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Chapter: Secrets Spoken and others Left to Fester
Anne watched the small fire playing in the small bedroom's fireplace. Elizabeth had just left. Anne thought she'd felt hollow before, in 1806, then at Upppercross and Lyme, but now, after Fredericks look of raw fear in the park, she felt emptied of all hope, all ability to continue on. A sob escaped her. She started at the click of the door latch.
"Anne. Darling, what is it?" A whispered voice from the hall.
Anne looked up, wiping tears away. The door opened the tinniest crack more, and Frederick's face peaked in, after a gentle knock.
"Oh, everything is fine." She said, smearing away more tears.
Frederick pushed the door open wider. "May I come in?"
She sighed, glanced at the sleeping child on the bed, her little snores deep and even. Anne nodded and whispered, "Come."
The only hopeful thing of the night so far was the darling she had just heard, and the gentleness of his voice. Best though, she it end now, faster, in front of an insensate chaperone, rather than enduring long painful recriminations that would slowly morph from fear into hate. Why had she lied to him and said everything was okay. It wasn't. Even the merrily sparkling diamond ring on her hand was not okay.
"How is.. the little patient?" He reached out his hand for her as he said that.
For the last time, she took it.
"The child rests, we'll know more when he… she… awakens."
Sudden memories of Louisa flooded in, and she caught a sob from bursting out. She reached over, and ruffled the short unevenly cut hair, the girls cheeks rising sharp out of the thin face. Maybe nine years old, no more than twelve. Smallish, , lean to the point of a painful skinny. "She really does look like a boy, doesn't she?"
He nodded, the child could easily be one of the squeakers on his ship, the dear Lacona.
"Where's your… sister?"
"Checking defences, maybe curdling the milk too." Anne shocked herself with her sudden meanness. Elizabeth had not been kind a few moments ago.
Throwing back his head, he laughed quietly, rich deep and warm, like honey that warmed the heart. He bent down, his lips brushing her hair, startling her. He settled on the low foot stool in front of her, looked up at her, reached for both of her hands, held them. The fear she'd seen in his eyes were gone, rather, there seemed to be concern there instead, just for her.
"We… We need…." His face was a mask of neutrality. "Anne, What is going on?" He squeezed her hand, and didn't let go.
"I…" She froze, looking at him.
All she could feel was utter grief, a grey hopelessness stretching in front of her. He looked worried about her, tired, concerened for her. Thoughtful. Not the face she was expecting, not the anger, the betrayal, the fear and repugnance she'd seen flash in the park.
Straightening, she spoke. "Captain Wentworth, Sir, I understand. If you wish to withdraw your offer of marriage I will not be offended. Rather sir, I offended you by not being…" She pulled her hands free, started to worry his mother's gorgeous diamond ring off of her hand, her voice finally breaking. "… forth coming about my…"
"Anne." His face flashed from confusion to anger. He grabbed her right hand, took her chin in his hand. "Don't you dare…. I offered that ring for sickness, for health, for better and for worse. I love you. I… I have seen worse… much worse."
Silence.
A low growled, "I've done worse. I just… want to understand." He nodded at the child, "This child. You. Who is the wonderful woman I want in my life?"
Anne sat back startled. That was not what she'd expected to hear.
"Anne, look at me." Frederick said to her quietly, "We are at war. Napoleon… he in many ways is unstoppable. What … forces does he control? The fighting, it isn't like what Whitehall and the King tell our people. The reality of it is not what gets printed."
She watched as he pressed his fingers into his eyes, pain write clear in his face. "It's been cannons and fire, wizards and evil… beasts… magics…"
She suddenly realized that he too saw that this moment would only be a short peace, despite Napoleon's exile on Elba.
A snap as a log fell in the fire. Both jumped, startled. No face rose form the flame, no hand reached out. She breathed out in relief, relaxed. It was rare, but did sometimes happen. Especially when Cousin Fitz' thought she needed a joke.
He went and settled the logs, let the fire burn evenly for a moment, standing tall next to the fire. He looked at her. His eyes were unreadable. No not unreadable. She couldn't understand what they were trying to say. They couldn't really be saying "You are my Anne, I love you."
They just couldn't. Nothing ever went her way.
She watched him sit again, take her hand again.
"Tell me… what this is…" He nodded at the girl, deep asleep, dressed in his nightshirt, then back at her. "What… you…"
Anne sat tall, tried to keep the tears from flowing.
"All things need balance for the world to spin, your job is balance, dear Anne", she could hear her mother saying. His truths – some, certainly not all - had been spilled this afternoon, best she spill a few of hers, and hope that balance was restored.
"I…. I am not sure who the girl is. I have an idea, if she bore the Sword to us."
"Bore the sword to… you?"
"Myself, or Elizabeth. I think its for us, at least I was there - where the sword came." She was confused herself, barely understanding how elemental magics worked, her lessons having ended too soon with her mother's death.
"A sword meant for fighting, not exactly what I imagine your sister using. Her tongue is quite enough to skewer a man." He smiled, a flash of the boy she remembered.
She snorted, at his joke. Tried to smile, probably failed. "Frederick, dear heart, I…. I suppose I should start at the start. I am…"
"A wizard." He said, his face filled with love.
"No… not a wizard."
Her heart pounded in her chest. She was frightened, she'd never told anyone this. "Those are… just people, humans. Myself, Elizabeth, the old … families, certain lineages of us … we are…"
Anne paused, would he think her insane? Or, in fright, would he throw her to the ground, pull iron and mark her as was once done, the cruel metal burning like a brand?
"What Anne. Tell me."
"When the Romans came, my ancestors ruled. We were, are … the Old One's." She looked for words, concepts. Old tales, whiche ones would he know? "Through my mother's line, we are … Boedicia's heirs. We were here before … people came, here before the Celts. We were… we are…. You've all used many terms. Fairy. Elves."
His eyes were uncomprehending.
"We are not elves. We are not sprites. Not sweet little wood spirits. We are the… Elven. The true people of this land, its true rulers."
He stared, seemingly not breathing. She sucked for breath like a drowning man.
"Caesar conquered when we were betrayed, when he found and stole the right magics, when he bowed us to our knees with iron, cut and burned our hair, our trees, he weakened us, almost destroyed us."
"My mother's line… we are the forest of Kellynch, we are the Magic of the Land." Anne's stomach still hurt over what they had lost when they left Kellynch. How Elizabeth could soldier on Anne did not understand. Maybe her link to the forest, the land was not as strong.
He looked at her not saying anything. The door opened, and Elizabeth walked in.
"Oh, how sweet, am I interrupting a lover's tryst? No?" She flicked her hand at the fire, it burned stronger, brighter. "Well sister, finally coming clean to your… dog?"
"Elizabeth!" Anne snapped, her nerves frayed, not able to be passive any longer.
The child moaned.
Frederick bristled, said nothing for Ann's sake. Elizabeth the cat, he the dog, he could live with that as long as Anne could. Besides, he would take Anne away, soon, very soon from this knife-tongued sister and her silly father. They'd go tomorrow. To Edward's, or maybe he'd steal her away to Gretna Green. Hopefully, when they married he'd not be taking her to war. Rumour ran rampant that Napoleon had been widening his influence again despite being exiled to Elba.
"What, bringing him up to snuff on who you really are sister?" Elizabeth snapped her fingers, the bed and the child disappeared and a chair suddenly , a chair didn't suddenly appear, they all were in the library suddenly, all three. He sat still on the stool, clasping Anne's hands, Anne still on the bedroom chair. The child was not there. His head spun, and he worked to control himself, as if this was normal occurrence out on the boards of ships that sailors dealt with every day.
By the look on Elizabeth's face he could tell she was not happy at his self-possession, his lack of response. Inwardly he smiled. 1 Point for the dogs.
Too, if things were truly dangerous, he expected that Anne would leap to his defence, as he would to hers.
Elizabeth draped herself gracefully over the settee, glared at him with a slightly poisonous look in her smokey violet eyes.
"The lower orders -see, I didn't call them dogs - had always wondered why we, the ruling families of England, always intermarried amongst ourselves, kept our blood to ourselves. We have been trying to keep our blood lines as pure, as unsullied as we could, for a long, long time, all because of the magic. As little mixing with dogs -oops- Romans, Angles, Saxons, the Normans and the more mongrely types - as possible." She laughed, it rang cold, hard and metallic. "Keep the blood blue. Did you know captain, she bleeds blue?"
"The D'arcy's. Haa. They pretend to be such fine Norman stock, but contain some of the purest bloodlines in the land." Elizabeth's smile was cold. There was a surprising bitterness in her eyes. "It has been quiet the juicy scandal, hasn't it, that the scion of that family has just married a lowly farmers daughter from Longbourn."
Anne sighed. Elizabeth was still incandescent at Darcy, over his refusal of her offer for marriage, or at least a coupling to engender a child. Anne knew better though. That Longbourn lineage was pure, as pure blooded as one could get in England now. Which Elizabeth knew as well, when she felt like admitting it. D'arcy had been smart - he had strengthened their family more, rather than diluting it just a tiny bit by mixing with Elliott blood. It would be good to strengthen that D'arcy line for the times that were coming. And somehow he'd married for love. Too, cousin Georgiana doted on her new sister-in-law. She and lizabeth had always gotten along like cats and dogs.
Anne sighed, she needed to rein in E's poison. "Elizabeth, I kindly request that you stop calling Frederick a dog, calling all of them dogs."
"Or what? You'll work up the nerve and zap me with a killing curse?"
Anne closed her eyes, bit her own tongue, which could be just as sharp as her sisters. What was the Naval term? Time to get out the big guns, was that it? Firmly she said, "No. I will just get up and leave."
She stood, stared down at her sister. "Frederick will come with me. We'll go away, and then you will be alone." The final cut needed to be deep. "Utterly, and completely alone."
Elizabeth's face froze. Penelope had just left. Alone with only Father, a bit of Mary. Even her cold, bitter sister needed people, especially her kind of people, other almost pure stock Elven. It didn't help, of course, that her sister and cousin Elizabeth Steventon did not get along, at all. Nor Georgiana. Nor Aunt Catherine...
Elizabeth rose and instead of going to the tea service, went to the drink trolley. "Captain, some grog? Oh, fiddle-faahf, it looks like we only have whiskey. Straight up?" She poured a glass, exactly the amount he'd poured earlier. From the same bottle, his bottle, not the Admiral's.
"Anne, no sherry for you my dear. It's cocktail hour now. Somewhere in the Galaxy at least. Oh, to be in New York with Dorothy Parker, right now."
Anne had always wondered why Elizabeth had returned from that time and that place. Why had she come back? She had seemed happy there and then, as she had been in Paris too, a hundred years in the future. In her late teens and early twenties, after Mama's death, E'd flitted through time and space like a leaf blown in the wind, while Anne sat at Kellylynch crying, writing sad and terrible poetry, trying to be a mother to Mary. At least until she was sent away to school in Bath. Despite all, E always returned, always came back with anger at being back, anger directed at Ann.
Elizabeth handed him ahis whiskey with a cold smile, and Frederick, glass in hand, watched as she made a strange concoction using the gin out of Amsterdam, shaking, stirring, and poured it in to two glasses. A green olive in each. Where the hell did she find green olives in Bath in winter?
"A witches brew?" He asked, raising an eye-brow.
"Ooo, touché, brother, such subtle humour. No, a dry martini. Too sophisticated a taste for you." She snapped her fingers, and suddenly a deep dark black rum filled his glass, the mellow amber whiskey gone. Too, it smelled the cheapest and bitterest of rums.
He smiled, saluted her with his drink and a smile. "Can I get you on my next ship? That little trick will save me much expense."
He threw it back. Couldn't stand the stuff himself, but it was worth another point on her. Cats 1, Dogs 2.
"All about the money, you are. You dogs are all the same." She hissed.
She sat down in the day bed and leaned back, sudden all cool elegance and grace, her fluted drink held artfully in one hand, not sipping. They stared at each other, silent. He was not quite able to believe that these two were sisters, his soft, dark, kind Anne, and this cold, sharp, perfect beauty. A frightening perfection of beauty, really, a goddess on earth. Eyes so smoky blue they were almost violet.
His free hand slipped over to hold Anne's hand, she so warm, alive, compassionate, kind. She always smelled of the forest in spring, of hope and life. He knew the laughing and joyful Anne would come back – that girl had almost been there the past few days. He had seen bits of that girl in Lyme, too, here in Bath laughing as she walked in the Admirals arm, the two teasing each other.
"So, Anne, darling, tell him all." Elizabeth cooly drawled.
Under Elizabeth's cold glare he could see Anne was struggling to find her words, to speak to him.
"Frederick. I am… we both are -"she smiled, at her sister, pulling Elizabeth into this , "n … as I was telling you upstairs…"
"My goddess." He said, his eyes serious. Best to disarm both of them, lighten the mood, make her laugh.
Anne started, face serious. "No, do not talk of goddesses. They are … elemental and soul changing. Dangerous. Gods and goddess change the world. I am simply… we are of a lineage stronger than wizards."
She looked away from him, not wanting to see his eyes.
Elizabeth drawled, "Means we are dangerous and full of magic."
"You dangerous to me? Pfhaw. Never." He meant it, could feel it in his belly, where he just knew things. If Anne had listened to him back in '06, understood that he just knew things, she would have understood that all would be ok.
Elizabeth laughed. "Now she has to kill you for telling you our secret. Perfect, sister, I will ready the sacrificial knife, male blood always strengthens us. Oh Frederick, we do drink blood. Sex, blood, magic, great mix. Raises storms. Makes us stronger. Anne, you should drink some of his, maybe you'll grow a backbone."
Anne looked hurt.
Frederick smiled, hidden in that was indeed a backhanded compliment. He'd take it.
"Wizards are our get - when we mix with dogs - our blood still spitting magic." Elizabeth cooly sipped her cocktail, looking over the rim of her glass.
"Elizabeth!" Anne squealed unconsciously, suddenly embarrassed for the squeak. Thank god, E wasn't this bad normally. Sex, mixing of bloods, was not talked about in proper society - at least mixed society. Blood magic, death magics, not spoken of at all, except whispered among the women of the Elven when the moons were right. It was not bon ton.
Sitting straighter Ann said, "Elizabeth, stop. No calling him, everyone, dogs." She dropped her yes, turned to Frederick. "But it is true. If we have children…." She blushed deep at bringing that up front of Frederick, a blush that rose from low in her belly "It is sure our children would be magical. They would be wizards."
"THEY WILL be, by the sounds of it. And we'll cross that straight when we get there," he said to her, raising her chin to see her eyes.
Did she see a flush at the base of his neck when he said that? A flush at the thought of them having children, of doing what was needed to have children? Was there a beat of blood hard in a vein in his neck? Anne grasped his hand tighter, watched him take a big swig that black rum Elizabeth had refilled his glass with.
"Boring. This is dragging on." Elizabeth suddenly interrupted. "We have set up defences on doors, windows and chimneys, - magical defences. I am expecting another attempt by the same …. Let's call them interested party… to get the sword. One certain thing, they can not have that sword."
A sudden nock on the door, they all started. Elizabeth said "Enter."
Long and Rickettes looked in. "Cap'n, Sir. Ladies. The young person upstairs…"
"Asking for some'un." Rickettes was blushing.
Anne squeezed Frederick's hands silently, and leapt up, swished gracefully out the door.
Turning to Long Elizabeth asked sharply, "Why are the sandwiches and soup so laggard in this house?"
Long, a small smile playing around his eyes, face dead-pan, said, "Waiting on Captains' orders, M'um."
Frederick rolled his eyes as Elizabeth suddenly narrowed hers. Quickly, to avert any incident, he said, "Long, bring them up… now. Hop to it."
"Aye, sir."
"Sister, move over. You are taking all of the room. I do not see why we did not go home to our beds."
"Elizabeth, you know that we can't leave the child alone, here.". A house full of men, and dark magics suddenly in the parks of Bath. There was not an extra bedroom at her father's house for the girl, and father would be horrified by his daughters bring over a "lousy lower order by-blow". The Admiral's house was a large airy place with so many bedrooms. Had he expected the whole Navy to descend on his door?
Anne turned, looked at her sister's silhouette in the moonlight. She snuggled closer to her sister, as they had done in childhood. "The Sword, too, is safer here."
Elizabeth laughed. "Yes, for certain, lots of nice martial male energies swirling around here to keep it grounded, between your Cocker Spaniel and the broken-up Labrador retrievers and crackies they call servants here. Up at fathers the thing would probably go spinning in the air and dance about singing the wonders of Gowland's Cream."
Anne smothered a laugh. She could imagine it, father prancing around in his dressing gown, arranging his hair, blind to the sword spinning bright behind him, joyful and light.
She couldn't imagine anyone more opposite her father than Frederick. But, he'd become so dark, so serious since… since '06. She had searched for the boy she'd known back then, searched in his face, in his eyes, and she wasn't sure if that boy was still there. That joy, lightness, that wicked playfulness that had made her laugh and snort, must still be buried there. The strength and confidence, yes, that was stronger and brighter than even before, but the joy, where had it gone? Hopefully it was still there, embers of it deep in his soul, just waiting to be rekindled. Maybe, they both needed to work at making the other laugh. He probably was wondering where that teasing, laughing, dancing girl had gotten too.
As a room was prepared for Elizabeth and Anne to share, Frederick had fallen asleep in a chair in the library, a book of planetary transits and ship navigation on his chest. He hadn't awoken when she had very lightly kissed his lips, he hadn't started as she ran her fingers down his jacketed chest. She still felt the feeling of his sleep soft lips on hers, as she and Elizabeth went up to the room next to the mysterious child wizard.
Elizabeth rolled over in the big bed and looked at Anne seriously. "Why not just jump into your lover's bed and just have it done with? You wouldn't need me then. You'd be in the house and the girl would be safe. And you and your … mongrel… would be all happy." Elizaabeth flashed a sudden mean smile. "Rutting like…"
"Elizabeth!" Anne hated it when E got mean. Since mother had died, she was mean constantly.
"What, the stupid rules of society did not stop our mother. She took whatever man she wanted." Elizabeth smiled. "She was very discreet about it, of course." A quiet whisper, even Elizabeth realizing that was a deep secret.
Anne said nothing. Was that why Elizabeth was so bitter? Their father, the man they called Father, had he been blind to mother's affairs, and to her magic, and to his "daughters"? He'd said nothing as three children came; now, Anne, as her reading and understanding of the world widened, realized that most likely he and her mother had never shared a bed. Did he truly believe children just appeared with the stork?
He was blind to most everything, except the Barontage, house decorating and those above him whose notice mattered to him. He'd thankfully had been totally oblivious to Penelope and her quite forward hints and flatteries, and her spillingly audacious dresses (unlike cousin Elliott), Father had been too busy scrambling after their cousin the Dalyrimples and redecorating the house on Laura Place. With a disquiet in her belly, Anne wasn't so sure if he was totally oblivious to that new footman.
Father's blindness could be good. His wife and daughters had used it.
In the early mornings, as the mists rose over the fields, yet to be burned off by the summer and autumn suns, he'd never seen his wife and chidren riding out dressed as boys. Nor, later, Anne riding out alone, Just as she had done with her mother and Elizabeth when a small child. He'd never seen her practicing magic.
When she had been 18 he had not noticed her with a totally unsuitable dark-eyed sailor boy who spouted bad poetry to her; rather Father was totally busy with a visit from the Fitzwilliam cousins, Darcy and Georgiana too. Fitz' had encourage Anne's affair, Darcy had lectured her on it, but finally said nothing to her father, just haughtily ignored Frederick. Her sailor had only just been a lowly commander then. She smiled, maybe Darcy would deign to know him now that he was a rich post captain, just as Father had.
No, her father had never noticed her attention to Frederick. Father had not seen her interest blossom into a passionate, maybe inappropriate affair with Frederick, the gossip of both the underhouse and the neighbors.
Frederick had gotten quite brazen, one night he even braved the dogs and showed up at her window, tossing pebbles against it. What a night that had been, running, laughing barefoot over the grass under the stars of August, in her nightdress (but her hidden tattered boy's riding pants underneath). That night Frederick had told her of all the stars, and how he steered ships by them as they sat on a hill looking at the milky way. She told him the stories of the heroes and maidens in the stars, of the Andromeda, Orion, Pegasus. She didn't tell him that her mother had taught her to read the future from them. She didn't read their future, that night, one small blessing from the Lady.
Late that summer her father had not seen her fall sick, after she broke off the engagement with Frederick. Nor did he see her fall into a deep despair that almost sent her into the arms of death. He did not see her give up all friends, all magic, all hope.
Fathers blindness's could be used. His pride, no. If she could have used that, they might not have been driven by money from Kellynch.
She rolled on her side, laid her hand on Elizabeth's cheek. Her sister's profile in the moonlight, so regal, so perfect, so unlike Father's, Mary's or Ann's. Elizabeth's beauty was breath taking, it was startling. Her hair, perfect deep gold, straight and thick, her skin porcelain pale with a touch of pink, her eyes, luminous smokey blue-violet, lips plump and pink. So different from the wavy brown hair and brown skin of Anne and her younger sisters Mary, nut like reflections of their mother. When summer hit, the two almost as dark as gypsies. Not one of them looked like their "father", Sir Walter Elliott of Kellynch Hall.
Who was Elizabeth's father? Obviously, from her strong magic someone from a family of very pure lineage. Too, not the same father that Mary and Anne had. Anne knew the Matron at Chetwhyn House kept the family and breeding lineages recorded, something of a stud book for the Elven. She supposed she could write and ask.
Elizabeth turned and looked at her, eyes serious. "Sister, if you want him, just take him. Stop being so…. Missish. I'm sure he just went off and bedded all the women he wanted."
Anne closed her eyes tight, wanted to scream and slap her sister.
"You, sister, need to be… need to act, to live, to be, and not just be such a wet rag." Elizabeth whispered.
Anne hated it when E used metaphors from the future. Some made no sense, but that one she understood. Frederick did lay not too far away, she did want to rise, walk barefoot into that room, blow out the candle next to his bed. But that was not how a lady was raised, nor how a lady acted.
Time to change the conversation. "So what do you want, sister?" Anne asked her elder sister instead.
"Haa. I've yet to see the man…" Elizabeth voice was cold, fell silent.
"What?"
"Nothing. Go to sleep." Elizabeth closed her eyes tight, but still saw a brazen grin smiling at her, laugh lines cut deep around hazel eyes, sandy hair pulled back in a pony tail. She, more tired than she realized, mumbled, "Why does Croft keep his footmen barefoot? So that they won't run away?"
A sudden start, had she just revealed too much to Anne? "Oh, too, heads up, sister. Cousin Elizabeth is coming to town."
"Oh." Anne said in a small voice, mostly asleep.
My dear, dear always so upright and perfect sister, Elizabeth thought, in her Meanest Miss E voice. Always perfect Anne. Wonderful Miss Perfect must be tired." She smiled. "No, the kinder "E" thought, who was still there, still buried deep, mostly around in the 1920s and 1930s though, she is exhausted to the edge of sickness if she had thrown three or four perfect spells tonight. And without practice for years. Mother always said Anne was so much more powerful than she knew.
She had thought Anne had quite given it up the practice of magic, since… Elizabeth frowned… since mother's death, and but most importantly, since '06, and that cocky black-haired sailor's retreat.
Elizabeth listened as Anne's breath fell into the gentle even breath of sleep.
Why had she promised Mother to "always watch over Anne, always protect her"? She had tried.
She'd been gone the summer of 1806, had been in New York, trying to solve the mystery of the disappearance of her people from the face of the planet. New York of the 1930s - Jazz, art, cocktails, women writers and photographers. Women as editors.
Paris in the 1920s. She had never wanted to leave that either.
1806. England. Anne falling ill, almost into the arms of death. Sucky Regency England, stupid rules, stupid clothes, bad food, no books. No toilets! Terrible teeth. No proper running water. Coming back to heal Anne in autumn of 1806 because of a stupid promise to a Mother who left them, who went and died on them. No movies, no motor cars, no cigarettes. No telephones, no jazz. No education for women. Stupid father.
England, 1815, not any better. Even the battlefields of the Somme in 1916 had not been so bad in her dear, cranky mud covered ambulance.
Elizabeth scowled at the room she knew held him. The source of all her misery.
