...hmmm...for some reason, my move to the other side of the world has caused me to lose my alerts - story, review, new chapter...or do people down under just not get them?
Part artistic lisence, part I think he might do something like that to however asked. I'm also protrying the Musgrove girls slightly out of character. I can almost guarantee you wont all like Frederick in this chapter either, he does get a bit mean. We have to take a step back to start going forward.
This is the last day I can guarantee that I will have internet access til the 20th July. So there might not be any updates for a while. Never fear though, I am writing continuously and there shall be major posting once I reach Sydney.
Farewell for now...
Frederick did not reappear at lunch, nor was he anywhere to be seen throughout the whole afternoon when the rain came down over Kellynch Hall for a short time and created puddles on the ground.
He was not seen, till an hour before dinner when he sneaked into the house via the servants entrance. Soaked to the skin, his clothes hanging of him and leaving splashes of water on the newly washed floor, he had made his way almost all the way up to his room before he was spotted by Sophia.
She just stood there and raised her eyebrows at him questioningly before shaking her head and walking in the opposite direction.
Frederick slipped into his room and rang for a servant to draw him a bath.
Sinking into the hot, slightly scolding water and letting the days grime wash from his body, Frederick thought over the day and his decision to stay out of the house. He told himself again, for about the hundredth time that day, that he had merely done it as a chance to stretch his legs. Something he did not have the opportunity to do often since for the last eight year or so, he had frequently been stuck on a ship, and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that he wished to avoid one Anne Elliot.
No, not at all.
After he was dressed and looked well enough to be part of polite society once again, he left his room and began to make his way down to dinner which about to be called shortly. He did not get very far though, and ran straight into Sophia just outside his room and it was clear from her expression that she had been waiting some time for him to emerge from the safety of his own quarters.
Sophia did not say anything for a full minute, but did not back down from her stance in front of him. Clearly waiting for him to admit that it had been terribly rude of him to be gone for the whole day without a word of where he was going, and when he would be back.
He was unwilling to break the silence, still fooling himself that his reasons for being gone all day where not selfish or rude, but where for his own benefit and that of his health.
"And where exactly, did you go today Frederick?" she began, fixing him with a frightful stare that he had not seen from her since he had been but a young boy. Back then it had made him cower and obedient, now it merely set his heart beating a little faster and make him feel slightly guilty.
Not that he had anything to feel guilty about, mind you, he reminded himself.
"Just about," was his eventual reply. "I took the opportunity to stretch my legs while I had the chance."
"Did you really have to be gone for the whole day though, Frederick?" she admonished. "You left Anne with only us old people to entertain her, when I am certain that she would have preferred your company."
Frederick doubted this very much but decided that the best course of action was to keep his mouth shut and not say a word on the matter.
"Besides," Sophia continued as they set of down the hall and towards the stairs, "You missed your lady callers."
"Callers?" he queried.
"The young Miss Musgroves called this morning, hoping to find you present and available at their beck and call."
"Really?"
"Yes. They stayed but five minutes once the knew you where not around, and set of in search of you."
"Well, they did not find me."
"And I am glad of it."
"You are?" They paused at the foot of the stairs and he turned towards her.
"They are not the type of girls I thought they where. In the whole time that they visited, not once did they asked how Anne was doing though they knew she was injured, and left almost immediately after. No manners at all. No, you would be a fool indeed if you settled on either one of them."
The continued on their path towards the dining room, but fell short when they passed the library and heard laughing coming from within. Pushing the door open, Sophia and Frederick observed that the Admiral and Anne where seated within, both of them red faced with laughter and merriment.
"Ah, Sophy, my dear. I was just telling Miss Anne, about my attempt at spear fishing in the Indies," he said, standing and greeting his wife warmly.
Since their renewed acquaintance, Frederick had never seen Anne so alive and animated. She was positively glowing, and her eyes where wide with wonder. Her smile was broad as she observed the Admiral and his sister interact with one another and it only diminished in size when she caught sight of him standing, unmoving, in the doorway.
Instantly the light was gone from her face, and once more she was still. As if waiting to see what he would do, or how he would react to the situation she had placed herself in, laughing and joking away with his family as though there was no such history between the two of them.
Before another word so spoke however, the bell for dinner went and the next hour or so was taken up with eating, and in Anne's case, listening to the Admiral and his wife discuss their present business and recount days at sea.
It was later, when they removed to the library, that the conversation turned once again and Anne found herself at the centre of it.
"Miss Elliot, you know Frederick, is very knowledgeable in regards to the navy," he told his brother, who himself paused, with his glass on the way to his mouth and stared at her. Anne turned her face away in embarrassment.
"Really?"
"Indeed," the Admiral boasted. "I was able to talk about different categories, and styles of ships, and she was able to understand me. I only had to stop once or twice to explain myself."
"Do you have acquaintances employed in the navy, Anne?" Sophia asked.
"No, I do not," Anne replied, still not looking in Fredericks direction. "I often found the time, there being so little to do in the area during the winter months, to follow the action abroad in the papers, and from there, my interest grew." It was not the whole truth, she thought, but it would satisfy.
If Frederick doubted her reason, then he said nothing. Any further explanation would surely, only cause harm, to both him and herself, and drag to the forefront a past that he no longer wanted to visit.
"Yes," said the Admiral, continuing down the same line of conversation much to the private wishes of both Anne and Frederick. "I had noticed the navy lists amongst the book on the shelves. I had assumed they where your fathers."
"And that is what happens when you assume something, my dear," Sophia said to him. "Now, Anne, are you going to be staying in the area for long?"
"I am here until," she paused momentarily "Until Lady Russell returns and can convey me to my family."
"They have settled somewhere pleasant for you I hope."
"I will rejoin them in Bath."
"You hate Bath."
The outburst was sudden, and so fiercely spoken that the occupants of the entire room turned towards him and regarded him with such an open expression of astonishment, that he wished he had not spoken and could slink into the darkness in the corners of the room.
"You forget, Captain Wentworth, that I am a single female, unable to go where I please. I must rejoin my family, and they have settled on Bath as their new home. I would have preferred somewhere in the country, but I must defer to them."
"I think the two of you are holding out on us," Sophia told them both after a moment, looking from her brother to Anne, and then back again.
"Sophia?" Frederick questioned, drawing his gaze away from Anne and looking at his sister.
"I knew the two of you where a little acquainted from before, but the knowledge you have of Anne, Frederick, leads me to think that you where in each others company more often than not."
"We, urg," Frederick began, averting his eyes from the others in the room, stumbling over his words.
"We weren't really in one another's company often. Perhaps once or twice each week, and never enough to form a close acquaintance."
"But you are better acquainted with my other brother?"
"Yes, but it was towards the end of his tenure, when Captain Wentworth had already left the area, that I really became close friends with him," and at that, Anne felt she was unable to go. Speaking for so long, and about such a subject, left her feeling drained.
The conversation drifted then, and Anne had a little time to recover. Sophia, seeing that she was tired, did the hostess thing and excused her for the night. Telling her that she did not need to stay up just because they where. Thinking she was doing Anne a favour, she procured Frederick as her escort up the stairs.
"Really, Sophia, I can manage on my own well enough," Anne said, as Frederick started,
"I'm sure the Admiral would be more suited,"
"You are not skirting from your duties I hope, Frederick," the Admiral asked him, glancing at his brother in law over the book he had picked up during a lull in the conversation.
Hesitantly Frederick rose and crossed the room to her. Extending his hand to Anne, he slowly raised his eyes from his hand up to her eyes and saw her doing the same to him.
Anne wasn't sure of what to do, or more accurately, what to think. She let her eyes drift from his out stretched hand, over his middle, up and over his chest. She watched it expand when he took a breath, and cave when he exhaled. Her gaze flittered over his face, taking in the contours that she had once known better than her own face, and how they had changed over the years.
Swallowing, she reached her own hand out and he grasped it. With his help she pulled herself to her feet. Bidding Sophia and the Admiral good night, they exited the room and headed to stairs and up to the bedrooms.
They walked in silence for the greater part of the short journey, till she felt him tense and looked up at him questionably.
"Why did you do that?" he asked when they where standing outside her door.
"Do what?"
"Say to Sophia that we barely knew one another," he pressed.
"The way you are acting, no one would even think that we knew one another at all," she retaliated with. The numbness she had been feeling in the library had left her entirely, and against only him, she felt that she was able to state her case quite well.
"Can you blame me?" he shot back. A hand came out and smacked the side panelling. Anne jumped. "It was bad enough when I was informed that they would be renting Kellynch but now, to have you staying here as well,"
"It was not like I planned on getting injured." Anne told him, standing her ground. "Your sister is a very forceful woman. I had no choice but to accept her."
"She is," he conceded. Though personally, he did not think his sister so forceful, but rather as Anne so weak. During his private reflections, Anne observed him. A disappointed frown emerged on her face.
"You know, you are not the man I once knew, Frederick," she finally said.
"It has been eight years," he hissed, closing the distance between them, drawing his face close to hers as she shook her head.
"It is more than just the passing of time." She bit her lip as if contemplating whether to continue with her train of thought. In the end she said, "The man I knew, would never had disappeared for the entire day just to hide from someone."
"I was not hiding."
"Well you where doing a good imitation of it then." She did not back down but faced him full on, unwilling to let him see that she would rather be hiding under the blankets herself, than having this conversation with him.
He took yet another step towards her and she was forced to take one back, leading her fall into the door to her room.
"Listen to me now, and listen well," he said, drawing even closer. She felt his breath upon her cheek. "I do not have to explain myself to you. You have no hold, no right, to question anything that I do. Not anymore."
And with that, he was gone.
Anne stood in the doorway for several minutes more, thankful for the support that the wood provided, for she doubted her legs could have held her on their own. 'I deserved that' she thought to herself as she turned and opened the door, sliding into the room and coming to rest again the other side of the door.
Maisy was in the room, preparing the bed for her mistress. The young girl was tempted to fetch Mrs Croft as she thought Miss Elliot looked quite unwell, but the young woman waved her off and instructed her to repack her belongings, she would be leaving in the morning.
Tempted though she was to ask why, Maisy, knew her place. She did however, go as far to say,
"But we where just getting used to having you home again, Miss."
Falling into the chair by the window, Anne raised a hand to her face and took a swipe at the solitary tears that had leaked out without her knowledge.
"This is no longer my home."