Winston Arrives Wesley Pierce learned two wonderful things within minutes of each other. Since graduating from Sapienti, he spent most of his time alternating between running the business end of Duesius's animal center - Wesley wouldn't go near the creatures himself, but he handled the scheduling, the billing, the purchasing, and the recruitment of new clients; the brothers were even making a tidy profit off the business - and working with Derwent the Second to make the Pierce assets grow rather than shrink. It was the work Derry Three should have been doing had things gone differently when they were younger, and Wesley was hopeful that eventually Druscella, like Marcus, would decide to throw aside the normal rules of succession and decide that Wesley really was the best candidate to run the family after Derwent the Second and overrule Four's and Thaddedeus's claims to their heirship. Four and Thaddeus only technically counted as part of Wesley's generation, anyway, so Wesley was really the best choice not only through experience and ability, but by birth as well. His father was the only one of Druscella's children who hadn't raised a disgrace that needed to be tossed out of the family. Even Duesius, as stupid as he was, only had to be passed over as Marcus's heir rather than expelled entirely.
It was when Derwent came into the office they shared in the business wing of Druscella's house that he learned the first wonderful thing. Of course, he wasn't crass enough to tell Derwent he considered it a wonderful thing that his wife and son were leaving him, but that left only Thaddeus in Wesley's way of becoming Patriarch, once the title moved into his generation. He had only barely finished offering his condolenses when the owl flew in through the window (they left it open for that purpose, even during the winter, and depended on the fireplace and warming charms to counteract the occassional gust of cold air). This particular owl was a familar one. She was the bird he and Alicia shared for personal correspondence. The letter she carried was written in a barely legible scrawl by one of the house elves. *Mistress is having the baby! Come home now Master!*
He dropped the letter on his desk and hurried out of the room, sparing only a moment to tell Derwent where he was going. "Alicia's having the baby."
Wesley had brains. Wesley had respectability. Wesley had experience. Wesley was the first New Hampshire Pierce of his generation to marry. Wesley was the first to provide the New Hampshire branch with another generation.
If this child was a son, Thaddeus didn't stand a chance of ever becoming Patriarch. The poor kid had just come into the game far too late to ever catch up to him.