Title: Isabella, mi primer amor
Summary: Carlisle remembers Isabella Alfonso, his first love, when Edward asks him for advice concerning his impending nuptials and Bella's ultimatum.
Word count : 4953
My son has a mate.
The first I had dared to create, the first I loved in this new, long life of mine enough to make him as I, and now, as many other fathers, no doubt, I must answer him honestly as he asks me for advice.
I was startled, at first, but when he had explained Bella's ultimatum, I had laughed, making him more uncomfortable perhaps than he already was, his fingers skittering across his jeans, the sound as loud to me as fingers drumming on a desktop would have once been.
I smiled at him, and he no doubt picked the apologies I was going to make out of my thoughts, and relaxed, sliding down the chair he had perched on the back of when asking his question, making the well worn leather skreek, until his feet sat level on my study floor.
"I will try to advise you, Edward, but you know I haven't had relations with anyone but Esme," here, he leapt to his feet and stalked to the door and back, his eyes nearly glowing with repressed fury and hot embarrassment," for two centuries," I continued, not bothering to acknowledge his discomfort. What Esme and I did in the sanctum of our rooms after the sun set was ours, and Edward's gift was more often a curse to him for that reason alone. Being the only one of us who did not have a partner, surrounded by six who did, was another as well.
I had become used to not thinking of Esme and any surface even remotely horizontal around the others of our family, for her sake, as well as Edward's, and because of my own sense of privacy. It had made life, such as we lived, a little easier, and I respected Alice, Jasper, and Emmett and Rosalie's claim to their private after sunset time as well.
Granted, we all could hear, but that wasn't ever a topic for conversation, either. We could live and love under the same roof so long as we did not meddle or mock our loves. The territorial side of our nature comes hard to the forefront of us when that ensues, even in jest, and Edward and I had split up more than one fight that started as a gentle enough teasing comment.
Edward groaned, and I looked up, his face twisted in a grimace.
"What's wrong"
"A fight sounds perfect, Carlisle. And your thoughts of Esme really are louder than mine."
I laughed again. "I will spar with you later, if it would make you feel better, once you've gotten the advice you've wanted from me. And I am not going to cut thoughts short to save your chivalrous tendencies, Edward, proud of you though I am of you for having them. You wanted advice, and what my mind will be more succinct than my mouth, I'm afraid."
He dropped to the chair again, and the springs creaked this time, making him grind his teeth. "I thank you, Carlisle, for doing this. I know it's as awkward for you as it is for me to have this conversation, and the last time I meant to do was to cause you this.," he waved his hand between us, " this near farce of ourselves. It's like a bad puppet show."
Yes, it is, a bit, I thought cheerily at him. A little less offensive than what ran for puppet shows in London, and definitely more humorous.
He laughed, reluctantly. "I have to be honest, I would have been cheering when your face went blank as I asked you."
This time we laughed in tandem, and it was with an easier mind that I returned to pondering his question.
I had had lovers before Esme, but few, and the experience I had with them were not of use to me, as a vampire. Edward needed my human experience, and I wasn't quite sure how to tell him of her.
"You haven't ever thought of her before, Carlisle. Not when I could listen. Was she English as well?"
"No. She was Spanish, and beautiful. She was the daughter of a sea-merchant, who was on the good side of luck during a terrible storm. He had been blown up the coast, and had taken water on at Dover three days later. Upon hearing where he was, he inventoried cargo, sold his wool and wood, and sailed for Cadiz. Once there, he had picked up a cargo of olives, wine, and silk, and headed to London as fast as wind and weather allowed him."
"Upon reaching London, he had sold his goods and made thrice his gold. He left for Cadiz again, but sent a letter to his family in Barcelona so they could send his son to meet him when he returned, to take back enough to buy another ship and start making sail with him. "
"On his successful return of the second voyage, though, his son wasn't there to meet him. His daughters stood the deck of his ship, and told him of the plague. It had taken his wife, his infant son, and his namesake. They were the only two to survive. So they had answered his summons, and at loss for what else to do, he bought two ships, and they sailed the next week for London"
"The girls dressed as sailors during that week, and had learned enough of sailing and signals to captain the new ships. So the third voyage made them beyond the wealth of nearly every merchant shipping from London, and he had decided to make his retirement from it, and have his delegates run his lines. So he bought lands, in Spain, and a house in London. They had lived in the London house for two years, and the elder daughter married during those years."
"As her dowry cost him the ship he'd made his fortune with, he, and the younger made another sojourn to the Mediterranean, this time to Ostia, with the fleet that had been built while they had lived in London. They were successful, and they came back to London rich as princes."
"My father met with Rodrigo Alfonso then, and had so impressed him, that I was betrothed to his remaining daughter less than a month later. This displeased the both of us, at least until we were formally introduced in her father's London house."
"Isabella Alfonso was striking, but not beautiful, in the classical sense. She was a rare woman for her day, and she knew it. So she never allowed herself to live less than what she believed was life."
"We danced that night through, and our parents set up the engagement party for the next week, and my father put up the banns in his church that Sunday. The next week, after engagement announcement had been made, the toasts drunk to good health, long life, and good fortune, Isabella had taken me to through the gardens of her house. Her voice made music of any language, but to hear her sing in Welsh would have made even you weep, Edward."
He had listened through my memories, and his eyes were soft now, his hand playing the notes on his lap as though they were playing on his piano downstairs.
"Yes, Carlisle. Even I."
"Well, she took me through the gardens, and out through the alley behind the house, and when I'd asked, she had told me we were going to the docks. I had protested, saying it was dark, the streets would be crawling with thieves, and we'd be missed if we continued!
Isabella told me to shut up until something other than bilge water leaked out of my mouth, and swept down the streets separating their house from the docks."
"The Alfonso Line had grown enough to buy a pier, and she walked along it, paying no mind to the scuttling figures just out of sight in the shadows around us, and walked up the gangplank of a ship currently getting loaded at the very end, calling her name and mine to the guards at the rail."
"She called for the cabin boy and ordered him to make us something to sup on, and to bring it to her quarters. He had gone with speed toward the direction that I could smell stew from, and Isabella towed me up the deck to the poop, and had me stand and listen to the ship as it lay at rest. "' When she's at rest, she sounds restless. Impatient for wind and sails to soothe her. Then she hums and sings with the water, a song of freedom." She had turned then, catching the capstan with her left hand and wiping at her face with her right. "' I'll wed ye, Carlisle Cullen, and God forgive me, I'll probably hate ye for it. I must leave the sea, for tis rare enough for a woman to sail, but a wife? Never. But the sound of a singing ship will haunt my dreams as I lie abed wi ye and listen for our children's cries at night. But I will do as duty commands me,and I will not forget the sea."' "
"I reached to touch her hand, still clasping to the capstan. I said, " I have heard of the the ship's song, Isabella, but never heard it true. I cannot give you the sea, but I can give you permission to sing, and to speak of it to me, whenever and however you wish. I will never be able to leave my father's church to take to the sea with you, and the sound of your voice telling me of freedom will sustain it for us both." The cabin boy slammed the door to the captains cabin below us, and Isabella turned her fingers over under mine, intertwining them before she pulled me back down to the deck and through to the captain's cabin. She closed the door behind us, and set me down at the table spread before us." My voice trailed off, without my noticing.
Her eyes had been brown, lit by the beeswax candles set on holders in the table, and her hand hadn't left mine to sit. She had fed me, and I, realizing that this was some ceremony to her had fed her the sliced meat and bread laid out. She had smiled when she had risen, and had poured a single glass of wine, the smell of it spreading through the cabin, sweet with the fruit of summers past. She made me drink, and I in turn, poured her the glass full, and had her drink it. This time, her smile had lit her like a brand, and she had replaced the cork in the bottle with a pop, making me jump, just a bit.
"Shhh," she had hushed me, settling me, left hand squeezing mine." I will give you the freedom of the sea, Carlisle. Even if you cannot sail away wi me now, and be damned to the consequences. Stand still. Do not move, or I shall stop."
She had lifted her free right hand to my collar, undoing the stiff fabric and gently pressing the buttons through the waistcoat I wore, having left my coat on the chair as we ate. She was strong, for a woman, strong enough that when I pulled my hand back, she had yanked me forward, my body landing facedown in the empty platters. Shocked, I rolled, and she pulled me back, her fingers biting into mine.
"I said, don't move. Do you not speak English, Carlisle? Has the Latin of your father's calling a better hold on your mind?" She stepped upon the seat, and up to the table, her skirts belling out as she straddled me.
"No! No Latin, woman." Seeing no way out, I lay flat under her, my body stiff.
"I will not have you wed me without this. I want you on this table, and I want you to listen to me. We must marry, duty demands it of us. But it does not tell us where we must wed, or where ye must bed me. I want you here, and," she rolled her hips, the material of her petticoats rustling," so do ye. If you do not want me speaking Latin , el espouso, then ye best admit, at least to me, that ye do want consummation here. Carnal pleasure," she hummed, her eyes dancing in glee, " and a lot of it." She started to roll her hips back across mine, and I pounced.
I rolled her over, her eyes flashing wide, her mouth opening to say something, but I had closed it for her.
As my mouth stopped any words she would have formed, my own hips drove, hard, into hers, and her head hit the tabletop on a moan.
"You sly, clever Spainiard's vixen," I said, as soon as I lifted my head, "you planned this since the moment my father met with yours, did you not?"
Isabella smiled, a wicked, wicked smile full of promises and secrets. "Aye, I did. My sister sat him in the drawing room. She listened at the hearth in the room over it as they discussed it. Alejandra came to me, and together we set this plan."
"And the two of you set it so no one would miss us at our own engagement party, but how?" I was beginning to appreciate their cleverness, and was honestly amused by their antics. And having Isabella under me wasn't helping to defuse the situation the sisters had foisted on me.
"Hmm. Fire." I stared at her, horrified. "Only a bit of one, Carlisle! Set in the lower garden shed! Far from other buildings. They'll have it out before dawn, and no one the wiser to our absence."
"What of the crew here aboard?"
"Old friends from Espania.. Alejandra took them on as hands her last voyage. They're no more the wiser of our presence than our fathers of our absence. Alejandra served them the blackwine from Greece, and no water to mix it. They'll be sleeping long after the sun on the morrow."
"I see the sisters Alfonso won't be denied. What of her husband?"
Isabella snorted, a very unrefined gesture I found rather distracting, perched over her as I was. "You think some sotty old Englishman wi a taste for young lads a hindrance to a healthy young Spanishwoman with no tolerance for cuckoldry?"
I laughed, unwillingly. "Ah, so the truth comes to those who see, does it not?
I suppose the good wife would have her displeasure known, in such a pass. She hasn't murdered him, has she?"
"No, not yet. Alejandra had a mind bent on justice, not revenge. She's slipped him a bit of herb that'll take his attention fully off of anyone but himself and his chamber pot for a week, perhaps. His favor won't be bestowed on the stablelad for a while. "
"The filthy Sodomite," I said, revulsion shuddering through me. " He ought to be thrown from polite society for such devilry."
Isabella smiled again, but this time there was no humor or glee in it. " Ostracizing him is just revenge. Alejandra will have him condemned from his own mouth, and nothing less for the wrong he has done her."
Now I felt a little pity for this sinner, and my shudder this time was of remembered trials on the Tower green, and the aftermath. " She wants him hung? "
"Shouldn't she? Being cuckolded in her own home, her marriage never consummated, and hearing her 'husband ' romping in the bed she should be warming every night? Duty, she was willing to perform, but to be blatantly ignored and no thought given to her once her dowry plumped his coffers?"
Realization dawned on me like a brick to my skull. " So you planned this with his failure to your sister in mind? No. No, she planned this, with her husband in mind, is that so? Since she was robbed of freedom, and her duty, she made to be sure you would not?"
She nodded. "Alejandra could have forgiven him her marriage, and her duty to stay aground as wife if he had not robbed her of her hopes as a woman. What is a wife, who cannot mother? What is a wife, who is not allowed children? She is no wife. She is not even a concubine."
True pity flooded me, this time for a woman I hardly knew. Alejandra was beautiful, and caring, and to have her purpose to be stolen from her...
"She wanted you to be sure you could have at least one child to love, did she not?"
"Yes." Her conformation wasn't necessary. I marveled at the love and fury of Alejandra Alfonso, and her cold deliberation, and her absolute refusal to let her sister fall from grace as she had.
"You have a sister as indomitable as Paul, Isabella. If only we all could have such a woman in our corner, watching and trapping the wolves before they snap at our heels."
"She is not to be taken lightly. It was only her determination that saved me from the plague. She told me I would not be allowed to die, and nursed me herself."
She shook herself, dispelling the memories that had been drawn out by our conversation. "So do ye forgive us in this deception, Carlisle? "
"There is nothing to forgive. I would have done the same. I cannot let your impertinence go, but forgive you I shall."
"Impertinence, is it? I should have believed it precaution."
"'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet'. Or in our case, pricked as much my pride"
She shouted with laughter. "Oh, we've pricked your pride, have we? Was it the insinuation of buggery or my seduction that did ye in?"
"The buggery. Shame, woman. I'm the son of a minister of God. Did you really think so little of me?"
Still shaking ,she said," Nay, Carlisle. How could I ? I did not know ye, and what other course of action could we have taken to be sure?"
"All you had to have done was ask. I would have only been angry for a moment."
"Oh, aye, let's see." She pitched her voice higher than usual. " My dearest betrothed, might could I ask ye a question? Yes? Good. D'ye like the kitchen boys bent o'er the table, or the chamber maids on their backs?"
It was my turn to shout with mirth. " I see your point. Perhaps this was the better path to ensure my peference of bedmate. More belittling, but less humiliating."
Her wicked smile was back. "Oh, belittling is not what I'd say is what ye felt," She wriggled, untangling her legs from her skirts. "Quite the opposite, mm?"
The words I said next were nearly lost in the growl her incessant wriggling provoked. " First, you attempt to seduce me with the sea, then you insult me with your insinuating my character, and now you mock my manhood?"
I decided she didn't need to answer that, and drove into her again. She made a satisfying noise, and I smiled, the feral grin of a fox chasing a sweet, plump rabbit." Ah, did that answer you better?" Her legs rose off the table, her knees gripping my arse as I thrust against her a third time.
"Oh, aye. But I think perhaps it's your blade, hidden from sight so you're less likely to be challenged on the roads."
"That mouth says no complimentary things of me, does it? Am I to perform while insults debase me?"
This time her smile was siren. "If ye don't like my words, ye should not allow them past my lips, Englishman."
"I am only too happy to oblige you." I kissed her until the need for air forced us apart, and her right hand came to the buttons of my shirt. She flexed her left, trying to free it of mine, and I pulled it over her head, holding it there until her eyes locked mine. "Say please."
She snarled. "Por favor, el espouso."
I let her hand go free, and used mine to untie her laces, pulling hard at the stubborn knot between her breasts as she gave up patience with my buttons and wrenched my shirt apart. I left her laces long enough for her to slide it off my arms, and reached for the knife I carried in my belt to cut them through. She slapped my hand away and worked them loose herself, her hands pulling the leather through the crossing loops of her bodice. I rolled up to my knees, clawing at my buckle with both hands, and peeled the wide belt from the wool of my breeches. She worked her arms free of bodice, shirt waist, and chemise, and reached behind herself to the ties of her overskirt.
"Stop," I said, and she stilled," I will do it. I'll not take you on a table, whether or not you wish it." I swung my legs over the table, standing on the side nearest the bed. I pulled her upright, and set her legs to either side of my waist, and pulled her flush with my own body, letting her slide down til her feet were on the deck. Her head fell back, and I kissed up her throat, her heartbeat tasting of salt air and warm woman. When she started to him. I turned her gently round, my hands sliding up from her waist to cup her breasts. She arched back into me, saying something I couldn't decipher through the sound of my own heart hammering in my ears. I plucked a the tips, still cupping her, and she quivered like a harpstring. I smiled against her neck, kissing down the groove of her spine, until I reached her waist. I let her breasts go, and set to the ties, slowly pulling them apart, letting the heavy silk fall to the deck, and the four petticoats below it, making a white heap under my shoes. I peeled the tight woolen breeches off, and the silk hose, stepping out of my shoes and kicking the lot aside, her chemise landing on top of the pile.
I lifted her again, and this time she clung to me, her hands round my shoulders, and her thighs gripping my waist in a death hold. The feel of her was making me lightheaded, so I turned and sat on the bed, my cock stiff and throbbing at the heat of her. She came to herself then, and shoved me flat, crawling up to look in my face.
"A bit more fun for ye than I, Englishman. Now it's your turn for please. She lipped at my nose, and I surged up underneath her, my hands pulling her hips down, trying to align them with mine. "Tsk, not yet. I've heard no pleases, and I do intend to." She pulled my hands off her arse, pressing them back to her breasts." Still nothing?"
She smiled, dipping her head to suckle at my own nipples, causing my hips to lift again, trying for her warm, wet slit hovering just out of reach. "No, I think not, Englishman. I'll hear ye beg." She slid lower, kissing down my stomach and playing with my navel, her lips and tongue gentle, her hands less so, dragging lines of pure lust over my shoulders and down my chest.
I placed a heel on the edge of the bed and lunged up, just catching soft, wet curls with the tip of my now screaming cock.
She threw back her head and laughed." Oh, clever. But still not 'please'. I'll have to try harder." She scooted down further, my now up raised knee catching her bottom as she moved. A quick intake of her breath, and then her hands were on my cock, and white fog curled in my vision, making everything but the feel of her mouth as she sucked on me seem far away.
I must have moaned, for she let her mouth come off with a small, wet pop. "That is still not begging, Carlisle. Say," and this time she opened her mouth and I watched my cock dissappear, and reappear, her hands sliding back up," please."
I roared as she used just the edge of her teeth, going fully down to the root this time, and she licked me slow, back all the way up. "Please!"
She let go, her hands moving to my shoulders as she set herself back over me. "Now that's was easy, wasn't it?," she said into my mouth, and squeaked as I trapped her mouth to mine with one hand, and used the other to knock her elbow out from under her, rolling her onto her back, and then I tested her, my right hand running from her left breast down to her hood, my whole body thrumming with lust. I sank two fingers into her, and she screamed, her hands clawing me from shoulders to buttocks. "Ah," I said into her breasts, "so, so wet, little vixen. Claw me again." I pulled my left hand from behind her head as I drove my right into her again. She obeyed, and I felt the skin of my back split under her hands.
"Ahora, por Dios!"
I pulled my right hand of her, and used my knees to spread her, both hands on her hips, my fingers biting deep into her skin. I pressed into her, and the feel of her set my blood racing, the tight, wet clench of her wiping my mind blank. Vaguely, I heard her scream again, this time drawing blood from my back, and then I was in, and I turned her chin, and lost what was left of my mind in her mouth.
Edward swore. I jerked back to myself just in time so see him leap from his chair.
"What? Oh. Erm, Edward. I'm sorry."
He sat back, his eyes wide. "Your memory of her, Carlisle!"
"Ah. Yes. " I looked down at my desk, composing myself.
"Did you love her?"
"Yes. Later. The week we were to wed was the same week I found the vampires in the sewers. I had about a month and a half with her, and after.. I wouldn't think of her, wouldn't let the thoughts of her finish. I did not have the strength to resist her, if I remembered. So I went to the Continent, and trained myself further into resisting the lure of blood. I know of nothing that happened to her after my..transformation." I looked up at my son, and smiled sadly at him.
"I suppose, son, what I've tried to tell you is that to lie with a woman you love is the greatest thing a man can do. Human, or vampire. "
"Do you love her now?" His eyes were still wide, but with hurt lighting the the tawny depths.
"Yes. She is your Bella, Edward, no longer mine. Isabella Alfonso died in the century I was created, and I have not tried to find her. I have no right. I was a cad, through no fault of hers or my own, and left her. I couldn't return, and I couldn't bear to know."
"So she could be. Bella could be Isabella's descendant. It's possible. But she.. She looks so much like your Isabella, Carlisle, that they could be the same person."
"I... Edward, I think, perhaps she is."
He froze. "That's impossible."
"Yes. Yes, it is, but you saw Isabella Alfonso and you see Bella Swan. It is very possible that she is her many times great-granddaughter. Why is it not possible that perhaps a person's soul travels many times through life, looking for their one soul mate, to go forward with? And I am not Isabella's soulmate, Edward. If this is what has happened, then she has lived the time from my time with her til this time with you to find you. I am sorry, son, for not telling you of her before. My soul is Esme's. My love for her is unshakeable, unquestionable. I can no more love Bella Swan than you can love Esme."
"I do love Esme. She's as a mother to me. As you are my father, Carlisle."
"As I love your Bella. She is a daughter of my heart. As you are a son of my heart. You were first, Edward. First I loved, and first I changed, and the first draught of love that soothed my aching, lonely soul."
AN: The views expressed here are not mine, concerning the husband of Alejandra Alfonso and his sexuality. I merely researched the political and public trends of the late 1650s for inspiration, and found it in the persecution of sodomites there recorded.
The Spanish words and names I used here were just Googled, or pulled from my pidgin vocabulary of Spanish spoken by Mexican friends kind enough to teach me the basic phrases needed to survive in a Spanish speaking town.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are so crammed with interesting stories, technological advancement and beautiful art that I couldn't resist the temptation to join the ranks of authors pulling inspiration from those centuries.