Avoid if triggered by misplaced apostrophe's. (essayel) wrote in morningstar_mnr, @ 2009-10-23 23:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | nia, npc |
UK; Leysters, very late.
Ted had got there around midnight but the party had still been going strong. So he waited until the house was in darkness before taking the shortcut from the farm track, where he had left his Porsche, down through the garden to the side entrance. No locks and chains on the doors in the country and mercifully no dogs in this household either.
It took no more than a minute to slip through to the back staircase and climb to the second floor. Here was a light on in one of the guest rooms and he heard the deep mutter of a man’s voice. He scowled to hear the reply in a light laughing tenor and walked on sneering. Some of his pervert brother’s pervert friends obviously.
At the end of the landing was a closed door and beyond it would be the nursery where he and his brother had slept when they were little, and the playroom and the apartment where his Nannies had lived. It had been a good place – his place once he had got rid of Harry, as he had been called then. He tried the door and frowned when it didn’t yield and fished his keys from his pocket. With the door open he stepped into chill darkness and looked around. The room was bare, cold, uncurtained, lonely, but he smiled because now his memories of it wouldn’t be sullied.
He searched the house silently and efficiently, opening the doors of guest rooms, peering in and withdrawing unseen by the sleeping occupants. So – that left one place to look.
The master suite was dark too, the air warm and scented faintly with his mother’s perfume. He ignored the main bedroom but crossed the little dayroom and went into the room beyond. It had been a dressing room once but was now a small spare bedroom used by Bella’s maid when Edward was away. In the starlight filtering through a gap in the curtains he could see a small bundle in the bed, the shadowy head on the pillow.
Ted’s fingers twitched and he felt that shamefully exciting clench of pleasure in his gut at what he was contemplating doing. Last time his mother at least had suspected. This time he was known to be on the other side of the country.
“So sad,” he imagined himself saying to his friends, “so tragic, but then the poor child probably inherited all manner of problems from my disgusting brother. Infected in the womb, no doubt.”
Really, when you thought about it, it was for the best. His brother and his – gah – husband would whine their way back to America and he would be left, as was right, to comfort his father and be the dutiful and supportive son.
He picked up the comforter lying across the bottom of the bed, wadded it up and placed it over the pillow and pressed, his breath shortening and his heart pounding.
Yes – this was what it was to be alive. This would show them. This would show them ALL.
The light clicked on and the room was suddenly filled with movement as stars and moons from the nursery light swooped around the walls. Ted’s breath had caught with the shock of it and he looked up directly into the calm and level gaze of his father.
The red headed child slept peacefully in Edward’s arms a spotted blanket swathing them both. He was wearing striped pyjamas and his bony feet were bare on the carpet, but Ted snatched his hands away from the comforter and stepped back as though Edward was armed.
He stared at the child then back at the bed and saw the soft furry paw laying on the coverlet. A teddy bear - he had been smothering a fucking teddy bear!
“She’s teething,” Edward murmured. “A molar – somewhat painful – but the Calpol seems to have done the trick. I remember holding you like this, when you were teething. You were the most important thing in my world.”
“Father ...” Ted began but Edward raised his hand and continued to speak.
“When you were seven you fell ill. Appendicitis with complications. We were warned you were unlikely to survive the surgery. I was in the States at the time on business and I told – someone – that I would give anything, anything in the world to save your life. Anything – even the unborn child my wife was carrying. He said, ‘done’.” Edward sighed. “When your sister was born safely, and grew and thrived I was overjoyed. I loved her dearly – as much as I loved you. As much as I loved your odd, quiet, frail little brother. When she died, it was so much easier for me to believe that the bargain had taken her AND Harry from me because when I looked at you the price seemed worth paying, even though it broke your mother’s heart. “
Edward looked down at Nia and touched her cheek. “Now, against all the odds, I have a grandchild and she is a delight to me and Bella is heart-whole again and I find you here – like this – honestly, Ted, how much do you think you’re worth to me now?”
Ted’s mouth had opened in distress but shut with a snap at that. “I am your first born son,” he snarled. “I know what is due to me and I will not share! FB&P will be mine. Leysters will be mine. Everything you have will be mine and I’ll take my place here and demand every iota of the respect and love due to me.”
“You will have what is due to you, when it is due, ” Edward said, his voice still calm, his expression cold. “But you will have what respect and love you have earned. Now, get out of my home and don’t come back.”
Ted’s fists clenched and he took a step towards his father, but stilled again as he heard the door open across the day room and the soft rustle of fabric.
“Edward – did she wake?” Bella said and stopped in the doorway. She looked at Ted, mouthing opening in shock then at the bed and the wadded comforter mashed against the pillow. “No,” she said, “oh dear God, not again.”
“Bella,” Edward said, his voice soft, “it’s all right – she’s here.”
Ted lurched as his mother buffeted past him and dropped to her knees by Edward's side. "Oh thank God," she whimpered and Ted realised that she was crying.
"Well," he said. "I suppose I'd better go then. Dad, I'll see you in the office on Monday. I need to go over the Bingen Pharmaceuticals account with you." Neither parent looked at him and he gritted his teeth on his fury and added, "Mother, for God's sake pull yourself together. Go and have a sherry or something. We've only my brother's word that that's his bastard and we know how much that's worth."
That did get a reaction but not what he had hoped for. Bella took a sharp breath and Edward raised one thin pale hand and touched her face, cupping her cheek in the first caress Ted ever remembered seeing between his parents.
"Yes, you should go," Edward said. "Monday at nine sharp. I'll expect a full report both of the Bingen account AND of your activities in Angola. I will never hear you speak with disrespect to your mother again. Now go." Edward looked up and there was a spark in his eyes that made Ted's blood chill.
He backed towards the bedroom door, staring his father down until Edward looked away, but Ted got no satisfaction from that - it was so obviously because Edward had lost interest in the contest.
His mother spoke as he reached the door, but not to him. She said, "Charlie and Deacon must not know about this," and his father nodded then leaned over the sleeping child and kissed her.
Ted grimaced and left the house by the same way he had come in.
So that plan hadn't worked, but there was more than one way to skin a cat.
Literally.
Over the years Ted had tried them all.