Chapter 6

Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.
William Makepeace Thackeray

"Well there he is!" Emmett's shout boomed round the dining hall as I entered, "Hallelujah! Praise Aslan! He's alive!"

"You're very amusing, Emmett," I replied coldly, now fully in control of myself again.

I sat down at my usual place, my father's right hand side, and concentrated on grabbing some of the meat that was in the middle of the table for my own dinner.

"Where did you go today Edward?" Jasper's gentle Narnian voice questioned.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" Alice surprised me by jumping in to answer her husband before I did. I snapped my head up to shoot her a questioning look, but her attention was diverted by her blonde Narnian, sitting by her side, also giving her the same questioning look I had been planning to deliver. She laid her hand on his arm and smiled and he turned his attention back to his food, ladling more meat onto Alice's plate. The conversation between them regarding me and my whereabouts was over. Jasper was always in control of Alice, she answered to him, but he knew her, knew when she needed his control and when she was to be allowed to be free.

The same was not true for Emmett and Rosalie.

"Venison," Emmett indicated the meat, "It's good, hell of a time catching it though. We almost stopped, half wondered if it were a talking beast, given its speed and skill at avoiding us, but it were dumb, we made sure of that, we trie-"

"Where exactly where you today Edward?" Rosalie cut across her husband's recollection of the hunting trip.

I stared into Rosalie's green eyes, a sea green, not an emerald green like my own, "Is that any of your concern Rosalie?"

I saw my mother glance between the two of us out of the corner of my eye. I knew that she also was desperate to know where I'd been and if I were alright; my mama was the ever loving, ever caring, if ever babying, mother that everyone hoped for. But she would not ask me now. I was her favourite, though Aslan alone knew why for I was by far the most difficult, but she seemed to be more determined to love me due to the coldness I showed everyone. Everyone including her, I was slightly sorry to say. Not out of badness but I found it easier to deal with emotions if I trained them to always be in check, never showing, never taking over me. But it never just sat with her the way it did everyone else, merely caused her to try more.

"Well, personally-" Rose began but to my immense surprise and relief my father cut her off.

"Rosalie, that's enough." And that was all it took. She shut her mouth and said nothing. I marvelled. My father was the only one she ever obeyed, Emmett could make her obey him but not with simple words.

My mother broke the awkward silence that followed the small interchange by enquiring with Alice about the green material she had used to make me a new riding cloak for my birthday, apparently, despite its handsome appearance it was not velvet but some new material that looked as velvet did but was waterproof. The unwritten rule was that dinner was supposed to be a family affair, the one time of day we all sat together (though I was sure my mother would have had more had we agreed to it) but none of the men in the room were interested in a conversation of materials, so my father took his life in his hands and turned to me.

"I take it that whatever your reasons for running out of my study earlier today that everything is now alright?" he enquired in a low and quiet voice.

I started, "Forgive me, father, but yes, everything is as it should be."

He nodded, "I am glad."

"Thank you."

"I trust now-" my father began, but Emmett, with his as ever wonderful timing cut him off.

"What did you run out on dad for?" he enquired, sticking his nose into the conversation, and, as always, speaking a hundred decibels louder than was necessary.

My mother and sister stopped talking, my mother turning to frown at us, realising that we had not all been listening with rapt attention to her talk of damasks and silks.

"Well, Emmett, if you must know I was going to check the whereabouts of my new slave."

He grinned, widely, "So you do like her!"

"Oh, Edward!" my mother cut across, "Not another slave, you know how I feel about subjecting people to that."

Her voice was gentle, but upset. My father sighed.

"Mama, it was not my choice," I softened her by using the name I had used for her when we were younger, "Emmett bought me her for my birthday, I really had no say in the matter."

"Emmett," she sighed, turning her eyes on him.

"Oh come on, mama," he turned his jovial eyes to hers, but followed my lead of softening her, "Edward is eighteen now and has never yet known a woman, if he has a slave to do such things with then perhaps he will please whatever wife ends up lumped with him."

Well, now I didn't even understand why he had bothered with the old pet name.

"You disgust me, Emmett Cullen, we raised you better," my mother snapped, her voice dangerous and low and trembling. She slammed down her knife and fork and got up, storming out the dining room, glaring at Emmett.

"Well, thank you Emmett," Carlisle said in a neutral voice after the great oak door had slammed behind our mother.

Emmett bit his lip, "I didn't think she would... I was trying to be funny."

"You may be an adult but your mother still will not find humour of that variety funny, not from anyone, regardless of age. Besides, no matter your age, you represent both of us in the way we raised you."

"Sorry," he muttered, his eyes falling to his plate.

"I think I may as well go try and calm your mother, please enjoy the rest of your dinner," Carlisle said evenly, folding his napkin tidily into a perfect rectangle and getting up, pushing his chair in before following through the way my mother had just exited.

I caught Rosalie smiling slightly, she was probably glad to now not be the last person at the table to be rebuked.

I sighed, with a family as mad as mine it was no wonder I was the way I was, I was the only voice of reason other than my father, who was away to Narnia for work purposes more and more these days.

Alice and Rosalie were too hot headed and irrational, Emmett was too immature, and though Jasper was highly intelligent and reasonable Alice had him round her finger, and she knew it.

And Bella. Well, I didn't well enough know yet did I? But she seemed too fiery to be the voice of reason, too proud.

But you can be that fiery, that proud. You just don't let it show, I reminded myself.

"Tanya seemed upset that you were not there to bid her goodbye," my small sister trilled, in an effort to gloss over what had just happened.

I sighed, in my elation that I had felt upon realising that Bella was still in my life I had not yet dealt with the guilt in the way I had treated my favourite cousin, "I shall write to her tonight, explain and apologise. Did she say anything?"

"Nothing much," Alice replied, shoving a forkful of crisp roasted potatoes into her mouth so that she could evade my probing.

I turned my eyes on Jasper, who sighed and answered for her, "She was clearly looking for you, though she did not vocalise it."

"That is to be expected, we are close friends, she would feel insulted that I did not come to see her off home," I answered.

But that still does not explain why Alice does not seem to wish to answer me properly, I told him with my eyes.

He bit his lip, "Emmett hinted that perhaps you were not there due to the presence of Bella in your life... Upon hearing this she whispered the name 'Bella' but we were sure we were not supposed to hear it, as she raised her voice to say 'Thank you for a wonderful time and such glorious hospitality' before she turned and boarded the ship. I think," he proceeded delicately, "That she may have been crying."

"Crying?"

"Yes, crying."

I fumed, "You say Emmett hinted, will someone please tell me word for word what you," I jabbed my finger at my large buffoon of a brother, "said."

It was not a question, it was a demand.

"I think, word for word, it may have been along the lines of, 'Hopefully he is too busy bedding that beautiful little wench that I bought him yesterday to be bothered with anything else except his' and then I believe he was going to make some reference to your private parts before Carlisle cut him off, to ask what wench he was talking of, to which Emmett replied 'Bella'. Was that about it Emmett?" Jasper treaded carefully.

"The jist of it, yes," Emmett replied.

"You are an idiot," I told my brother coldly, annunciating each word.

"Well I didn't know it was going to upset her, you keep insisting you two are nothing but friends. Besides, Tanya is so concerned with propriety that I would have thought she would have been against such emotional outpourings as crying in public," Emmett snapped, clearly infuriated that he was being seen to be the cause of so many problems tonight.

"We are nothing but friends, Emmett, I do not love Tanya in that way, but I betrayed her by not telling her who Bella was when she asked me this morning and she is upset at the betrayal between friends as good as us."

"You were with her this morning?"

"Before I came to get Rosalie from you."

Rosalie let out a sharp breath and tossed her head, "Well, clearly at the root of all of this is that little idiot Bella."

"You shouldn't call people you don't know idiots, I happen to think she's wonderful," Alice said heatedly in my girl's defence. My girl? Aslan, I had not just hit out with that, even in my own mind.

"And I happen to think she's an idiot," Rosalie snapped, "Who needs to be beaten till she cannot sit or lie for weeks! Not whatever ridiculous affair you gave her this morning that you seemed to be so resolved to deliver, it cannot have worked or she would not have spoken to me as she did today."

I silently fumed, Rosalie knew nothing of what she talked, nothing of what Bella deserved.

"She needs to learn to respect those who are above her in society, and to watch that filthy, barbarian, heathen mouth of hers!" she continued.

"Well, you can't very well call her a barbarian," Jasper pointed out, "She clearly has been raised decently, I'd say bordering on well, you could tell when she arrived by what she was wearing, and by the way she conducts herself."

"How could she be raised well? She is a slave!"

"Bought her from Gliftin myself," Emmett put in.

"I am not saying she is well, I am saying she is almost well, I know as well as you that those from well-to-do families would not be wandering themselves to be caught by Gliftin, I am merely pointing out that the girl is not a barbarian," Jasper surprised me by snapping at Rosalie. Jasper was probably the gentlest of all of us siblings. Emmett was the most laid back, Jasper was too concerned over things to be laid back, but Jasper did not anger too easily, or lose his temper or do anything that could ever be thought of as rash.

"Civilised people do not go around calling people they do not know filthy barbarian names!" Rosalie countered, looking to Emmett for support, but it was clear she was not going to get any from anyone as Emmett concentrated very hard on cutting a potato precisely in half.

"Jasper is right, Rosalie, you cannot refer to her as a barbarian. You just don't like her because she called you a witch and you can't stand it when anyone talks back to you, slave or otherwise," I said, raising an eyebrow at my sister in law.

"Besides from which," Alice piped up, "Both Bella and I say that you are lying, you cannot prove that she said what you say she said."

Rosalie turned her furious eyes on Alice but I cut across her as she opened her mouth, "Oh no, Alice, you may say that Bella never said it, but Bella has admitted that what Rosalie claims happened is the truth."

"I swear! I'll murder her! Narnians! No sense of sisterhood!" Alice spluttered, looking put out that her new best friend had given in.

"Perhaps Narnians are raised to tell more truths than to keep themselves out of trouble," I replied.

"Hmph! Well, you'd better not try and beat her," was my sister's reply.

"Of course he will beat her, not only does she commit the crime but the rat has no sense to deny it, she admits it, proud as day!" Rosalie raged.

"I am not going to beat Bella," I replied, spooning potatoes onto one of the spare plates that were always left in the centre of the table. Vegetable wise would Bella prefer green beans, peas or carrots. All, I decided, I would take the safe road and bring her all in the hopes that she would like at least one.

Alice's mouth dropped, "But Edward, of us all, despite the fact you don't keep many slaves you are known to be the strictest, hardest to deal with master of us all!"

"I am indeed, but I am choosing not to beat her for this. And it's none of your business as to why," I shot her a look and she closed the mouth which I knew had been tipped on the verge of spewing up a great amount of questions.

"I will claw your eyes out if you don't beat her Edward! Either that or I will beat her for you, harder than you ev-" Rosalie began.

"YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!" I roared at her, banging my fist on the table. She visibly flinched, and Jasper's mouth fell open. I took a few calming breaths, "Bella is my slave and I will punish her when I deem necessary, she is not yours and you will not presume to do anything with her or to her."

"In all the time I have known you Edward, I have never heard you shout, yet twice in one day now, since she arrived, you have lost enough control of yourself to shout."

I turned my face to hers, allowing anger to cloud over me, "Rosalie, you would do well to shut that mouth of yours, if you do not then I will be more than happy to shut it for you."

There was a silence, no one seemed to know what to do or say. I took a generous cut of the venison and added it to the plate.

"If everyone will excuse me," I said coldly, pushing my chair away and getting to my feet, "I am going to take this to Bella and then I wish to be left alone in my room undisturbed for the rest of the evening."

I walked out of the room without a backwards glance.

How dare Rosalie demand I beat Bella? No, Rosalie's problem was that I had beaten her that morning, and she knew that it was in some connection with Bella and the beating I had been supposed to give her. The beating I did give her.

I berated myself, Rosalie would, from now on, probably carry a weighty vendetta against Bella. And it was my fault. Bella didn't deserve it. Why had I beat Rosalie? I didn't even know... I just needed someone to pay for what I had done to Bella, and I couldn't beat myself so she was just, I didn't know exactly... the next best thing? It even sounded ridiculous to me. And as much as I would tell Rosalie not to touch Bella, Rosalie was not an enemy I wanted Bella to have.

I leaned against my bedroom door for a moment, breathing deeply to calm myself. I would handle Rosalie, I would make sure that Bella did not suffer for my mistakes.

So this was shot, I know, but this and the next chapter originally made up one chapter but it was just far too long, so this was the only place I could kind of split it.

Anyway, please review and chapter 7 comesssss :)