers yet." Doug sighed. That was the other, bigger part of his job. Working with computers to make them do better stuff.

"When you become King, or Queen, for you, you receive the throne magic, which basically helps you know if there's major trouble in the kingdom, or if a border is breached, stuff like that. When you're making or changing laws, you need to have a connection to that magic, otherwise, it won't work." Ben added. It made sense he'd care more about that information than Doug. Wasn't that the main reason she was there? There wasn't any way the magic of the crown would stick without her.

"Also, paper copies have to be sent out to minor royals so that they know the law is now in effect and so they can portray it to their people." Doug murmured as he picked up the last piece of paper on the desk and scanned it in. He turned to Mal. "Let's start with something simple. Let's say I'm a citizen and I've come to you asking about Law 37 subsection B because my local royal doesn't have a copy in his possession. What do you need to do?"

"Uh, get him a copy?" Mal guessed.

"And?" Doug prompted.

"I don't know."

"That's fine. That's why Ben and I are here. Anyway, you should send an extra copy to that royal, just so it won't happen again. Try and find 37.B." Doug gestured to the computer. "Ben, why don't you go see if you can find your notes from when your dad and I ran you through this course?" Ben snapped to attention, and then dashed out the door.

"Be right back!" He called over his shoulder.

Mal examined the screen. There was a laws folder, so she clicked on that. Doug made a sound of approval. Now there were a lot of numbers. She scrolled down to thirty-seven, and quickly found subsection B.

"Good job." Doug complimented her. "Now, of course, this isn't all you'll do as Queen. There're many jobs. Most of the time you'll be probably be delegating where resources are going and trying to create a strong infrastructure. The minor rulers are the ones who rule over the people as Official States of Auradon. If they're doing their jobs right, you shouldn't be bothered too much with that sort of work. We just wanted to start with something simple today. Some of your responsibilities are making sure good people have power, examining possible new laws for the United States of Auradon, and maybe a few odd jobs here and there. If you ever have any questions about specifics, Adam would be a great guy to ask. I'm sure you know he built the USA up almost from scratch. I'm mainly an IT guy, so I won't be able to do as much, but I'm still open to helping you out. Now, I've been told you're only going to concern yourself with the Isle of the Lost, is that correct?"

"Yes, that's right," Mal told Doug.

"Splendid. We have a file specifically for the Isle. It's in alphabetical order, so see if you can find it. Feel free to take a look around that file as we wait for Ben."

Mal quickly found the file. It was very, very full. There were several narrowing devices. Naturally, she was curious about herself and her friends. She searched her name, and several accounts of her mother came up. Then, part-way down, she found her own birth certificate and an enrollment form for Dragon Academy.

When she searched for her friends, she found Evie had the most documentation. Her mom had yearly health checkups, school enrollments, school work, and normal certification in there. Carlos's contained only his birth certificate and his schooling forms, and Jay's was completely empty.

"You're missing people," Mal told Doug after several minutes of examining the computer. "I don't see Jafar's son, Ursula's daughter, Hades's daughter, and I know Gaston has more kids than this."

"That's all the documentation the Isle sends us. We don't do much here with it. Maybe you can change that." Doug drummed his fingernails on the desk. "Hey, can I ask you something now?"

"You just did," May commented. "But go ahead." She clicked back to the screen where she searched for herself and found a document accounting for Maleficent on the Isle of the Lost, back when she'd been banished. The document read: Target effectively powerless.

"How do you feel about being queen?" Doug asked.

Mal let out a breath as she clicked back and found an incident report where a disturbance had appeared in the barrier. "Honestly? No idea. Don't want to get married. Don't want to die. Don't want to be trapped. It's all joyous feelings."

"You aren't excited for anything?" Doug asked.

"To be a ruler of my old hometown? Believe me, all I'm gaining is a title. The Isle of the Lost pays less attention to the Palace than they do to the dirt. I had more power when I actually lived there."

"What sort of power?"

"Oh, you should have seen me and my group. We were top dogs." Mal rolled away from the computer. "On a different note, I have a question."

Doug clapped his hands together. "Shoot." He replied.

"What if I need to make a document?" She asked.

"Oh, okay. At the bottom of the screen, there should be an icon with a 'W' on it. It's a document writing system. The palace has a whole bunch of unique formats for law writing and declarations and stuff like that. Just because you write a law down doesn't make it a law, by the way. You have to get it committee approved…" Doug trailed off. "Actually, I have no idea how the Isle of the Lost will work now that it's being handed to you. Go crazy, I guess."

"But not too crazy?" Mal asked with a smirk. She examined the Castle Documents with a critical eye. "So, if I'm to understand this correctly, the Isle of the Lost and Auradon are now separate."

"Not now," Doug said. "But after Ben and you are coronated, yeah. At least as far as I know."

Mal hummed in response and selected a blank document. She looked down and quickly discovered a roll-out shelf with a keyboard on it hidden in the desk.

"Are you writing a law right now?" Doug asked as he tried to crane his neck.

"No. I'm just messing around," Mal replied as she fiddled with the font type and size.

"Oh, here," Doug said. He whisked open a desk and started rummaging. "There's a really handy list of shortcut keys here somewhere…" He cursed. "I hope Ben isn't as messy as Adam is."

Mal snorted and began to tune him out as she started typing.

Doug couldn't find the hotkey list, so he gave up. Eventually, his phone began to ring so he left the room to answer it. By that time, Mal had started writing a letter.

Ben came back, but Doug was still on the phone and Mal was typing, so he put his old lined-paper notes on the desk and pulled out his phone to do stuff.

No one said anything until Mal looked up and said: "Ben, I would like to print this. How do I do that?"

"Control key and P," Ben said automatically. "At the same time." He added as an afterthought. He looked up from a multi-colored game system. "What are you doing?"

"Printing something," Mal said with pursed lips. "Control… ctrl?" Across the room, a machine began to hum loudly. Seconds later, a single piece of paper slid into the catcher, which was already full of many documents. Ben reached over and picked it up, and quickly skimmed it.

"Hey!" Mal snapped. "That's mine!" She pushed back from the desk and reached to snatch it from his grasp.

Ben frowned. "Mal, who are you writing to?"

Mal glared and snatched her paper from his grasp, nearly ripping it in the process. "An essay of nun-ya."

"I know it's not my business!" Ben exclaimed in exasperation as Mal stormed back to the desk. He stood up. "But I got to know, are you writing to someone on the Isle? Is it your mom?"

"What? Of course, it's not my mom!" Mal whirled around. "Do you honestly think I'd write to my selfish, horrible mother after she landed me in a hopeless situation where I'm stuck with you?!"

"Woah." A third voice said from the hallway. Ben and Mal's heads whipped towards the doorway. Doug stood with wide eyes and his hands up in a surrender position. His phone was in one hand, turned off. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"Yes." Mal said at the same time Ben said: "No." Mal glared at Ben out of the corners of her eyes.

"We're fine," Ben said. "All is well." He sat back down in his chair. Mal huffed out the last of her frustration and began to cool. She took a seat at the desk again. Doug walked cautiously into the room.

Mal folded her letter in fourths and sealed it with a piece of tape. Ben watched her.

"You know you can't send that, right?" He asked. Mal stilled and looked at him for an explanation – a quick one. He sighed and raked his nails over his skull. "If you send it to the Isle your mom will probably find out you've betrayed her. And if you contact your friends, I highly doubt she'd act kindly to them. It'd probably be safer for them if you sever ties." He thought for a moment. "If you were, by chance, going to send it to someone in Auradon, you should know all the mail gets screened anyway. Someone could have leaked you to the public. Not a problem, per se, but the press would become really annoying to you and me."

"They screen the mail?" Mal asked as she bit her cheek.

"Everything going in and out of the palace, yeah. And other mail places do it too with permission and knowledge of the public."

Mal creased her paper with a line in her forehead. She put it inside a pocket in her shirt and made a mental note to tape it to the underside of her desk. Then she ignored Ben and tried her best to pay attention to Doug.

Ben wasn't bothered by Mal's anger. He'd already had her anger directed at him and knew that, despite whatever she claimed, she was of the forgiving nature. She'd probably be back to normal tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the little he'd read in her letter was burned into the back of his mind. A scorching heat began in his head. Doug asked him a question, and so he pushed his thoughts away for another place and time. For duty's sake.

[fragmentedshards]

The Final Curtain, Chapter Twelve

The Tale of Bryony Redruth

-

“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” Ciel snarled at the Queen’s butler. “I order you to move out of my way this instant!”

“Sorry, little guard dog,” Charles Grey gently turned his sword over in his hands, glancing down at the earl. “I’m not your butler. I do not answer to your feeble orders. Now I shall ask again: where are you off to in such a hurry? Surely Her Majesty would not be happy to find you bounding off through the theatre in such a cumbersome fashion, drawing attention to yourself and your work.” He sneered, waiting for an answer.

Ciel glared at Grey, clenching his fists and finding it harder than normal to contain his anger. “Her Majesty would certainly not be happy with you for interfering with my ability to put her mind at ease,” he practically spat. “I told you to get out of my way!”

Without thinking, Ciel shoved the butler with both hands. Ordinarily the earl’s thin arms would not have been able to move the butler one bit. Now, with his new demonic strength, Ciel sent Grey flying into the wall; not hard enough to crack the wall, or even to knock him out, but enough to stun him into brief paralysis and give the earl enough time to run into the bottom floor audience and get lost in the crowd.

Grey sat against the wall, a pained groan escaping his wide-open mouth. His eyes - as large as dinner plates in his fear - followed Ciel through the theatre. Her Majesty will want to know of this, he thought to himself.

Ciel reached the stage just as he saw Matilda helping Bryony to her feet. Pushing through the last of the dancers, he made his way to the women with enraged strides that were almost stomps. Matilda saw him and pointed him out to Bryony before he was very close, and they met him in the middle of the stage near where the trapdoor remained open.

“What do you mean by running off like that?” Ciel demanded.

“Forgive me, young master,” Matilda apologized sheepishly. “But I’m afraid you have another guest tonight.”

The earl’s eyes shifted to the ballerina. “Bryony Redruth, I presume.” His voice was flat. “Yes, certainly. Come back to Phantomhive Manor with us; I have some questions for you anyhow.”

Just then, Sebastian appeared at Ciel’s side; startling all three quite a bit, for they had not seen him walk in their direction. “Young Master,” he began. “I was unable to locate the Loric sisters themselves; however, I found their butler, and between the two of us we have arranged a business meeting over afternoon tea tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Sebastian.” Ciel replied, not taking his eyes off Bryony. He stared a moment longer before turning his attention to the gaping hole in the stage. He drew closer to it, intending to inspect it, but a gloved hand held him back by his shoulder.

“Perhaps I should perform this task, my lord,” the butler suggested, though it was obvious that it was far from a genuine suggestion. If the earl protested, Sebastian would find excuse after excuse to keep him away from the trapdoor. “This is too dangerous for you.”

Ciel glared but said nothing, giving the butler a passive nod after a brief standoff. Sebastian passed the party to the trapdoor and bent over it, cocking his head from one side to the other before motioning over his shoulder.

“Matilda,” he said. “Come here please.”

Matilda reached the butler in less than five long steps, peering into the opening with him. She had to blink once for her eyes to pierce the darkness, but slowly she began to perceive the wood flooring where performers would ordinarily land during a production.

“Am I seeing this correctly?” Sebastian asked her, trying not to show how disconcerted he really was. “I’m afraid my eyesight is... well, fading, insofar as my supernatural sight.”

“I see what looks like the outline of a square right below us, where Bryony would have landed,” the maid answered. “But it’s too far away to get a very detailed look. What do you see?”

“There appears to be splinters around the square,” Sebastian told her, bringing a gloved hand to his chin in thought. “But that’s all I can make out at this distance. I used to be able to discern the details on a signet ring in a photograph... now it is as if I can barely see.” he glanced over his shoulder across the theatre to see employees ushering audience members outside. Time was running short. “If there are splinters, perhaps Bryony was meant to fall through another layer of flooring; perhaps there is something else lower underground.”

Sebastian and Matilda turned to see Sir Arthur approaching them, looking distinctly aggravated, while Edward Abberline followed him with an air of relief. Ciel and Bryony spotted him as well; the earl narrowed his eyes in anticipation.

“We’ve ordered the whole theatre to clear out,” the police commissioner explained to the four of them. “We will have men guarding the theatre overnight, and we will conduct a thorough investigation tomorrow. Lord Phantomhive,” he turned his attention to the boy earl. “I have a deal to make with you.”

“As it happens, I am rather fond of deals,” Ciel said, sharing a smirk with Sebastian. “What can we do for you, Sir Arthur?”

“I will give you access to all files and restricted areas related to this case,” he proposed. “If you will share all information you and your monster of a butler discover with the Yard.”

“I am no monster, Sir Arthur,” Sebastian corrected. “Rather, I am one hell of a butler.”

Ciel rolled his eyes at his butler, returning his attention to Sir Arthur. “I believe that will work in both of our favors. Very well; it’s a deal.”

The commissioner nodded curtly before turning and leaving as quickly as he decently could, with Abberline following.

The earl jerked his head towards the exit. “Come,” he commanded the other three. “Let’s rejoin the others; they’re probably already outside and waiting for us by now.”

Charles Grey had, it seemed, left the premises after his altercation with the earl, so Charles Phipps had sent for Snake to draw the second carriage. Ciel and Sebastian climbed into Phipps’s carriage with Elizabeth and Paula, leaving Lau, Ran Mao, Soma, Agni, Matilda and Bryony to cram into Snake’s carriage. After a moment of silence, Bryony volunteered to sit next to the footman. She climbed nimbly up to the top seat of the carriage, where a stunned Snake sat frozen, unsure how to respond. After a brief awkward exchange of glances - in which Bryony smiled timidly and Snake’s eyes grew wide - the footman snapped the reigns and sent the carriage moving towards home, with Phipps’s carriage following.

When they arrived back at the Phantomhive manor, they were greeted by a surprised Grell Sutcliffe. “What on earth are you doing back so soon? Surely the ballet isn’t over yet?”

“Good evening to you, Grell,” Sebastian said ever-so-placidly as he held the carriage door open for Ciel, Elizabeth, and Paula. “I’m afraid we had to return early thanks to an attempt on the life of the prima ballerina. As a matter of fact, it’s good that we have a reaper among us tonight; we may have to ask you some questions, Grell.”

Grell cast the butler a questioning look but said nothing, which was unusual for her.

Ciel and Matilda led Bryony into the parlor, followed by Lau, Ran Mao, Prince Soma, Lady Elizabeth, and Grell. Paula left to attend to her godson, and Agni and Sebastian left to prepare tea for the nobles. Sebastian entered minutes later with a steaming pot and seven teacups, but Agni decided to search for work elsewhere in the house.

“Here you are, Miss Redruth,” Sebastian handed the ballerina a cup of tea, taking care that her hands were not still shaking. “I have chosen a special herbal blend that I believe will help calm your nerves.”

“Thank you,” Bryony said, taking a sip while Matilda patted her friend’s knee.

Ciel took a sip from his own cup before speaking in his usual bored, commanding voice. “Miss Redruth, if you wouldn’t mind telling us everything you know about these attempts on your life, we would very much like to help you.”

“As soon as you feel ready to say anything,” Matilda added, taking care not to send the earl a withering glance.

With a deep breath, Bryony began. “It’s always a different method and a different show, but for the entire tour I’ve been in danger. It’s like I told Matilda; guns going off, chandeliers falling from the ceiling, the stage burning, trapdoors opening like tonight. We’ve taken the issue to Scotland Yard, but because every attempt happened with a different method and in a different city, they have no way of connecting anyone to the crimes.” she took another sip of tea and continued. “What I don’t understand is why anyone would want to kill me. All I do is dance! Ask Matilda here, she’ll tell you; dancing is all I’ve ever done.”

Matilda’s eyes lit up suddenly, as if a lightbulb had gone off above her head. “Bry,” she grasped her friend’s shoulders. “Did anything strange happen between your move to the city and the first murder attempt? Did you witness anything criminal, did you fall on someone’s bad side on accident...?”

“I daresay members of any of the many mafias in the Underworld would have a reason to come after you if saw something you shouldn’t have,” Lau grinned from the sofa.

“Speaking from experience, are you?” the earl muttered. Turning to Bryony, he said, “Matilda has the right idea. If you can think of anything that would give someone a motive, let us know immediately. Meanwhile, we must look for other connections. Sebastian!”

The butler had been lost in thought, worrying about his fading vision, but the sound of his name from his master’s voice brought him back to the present. “Sir?”

“You may not be able to do this tonight, but go over the attendance of every show from this troupe and see if anyone went to every show. I want alibis from anyone matching that criteria.” Suddenly the earl turned to Bryony, his brow furrowed. “Wait. Viscount Druitt wrote tonight’s ballet. Has he written any of the other shows your troupe has performed?”

Bryony looked at Ciel as if he had grown an additional head. “Of course, Lord Phantomhive,” she confirmed. “The Viscount is our benefactor. He funds everything we do, and recently he has started writing our ballets. I think he’s calling the next one The Lobster Quadrille, and it’s supposedly based off of his real experiences a few years ago but also draws a good deal from the works of Lewis Carroll...” she trailed off and narrowed her eyes at everyone. “Wait... you don’t think the Viscount is behind this?”

The earl shook his head. “Not necessarily the culprit, no. But I think he may have something to do with it, whether or not he knows it.”

Prince Soma stood and paced by the window. Elizabeth followed him with her eyes. “So what should we do to investigate?” he asked.

Sebastian smirked to himself. “I expect this calls for another undercover mission on your part, my lord?”

Ciel’s face turned purple and red as he glared in rage at his butler. Before he could retort, Elizabeth spoke up.

“That’s an idea, Sebastian! You’re brilliant! You saying that, plus thinking of the events that ballet was portraying... it all gives me an idea.”

“Oh?” Lau’s interest was piqued. “You have an idea, Lady Elizabeth? I’m sure whatever it is, the little earl will be unable to deny you.”

“Not a bit,” Ran Mao added in monotone, shaking her head.

Everyone in the room blinked at Lau before Ciel rolled his eyes. “What is your idea, Lizzy?”

“It is well known that Viscount Druitt has a proclivity for girls and young women,” Elizabeth put her hand to her chin in thought. “What if we attend one of his parties and I try to get close to Viscount? Surely he would be more open with a young lady, as opposed to any of you trying to interrogate him.”

Ciel and Prince Soma both reacted in shock.

“Absolutely not, Lizzy!” the earl exclaimed. “I won’t allow it!”

“Lady Elizabeth, surely that is too dangerous for you,” Prince Soma’s reply was calmer than Ciel’s, but no less concerned for the lady.

“It won’t be too dangerous if all of us attend the ball together,” Elizabeth replied calmly. This was not enough for Ciel, however, and the two of them began arguing.

“Surely we can get Bryony to question the Viscount? They know each other, after all.”

“Hasn’t Bryony suffered enough?”

“What about Matilda, then?”

“She performed well tonight, but all she really had to do was sit still. In a fancy ball with lots of moving about and talking to people, she might give us away.”

“Alright, fine. Well... maybe Grell could do it?”

Grell herself interjected. “Absolutely not,” she said. “I have to get back to my real job. I only came by to check on Mathilde for Adrien.”

Elizabeth folded her arms and held her head high. “I can do this, Ciel. Don’t worry about me.”

Ciel glowered at her, but he had to relent.

[littleredroseonthevalley]

Our Lady of the Incarnation

Or, Positive Sum

Summary: Summoned to Ledford Park under false pretenses, Edmund Marlcaster is offered a trade he might be unable to deny.

Rating: K - Content suitable for most ages. Intended for general audience 5 years and older. Free of any coarse language, violence, and adult themes.

Words: 2160

Notes: Hello, people of the XXI century. How do you do? A few clarifications, I do not know whether intraracial marriages were in fact abolished in Paraguay under de Francia’s dictatorship (c. 1810 - c. 1836), but I do know that it is a popular folk tale, and I also know that Paraguayans are amongst the most miscigenated populations in South America.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy it!

“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”

~ 1 Corinthians 13:2

Edmund Marlcaster rode silently through the dark of the night, the only light being the one from the full moon above him and the only noise was the sound of roofs hitting against the pebbles on the road.

He took a leisure pace, his carriage had suffered an accident on his way to Grovershire a few days ago, and his ribs still felt sore. In fact, if the destination was not so close and the tone of the request was not so urgent, he might had declined.

“Mr Marlcaster,” Theresa had said, on occasion of his father’s wake. “I understand you might not be at your best condition, given all that happened to you those last few days, but my father is becoming impatient about our wedding.”

“Miss Sutton, do you not realize I am burying my father or you simply does not care?!” He asked, on an uncharacteristic harsh tone. She usually tires him, but his response is always cool disinterest.

She, in turn, sighs. “I know, Mr Marlcaster, and I understand. However, it took all of my persuasion to keep him from coming here himself to hand you a demand. If you could only… talk to him, explain that during your closed mourning, it would not be proper for your family to hold a marriage celebration…”

He had to concede that the woman had a point. It was so rare he had to take note of it.

“I cannot travel long distance.” He responded. “I am still unwell from my accident.”

“I understand. That is why I had required of Mr Sinclaire the use of Ledford Park for an evening next week. I am sure I can convince my father to come, and it is not so far as in to be extenuating for you.” She said, and turning into pleading eyes, she continues, “Please, Mr Marlcaster. It is of utmost importance.”

How could he decline such a simple request from his fiancée? To meet her at Ledford Park for an evening. The young man may not care much for Miss Sutton, but he had to admit she was a dotting, loving woman; he owed her at least some deference.

So, he complied. He had the groom saddle him a stable ride and departed through the three-mile road that separated Edgewater from Ledford Park.

Upon arrival, he notes there were three footmen waiting for him at the entrance, what was most unusual. Edmund may not have had many an opportunity to interact with Mr Sinclaire, but he never appeared to be one for such gestures of grandeur.

It must be Miss Sutton’s idea, he dismissed quietly.

As two footmen care for his horse, the third asks to be followed, as his master awaits for him at the study.

When he reaches the room, and the footman disappears, is that he notices it was all a carefully engineered set-up. There were three people inside that room, and neither one of them was Mr Sinclaire or Mr Sutton.

“Good evening, Edmund.” His stepsister greets, smiling wickedly from the chair behind the bureau. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Miss Sutton, what is the meaning of this?!” He barks at his fiancée. “Where is your father?”

The young woman glared in response. “Mind your tongue, Mr Marlcaster! Believe me, I wanted to do much worse. You ought to thank your sister for that deceiving you is the least I am due.”

“Edmund, please.” Miss Daly tries to reason with him, from the right-arm side of her mistress. “Just listen to what Susan has to say. I promise you, it is not something bad.”

What was particularly striking about Briar is that she was not wearing her uniform, but she also did not seemed to be wearing anything a servant might on their holy days. No, instead she wore a royal blue dress, highly embroidered and decorated.

It was so fancy that, if not for the perfect measurements on her figure, she would have swore it was a loan or a donation from Lady Susan.

“It seems it is you I have to blame for this whole spectacle.” He glares, furious, at the natural daughter of his stepfather. “Very well, then. What is that so important that you have to tell me, Miss Beauchamp?”

She smiles like a lioness closing on her prey. “Edmund, please. We are supposed to be family. You can call me Susan.”

“Miss Beauchamp, please.” He growled.

“Very well, as you wish.” She smirked, stood up and walked around the Bureau, in a pensive fashion. “Tell me, Edmund, do you know where the Parana River is located?”

He huffed. “No, and I do not see how that relates to anything.”

“I am getting there, I am getting there.” She smirked and then pointed a map hung on the side of the study. “It is in southern America, between the old colonies of Portugal and Spain, up the estuary of Rio de la Plata.”

Susan walks around the bureau once more and sits back on the chair. “Say, Edmund, would you not mind to take a seat? This would be much easier on both of us.”

As if on cue, and perhaps exactly like that, Miss Daly sat on one of the chairs in front of Susan, while Miss Sutton retained her sneering post on the left corner of the study.

Feeling the tiredness of his ribcage, he begrudgingly complied with a chair next to Briar.

“As I was saying, some nine hundred miles from the mouth of Rio de la Plata, up the Parana River, lays a small village named Encarnación, at the Intendancy of Paraguay. Lovely place, I am told.” She smirked once again, probably out of her own inner joke. “A few years back, I have you hear, their ruler decided to outlaw marriages between any two locally-born Whites. Their men often marry Indians. Isn’t this so very curious?”

“Very.” He grunts. “Again, what does any of this have to do with any of us being here?”

“You see, Edmund, my mother and I were not completely destitute, she could amass some savings out of a lifetime of work. That, coupled with a generous loan from Mr Sinclaire, was just enough to buy a sizeable chunk of land, just outside Encarnación.”

“I see. Are you sailing to the New World, then?” He questions, a tone of hope on his voice.

“Not really.” She responds. “You see, I never hated you. If anything, I pitied you. A mother who did not care for you, a stepfather who would take more to a daughter he never seen before than the son he raised from age five. The only person who loved you, and whom you loved in return, was dead and buried.

“Furthermore, you have no tact for business or administration. You were positively lost with the legers at Edgewater under the watchful eye of the Earl, now that you are alone, you would absolutely wreck the books. And if you did think I would not notice your infatuation with my maid, you are more naïve than I thought.”

Briar chooses that moment to interlock her fingers on his and to smile kindly at him.

“Given our situation regarding the Earl’s last will, and your mother’s delusions, I am here to offer you a way out, so to speak.” She opens a drawer and fetches a few papers. “There is a ship that sails from Liverpool in a fortnight, headed towards Buenos Aires. From there, it is a three-day journey upstream to Encarnación.”

“Susan wants you to leave.” Theresa blurts out, and, under the intense glare of the aforementioned woman, retracts with a, “Pardon me.”

“While I would not put it in quite those terms, yes.” A pause for effect. “I do believe it is mutually beneficial for you to immigrate to Paraguay.”

He looks at the woman dispassionately and then chuckles loudly. “Are you insane, woman?”

“Edmund, please.” Briar holds his hand tightly. “Think carefully. More than once you complained to me your unwillingness to inherit Edgewater. Lady Susan is offering you a way to back off from it, and still have a comfortable lifestyle.”

“Yes, but in Paraguay.” He stresses the word, as if it is poisonous. “How can I trust that this is not a plot to take me away from the country long enough to usurp Edgewater from under me?”

For the disdain for the land, Briar takes her hand away, as if terribly hurt. Edmund notices it, but does not understand why.

“Well, Edmund, I chose Paraguay because it was the most suitable place for you and Miss Daly to live together as a lawfully-wedded couple. There would be no man to bat an eye to it there, of this, I am certain. In here, though…” She trails off.

“The British are harsh with those of different skin colours, and even more so of those who collude with them. If you doubt me, I can have Mr Harper to come here and attest to it. However, if you so desire, I am sure we can find something here in England to your tastes.”

Such a statement made the grinds on his mind to swirl. Edmund did not think about the complications arising from Briar’s skin tone. He was still stuck on those related to her position as a maid and his status as an engaged man.

Furthermore, while he did feel a great deal more strongly about Briar than he did for Miss Sutton, or any other woman, for that matter, he was still unsure about whether he wishes to actually marry her.

“As for whether you can trust me, I am willing to make a concession. The current owner of the estate I am proposing is a business associate of mine, a Frenchman who lived in Paraguay for many years.” She continues, off-handedly. “He has agreed to guide you through your journey from Buenos Aires, to show you the estate. You need only to sign your claim to Edgewater to me if it is all to your liking.”

“What about my mother?” He asks. Wretched or not, he still had a duty towards the woman.

Susan shrugs. “I do not care what you do with her. Leave her here, send for her after you settle, take her with you in the ship. Just be certain she will have no home with me.”

It was to be expected, he considered, seeing how strained is the relationship between his mother, his step-grandmother and his stepsister.

Despite Susan’s assurances, however, he was still very insecure about it all.

“That being said, the ship goes off in fourteen days. While my offer leaves with it, I am sure you can afford a few days to think about it, dear brother of mine.” Susan says, detecting the doubt on his features. “The farmstead is not attached to a marriage to Miss Daly, as well, though I believe it to be in good taste, considering your night-time activities.”

“Very well.” Edmund breathes out. “I will consider your offer.”

The brunette nods. “It is all correct. Miss Daly will be awaiting for you with your tickets and the name of my associate at Ranelagh Place in Liverpool. You needn’t to speak to me about it any further, but I am willing to respond to any further doubts you have. Miss Daly shall relate to me whether you made the deadline or not.

“There is one thing I ask of you, and it is of utmost importance. Do not speak to your mother about my offer. I am trusting you, but I do not trust Henrietta.” Susan glares at the mention of the name. “If I know you consulted with her, I will be interpreting it as a refusal of my generosity.”

“Sure, seems reasonable.” He agreed.

“The major domo shall show you out.” The woman points to the door and he left with no further words.

Later that night, when Briar and Theresa had already left for Liverpool, Susan sat alone at the study with the master of the house.

“Do you think Mr Marlcaster will take it?” Ernest comments, thoughtful. “The deal, I mean.”

Susan hums her affirmative. “I suppose he will. He desires a fight for Edgewater just about as much as I do. He knows he has no talent for administering an estate of such nature, and he has been blessed with the lack of desire for it as well. The Paraguayan farm I offer him is much more manageable.”

The esquire smiles. “In any case, it was generous of you to offer.”

“Eh.” She shrugs. “I know how much value Edgewater holds, monetary and emotionally-wise. If a few hundred pounds and the loss of a handmaid is enough to keep it, then I say it was mighty cheap.”

Taglist: @catlady0911; @choicesyouplayandmore; @cocomaxley; @enviouslylove; @hellospunkiebrewster; @mrsernestsinclaire; @shelivesinthewoods; @tornbetween2loves

[blurose617]

In Her Majesty’s Service Pt 1

The combat boots made a loud *thunk* as they landed in the edge of the desk allowing the wearer to lean back in the chair.

“Please, Your Majesty, not on the desk.”

“Glenna, this desk has survived several hundred years. I don’t think my boots are going to destroy it.”

The older woman sighed, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, Kay, what were we talking about?”

“We were discussing upcoming topics for the next privy council meeting, Your Majesty.”

“For the love of God, please leave the formal titles for when they are absolutely necessary. My name is Jyn. Use it!”

Lord Kay Tuesso sighed. Queen Jynessa “Jyn” had little tolerance for the trappings and expectations of royalty. Hence her aversion to the titles.

“So what do the counselors wish to discuss this time?”

“Your marriage, ma’am”

“My what?” She replied almost falling over backwards in her chair.

A knock at the door interrupted them briefly when a footman announced “Major Cassian Andor.”

Jyn looked questioningly at Kay. “Your new head of security.”

“Oh! Right. Send him in.”

As Major Andor made his way into the room he noticed right off that he was walking into an existing conversation.

“Just a moment, Major. So you were saying Kay that the counselors wish to discuss my marriage? Why?”

“You are the last of your family, Jyn. They want the succession secured.”

“They do realize I’m not…” then “and I suppose they have suggestions?”

Kay gingerly pulled a sheet of paper out of his planner and handed it to her.

“They compiled a list of suitable candidates.”

“Did they?” Jyn responded taking the list from him. She didn’t even glance at it before wadding it up and chucking it in the trash. “Well fuck that.”

“Your Majesty!” Glenna, the queen’s assistant chided at the same time Major Andor tried not to snort.

Jyn quickly stood up, “No, Glenna. Let’s settle this here and now. If and when I get married it will be to the man of my choice. Not theirs. Have I have made myself clear?”

“Quite,” both Kay and Glenna replied.

“That’s enough for now, Kay. I’ll deal with the council and their desire to dictate my marriage later.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kay replied turning to leave motioning for Glenna to follow. The older woman hesitated.

“Glenna, I do not need a chaperone. That boat sailed a long time ago. Go do whatever it is you do when you’re not with me. Please,” Jyn replied.

Glenna curtsied with a “Yes, ma’am and followed Kay out the door.

Jyn turned back to Major Andor. He was definitely attractive and somewhat familiar but she couldn’t place how.

“So, Major Andor, I trust you will forgive me that I don’t remember you. Kay has hired a great deal of new staff for me, most of which I have yet to meet. I do hope you got a satisfactory contract out of him.”

“And why is that, Your Majesty?”

Jyn cocked her head. He was trying to read her just as she was him. “How much do you know about me, Major?”

“More than you probably realize. I knew the late king, your brother, ma’am. We went to university together in the states.”

“You knew Hayden? Well that at least answers why you look familiar. I don’t recall ever meeting you but I probably saw pictures. Hayden was very much into taking pictures. I imagine you were in at least a few if you hung around him regularly. However, that doesn’t answer my question,” Jyn replied taking her seat behind her desk and motioning for him take one of the open chairs.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” he began, taking the offered chair. “You were the spare. Never intended to become queen, and wouldn’t have but for Hayden’s unfortunate accident. You spent ten years in Orinda’s military, rose to the rank of Captain before you were forced to resign your commission last year. You specialized in hand to hand and stealth tactics and you frustrated to your last security chief to the point he quit because you refused to follow his suggestions regarding your safety. How am I doing so far?”

“Surprisingly well. You did your homework. As for my last security chief, I let him quit rather than fire him. He kept assigning very handsy, young officers who were more in awe of my title than protecting me, which we both know I’m more than capable of protecting myself.”

“I will concede that in a close up encounter that you are more than capable of defending yourself. However, you are not a soldier anymore. You’re job is to focus on your country and people. It is not to focus on your security. That is my job. As for the young officers, we’ll fix that problem right now. I will be with you when you go to official events. The others will be wherever I station them but as for the person assigned to your immediate vicinity that will be me and whoever I deem is worthy of that responsibility and trust. Will that be acceptable, ma’am?”

“Only if you call me Jyn when we’re not in public. I hate being called “Your Majesty” and “ma’am”. I keep looking for my parents every time I hear it.”

“Lord Tuesso said you’d be very difficult to manage. So far it’s been easy if all you want is me to use your name within the palace walls.”

Jyn chuckled, “Kay is correct. I am difficult to manage. I’m just going easy on for your first day. Wait til you have to go with me somewhere.” She finished smiling.

“Sounds like a challenge,” he replied allowing himself her smile.

They sat there for a moment before a throat clearing startled them.

“Yes, Kay?” Jyn said with resignation.

“I’m sorry to interrupt but Lord Melvington will be arriving in an hour to discuss his concerns about the budget. Glenna is waiting for you in your rooms to help you change into more appropriate attire,” Kay finished.

“You mean she’s going to harrass me into a blouse, skirt and some ridiculously high heels that I’ll probably fall in.”

“Precisely.”

Jyn stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at Kay.

“So charming, ma’am.” Kay retorted.

“Major, Kay will forward you my schedule so you can begin working the security you’d like in place. I believe my next public engagement is next Wednesday. I’d like to meet Monday to discuss what your plans are. You may be my chief of security but I’m not a child and I want to advised of the plans before we go anywhere.”

“Understandable, Jyn. Just have Kay let me know when you’d like to meet and I will be available.” Cassian replied standing.

[thecitysorrowbuilt]

Roses

As the boys stood, relaxed yet alert, by the refreshments, their attention was attracted to a woman approaching them with a pointed expression. Her face was quite like their initial contact, although she was a great deal younger and more vibrant. Her hair was dark and bouncy, curled tightly, and she wore a severely antiquated but still flattering dress in a distinctly southern style.  “Well, what do you boys have to share with me?” she asked, in a Mississippi drawl. “Ah, uh, I think we actually were looking for your mother. Or maybe grandmother. But, she sent us to look for Renée. We followed the directions and we wanted to know, what kind of prank she was playing.” The woman gave them a quizzical but amused look.  “Well, Renée is right here so I don’t see how you had such trouble finding her. As she should be of course, I don’t know why you’d expect her to be gallivanting about somewhere else.” With this she waved daintily across the dance floor at a young woman who had been watching the interaction with interest. Catching the attention of the increasingly confused party guests, Whip in particular took in her big dark eyes and the way her nose started high and gently curved into a point like a ski slope. She was unmistakably the woman whose grave they had just visited. “I, well-” Whip floundered for a second before shaking his head like a horse shooing a fly. A hand at his shoulder let him know he was being tagged out of the conversation. “Oh, right, yes of course. Yeah, clearly we’re completely confused, I think that we just had the wrong house and the wrong girl. I thought that I had heard Renée, but I think it was actually supposed to be, uhm, railway! Yes, we’re taking a train out of town. Sorry to have disturbed your ahm, prior engagement.” With a quick twitch of his eyes Strap caught his partner’s gaze and let him know the situation was being handled. He then affected a sheepish look and inclined the upper half of his body in a courteous quarter of a bow.  “Come along then bud, let’s let the nice lady return to entertaining.” The woman smiled in the way one grins when confronted with a situation that they don’t understand but that seems to be resolving itself.  “Now don’t you boys even worry about it. I can tell you’re not from around here and I’d be entirely unfair to act as if I’ve never been turned around before.” “Thank you so much ma’am,” Whip said, casting a quick glance at Renée, who had returned to conversing with the other partygoers in her immediate vicinity. “Yes, thank you ma’am.” Strap repeated, with another slight inclination of his head. The woman gave them that smile again and then called for her servant.  “Abernathy, see these young men to the door and make sure they don’t forget their coats or any such.” “Right away madame.” Accompanied by the footman, the pair walked back to the door, taking a careful stock of the surroundings. Once deposited safely outside, Abernathy gave them a wan smile and a slight nod and closed the door. “Well, we found her.” “We did.” “We should’ve asked for the 50k.” “True, missed opportunity to be sure.” “Nothing to do but go home then.” “I suppose that’ll be difficult though.” “Oh yeah?” “Definitely.” Strap nodded in the direction of their parking spot and ran his fingers through his hair in what could be called, “the international sign for ‘fuck this is gonna be a long night’”. Both took in the sight in front of them with a mix of dismay and curiosity. “The car is gone. And everything is different. The entire house has changed.” Passing a smoke in a fluid motion, Whip whirled to take in the strange new Jefferson he had stepped out into. “Do you think we’re-” “Man, I don’t know.” “Well how do we-” “Again, I don’t know.” Something in his partner’s tone rubbed him wrong. Grabbing him by his shoulder, Whip turned to him.  “Honestly man, fuck you. You better not give me any fucking attitude after this shit.” Strap ran his tongue over his teeth under his upper lip.  “Yeah, this shit, right, because I decided on purpose to drag us into some fucking 11/22/60-whenever shit. Because this was my plan all along.” “I don’t give a fuck if it was your plan, you roped me into this and now we’re trapped in fucking To Catch a Mockinbird-land even though I told you very firmly five fucking years ago to leave me the hell alone.” The two stood there on the lawn fuming. Whip continued. “Yeah man, you probably forgot but I sure didn’t. I was very very clear that I wanted no more part of any fucking schemes after Chicago. I told you, I told you, that this, Mommy’s Boys, us, was done. And somehow here I am, trapped in the past like fucking Marty McFly.” Strap looked down, running his hand through his hair again. “Alright man. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was gonna be like this. I honestly, I just, honestly, I thought this was just a chance for us to do a good turn and me to make it up to you. Of course I remember Chicago. I’m sorry.” “Yeah, you’re always sorry man.” The two walked to the street in silence and started in the direction of town.  They hadn’t been walking for incredibly long when a car pulled up alongside them and a window in the back rolled down.  “Now, where are you boys headed to?” Turning his head slowly, Whip looked at the man speaking to them. He was in his early 60s probably, and overweight. His hair was grey but remarkably full for his age. He was well-dressed and clearly wealthy, but the effect of sophistication was ruined by his accent and by the long hay straw that hung from his mouth. “Town,” answered Strap helpfully. “Hop on in then boys, I’ve got room and I’d hate to let you walk all that way. These roads aren’t always safe at night. There’s negros and worse creeping about.” The pair shared a wry look but before Whip could speak, Strap had already accepted the offer.  “Well thank you much sir. We’ll jump on in.”

[feelingsofanotherlife]

Beloved sister, 

we’ve reached safely the pub I told you about! I hope you are doing well, too.

For now we are living at their home and they are very kind and welcoming, just as promised. We will see what the next few weeks will bring since of course we can’t live here forever but for now we are doing fine!

He already started working in the Pub even though he needs to rest more because of his leg. I told him he needs to get better first but he is stubborn as always! He says we need money and that he doesn’t want to live off other people’s earnings. He is right but... I am worried about him. Nobody wants another surgery. Thank god they don’t let him work that much - I guess because they know about his wound. Aren’t they nice and caring! We still have some money left. I mean, I didn’t leave empty-handed either, so you don’t need to worry about us.

I am trying to get used to this life and I already miss you. I’ve always looked up to you and felt like you know how to deal with life. You, as my big sister, always had an advice for me when I came to you at times I didn’t know what to do. You were always by my side and nothing could separate us. In the end, it was me who did. My decisions.

But you know that I couldn’t stay any longer. You saw father. He was furious. He would have never agreed and I couldn’t live there any longer after all that has happened. And I don’t regret leaving. Please don’t show father this letter. He doesn’t need to know. I have no intention of sending him a word. I just can’t forgive him. Not now.

I feel lost at absolutely everything right now and at the same time everything is so exciting and new! All the food, the people, the houses, the way they talk, the way they live! Nobody tells me that this isn’t fit for me or that I can’t say this or that. It’s like a completely different world! And I am so happy I can finally be with him! We just can be whoever we want to be. We are finally free! We walk hand in hand through the streets and I can’t stop smiling when we do that. People refer to me as his wife and I laugh out of happiness whenever they do. None of us corrects them. After so many months of hiding and after so many months of being apart, we can finally be together now. Everything will be alright! Except for the fact that I would love to have you by my side, I couldn’t be happier! This is a new start.

Also, I started a new story! And when I write he is with me sometimes. When he doesn’t have to work. Those times it feels like in the beginning. Actually everything feels like in the beginning right now! Everything is fresh! These days I often think back to the day he came to me for the first time after I told you that I am so insecure about my writing. He heard that and told me he secretly read my writings and liked them. Did I tell you that this is how it all started? I am so sorry I kept it all secret from you for such a long time. Afterwards we met sometimes in secret, so I could read him my new chapters. And along the way somewhere I fell in love. First I didn’t see it. I thought it’s just nice to have a new friend who understands my stories. And when I realized that it’s more than just that, most of the time I didn’t care that he is our footman but there were also days when I tried to fall out of love. When I told myself that this is never going to work. That this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. As much as I already knew that I won’t be content with the life I was supposed to have I was still scared of the unknown.

Now I am in the middle of this “unknown” trying to make my way. I still can’t believe all of this happened. Sometimes it feels like a dream. But as long as he is by my side, everything will be fine. Right now I don’t miss anything from my old life except for you! And uncle. I am still angry at him. Why didn't he come to me before he told father? But he meant well, I suppose. And I miss his way of making me laugh. Making me roll my eyes at him and his unusual way of thinking about our old life. In the end, maybe I have more of him in me than I thought. I remember rolling my eyes at some dinner conversations and thinking about it now, maybe my thoughts weren’t so different from uncle’s. The difference is, I just always tried to keep my mouth shut and nodded.

Hopefully we can talk to each other again in person soon. There is so much I want to tell you about this life and there is so much I want to hear from you! I hope father composed himself and doesn’t give everyone a hard time because of me. I heard that some of our servants won’t be living in the house any longer. I am sorry for what has happened. We caused a lot of trouble for everyone. But I am still thankful for what everyone did to help us being together. I am also so sorry for what has happened to your wedding plans. How are you? If there is anything I can do, please let me know!

I hope to hear from you soon.