black_wolf (black_wolf) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-06-05 22:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | lucien swinton |
Who: Lucien Swinton, Samantha (NPC)
What: correspondence
When: 5th June 1888
Where: His London home
Rating: G
Luce unfolded the letter sent to him by Matthew, reading it with a slight and fond smile on his face. It’d been a distinct challenge, teaching his Beta how to write (or at least, building on the rudimentary skills he’d learned for a few odd months of schooling when he was younger), and Matthew’s spelling was distinctly creative in places and his hand a heavy one (he preferred lead pencil to ink), but the note was thorough and clear enough, and the regular missives they sent one another to and from Black Park were a much-needed link Lucien never took for granted.
He could smell Samantha hovering outside the door, and he called out that she might as well come in as not, whereupon the housemaid entered bashfully, the color high in her cheeks.
“I was just decoding Matthew’s latest,” he said, tipping his head towards the letter, although they both knew that was the reason she was hovering, and that the news from Black Park would be spread around the rest of the household in minutes once he read it aloud to her.
She bobbed her head, and at another tip of his chin, she came over, resting a hand on his shoulder as he read the letter aloud. He edited some of Matthew’s more personal remarks here and there as he saw fit, and smoothed over some of the more convoluted passages, and when he’d finished, he looked up at her. “Business as usual, and by the sound of it, all good,” he said, reaching up to cover her hand with his. “I don’t know about you,” he added, “but I’m very much looking forward to going home and stretching my legs a little over the weekend.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Samantha replied whole-heartedly, with a bit of a sigh. “Yes indeed.”
He patted her hand, and she gave a quick curtsy and left the room in a hurry, and he couldn’t resist a small chuckle at her eagerness to spread the village gossip.
He knew it was a hardship for his London household staff to be away from Black Park for so many weeks out of the year -- he did his best to rotate the staff often between Black Park and London, and completely shuttered the London house over full moons so the entire pack could be together, but it was a sacrifice he had to believe was worth making -- that his presence on the House of Shadows was beneficial to them all, and a duty and an honor besides.
He saw first-hand the fragility of the new Treaty, the knife’s edge they all stood on, and wanted to make certain that his people were kept safe, and out of harm’s way. There were some who’d called him a traitor to his kind and a coward for keeping his pack well clear of the violence that ranged across the countryside, and for strongly discouraging any of his folk from joining in at the Battle of Cornwall, and while those slings and arrows were intended to sting, and did, he stood behind his decision.
He added a few quick lines to the letter he’d written Matthew earlier that day, responding to a few questions and confirming the time he expected he’d return, and turned to his second letter, a brief one to Maggie, and tossed off a few more lines about his impressions of a new play he thought she’d enjoy and a suggestion he might call tomorrow to take her on a walk, before sealing both and walking them down to his butler to take to the post.