Thursday, August 9, 2012

A Love So Beautiful - Chapter 7


Disclaimer: These characters are the sole property of Stephenie Meyer. I am just messing around with them.
A/N I don’t have a pre-reader or a Beta or anything of the sort. All mistakes are mine and mine alone.

-x-X-x-

A Love So Beautiful

Hertfordshire, England 1889.

When I was but a girl, momma used to read me storybooks before I went to bed. We would sit in front of the fire and she would read me books filled with dashing princes and beautiful princesses.

I used to imagine that one day Edward would be my prince. That he would come to my rescue while I was being held in a high tower and take me away to live with him in his castle.

As a small child those romantic adventures seemed like the most fantastic experience I could ever wish for. To have dragons and battles to fight before you could be with the one you loved, your prince. It seemed like such an enchanting dream in my innocent child’s mind. Now faced with real life dragons that threatened to keep my prince from me I did not deem the fairy tale as marvellous as I once had.

I am restless, counting the minutes until Alice appears through the window with my prince. Alice, my unexpected fairy godmother. She had been so kind in her offerings to assist me. I know part of the reason lies in her own tumultuous history with love. If she didn’t get her fairy tale ending she wants to help Edward and I get ours.

Suddenly, a soft knocking in my window takes me away from my troubled thoughts.

“Edward,” I gasp as if I’ve just been handed a pardon mere seconds before being escorted to the gallows. I know is not wise to have high hopes in this reunion but I can’t help my heart from lurching inside my chest.

I open the window slowly, fearing what awaits me on the other side.

Alice is standing there, wearing a dark cloak that aids the soft dusk light in shielding her from prying eyes. Behind her, Edward stands, wearing a bewildered expression, as if he was seeing a ghost.

“You tricked me!” I hear him hiss in Alice’s ears.

“I was doing you a favour,” she whispers as she pushes her brother inside with a force that does not match her petite size.

“My apologies, Bella,” Alice addresses me as she enters my room behind Edward. “My brother was too busy emulating a mule so I had to embellish the truth a little to make him accompany me.”

“Embellish?” I hear Edward protest behind me.

“Okay, I lied! Feel better, dearest brother?”

“Hardly,” Edward replies as he unceremoniously plops himself into an armchair by the fire.
I feel an odd desire to laugh at the siblings’ antics. While growing up I always envied Edward for having an older sister in whom he could relied on. As an only child I always wondered what it would be like to have someone with whom to share my happiness and sorrows and who would tease me the way Alice teased Edward.

“I tried to explain to him that he needed to speak to you but her refused. Thus, I invented a lost jewel to lure him to Beachcombe House. He would not be swayed to meet with you but I outwitted him.” Alice smiles as she has just accomplished a great feat.

“Well now,” she continues. “I’ll be drinking some tea in the drawing room while you chat. I’ll see if Lady Renee and Lady Beachcombe are willing to share a few cups with me.”

I look at her perplexed while she speaks to me directly. “I already said all I needed to say to this obstinate boy. Now I leave him in your hands. Do your worst, he probably deserves it.”

Alice turns toward the window and before she descends the balcony stairs that lead to the garden she points her finger at Edward and says, “Tell her everything or so help me…” she trails.

Edward’s eyes harden at Alice’s words but he nods.

-x-X-x-

We sit in silence for a long time and I’m almost certain Edward will not utter a single syllable before Alice returns.

As I’m giving up hope he finally decides to speak.

“Father said that if I choose to marry you he would disinherit me and cut me off from the rest of the family. He cannot refuse me the title of Earl of Masen because it’s entailed but he can deny me his monetary support. I instructed that he could shove the entire family fortune up his arse because I don’t give a whit about any of it.”

“You did not say that!” I say, a mixture of appalled and awed at Edward’s fearlessness.   Lord Carlisle, Earl of Masen, is a fierce man, a true force to be reckoned with. Men all over England fear him and yet his sixteen year old son dared to disrespect him and challenge him in the process. All of it on my behalf.

“I did,” Edward says with a gentle smile that doesn’t ring true. “A lot of good it did,” he adds in a sad tone and proceeds to avoid my eyes by looking out the window.

I go to him and lower myself on the floor beside his chair. Not an easy task given the width and volume of my skirts. I place my head gently over Edward’s arms, showing him that no matter our current predicament I’m still his friend.

He looks at me and I can almost see in his eyes the words he has yet to speak aloud.
My breathing quickens under his intense scrutiny. I feel dizzy.

“Do you love me, Bella?” he asks unexpectedly, daring me to speak the words first. I almost want to deny them, to lie, minimize my feelings for him, but I choose honesty instead. Edward is after all my one true friend.

“From here to forever,” I state without speaking the actual words.

Edward nods as if acknowledging my reply and looks out the window.

“I love you beyond forever,” he says and my heart stops for an instant before restarting.

He lifts me from my place on the floor with ease and places me on his lap. He’s hugging me to his body while I bask in the words that I so desperately sought to hear from his lips.

“I love you so intensely sometimes I feel as if my chest will burst from lack of space. My heart is full with you my Bella and there’s nothing I desire more in this world than to grow old with you. Nothing I want more than to love you until my last breath.”

I let Edward’s words wash over me like a tidal wave, cleansing me from the doubts that had plagued my mind ever since he refused to fight for us.

I shiver in Edward’s embrace and I feel his hold tighten around me before he continues, “We would have been so happy,” he says in a dispirited voice.

I turn in his arms and study his features. He looks as if he’s looking at Paradise’s doors and turning away in the opposite direction.

“My father—"  Edward cuts himself off as if the words hurt as they tumble out of his mouth.

I look at him beseechingly, asking without asking that his next words are not another closed door on our future.

Edward kisses me then, softly at first, deep and unyielding the next second.  He’s kissing me with the tenderness of first love and the longing of love lost. It hurts me as it warms me all over. I can feel our tears mingling between our lips. Their savoury taste mixing within our caressing tongues.

After some time, the fleeting light of the sun disappears in the horizon and Edward’s kisses stop with it.

I take a deep breath sensing his next words will cut me to the quick.

Edward clears his throat before he can garner the courage to continue. “My father said that if I did not care about honour or my inheritance that I should at least care about my mother.”

I’m about to protest but Edward stops me by placing a finger over my lips.

“Please, I need to continue. I don’t know if I’ll have the strength if you make me stop now.”

I stay very still as he proceeds to rip my heart out with his next words.

“My mother is very ill. She has been for a while, ever since she birthed me. Father always said that she was of a weak disposition, but I always suspected there was something more. Today when father made his announcement of the marriage arrangement, he told me of the true nature of my mother’s condition. Mother, she suffers from a heart condition. That’s why she stays all year long in Masen House even when father spends most of his time in London. Her condition was exacerbated by each of her pregnancies. According to my father the doctor had advised after Alice’s birth that my mother should avoid having another child. But mother was so hopeful, so obstinate, she decided to try again, give my father his heir. Ever since I was born her health has been worsening with each day. My father says she could have a relapse and leave us any day now.”

I am shocked by Edward’s confession. Is Lady Esme that ill? She always seemed delicate to me, but I’ve known her as a pale, almost ghost-like woman for so long I never attributed it to an illness of some sort.

“Does Alice know?” I ask Edward while I retake my seat across from him. I need some space between our bodies if this conversation takes the turn I fear.

“I told her before we came here. She believes father is exaggerating to force me to bend to his will. I know father well enough to know he would not lie about mother’s condition regardless of my lack of cooperation with his plans.  If there’s one person in this world my father has ever truly loved that person is my mother. He would not use her like that.”

“But he’s using her,” I state in outrage. “He’s using her condition to force you to accept his mandates! Even if he’s saying the truth he’s using her!”

Edward blinks as if he hadn’t considered that angle of the situation, then shakes his head as if dispelling an ugly thought.

“It doesn’t matter. He’ll keep me away from her and sacrifice her if it saves his honour. In spite of my father’s questionable behaviour I can’t bring myself to fail my mother as badly as he has. If she’s dying then I have to do my utmost effort to make her last days peaceful ones.”

“Edward, your mother adores you. She was suffering along with Alice when your father forced her to marry Lord Jasper. Do you really think your sacrifice will bring her any happiness?”

“She doesn’t need to know. I can make her believe that I love Victoria. I can make her believe it’s a love match.”

“To what purpose?” I demand. “She’s your mother. She’ll see right through your lies. And what if she lives long enough for you to truly marry Victoria? What if she lives for the next ten years? No one knows when the Lord might call upon then. Even the most renowned doctors have been known to be mistaken. Her doctor could be wrong and you would be sacrificing your happiness for naught!”

“My Bella,” Edward says in a soothing voice. “If roles were reversed and it was your mother in this condition would you not do the same as I?”

Edward’s question takes me by surprise. In truth I hadn’t considered Edward’s predicament in that light. I couldn’t say that I would be reacting any different from Edward.

Tears start to choke me as I attempt to hold them at bay.

“Maybe you could wait for me?” Edward offers cautiously, fear palpable in his voice.

“What do you mean?” I ask, puzzled.

“If mother’s health improves before a wedding day is set I would try to convince her to leave father and come with me to America. I would leave all behind, break the engagement and come to you. It’s my last hope.”

And a fleeting hope at best, I muse.

“I can’t promise anything more than you can,” I reply in a daze. Everything is hurting in me and I can’t even infuse some sentiment into my words. “All I can hope is that you’re making the right choices, and I hope with all my heart you don’t hate yourself for this decision in the future.”

Edward doesn’t reply and I notice Alice standing near the window.

“Edward if we are leaving for the ball we need to leave now. Although, I’m hoping you’re staying,” Alice says as she cast us questioning looks.

“No, I’m leaving,” Edward replies.

I can see confusion and pain cross Alice’s features before she collects herself.

“Very well, I’ll wait for you by the horses,” she says and then leaves.

“She’s disappointed in me,” Edward says, breaking the silence. “She thinks I should send everyone to the devil and go with you to America.”

“She’ll overcome it in time,” I whisper. My words seem so hollow.

“I hope you will too. You’re the only one I never wished to harm and yet, here I am, hurting you.”

I don’t say anything. There’s nothing I can say.

“When will you leave?” he asks.

“Tomorrow morning. My parents have purchased tickets in the nearest sailing ship. They think I need to spend some time with my aunt Leah. She lives in Martha’s Vineyard. I love it there.”

 Edward nods and turns to leave.

“Bella,” I hear him say from the other side of the window. I meet his gaze, his verdant eyes that I shall never forget for as long as I live.

“If you ever have a son, will it be too much to ask that you name him Edward? After your old childhood friend. I always wanted a son with your eyes, and your hair and my name.”

I can feel the tears falling and I don’t try to hold them from spilling anymore.

“No, I think Edward is a lovely name. I’ll do that, if I ever have a son.”

“Thank you,” he whispers and then he leaves too.

I lie in bed, choking in my endless sobs as I try to think of happier times with Edward. More innocent times, in which whenever I dreamed of having a son I imagined him with tousled bronze curls and green eyes like his father.

Now, in a house not far from where I’m drowning in my tears, another woman is handed the future I dreamed of on a silver platter.

-x-X-x-

Okay, who hates Carlisle now?




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