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 Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 9:12 am
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Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 9:15 am
legitimacy
location rosehill; ashworths' manor
time edgar's 15th year
summary edgar discovers, to his horror, that his father is not his father Edgar had his speech worked out down to the dramatic pauses: Father, the new colt you bought has not the strength to pull a cart nor the body for it. He has legs to make a hunter yet, if you will hand him to Young Trace to train.
He wasn’t too hopeful. Nothing Ed knew about his father convinced him that Lord Ashworth would readily acquiesce to a request and even less so a request made by his son. Already the anticipated rejection stung and Ed was not known to stand up frequently for horses, but he had seen the leggy bay the morning it had been delivered to Dawnhill and had known immediately that it would never make the carriage horse his father expected of it. Ed could quite understand the pain of trying and failing to do something he was not physically programmed to do; perhaps he had seen a piece of himself in the future he saw for the colt, or perhaps he was experiencing a belated onset of teenage rebellion, but something about that colt sparked a reaction in him. For one who had, for the past fifteen years, largely left his father’s business alone and who felt more like family to his servants and tutors than he ever had to the man who ran the manor, it was a dramatic change indeed. It was the reason, most likely, for his apprehension now.
When Ed thought back over the years of his life that he did remember, he could count the number of personal interactions he had had with his father on his fingers and toes. Lord Ashworth was nothing to Ed save another being in the house, always enclosed in his study or away on business and always nothing less than cold and unbearably distant. Edwin Ashworth never scolded his son or beat him, but neither did he ever talk to the boy or even deign to look his way. If the lord had been asked to describe Ed’s features or to name the color of his eyes, the chances of him being able to do so were slim at best. He certainly did not know what the boy enjoyed or even what he was like, and he never showed signs of wanting to know.
That, perhaps, was the most difficult part for Edgar to take. Some days, he almost yearned for a good scolding; disapproval meant that his father cared, at the very least, which was more than Ed dared say about Lord Ashworth. He had never wanted anything more than the slightest attention from his father, and as a child he had spent hours poring over the many ways he might earn it. Of late, though, such thoughts came to him less and less. He was almost a grown man now and there was no use dreaming about something he would never get, and much as he resented that, his father was family. Those cards were dealt by birth and fate.
Some days, Ed even found himself wondering what it would all have been like if he had been born the son of a stablemaster or a chef. Old Trace ran his father’s stable, a tough old man with a leg left crooked by a bad fall years ago and a magic touch with horses. He could no longer ride but Young Trace could sit any horse thrown his way, and father and son together turned out most of Dawnhill’s champions. The bond between the two Traces was palpable; they were partners as much as they were family.
Most of the manor’s servants understood Ed’s position and none of them begrudged his efforts to become a part of their family. The chefs welcomed his company though he was not talented with foodstuffs, and let him sample their dishes more often than not when he went to the kitchens. The maids gently teased him for being as dark as any working man and warned him not to spend too much time down at the docks, lest some wayward whore mistook him for a sailor looking for a poke. Old Trace in particular seemed to take pity on him. Though the old stablemaster refused to let Ed help out physically, he always let the boy trail along and would even explain the training he gave the young horses. Years ago, Old Trace had taught Ed how to ride on the old, poky gray pony that Young Trace had learned to ride on. “Not much of a rider, are you, young sir?” Old Trace guffawed upon seeing Ed flail about, all arms and legs on the stodgy pony. But at least Ed had learned. He would never be as talented a rider as Young Trace, but he knew enough to know that the new colt in the stables needed an intervention.
Edgar padded down the long hallway to his father's study, slippered feet soft on the plush red carpet that lined the way. Spring had come again after a long winter, but it seemed to Ed as though the warmth of the sun had forgotten to reach the corners of Dawnhill. There was a distinct chill to the house that seemed to get only chiller as he made his way toward the study. The boy shivered in his nightclothes.
When he reached the end of the hall, he saw that the study's door stood ajar. Candles lit the room, but the fireplace was noticeably empty and the room was unoccupied. "Father?" Ed eased the door open and craned his neck around the corner, gaze sweeping the room once to ensure that the man was not present. "I could... wait for his return, I suppose," he said aloud, as much to convince himself to stay as to stave off the loneliness that seemed to echo through the study. Even the books that line the shelves in this room seemed neglected; heavy tomes bound with red and black leather stood upon the bookcase, coated with fine dust that obscured the writing on their uncracked spines. Edgar had never read the books in his father's study before. Their titles were not ones he remembered. Slipping into the study, he made his way to them and blew the dust away, tilting his head to read the finely printed letters on the covers. Woodbine and The Soldier's Sails and Rains over Rhyneland, all yellowed with age and untouched.
When he had finished perusing the titles, Ed backed away from the formidable shelves toward the thick oaken desk that crowned the study, a behemoth of dark wood and expert craftsmanship that seemed a greater treasure to Edwin Ashworth than his son did. Years of learning to worship the desk had taught Ed not to touch it, for fear of accidentally putting a scratch on its lovingly lacquered surface. Delicate patterns were inlaid on the desk's four legs, wild grass and flowers waving upward. The boy knelt to inspect them. His fingers traced one of the stems until it ended at the side of the desk and he peered over the top of the desk to the pages strewn across its top. Correspondences, Ed guessed, ones important enough to avoid the flames of the candles lighting the room. He stood slowly, lifting one of the pages from the desk.
"Lord Ashworth," he read. "The winds are blowing well; the ships will be in port sooner than expected. Buyers should be notified. Sandrino." His grandfather, then, still making use of Lord Ashworth's connections for wealthier clients years after his daughter had died. Ed had not met his mother's father many times in his life, and never after his mother's death; he had heard from the servants that his father had forbidden it, though none of them knew why.
Ed skimmed through the next few, party invitations all, from other minor lords in the city. His father would go to those, Ed knew, to cultivate better relations; soon enough, a less minor lord would be at one of these minor gatherings and there would lie Lord Ashworth's opportunity to catapult himself into the upper echelons of the upper class.
The last one lay half buried beneath the rest, and unfinished letter written in his father's thin and loopy hand. Ed shifted the rest of the pages aside to lift the half written letter from the pile. It was addressed simply to "Berwin," who was presumably a relation of his father's; a brother perhaps, or an uncle. A note about the state, some words about the trade ships inbound, and then...
As to the boy, arrangements will not be necessary for his arrival with me. He is no son of mine, and what Leana did in her spare time is no concern of mine. I suffered this sailor's boy for her sake, but now she is gone and I see no reason to burden myself with his business any longer. Should I produce another, a legitimate heir, the boy will be turned out promptly on. Alas, I am not as young as I once was, and somebody must carry on the name of Ashworth, else my years of toil will all have been for naught.
Edgar's fingers froze around the page. It did not take a reader to piece together the meaning of Lord Ashworth's words. Suddenly he felt as if he had swallowed something far too large for this throat and he could feel every beat of his heart against his ribs. A sudden clarity had come to him, though not one Ed would have wished for. He was not Lord Ashworth's son. This was not the fate his birth had laid for him; all those years, all those years of distant coldness, of emotional unavailability he had suffered... none of that should have been. All those books he had read, all those customs he had learned from his tutors, everything his childhood had made him... none of that was real. None of that was what he was meant to be or have or do.
He might even have had a real family.
The sob that came unbidden was strangled in the lump that blocked his throat. All of a sudden, the study was the last place he wanted to be. The letter fell from open fingers and he scrambled to stuff it back under the pile of letters where it belonged. Then he was running, out the door and back down the long carpeted hallway. Tears blurred his vision as he dashed unceremoniously past one of the maids. A desperate cold filled him, making him shiver and his arms feel numbs. He ran for the library. The doors opened as he pushed his shoulder into them, and he burst through and ran to the thick rug before the hearth. Here, a fire blazed merrily, casting a yellow glow to the vast room. Before the fire, his legs crumpled and he sat, trying to warm himself in the heat.
But it was a cold that spread from inside him, an angry cold that devoured warmth, and it would be hours before that mortal fire beat back its dark despair.
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Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:09 pm
allow us to be frank
location darrowdown, palisade
time early 1798, the tail end of winter
summary edgar seeks some advice from andrus kinross Dear Mister Ashworth,
I am sorry to have inconvenienced you with my earlier letter of invitation. As it were, I feel I must be frank and explain my actions properly. My mother's sister has a daughter, young and frivolous as we are all apt to be in youth, whom she has sent to Palisade in the hopes that she will learn something of Sunderland's culture and, with luck, find herself a worthy suitor. I will admit it was my intention to invite you to Darrowdown to see if you might not be that suitor, and it was only after the pigeon had flown that I was informed of your recent engagement. I can only offer you my congratulations and a sincere wish that you will find Miss Winfield to be the companion every man deserves, and you hers. On this note, I will say that my original invitation to visit at Darrowdown remains unchanged. I have no doubts that we will have much to discuss.
Most sincerely,
Andrus Kinross
Edgar Ashworth laid the letter down and smoothed it out almost compulsively with one hand. The implications of the message were baffling: him, a potential suitor for the Kinross' cousin? Rumor had it - and the rumors had spread with alarming speed upon her arrival - that Ysalone Jolivet was tall and svelte and fair, with a smile that wilted barriers and a lustful charm that was anything but Sunderlandian. Many a viscount or even an earl would pay to have her for a wife and yet Andrus Kinross, who by all accounts had been designated as her father's proxy, had thought to turn to a baron's son? Edgar supposed it was the highest compliment. But based on what? As far as he could remember, the interaction between himself and the young Lord Kinross was limited to the few occasions in which they had crossed paths at banquets, and they had exchanged little outside of friendly greetings.
But Lord Kinross was one of the rare ones. As the son of an earl, he was afforded the chance to grow up around other sons and daughters of earls, even the occasional son of a duke. It was a generational group entirely on its own, but where many others of equal status deemed it unbecoming to interact extensively with those below them, Lord Kinross had nothing but charming smiles and kind words for everyone else. Little wonder that he had built himself a reputation as the most charming young lord this side of the Thrithing and one of Palisade's most eligible bachelors to boot.
"What do you say, Don? Do you think we would have much to talk about?" Edgar leaned back against the tree under which he sat and looked up to watch the leaves dance above him in the breeze, trying his best to envision how a visit to Darrowdown might unfold. They might have some tea, discuss something petty - politics, perhaps, or the hunt - and Lord Kinross might give him a tour of the stables or the kennels, as lords were like to do when they ran out of topics to discuss. "I don't imagine it could go too poorly. At least he is no Lord Farrington. But why me, do you suppose, Don? Of all the lords in Palisade."
At that, the buck lifted his head fixed him with a penetrating stare. Under that look, at once incredibly warm and surprisingly stern, he felt his questions fall away, leaving him with only one answer: that somehow, somewhere he had impressed Lord Kinross with himself. Who he was meant more than any mere title, and perhaps Lord Kinross had seen that over everything else. Certainly, Lord Kinross was a perceptive person and much less self-involved than some of his counterparts.
"Let us not waste any time then," Edgar said, rising from the ground and brushing out his clothes. Dardanos grunted his acknowledgement and waited for his Chosen to swing aboard. His strides were long, beating a strong and steady beat into the dirt paths that took them out of Rosehill Manor and toward Palisade, through the heart of the city and onto the fringe of Palisade where sprawling estates flanked the road. The cramped buildings gave way to fields and rolling hills, out of which rose Darrowdown. Long before Edgar saw the manor, he saw the low brick walls that shielded the estate from the rest of the world, and then the wrought iron gates in which the form of griffin had been worked with wings outstretched. Behind the gates stood the manor house, built of golden cotswald stone and set atop a slight hill. There was a certain air of majesty to the place, reminding the world that it had stood for generations and housed one of the most prestigious noble families in Sunderland.
"Nothing like Rosehill, hm?" Edgar said, half in awe as Dardanos clipclopped up the path to the manor. Their home in comparison was small and underwhelming, set on several acres of land that looked nothing like the endless waves of grass that stretched out behind Darrowdown. But as with all things, such luxury did not come for free. Edgar was well aware of the responsibilities Lord Kinross' station imposed upon him. At the very least, if Edgar had been born to Lord Kinross' station, his days of training at the Swan would never have come to pass.
He swung down from Dardanos' back as the grand front doors opened and Lord Kinross himself appeared, poised as ever and flanked by several footman. "Mister Ashworth, welcome," he said, flashing that famous smile of his that could charm even the coldest of men. "Please, allow Ronald to take your coat, and your Guardian, he may choose to come inside or relax in our stables if he so desires."
"Lord Kinross, a pleasure as always," Edgar returned, allowing the footman to take his coat as he followed his companion up the stairs. "Dardanos wishes to be no nuisance, so the stable will suit him quite well."
Lord Kinross nodded and waved to a groom who hurried over to lead the buck to the stables, leaving Edgar to marvel at the height of the lofted ceilings and the stairs that curled toward the second floor. Everything felt warm in Darrowdown, warm and well-lived in, exactly as if a family had lived in these very halls for hundreds of years. There was none of the cold and standoffishness that Rosehill's halls were apt to bear, although there was a certain quiet that seemed to pervade the halls, as if it was once a hub of activity that had since died down to house a somewhat lonelier bunch.
"Please, Mister Ashworth, this way," Lord Kinross said, motioning for them to continue down the hall. "We will be comfortable in the parlor, and have a beautiful view of the grounds."
Edgar followed him into the parlor, where tea and a plate of delicately placed biscuits had been laid out. "Just Edgar is more than enough, my lord," he said, taking the offered seat. If Lord Kinross was surprised by the irreverence, he didn't show it. Instead he smiled appreciatively and nodded as he took the empty seat across the table.
"In that case, Andrus is more than enough for me," he said. Especially behind closed doors, he preferred the feeling of closeness that "Lord Kinross" simply failed to provide. The thought that they all might be friends was reassuring, even if it did not always prove to be true.
Leaning back in his chair with surprising casualty, Andrus reached for a biscuit and popped it into his mouth, as if the two of them had been sharing tea for years now and were more than ready to dispense with the formalities. "So this cousin of mine," he began, shaking his head. "She certainly is a handful. Have you met her? A firecracker if I've ever seen one, and accustomed to running wild on her father's estate in Gallia. I fear she does not see the charm in Sunderland that I do. She thinks us all terrible bores." There was something in his smile though, a certain wistfulness that suggested a reluctant appreciation of Ysalone's purported wildness. It was almost as if she reminded him of someone else, someone who existed now only in Andrus' fond memories.
"I have only heard the stories. Regrettably," he said truthfully. The gossip he had heard suggested that Ysalone was a mite different from the noblemen and women who tended to grace Palisade's social scene. If she did, in fact, think them all bores then perhaps she herself would be less dull, less preoccupied by shallow pursuits than many of the women Edgar knew. Or perhaps it was a naive sort of idealism that allowed him to think that way. "Stories of her beauty, too."
Andrus' smile brightened, as if he took some personal sort of pride in Ysalone's beauty. "That she is, if I may say so myself. Don't think me obligated to praise her because she is my kin. This cousin of mine, she certainly is beautiful." He had another biscuit and a sip of his tea. "But I don't know what to do with her... Her father sent her to me in the hopes that she would learn some finer manners, perhaps that she would settle down enough to find a good husband. Somehow I don't foresee that happening. Her antics... running away from her lady's maids..." He stared off into the distance for a moment, as if contemplating his options.
"Ah, but enough of her. How about you, then, Edgar? Tell me about your lady. An engagement is a joyous affair, is it not?" Andrus' eyes danced with mirth. The irony of his words was not lost on him; he, who had turned down no small number of offers to wed powerful men's daughters - and for what? Nobody really knew. He had the connections, the money, the reputation needed to secure a good marriage for himself, which made it anyone's guess why he had yet to do so.
"Any man would be lucky to have Miss Winfield for a wife," he said dutifully, doing his best to make his words come out less stilted than they sounded in his head. It was difficult enough to get excited about his impending marriage to Eliza Winfield when he was alone; doing so in company was no less of a struggle.
But whatever acting skills Edgar thought he had weren't enough to fool Andrus. Or perhaps Andrus had suspected it all along. He cast Edgar a sly glance and said, "Not jumping for joy, are we? There is something more to this story, is there not? Perhaps I can be of assistance."
Edgar allowed himself a nervous smile. "Our fathers determined the match. There isn't much more to tell." Certainly, none of his own worries were suitable conversation topics for tea. And if word was to get out that he was discussing his new engagement in a less-than-positive light, the potential backlash could be traumatic for everyone involved.
"Mmm." Andrus did not sound convinced. "Have you met her, at least?"
"Yes, not long ago. Tea," he said, wondering if he was stepping into a trap of some sort.
"And?"
"And... she was lovely. A wonderfully educated lady."
"That bad?"
"Bad?" Edgar spluttered, almost knocking his tea over in his haste. "I hardly said that."
Andrus studied him carefully, smiling. "No, but neither are you bursting to tell me all about her. I can only assume it was not the most auspicious first meeting."
It all left Edgar open-mouthed and wondering what he could or should say back. Once the initial and sudden instinct to deny everything had passed, it became obvious that Andrus had gotten to the heart of it. Not that he was entirely correct; Edgar could hardly consider his first meeting with Miss Winfield bad. It had gone rather better than he had expected, but neither was it a wonderful memory. Awkward, mostly, was the impression he had gotten. Neither of them had really known what to say to the other.
Somewhere in his frantic search for a response, Andrus caught his eye. "Come, Edgar, I want to help. I'm not here to sabotage your marriage, believe me. There is nothing that saddens me more than to see marriages that have not an ounce of love in it. Nobody deserves that." He shrugged ever so slightly, gaze still fixed upon Edgar's. There was a certain ring to his words that seemed so genuine. "Come, friend, tell me." And somewhere between the stare, the words and the smile, Edgar felt, quite magically, as if he could indeed tell Andrus anything. It seemed like the right thing to do, the safe thing to do, and all the worries of his words coming back to haunt him seemed to evaporate.
"Well..."
"What is it, then? You didn't want it, I imagine."
Edgar shook his head. "No. It was... quite the surprise, really. He didn't even have the decency to warn me. He didn't tell me until the morning I met her." The memory of Lord Ashworth's impersonal note was enough to start his rage building. "He did it on purpose. He knew I wouldn't like it. But it was good for him, the b*****d, and he got to show us all who's in charge."
"And Miss Winfield? Surely she was not as bad as you had imagined."
"Yes, well... I thought for a moment he would have picked a terrible one, just to make it worse. But Miss Winfield is hardly terrible. A bit shy, but a proper lady nonetheless. Then I realized, he probably knew he would have to see her every day in the future, and didn't want to pick a horrible wife for me."
"So what's the problem? She's beautiful, she isn't terrible..."
"The problem?" Edgar echoed. "The problem, Andrus, is the principle behind it all! The fact that he thinks he can just do things like this! And she's all that, but that hardly means we get along, now does it? We had hardly anything to say to each other, really, except for when I introduced Dardanos, and a little about books, and even then, the only thing I learned about her was that she--" He stopped short, thinking that perhaps that wasn't information to be shared. But then Andrus gave him a quizzical look, and magically, his concerns slipped away again. "Well, she mentioned something about enjoying romance. Not explicitly, but... well, I asked her by accident..."
Andrus let out a triumphant laugh. "There it is, then! Just romance her, dear fellow!"
Edgar stared at him. "Romance her? No! But... the whole principle of this--"
But Andrus stood up, cutting him off. "Listen to me, Edgar. Do you like this Miss Winfield? Even a little?"
Edgar started to shake his head, but then stopped. "Well, I... I hardly know her well enough to know that."
"Fine, then you don't dislike her," Andrus conceded. "Look at it this way: the fact that you are engaged means the principle behind this is that your father can do it. And he has. There's no real way out of this unless both your fathers decide against it, which is unlikely. So you are left with two options. You can continue to exist in awkward silence with your future wife, or you can actively try to create a better experience for both of you." Edgar opened his mouth to retort, but Andrus cut him off again. "Or do it spite your father, then, if not for you or for her. Show him you won't let him turn your life to misery."
Edgar stopped. Now that had his attention. The idea of spiting his father by doing the exact opposite of what was expected... There was a certain allure to it all. And Andrus, sensing that he had finally gotten through to his friend, grinned again. "It doesn't matter what your motivations are, Edgar. Not for now, anyway."
Edgar nodded, already thinking. "Except I haven't many grand ideas as to how to go about doing it."
Andrus chuckled. "Not yet. I can help you there." He turned and waved to one of the footmen standing quietly outside the parlor. "But this does call for more tea."
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