Year After Year (Hathaway/Wallflower Next Generation)
Oh. My. GAWD. What the HELL has my update page turned in to??? MAJOR dislike.
Title: Year After Year
Characters: Elizabeth Rutledge, Poppy Rutledge, Annabelle Hunt, Isabelle Gaultier, Edward Hathaway, Leo Hathaway, Mirela Merripen, Brenna Merripen, Tamas Merripen, Mihai Merripen, Win Merripen, Jado Merripen, Kev Merripen
Rating: pg
Word Count: 4,467
Summary: You put your arms around me and I'm home...
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author's Note: Random cuts from my 2011 NaNo, Next Generation fic for Lisa Kleypas's Wallflower & Hathaway series. Not all will be posted, but if you have any certain character you would like to see, let me know and I will see what I have (or perhaps write something new in this universe). This is all set about 20 years after the Hathaway series. For your convenience, cast of characters listed here.
“Elizabeth.”
“Mama.”
They had stolen away to one of the Hunts‘ many guest rooms. Normally, Poppy Rutledge would never be so presumptuous in another woman’s home, but there were obvious extenuating circumstances tonight, and clearly any appearance of etiquette or niceties had been tossed out the window already.
Poppy put her hands on her daughter’s face, tilting her to look her mother directly in the eye. They were the exact same height. When had that happened? “Elizabeth, what happened here tonight? If it’s a case of something that you think might be a scandal, well we can take care of that, I just don’t want you to think you have to-”
“No, it’s nothing like that, Mama,” Elizabeth cut in. “He didn’t...That is, I’m not compromised. We only kissed.”
Poppy pursed her lips. She had never really cared about such things, and had always trusted Elizabeth to use sound judgment and make good choices. That wasn’t what this was about at all. “Elizabeth...do you really intend to marry this man? You hardly know him at all. In fact, you don’t know him at all. How can you-”
“I just know,” Elizabeth had interrupted her mother for the second time that evening, but there was no disrespect in it. She was so sure of herself that it took Poppy aback. “You didn’t know Papa all that well when you met him.”
“Elizabeth, that’s not the best comparison,” Poppy said quickly. Harry had coerced her into marriage under false pretenses. He had lied and cheated and manipulated the situation to his own advantage and she was furious with him at first. But looking at her beautiful daughter, now a young woman so much like herself, Poppy had to admit that it was the best lie she had ever been told and she would not have had her life any other way.
Still, that was not the way she wanted her daughter to enter the institution of marriage.
“Mama, I just know,” Elizabeth repeated, firmly. But she smiled, her pretty blue eyes shining.
“You do know your own mind, don’t you, my dear?” Poppy said quietly, nearly under her breath, and more to herself than to her daughter. She was a Hathaway woman. There would be no telling her what she couldn’t do.
There was a quiet knock at the door, and Poppy went to answer it herself. It was most likely a maid who would be informing them that this room was meant to be off-limits to guests, if she wasn’t there to bodily throw them out of the Hunts’ home, after all of the destruction that this night had caused.
But instead it was Mrs. Hunt herself, with her own stunning daughter, Mrs. Gaultier. “May we come in?” Annabelle Hunt asked politely.
“To a room in your own house?” Poppy asked with a laugh.
*
“All of this, in the Hunts’ entrance foyer?” Lady Rombson laughed gently in the darkness, shifting on the mattress to prop herself up on one delicate elbow. She trailed one well-manicured finger down the length of his arm, causing all of the fine brown hairs to stand on end. “I can only imagine the look on Annabelle’s face.” And she laughed again, low and in her throat, causing his heart to speed up.
Edward turned to his lover. Holly, Lady Rombson as he should have known her, was an ethereal creature in the dark. It did not diminish the gold in her hair, or the green of her eyes - in fact in the dark, her eyes became a tinge of blue, aquamarine like the sea in the south of France he had seen when he was a small child, traveling with his family. Her slender finger was still trailing over his skin, whisper soft, and sending a million tiny sparks shooting all through him.
After the terrible scene at the Hunts earlier, when he had seen his family safely home, and his father had sent him back out with his cousins Rye and Jado (presumably), Edward had made his own excuses to his cousins and stole away to the Rombson mansion in St. James’ Square. He had not told his cousins where he was going, but he suspected that they knew all the same. Besides, he was sure that Lord Rombson would be at Jenner’s, and he would have the perfect two alibis to provide his paramour with a neat cover story.
After all of his talk of honor, after all that he had always felt a bit above his cousins and Rory Bowman and all the other young men of his age and acquaintance, here he was, night after night, tumbling the wife of one of his greatest enemies in Parliament.
Or rather, Lord Rombson would be Edward’s enemy at Parliament, if Lord Rombson knew who the hell Edward Hathaway was, him being so very many years away from being Viscount Ramsay.
And even then, Edward wondered if Rombson would bother to put up a fight when Edward would have opposed him in session, the pompous old prig, not giving a thought or care to anything that did not serve his immediate comfort and pleasure. Edward wondered if Rombson would even have a flare of annoyance knowing that Edward was in Rombson’s wife’s bed this very instant.
But he could not be preoccupied with thoughts of old, sour smelling, wheezing Lord Rombson when he had his sweet, luscious Holly between the sheets, skin on skin, baring everything to one another. Holly was a dream, a fairy tale in woman form - how had she married that old bastard?
Holly was twenty-seven and had been married for over five years already. Her family had owned a rather lucrative cotton factory in York, and were looking to get a leg in the door of good London society. Their pretty daughter was the ticket, no matter that Rombson was three times her age and seemed to have all the affection for her that he did some dog mess he might have stepped in, sticking to his shoe. Edward understood that he was not her first affair, they had begun almost immediately after she was wed.
Even so, he considered himself to be lucky, extremely lucky that she had decided to lay her choice on him, for however long she chose to spend time with him.
She was watching him again, and he knew the look in her eye. It amazed him how attuned he had become to her after so very short of a time. It seemed like almost a lifetime ago when he had been begging his father to take him to brandy nights at various peers‘ homes, so that he might start to get an ear for political advantage, such as the very night that he had first come to the Rombson house and everything that had come before that just had left Edward’s head. What a poor politician he was after all, that he was so easily distracted.
Luckily, his whole family had been so preoccupied all month with what was going on with Emmaline and Elizabeth (and Mirela and as always Anna) and in his own house, Henry was always managing to get into scrapes with his tutors and their father was always having to sit him down for discussions that Edward had been mostly left to his own devices. He was used to this, and felt it was his due as oldest son (Emmaline was the older twin by four minutes but he had always been as protective as an uncle towards her) that he might come and go as he pleased. He was, after all, the ‘responsible one’. It was a point of pride with him, much as he enjoyed spending time with his cousin Rye, and admired his devil-may-care attitude in a good many regards, Edward knew he was meant for something more. He was going to stand for something, he was supposed to stand for something. It had been a bit of a disappointment to see that for the right woman, the right heart, all of his principles, all other clear thinking just fell by the way side and faded to the back ground, to be drowned out to every other sound but his beating heart next to hers and the sight of her, warm and happy and his, wrapped up in his arms.
He made love to Holly at least another three or four times and then quietly dressed while she dozed, giving her a long, searing kiss before he slipped from the room. He had been petrified the first time he had to steal through her house in the small hours of morning like a thief, but it was now a routine that he knew all too well, almost perfectly,, and he knew enough to get that her servants were completely discreet in this matter. He kept no carriage at the Rombsons, even though he had a neat little phaeton that he drove himself around town in (that his brother and younger cousins so loved to accompany him in), instead preferring the short walk back to his parents terrace home, just ten or twelve blocks away, depending on which twists and turns and streets he took. He was becoming perhaps a bit too careless with his habit though, Edward thought to himself, as he neared the home as it was beginning to grow rather light in the sky. While this sort of behavior was not at all uncommon among the ton, indeed it was quite encouraged behind closed doors to keep young wives happy, it would be heavily looked down upon if facts came to unflinching light (as in daylight) and Edward would never do any such thing to harm Holly or her reputation.
Stealing through the cellar door where he had played with his sister when they were little, Edward crept up the back stair case to his own quarters. He had always looked down at the men of the peerage who chose to sleep away their entire day, but he had to admit that even in his youthful age and stamina, it was wearing thin to always be up so late with no sleep whatsoever and creeping home near dawn. He hid behind the back wall of the staircase as he heard a couple of the maids going through the hallway, dimming the nightlights and going about their normal morning routines. They were in no place to judge him, of course, but Edward had not yet learned how to be so casual about just letting anyone, even his own servants, know about his nocturnal activities.
When all seemed silent again, Edward began heading back up the stairs, immensely looking forward to his bed and a good long, uninterrupted sleep, but when he turned the corner, he saw that he was not as alone in the hallway as he had originally thought. Edward would have thought that the entire family would be having an incredible lie-in after all of the events of the night before, which had once again turned the lives of the Hathaways upside down and topsy turvy, but his father was awake, up and dressed and shaved impeccably, his hair gleaming from a fresh bath. Leo was adjusting one of his cuff links when he looked up and saw his son, disheveled from the night before. “Oh,” his father said, his face impassive.
“Um...hello Papa,” Edward mumbled, ducking his head as if he were a child who had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. “Good morning.”
“Good morning indeed, son,” Leo answered, his face remaining unreadable, though there was a slight spark of mischief in his father’s blue eyes.
Edward shifted uncomfortably from side to side, wondering how to explain himself and then wondering if it was even necessary to do so. If it had been his mother he was meeting dressed in the same clothes from the night before, it would have been one thing, but meeting his father was an entirely different story. He decided to stall. “What are you doing up so early?”
At this, Leo raised an eyebrow in surprise, somewhat amused by his son’s pluck. “I’m on my way to the Rutledge, need to make sure that your uncle didn’t destroy the place in a fit of rage last night. Your other uncles are all meeting in the family suite.”
“Circling the wagons, eh?” Edward tried for a conspiratorial smile, but wasn’t sure if he succeeded.
His father laughed and patted him on the shoulder as he passed him in the hall way and it seemed that his son’s secrets were safe.
*
Everyone had slept in quite late that morning, especially after all of the excitement of the night before. Mirela had curled up with Brenna for once, though she usually stayed with Anna since they had come back to London. Her baby sister was not the best sleeping partner, as she was very likely to kick and move about quite a bit, but Mirela needed to be with her little fairy after last night. Though nearly all of the men in her family had left the Hunts’ dinner party with some minor injury or some other, her dear cousin Elizabeth had left an engaged woman.
The girl cousins had only got to spend a few moments together the previous night, before everyone was separated and bundled off to bed. Elizabeth had seemed...somewhat surprised as to how the evening had turned out for her, but there was no question in her eyes when Anna and Addie had breathlessly asked her if she was positive that she wanted to marry Mr. Hunt (‘more than anything else in the world’, Carrie had added with a dreamy sigh). And Mirela knew she was right. She recognized the way Elizabeth said Mr. Hunt’s name Jeremy and the look on her face when she thought of him.
And Mirela could not bear for Anna to ask her why she was crying last night. Anna, who had so many little crushes on boys of families that the Rutledges socialized with, and she proclaimed herself madly in love with each one of them, until a day or two later when she would be on to the next boy. Try as she might to forget him, to lose herself in London, Mirela still caught herself with thoughts of Cian, and the pain was so great at times that it stopped her in her tracks, whatever she happened to be doing. The pain was paralyzing.
And Mirela couldn’t bear that last night, so she crawled into bed with her little fairy, who sometimes sang in her sleep. Mirela joined in, a sweet little lullaby that they had learned from their grainne such a long time ago, and thought of Cian, and of home. There had been no news of him since they’d gotten to London, and she did not dare ask Jado to make any inquiries for her. Still, Mirela was sure of it something was wrong, so very wrong.
When Mirela finally woke up, she knew that the hour was quite late, and also that she was alone, as she had ample room to spread out all the way over the enormous bed, taking all of the pillows and coverlets for herself. She sighed and stretched, listening to the sounds of her family relaxing with tea and breakfast in the next room. The door creaked open, and a curly-mopped little head appeared through the doorjamb. Mirela smiled. “Yes, I’m awake, my little chicken. How long have you been up?”
Brenna grinned and ran into the room, jumping up and bouncing onto the bed. She was dressed in a pinafore that was white but rumpled, as if she had already been at play for some time. Mirela’s heart warmed at her childlike happiness. Brenna had this effect on everyone in their family, from mischievous little Mihai to their stern but loving papa.
Brenna was holding a large piece of drawing paper that had been folded in on itself four times, drawing the four corners together to make its own envelope. Tamas had shown her how to do this, and she presented all of her gift art in this way. “What have you made, little fairy?” Mirela asked. Her sweet baby sister.
“It’s for you,” Brenna grinned widely and Mirela could see where one of her baby teeth was coming loose in the front.
Opening it carefully, Mirela laid the drawing flat, and caught her breath. Her sister was an exceptional artist, particularly for her age, but this was something else. It was West, as he looked in full gallop, and Brenna had even captured that wild, untamed look that had never fully left his eyes, no matter how long Papa and Cian worked with him. It scared everyone else, but it did not scare Mirela.
“You have been very sad since we left Fairwall, and I thought...you must miss West a lot,” Brenna crawled over next to Mirela to examine her work again.
“I do, little fairy, I do,” Mirela breathed, not taking her eyes off the drawing. How smart her baby sister was - how smart children were in general. Because really, it was not just Cian that was calling Mirela home, it was Fairwall and all that Mirela had ever known. She missed her home. She loved her family, but she was of Ireland and London would never, ever be her home.
Mirela’s stomach was grumbling (which amused Brenna a great deal and made her giggle), so she carefully tucked her sister’s artwork away and rose from the bed, taking her wrapper and bundling herself into its toasty warmth before joining the rest of the family for breakfast. Tamas and Mihai were acting out the events of the night before while their mother called to them to sit back down and finish their bread, but she was smiling and laughing along with them anyway. Off in the corner, Jado and their papa were talking quietly, their dark heads bent together, and their eyes and mouths set in serious lines. Mirela was about to go to them to ask what was the matter, but her mother saw her and called out, “There you are, my dear! Come sit, and I’ll pour you a cup of tea.”
How cool her mother was. Mirela knew that she was trying to distract her. Something was wrong - so very wrong.
“Something’s happened,” Mirela said, loud enough for her father to pick up his head and look her in the eye. He was troubled, and she was beginning to get scared.
“Sweetheart,” her father began gently, standing from his seat. He turned to face his oldest son, who could not look up, sighed and crossed the room to his oldest daughter. Out of all their children, she was the only one who resembled Win with long golden hair and bright blue eyes, slightly too large for her face, and though he would have killed or died for any of his children, it had always added another zealous protective streak to how he handled Mirela over the years. “Sweetheart,” he began again. “Fairwall was robbed last week.”
“Oh my,” Mirela said, placing her hand over her heart. “Was anyone hurt, the house, was there any fire or...how did this happen?” She sat down, and her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
“No, nothing like that happened,” Jado finally spoke up and his father shot him a warning look. “Just one...just one thing was taken from the estate.”
Mirela ran all of the possibilities in her mind what could be the one most valuable thing in the whole estate that a thief would want? Her mother took most of her best jewelry with them to London for the season, and while they had very nice, serviceable family carriages, they weren’t terribly in fashion or overstated in their expense. The only thing that was really valuable was... Mirela gasped. “The horses,” she said, and her parents quiet stillness confirmed it. And they were all treating her with such gingerly care because...it had to be... “West.” Mirela felt her eyes blur with tears even as she said the name and she closed her eyes to ward off the sobs. She felt Brenna’s little hands in her lap, reaching out to comfort her, and heard her baby sister’s sniffles.
“Why would someone...oh they will mistreat him, they will try to break his spirit,” Mirela cried quietly into her mother’s shoulder to think of her beloved stallion, her big gentle friend under some cruel thief’s whip. She turned to her father. “Papa, do they have any idea who might have done this?”
Her papa, always so sure and never afraid of anything glanced uncertainly from his wife to his son and back again. “Sweetheart...Love...” He was struggling for his words, and Mirela’s heart slammed into her throat. She knew the name on the tip of his tongue, but she could not, would not believe it. Please don’t say it, she prayed, and then looked to her older brother.
“Cian’s been missing from the estate since the same time,” Jado said flatly, his hands in his pockets.
Mirela’s heart stopped and everything else rushed from the room. This could not be true, this could not be true. Cian, gone? She could not believe it, she could not stand it. But she had known this for weeks, hadn’t she? She had known that something was wrong, and she had been so desperately afraid when they left Fairwall that she would never see Cian again. She had kept trying to tell herself that she was being silly. But she knew. She knew that this was coming.
Jado’s eyes had gone cold, but Mirela knew that he could not be so disaffected. Cian had been his greatest friend as a boy and it wasn’t all swept under the rug so easily. “Mirela...I’m sorry, I know he’s-” But Jado cut himself off, for which Mirela was grateful. Jado knew nothing. Nobody did.
“We’ll find West,” her mother said gently, brushing the hair off Mirela’s forehead, and her lip trembled again. How could Cian do this? Not only to run away from her, but to take West? He knew how connected she was to that horse, how could he...
But then again...he wouldn’t mistreat West. West might love her best, but Cian knew how to work with him, and West would tolerate him.
“No,” Mirela said.
“What was that, dear?” Mama asked, and Mirela sat up, breaking away from her mother.
“No, we won’t find West. If Cian took him, then he will know how to disappear with him,” Mirela bit her lip. “And...he must...need him. For something.”
“For what?” Papa said, raking a hand through his dark hair, just threaded with silver. “If the boy needed money, he knew he could...Well damn it, I just never would have expected this from Ryder’s nephew.”
“You won’t punish Mr. Ryder, will you, Papa?” Tamas spoke up from the corner. He was only just starting to interest himself in the affairs of the grown-ups, and especially after last night’s spectacle, he felt he was quite the little man.
“No, of course not,” Mama said, standing up and following Mirela, reaching out for her again, but her daughter stepped away as if she could not bear any soft, comforting touch in that moment. “Oh, Daniel Ryder...I could see the tear stains on the letter, the poor man.”
“Just leave it be,” Mirela said softly. She had walked over to the window, looking outside to the gray, lifeless London morning. It was mid-April. Ireland would be emerald green at this point, shimmering with dewy mist.
“Mirela, I...I don’t know if I can do that,” her father had joined her and was watching her, with a perplexed expression. “I know the horse was your prize pet, but it was my property. West wasn’t a cheap beast, and...even if the boy grew up alongside my own son...he broke the law. There needs to be repercussions for that.”
“No Papa,” Mirela pleaded and could hear a hint of a cry back in her voice. “Please, please just leave him be. If that’s the end of it, if Cian took West...If he needed him for something....Please just leave it be. I won’t ask for another horse. Please, just...Please.”
Kev leaned back, regarding his oldest daughter seriously. He crossed his arms over his broad chest and drew out the question for another moment more. He had never been able to deny his Mirela anything, from the day she was born, and she hardly ever asked for anything...But a request such as this? Kev’s first instinct was to ask his Mirela what the reason for this was but he feared the answer.
“All right,” he said softly, and Jado looked at him sharply, but Kev silenced his eldest with a single look. “All right, we won’t pursue and prosecute Cian Ryder.” Mirela heaved a sigh of relief, but her father held up a hand to indicate that he was not finished speaking. “And this is the last we will speak of this. Of him. It’s done, do you understand?” Mirela swallowed once and nodded. Kev looked at his wife. Win was his entire life, the center of his universe, she always had been. She nodded to him, and he knew he had made the right decision.
Tamas and Mihai went back to their breakfast, with Tamas sharing his bread and jam with Brenna, and they were mostly preoccupied with their normal day-to-day once again. Jado, Kev and Win were all still looking at Mirela. “I...I don’t feel so very hungry right now,” Mirela said, pulling her wrapper more tightly around her slender waist. “In fact, I think I have a bit of a headache, if you don’t mind if I go lay down for a little while,” she was still talking, distracted, as she left the room, her eyes on the floor, and not waiting so much for permission even though Win murmured a soft of course, dear.
Once Mirela was alone on the other side of the door, she collapsed against it, heaving great silent sobs.
*
Now, instead of making a separate post for this, I just want to show all of you *this*, which just made me *die*...
COVER VERSION FOR THE MOTHERFUCKING WIN!!
<<<333
Title: Year After Year
Characters: Elizabeth Rutledge, Poppy Rutledge, Annabelle Hunt, Isabelle Gaultier, Edward Hathaway, Leo Hathaway, Mirela Merripen, Brenna Merripen, Tamas Merripen, Mihai Merripen, Win Merripen, Jado Merripen, Kev Merripen
Rating: pg
Word Count: 4,467
Summary: You put your arms around me and I'm home...
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author's Note: Random cuts from my 2011 NaNo, Next Generation fic for Lisa Kleypas's Wallflower & Hathaway series. Not all will be posted, but if you have any certain character you would like to see, let me know and I will see what I have (or perhaps write something new in this universe). This is all set about 20 years after the Hathaway series. For your convenience, cast of characters listed here.
“Elizabeth.”
“Mama.”
They had stolen away to one of the Hunts‘ many guest rooms. Normally, Poppy Rutledge would never be so presumptuous in another woman’s home, but there were obvious extenuating circumstances tonight, and clearly any appearance of etiquette or niceties had been tossed out the window already.
Poppy put her hands on her daughter’s face, tilting her to look her mother directly in the eye. They were the exact same height. When had that happened? “Elizabeth, what happened here tonight? If it’s a case of something that you think might be a scandal, well we can take care of that, I just don’t want you to think you have to-”
“No, it’s nothing like that, Mama,” Elizabeth cut in. “He didn’t...That is, I’m not compromised. We only kissed.”
Poppy pursed her lips. She had never really cared about such things, and had always trusted Elizabeth to use sound judgment and make good choices. That wasn’t what this was about at all. “Elizabeth...do you really intend to marry this man? You hardly know him at all. In fact, you don’t know him at all. How can you-”
“I just know,” Elizabeth had interrupted her mother for the second time that evening, but there was no disrespect in it. She was so sure of herself that it took Poppy aback. “You didn’t know Papa all that well when you met him.”
“Elizabeth, that’s not the best comparison,” Poppy said quickly. Harry had coerced her into marriage under false pretenses. He had lied and cheated and manipulated the situation to his own advantage and she was furious with him at first. But looking at her beautiful daughter, now a young woman so much like herself, Poppy had to admit that it was the best lie she had ever been told and she would not have had her life any other way.
Still, that was not the way she wanted her daughter to enter the institution of marriage.
“Mama, I just know,” Elizabeth repeated, firmly. But she smiled, her pretty blue eyes shining.
“You do know your own mind, don’t you, my dear?” Poppy said quietly, nearly under her breath, and more to herself than to her daughter. She was a Hathaway woman. There would be no telling her what she couldn’t do.
There was a quiet knock at the door, and Poppy went to answer it herself. It was most likely a maid who would be informing them that this room was meant to be off-limits to guests, if she wasn’t there to bodily throw them out of the Hunts’ home, after all of the destruction that this night had caused.
But instead it was Mrs. Hunt herself, with her own stunning daughter, Mrs. Gaultier. “May we come in?” Annabelle Hunt asked politely.
“To a room in your own house?” Poppy asked with a laugh.
*
“All of this, in the Hunts’ entrance foyer?” Lady Rombson laughed gently in the darkness, shifting on the mattress to prop herself up on one delicate elbow. She trailed one well-manicured finger down the length of his arm, causing all of the fine brown hairs to stand on end. “I can only imagine the look on Annabelle’s face.” And she laughed again, low and in her throat, causing his heart to speed up.
Edward turned to his lover. Holly, Lady Rombson as he should have known her, was an ethereal creature in the dark. It did not diminish the gold in her hair, or the green of her eyes - in fact in the dark, her eyes became a tinge of blue, aquamarine like the sea in the south of France he had seen when he was a small child, traveling with his family. Her slender finger was still trailing over his skin, whisper soft, and sending a million tiny sparks shooting all through him.
After the terrible scene at the Hunts earlier, when he had seen his family safely home, and his father had sent him back out with his cousins Rye and Jado (presumably), Edward had made his own excuses to his cousins and stole away to the Rombson mansion in St. James’ Square. He had not told his cousins where he was going, but he suspected that they knew all the same. Besides, he was sure that Lord Rombson would be at Jenner’s, and he would have the perfect two alibis to provide his paramour with a neat cover story.
After all of his talk of honor, after all that he had always felt a bit above his cousins and Rory Bowman and all the other young men of his age and acquaintance, here he was, night after night, tumbling the wife of one of his greatest enemies in Parliament.
Or rather, Lord Rombson would be Edward’s enemy at Parliament, if Lord Rombson knew who the hell Edward Hathaway was, him being so very many years away from being Viscount Ramsay.
And even then, Edward wondered if Rombson would bother to put up a fight when Edward would have opposed him in session, the pompous old prig, not giving a thought or care to anything that did not serve his immediate comfort and pleasure. Edward wondered if Rombson would even have a flare of annoyance knowing that Edward was in Rombson’s wife’s bed this very instant.
But he could not be preoccupied with thoughts of old, sour smelling, wheezing Lord Rombson when he had his sweet, luscious Holly between the sheets, skin on skin, baring everything to one another. Holly was a dream, a fairy tale in woman form - how had she married that old bastard?
Holly was twenty-seven and had been married for over five years already. Her family had owned a rather lucrative cotton factory in York, and were looking to get a leg in the door of good London society. Their pretty daughter was the ticket, no matter that Rombson was three times her age and seemed to have all the affection for her that he did some dog mess he might have stepped in, sticking to his shoe. Edward understood that he was not her first affair, they had begun almost immediately after she was wed.
Even so, he considered himself to be lucky, extremely lucky that she had decided to lay her choice on him, for however long she chose to spend time with him.
She was watching him again, and he knew the look in her eye. It amazed him how attuned he had become to her after so very short of a time. It seemed like almost a lifetime ago when he had been begging his father to take him to brandy nights at various peers‘ homes, so that he might start to get an ear for political advantage, such as the very night that he had first come to the Rombson house and everything that had come before that just had left Edward’s head. What a poor politician he was after all, that he was so easily distracted.
Luckily, his whole family had been so preoccupied all month with what was going on with Emmaline and Elizabeth (and Mirela and as always Anna) and in his own house, Henry was always managing to get into scrapes with his tutors and their father was always having to sit him down for discussions that Edward had been mostly left to his own devices. He was used to this, and felt it was his due as oldest son (Emmaline was the older twin by four minutes but he had always been as protective as an uncle towards her) that he might come and go as he pleased. He was, after all, the ‘responsible one’. It was a point of pride with him, much as he enjoyed spending time with his cousin Rye, and admired his devil-may-care attitude in a good many regards, Edward knew he was meant for something more. He was going to stand for something, he was supposed to stand for something. It had been a bit of a disappointment to see that for the right woman, the right heart, all of his principles, all other clear thinking just fell by the way side and faded to the back ground, to be drowned out to every other sound but his beating heart next to hers and the sight of her, warm and happy and his, wrapped up in his arms.
He made love to Holly at least another three or four times and then quietly dressed while she dozed, giving her a long, searing kiss before he slipped from the room. He had been petrified the first time he had to steal through her house in the small hours of morning like a thief, but it was now a routine that he knew all too well, almost perfectly,, and he knew enough to get that her servants were completely discreet in this matter. He kept no carriage at the Rombsons, even though he had a neat little phaeton that he drove himself around town in (that his brother and younger cousins so loved to accompany him in), instead preferring the short walk back to his parents terrace home, just ten or twelve blocks away, depending on which twists and turns and streets he took. He was becoming perhaps a bit too careless with his habit though, Edward thought to himself, as he neared the home as it was beginning to grow rather light in the sky. While this sort of behavior was not at all uncommon among the ton, indeed it was quite encouraged behind closed doors to keep young wives happy, it would be heavily looked down upon if facts came to unflinching light (as in daylight) and Edward would never do any such thing to harm Holly or her reputation.
Stealing through the cellar door where he had played with his sister when they were little, Edward crept up the back stair case to his own quarters. He had always looked down at the men of the peerage who chose to sleep away their entire day, but he had to admit that even in his youthful age and stamina, it was wearing thin to always be up so late with no sleep whatsoever and creeping home near dawn. He hid behind the back wall of the staircase as he heard a couple of the maids going through the hallway, dimming the nightlights and going about their normal morning routines. They were in no place to judge him, of course, but Edward had not yet learned how to be so casual about just letting anyone, even his own servants, know about his nocturnal activities.
When all seemed silent again, Edward began heading back up the stairs, immensely looking forward to his bed and a good long, uninterrupted sleep, but when he turned the corner, he saw that he was not as alone in the hallway as he had originally thought. Edward would have thought that the entire family would be having an incredible lie-in after all of the events of the night before, which had once again turned the lives of the Hathaways upside down and topsy turvy, but his father was awake, up and dressed and shaved impeccably, his hair gleaming from a fresh bath. Leo was adjusting one of his cuff links when he looked up and saw his son, disheveled from the night before. “Oh,” his father said, his face impassive.
“Um...hello Papa,” Edward mumbled, ducking his head as if he were a child who had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. “Good morning.”
“Good morning indeed, son,” Leo answered, his face remaining unreadable, though there was a slight spark of mischief in his father’s blue eyes.
Edward shifted uncomfortably from side to side, wondering how to explain himself and then wondering if it was even necessary to do so. If it had been his mother he was meeting dressed in the same clothes from the night before, it would have been one thing, but meeting his father was an entirely different story. He decided to stall. “What are you doing up so early?”
At this, Leo raised an eyebrow in surprise, somewhat amused by his son’s pluck. “I’m on my way to the Rutledge, need to make sure that your uncle didn’t destroy the place in a fit of rage last night. Your other uncles are all meeting in the family suite.”
“Circling the wagons, eh?” Edward tried for a conspiratorial smile, but wasn’t sure if he succeeded.
His father laughed and patted him on the shoulder as he passed him in the hall way and it seemed that his son’s secrets were safe.
*
Everyone had slept in quite late that morning, especially after all of the excitement of the night before. Mirela had curled up with Brenna for once, though she usually stayed with Anna since they had come back to London. Her baby sister was not the best sleeping partner, as she was very likely to kick and move about quite a bit, but Mirela needed to be with her little fairy after last night. Though nearly all of the men in her family had left the Hunts’ dinner party with some minor injury or some other, her dear cousin Elizabeth had left an engaged woman.
The girl cousins had only got to spend a few moments together the previous night, before everyone was separated and bundled off to bed. Elizabeth had seemed...somewhat surprised as to how the evening had turned out for her, but there was no question in her eyes when Anna and Addie had breathlessly asked her if she was positive that she wanted to marry Mr. Hunt (‘more than anything else in the world’, Carrie had added with a dreamy sigh). And Mirela knew she was right. She recognized the way Elizabeth said Mr. Hunt’s name Jeremy and the look on her face when she thought of him.
And Mirela could not bear for Anna to ask her why she was crying last night. Anna, who had so many little crushes on boys of families that the Rutledges socialized with, and she proclaimed herself madly in love with each one of them, until a day or two later when she would be on to the next boy. Try as she might to forget him, to lose herself in London, Mirela still caught herself with thoughts of Cian, and the pain was so great at times that it stopped her in her tracks, whatever she happened to be doing. The pain was paralyzing.
And Mirela couldn’t bear that last night, so she crawled into bed with her little fairy, who sometimes sang in her sleep. Mirela joined in, a sweet little lullaby that they had learned from their grainne such a long time ago, and thought of Cian, and of home. There had been no news of him since they’d gotten to London, and she did not dare ask Jado to make any inquiries for her. Still, Mirela was sure of it something was wrong, so very wrong.
When Mirela finally woke up, she knew that the hour was quite late, and also that she was alone, as she had ample room to spread out all the way over the enormous bed, taking all of the pillows and coverlets for herself. She sighed and stretched, listening to the sounds of her family relaxing with tea and breakfast in the next room. The door creaked open, and a curly-mopped little head appeared through the doorjamb. Mirela smiled. “Yes, I’m awake, my little chicken. How long have you been up?”
Brenna grinned and ran into the room, jumping up and bouncing onto the bed. She was dressed in a pinafore that was white but rumpled, as if she had already been at play for some time. Mirela’s heart warmed at her childlike happiness. Brenna had this effect on everyone in their family, from mischievous little Mihai to their stern but loving papa.
Brenna was holding a large piece of drawing paper that had been folded in on itself four times, drawing the four corners together to make its own envelope. Tamas had shown her how to do this, and she presented all of her gift art in this way. “What have you made, little fairy?” Mirela asked. Her sweet baby sister.
“It’s for you,” Brenna grinned widely and Mirela could see where one of her baby teeth was coming loose in the front.
Opening it carefully, Mirela laid the drawing flat, and caught her breath. Her sister was an exceptional artist, particularly for her age, but this was something else. It was West, as he looked in full gallop, and Brenna had even captured that wild, untamed look that had never fully left his eyes, no matter how long Papa and Cian worked with him. It scared everyone else, but it did not scare Mirela.
“You have been very sad since we left Fairwall, and I thought...you must miss West a lot,” Brenna crawled over next to Mirela to examine her work again.
“I do, little fairy, I do,” Mirela breathed, not taking her eyes off the drawing. How smart her baby sister was - how smart children were in general. Because really, it was not just Cian that was calling Mirela home, it was Fairwall and all that Mirela had ever known. She missed her home. She loved her family, but she was of Ireland and London would never, ever be her home.
Mirela’s stomach was grumbling (which amused Brenna a great deal and made her giggle), so she carefully tucked her sister’s artwork away and rose from the bed, taking her wrapper and bundling herself into its toasty warmth before joining the rest of the family for breakfast. Tamas and Mihai were acting out the events of the night before while their mother called to them to sit back down and finish their bread, but she was smiling and laughing along with them anyway. Off in the corner, Jado and their papa were talking quietly, their dark heads bent together, and their eyes and mouths set in serious lines. Mirela was about to go to them to ask what was the matter, but her mother saw her and called out, “There you are, my dear! Come sit, and I’ll pour you a cup of tea.”
How cool her mother was. Mirela knew that she was trying to distract her. Something was wrong - so very wrong.
“Something’s happened,” Mirela said, loud enough for her father to pick up his head and look her in the eye. He was troubled, and she was beginning to get scared.
“Sweetheart,” her father began gently, standing from his seat. He turned to face his oldest son, who could not look up, sighed and crossed the room to his oldest daughter. Out of all their children, she was the only one who resembled Win with long golden hair and bright blue eyes, slightly too large for her face, and though he would have killed or died for any of his children, it had always added another zealous protective streak to how he handled Mirela over the years. “Sweetheart,” he began again. “Fairwall was robbed last week.”
“Oh my,” Mirela said, placing her hand over her heart. “Was anyone hurt, the house, was there any fire or...how did this happen?” She sat down, and her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
“No, nothing like that happened,” Jado finally spoke up and his father shot him a warning look. “Just one...just one thing was taken from the estate.”
Mirela ran all of the possibilities in her mind what could be the one most valuable thing in the whole estate that a thief would want? Her mother took most of her best jewelry with them to London for the season, and while they had very nice, serviceable family carriages, they weren’t terribly in fashion or overstated in their expense. The only thing that was really valuable was... Mirela gasped. “The horses,” she said, and her parents quiet stillness confirmed it. And they were all treating her with such gingerly care because...it had to be... “West.” Mirela felt her eyes blur with tears even as she said the name and she closed her eyes to ward off the sobs. She felt Brenna’s little hands in her lap, reaching out to comfort her, and heard her baby sister’s sniffles.
“Why would someone...oh they will mistreat him, they will try to break his spirit,” Mirela cried quietly into her mother’s shoulder to think of her beloved stallion, her big gentle friend under some cruel thief’s whip. She turned to her father. “Papa, do they have any idea who might have done this?”
Her papa, always so sure and never afraid of anything glanced uncertainly from his wife to his son and back again. “Sweetheart...Love...” He was struggling for his words, and Mirela’s heart slammed into her throat. She knew the name on the tip of his tongue, but she could not, would not believe it. Please don’t say it, she prayed, and then looked to her older brother.
“Cian’s been missing from the estate since the same time,” Jado said flatly, his hands in his pockets.
Mirela’s heart stopped and everything else rushed from the room. This could not be true, this could not be true. Cian, gone? She could not believe it, she could not stand it. But she had known this for weeks, hadn’t she? She had known that something was wrong, and she had been so desperately afraid when they left Fairwall that she would never see Cian again. She had kept trying to tell herself that she was being silly. But she knew. She knew that this was coming.
Jado’s eyes had gone cold, but Mirela knew that he could not be so disaffected. Cian had been his greatest friend as a boy and it wasn’t all swept under the rug so easily. “Mirela...I’m sorry, I know he’s-” But Jado cut himself off, for which Mirela was grateful. Jado knew nothing. Nobody did.
“We’ll find West,” her mother said gently, brushing the hair off Mirela’s forehead, and her lip trembled again. How could Cian do this? Not only to run away from her, but to take West? He knew how connected she was to that horse, how could he...
But then again...he wouldn’t mistreat West. West might love her best, but Cian knew how to work with him, and West would tolerate him.
“No,” Mirela said.
“What was that, dear?” Mama asked, and Mirela sat up, breaking away from her mother.
“No, we won’t find West. If Cian took him, then he will know how to disappear with him,” Mirela bit her lip. “And...he must...need him. For something.”
“For what?” Papa said, raking a hand through his dark hair, just threaded with silver. “If the boy needed money, he knew he could...Well damn it, I just never would have expected this from Ryder’s nephew.”
“You won’t punish Mr. Ryder, will you, Papa?” Tamas spoke up from the corner. He was only just starting to interest himself in the affairs of the grown-ups, and especially after last night’s spectacle, he felt he was quite the little man.
“No, of course not,” Mama said, standing up and following Mirela, reaching out for her again, but her daughter stepped away as if she could not bear any soft, comforting touch in that moment. “Oh, Daniel Ryder...I could see the tear stains on the letter, the poor man.”
“Just leave it be,” Mirela said softly. She had walked over to the window, looking outside to the gray, lifeless London morning. It was mid-April. Ireland would be emerald green at this point, shimmering with dewy mist.
“Mirela, I...I don’t know if I can do that,” her father had joined her and was watching her, with a perplexed expression. “I know the horse was your prize pet, but it was my property. West wasn’t a cheap beast, and...even if the boy grew up alongside my own son...he broke the law. There needs to be repercussions for that.”
“No Papa,” Mirela pleaded and could hear a hint of a cry back in her voice. “Please, please just leave him be. If that’s the end of it, if Cian took West...If he needed him for something....Please just leave it be. I won’t ask for another horse. Please, just...Please.”
Kev leaned back, regarding his oldest daughter seriously. He crossed his arms over his broad chest and drew out the question for another moment more. He had never been able to deny his Mirela anything, from the day she was born, and she hardly ever asked for anything...But a request such as this? Kev’s first instinct was to ask his Mirela what the reason for this was but he feared the answer.
“All right,” he said softly, and Jado looked at him sharply, but Kev silenced his eldest with a single look. “All right, we won’t pursue and prosecute Cian Ryder.” Mirela heaved a sigh of relief, but her father held up a hand to indicate that he was not finished speaking. “And this is the last we will speak of this. Of him. It’s done, do you understand?” Mirela swallowed once and nodded. Kev looked at his wife. Win was his entire life, the center of his universe, she always had been. She nodded to him, and he knew he had made the right decision.
Tamas and Mihai went back to their breakfast, with Tamas sharing his bread and jam with Brenna, and they were mostly preoccupied with their normal day-to-day once again. Jado, Kev and Win were all still looking at Mirela. “I...I don’t feel so very hungry right now,” Mirela said, pulling her wrapper more tightly around her slender waist. “In fact, I think I have a bit of a headache, if you don’t mind if I go lay down for a little while,” she was still talking, distracted, as she left the room, her eyes on the floor, and not waiting so much for permission even though Win murmured a soft of course, dear.
Once Mirela was alone on the other side of the door, she collapsed against it, heaving great silent sobs.
*
Now, instead of making a separate post for this, I just want to show all of you *this*, which just made me *die*...
Click to viewCOVER VERSION FOR THE MOTHERFUCKING WIN!!
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