Chapter 28:
Much Needed Distractions
Carlisle never mentioned what had happened between he and Esme in his study. Nothing that happened in that room was ever explained or spoken about outside of its walls. This was simply a rule which they each understood and obeyed.
This gesture of mysterious influence – this swift nudge of her hand – was an icon for her very wishes, Carlisle supposed.
Distance was what she sought. With her eyes alone, she was begging him, Please… I need distance.
He wanted to break through to her, but to respect her wishes, he would need to sacrifice that want. She was not ready to face the reality of her impending future, the choices that she must one day make.
While part of Esme was grateful that they'd never talked about it, she still had the itch to justify it in some manner. But to simply apologize again for what she had done, she feared, would have only shaken him more. Somehow, not speaking about it only made it more intimate. As if it were some terrible, thrilling secret.
Carlisle was usually so skilled at keeping an air of neutrality in every situation, but lately this had changed. She passed him in the hallway, and he would flinch. She stepped closer to him, and he might step back. She stared at him, and his eyes would subtly dilate, as if he felt the stroke of her gaze.
He was so wary around her.
She should have never touched him.
He cherished her touch in any context of sadness or pity, yet when she'd practically thrust her hand into his heart, he was scared out of his wits. He had every right to be, and she was ashamed.
It was so frustrating to have such little control over her actions. Her emotions were a mischievous council in her chest, discussing all the splendid little ways they could ruin her, each day at a time.
Carlisle understood this, as he had made abundantly clear.
"Edward tells me he sees the signs in you," he'd given her fair warning. "This isn't anything to be afraid of, but it is something you should be prepared for…"
Despite those taunting voices in the back of her head, Esme acted as politely as possible in the presence of the doctor, and they both pretended as if everything was fine. Edward spared them his strange glances when they spoke together, and he interjected when things became awkward. It was a pattern, a comfortable balance they had. For a while it worked, but they all knew they were treading just above the surface.
Ever since she had been caught "running away," Esme had become the victim of hawk-like vigilance on every corner she turned. She could not deny her thrill at being watched too carefully – by Carlisle, especially. She could sometimes hear him lingering outside the door of her library whenever there were animals passing through the forest. He would have been ready to pounce if she so much as opened the window for a bit of fresh air.
And just knowing he would have done that, had she dared to provoke him, was chilling.
So many things about him were chilling. Beginning with the sound of his voice.
"Esme."
He opened the door to her library, without asking her permission. He never did that.
There was a vague aura of darkness about him, despite how brightly he shone in the threshold. It was slightly disturbing, yet somehow a thing of beauty.
"Edward and I are going hunting," he told her. Simple, polite. But it was expected that she come along. She really didn't have a choice, and he tried to disguise this by his politeness.
Esme rose to her feet, tossing her books aside.
"I'm ready." Even though she had no shoes on yet.
She never wore shoes in the forest anyway.
Carlisle's eyes were always on her feet when she walked out the door. She imagined he might have been smirking.
Edward bolted ahead of them with his untied laces and his unruly hair in a wind-swept mess. He was always so grateful to get out of the house.
"Don't do that!" Esme called after him.
"What?"
"I'm supposed to be faster than you," she chuckled as his pause allowed her to easily pass him up.
"Hah!"
They raced for a minute or two, and the tempo of Carlisle's feet following a fair distance behind them became a comforting sort of white noise. It made Esme feel safe, and somehow she thought it might have felt the same way to Edward.
"Safe, Esme?" Edward chortled from between the trees. "We're indestructible!"
The buff enthusiasm in his youthful voice inspired a wide, almost feral grin to her face.
They were indestructible.
She ran faster. So did Edward.
"Look at that." Carlisle's voice, a soft spot far behind them, sounded slightly marveled.
Both Edward and Esme came to a respective halt, staring at their sire in confusion. Then Edward gave a low, satisfied sort of laugh.
"You both run at nearly the same speed now," Carlisle clarified, sounding surprisingly somewhat saddened by this fact.
Esme crossed her arms and glared at Edward good-naturedly. "Do we?"
He wriggled his eyebrows in challenge. "Let's see."
And the boy was off again. Edward was terribly difficult to keep in one place. Then again, so was she.
Carlisle was a little bit furious.
"Be careful!" she thought she heard the doctor say. He was so far away.
"I know, I know." Edward groaned from close by, so much like an agitated son whose fun was consistently ruined by his overprotective father.
"I mean Esme."
Esme came to a standstill at the sweet concern in Carlisle's voice. She wanted him to come running right into her and knock her off her feet. She wanted him to find her, and she wanted to show him that she was safe. She was being careful. She wasn't going anywhere except where they were going…
But the scent was a pleasant distraction
Snap.
Snag.
Thump.
It was so easy by now, it was all but a helpless reflex.
Esme bent over the bleeding deer at her feet and drained it in minutes. Everything around her was so quiet and soft. What had she been worried about before…?
"Let me take care of that for you."
Oh, of course.
She was almost angry at Carlisle for interrupting. A light hissing noise came from her lips before she could stop it.
"You're finished aren't you?" he asked in defense. The low rumble in his own chest did not slip past her notice.
She looked down at the bloody mess of fur and lopsided limbs. It appeared she was.
He lifted the crushed carrion with one arm and moved to bury it for her.
"You don't need to do that, Carlisle."
But he was already on his knees, dark streaks of dirt covering his hands and his shirt.
"I insist." He looked up to pierce her with his stare, almost daring her to challenge his chivalry, and she licked the blood from her lips.
His eyes were so dark…and it looked like they were growing darker by the second.
"Go on, you're thirsty," she insisted, her voice meek and slippery.
He shook with a slightly disturbed chuckle. "I'll be fine."
"Carlisle?" Edward's voice intruded with a note of distressing concern.
Carlisle froze, snapping his head up with startling immediacy to attend to his son. "What is it?"
Edward shifted awkwardly, staring at Esme in a way that clearly expressed his wish that she had been absent for the moment. "Can… Can I show you something?" He tipped his head suggestively toward the trees behind him.
Carlisle looked plagued by an inner war for a moment as his hands clutched the limp legs of the doe in the dirt. His eyes flicked to Esme, then to Edward, as if the choice to leave one or the other was of dire consequence.
"I'll finish it," she told him, gently encouraging his hands to release her wasted prey.
He let go. His eyes hitched reluctantly to hers, and then he stood up. His scent was different, then. More powerful…deeper, almost sore…
"We'll be right back here," Edward told her as he led his father into the darker shadows.
Esme shivered once she was alone. Her hands went about the task of burying her kill with the same ease they would have washed the dishes when she had finished supper. It was sad, really, how second-nature this all was now. The hunt.
But there was still something delicious about it beneath the necessity.
Here was her proof.
Snap.
Snag.
Thump.
There was a bold crunch of dead leaves, an orchestra of scattered acorns, and a crashing wave of his spirited scent. Cold, then hot, then frozen still.
She was struck in the heart.
He growled – and the shameless sound licked her from the inside.
Blond bowed over brown. His slick teeth sliced into the neck. His surgeon's hands desperately gripped the animal's flanks as if holding tightly to a lover.
Edward groaned behind her.
Curses. Poor Edward. Oh, how can I control myself…?
Carlisle's lips were red.
Don't look at him.
Carlisle was purring.
Don't listen to him.
Carlisle was burying his hands in her hair, and sucking her throat, and shredding her clothes on the forest floor.
Don't fantasize about him.
But it was hopeless. The hunt was hopeless.
The past several times Esme had gone hunting with Carlisle, it had happened in much the same way. Even through the friction, Edward had gone along with them. He was brave about it. He gave them a chance.
Then one morning, Edward simply refused to accompany them.
Esme knew why. Her thoughts were inappropriate at best when she watched the doctor drinking blood. Edward was wise to spare himself the stress in having to hear it.
But this now left her alone with Carlisle.
She knew it was bound to happen again one day, that they would find themselves alone out here. But now that it was happening again, she wished she had been better prepared.
Carlisle was so unaware, it was unbelievable. He would run by her side, being all graceful and blond and utterly oblivious. It made her scream inside.
He was disturbingly quiet the first morning they went out alone. He killed a bear while it slept, so there would be no fight. He used a strange little pocket-knife to cut the artery instead of his teeth, and he drank only half of what the beast had to offer. He was acting so strange.
Esme watched him between the trees and thickets of thorns, silent and creeping. The white fingers, the blood seeping in ruby rivulets down his palms – the sadistic ritual made holy by his crisp sincerity – the searing passion of Christ drawn over his somber profile.
He was gold. She was panting.
He made these sounds... an unpredictable symphony he carried with him, graced by the soft strains of his familiar tenor. Yet his voice was so unfamiliar at the same time.
The lilt became a hiss. The hum became a purr. The clearing of a throat became a full, draining growl.
He was not censoring himself as he usually would have. He was so...distracted.
Esme took full advantage of Carlisle's distraction. She killed and drank like a shameless savage in her skirt, keeping a fair and understood sort of distance from him while they moved through the woods together. This was not a teasing, happy, joint effort as it once had been. This was every man for himself.
It felt almost like...he was ignoring her.
She wanted to cry because of it.
But no, she could not think this way. He was just very thirsty...
It was dark and gloomy on this early morning, with fog lying flat on the forest floor. Esme dragged her feet through the mist as she searched around for a place to bury the wasted carcass. Her heart gurgled for her attention, drowning in her neglect. She ignored it the same way Carlisle was ignoring her.
She swept the soft, cold dirt over the dead animals with the same daintiness she would have used while burying seeds in a garden. Her eyes blurred with venom and a feeling of cruel dissatisfaction as she glanced at Carlisle where he watched her from a few aching yards away. He was so ridiculously immune to camouflage out here – his hair looked nearly white in the darkness. His arms were crossed, his feet planted sturdily in the ground. There were trees all around him, perfectly suitable for leaning against, but he leaned against nothing.
His eyes were brassy now, but a kind of darkness still hovered over them, as if his thirst had not been fully sated.
She wanted to hold him down, and shove the blood into his lovely throat, forcing him to feel the same satisfaction she felt...
Her hands were shaking.
Oh, terrible, cruel imagination.
Esme rose to her feet when her job was finished, and Carlisle began his stride in the direction of the house. Wordlessly, she followed him, and she tried not to look at him the entire time.
There was no precedent for this coldness that had fallen between them. In fact, what Esme failed to realize was that it wasn't even mind was caught in a sticky web of paranoia, and everything Carlisle might have done in her presence with his body language or his flickering gaze was calculated to the point of untruth.
He was not angry with her. He was not even displeased.
He was only concerned. That was all.
But for what he was concerned, she should never have to know.
This distance caved in on itself the closer they came to their home. Slowly, his eyes returned to their healthier tone, and his breathing grew less ragged. It was a fascinating transition – from vampire back into doctor. From savage to refined.
But just a tiny piece of the savage remained. She could see it now, if she looked carefully enough. It was an excruciating pencil-point of a detail, ingrained in his flawless countenance.
His eyes furrowed familiarly as they congregated by the front porch, his half-dark gaze dropping to Esme's knees in confusion.
"You have blood on your dress." He said this as if it were the most tragic thing to have happened all week. His voice was soft and heart-splitting, almost tearful – a fierce opposition to the grandiloquent growls he had composed not minutes ago.
"Oh," she mumbled with a cursory glance at the deep red bruises on her skirt.
Esme had made marked improvements since she'd been first introduced to the art of hunting, but a careless spill was bound to happen once in a blue moon. She must have been especially distracted this morning as well.
She would not have been so upset by this, but because Carlisle so clearly was upset, she suddenly felt like weeping herself.
She looked up to him, lips set bravely in a pitiful smile. "I've ruined it, haven't I?"
He opened his mouth to speak, but she promptly intruded upon his unspoken amends.
"Please... Don't bother buying me a new one."
His face was hurt, and she couldn't stand it for one more second, so she continued her hasty speech with a shrug. "I have so many dresses I can hardly fit any more into my wardrobe."
Now he looked impressively embarrassed. She wanted to say something that would make him smile – at least a little bit – but unwilling to risk further awkwardness, she decided it best if she kept her mouth closed from then on.
Carlisle averted his swift golden eyes as he opened the door to let her inside.
Then he did smile – just a little bit – while Esme crumpled the ends of her skirt protectively in her hands, as if to hide the blood.
But unfortunately she never came to recognize this infinitesimal smile as he closed the door behind them, and she darted upstairs to change her dress.
Once safely inside her bedroom, Esme paused to take in her appearance, as was her habit after hunting. Not only did she wish to see just how horrendously torn up she had been in front of Carlisle, but she needed to see if she was still progressing; if her gaze had come any closer to sunrise from sunset.
Yanking her hand-held mirror off her night table, Esme studied the new flecks of gold in her eyes with a slightly warmer heart. They were so beautiful, those tiny studs of lemon within the cherry. They were looking brighter now, slowly but surely.
She wanted to show Carlisle.
She wanted him to take her chin between his hands and stare into her eyes and lavish her with his hushed praises.
Sighing, she hid the mirror back inside her drawer and began undressing.
"She needs more distractions."
The voice belonged to Edward – a soft warning uttered from just a floor below.
Esme froze with one foot in her stocking, poised on the edge of the bed. Her arms tingled and her joints stiffened at the realization that she was being discussed downstairs.
She kept her ears alert, waiting for any audible reply. But Carlisle didn't speak.
A door closed. A sigh. A breath.
Esme dressed quickly into a clean skirt and blouse, then opened the door to the hall to listen for any more voices.
The footsteps that headed from the foyer to the study were clearly Carlisle's, and suppressing a chill, she wrapped one of the woven throw blankets about her shoulders before descending the stairs.
If distractions were what they thought she needed, then distractions she would have.
Esme fetched her painting supplies from the ballroom floor and carried them into the sitting room. The windows were always the brightest in here, and with the sun now glowing brightly off the leaves outside, she could easily make the view into a subject worth painting.
Placing her easel strategically where the light best hit it, Esme stretched and washed a new board of canvas, and in a matter of minutes, she was ready to begin without so much as a primary sketch.
There was nothing like the untouched, slightly scratchy fabric of new canvas beneath the first brushstroke. Ah, yes, this was quite distracting.
Distracting from the worries of days ahead, from the thoughts that had plagued her over the past few nights, from the tentative footsteps approaching the room from behind her...
"You are in here. I was wondering what you were up to." His voice was deeper than normal. It worsened her chill.
He paused in the doorway, one hand against the frame. And if she had thought the process of painting to be distracting, it was nothing compared to just the sight of him standing there...with his collar unbuttoned to the very third button down – the button he always stopped at.
"Yes, I overheard Edward earlier," she blurted, flustered. "He said I need more distractions."
She turned back to the canvas, her hand now shaking lightly as she struggled to brush the oil in an even layer.
Carlisle sighed darkly. "You know Edward, Esme. He just talks."
"No, he's right," she insisted quietly, "I feel better when I'm distracted." She poured some turpentine into a jar and stirred the strong chemical absently with the end of her paintbrush. "I feel better when I'm painting."
She knew it was coming, but even so she could not help herself from shivering as Carlisle stepped up behind her, the soft spicy scent of a sacred forest swirling around her.
Keeping her breath shallow, she swept the paintbrush stubbornly over the bare sections of the canvas while he watched in silent, curious critique of her work.
The liquid swipe of the oil was painfully audible in the silence.
Esme chuckled nervously, "It's sometimes hard to keep an even layer." She repeated the unsuccessful brushstrokes several times, but every time the paint smeared and clumped in the wrong way.
"You're fingers are trembling," he boldly stated, his voice so low, she felt it shudder straight through her.
"It's so cold in the house," she mumbled her excuse, punctuating the remark with a tug of her makeshift shawl around her shoulders.
"I'll light a fire," he offered immediately, already too insistent for his own good.
"Oh..." Knowing it was useless to protest, she turned away.
"Wait right here," he said as he dashed out the door.
Through the window, she watched him as he soothed his pace into that of a human, bending at the waist to hoist a sizable bundle of firewood with his bare hands. There was nothing heroic about the simple gesture, she told herself vehemently. Nothing notably strapping about the way his muscles corded around his shoulders as he moved, nothing about the deep hunter green color of his shirt particularly flattering to his glowing white skin. Nothing remarkable about the way his blond hair was gently ruffled by the wind.
His eyes may have attracted many an early autumn honeybee, his breath may have awakened the ripely aged flowers, but he would not affect her. No, she would not let him affect her...
Moments later he reentered the sitting room, opened the grate, and let the logs tumble into the fireplace.
"The weather in these parts has always been a bit indecisive around this time of year. I think it's the lake," he explained as he struck a match and tossed it inside. "We'll have a sudden heat wave before winter hits, though, I can guarantee it."
He lowered himself to one knee, as if to propose to the fireplace. Esme watched him patiently shred pieces of newspaper and feed them to the flames. Again, she was struck by the strange nobility of his every action, no matter how insignificant it might be.
The jerk of his wrist, snapping the paper apart with merciful haste. The firm but gentle pressure of his fingers, preparing the piece he was about to tear next. The rustle, snap, rip sounds repeating in a steady rhythm.
His attentions to every strip of wilted paper unwittingly kindled a tightness in her lap as she studied him from a distance, her paintbrush slowly sliding down the front of the canvas, unaware.
Then he looked up, caught her gaze, and smiled – a ruggedly self-conscious twist of his tender pink lips.
"What are you painting?"
Esme was impressively composed as she replied with a small smile of her own, "What I see out the window."
Carlisle's gaze moved to the brilliant view behind the glass, and as his smile broadened, she knew she had chosen the perfect subject.
Rising quickly to his feet, he considerately drew the curtains further back to widen the view through the window on either side.
"Does that help any?"
"Yes, thank you." Even though she hadn't enough room to paint it all on her canvas now.
He caught her eye as she smiled appreciatively, and it was one of those frightfully significant moments where she could feel the connection between them – that split second drenched with such exhilarating purpose, becoming more familiar by the day.
Carlisle came to stand behind her again, and this time she was slightly more at ease with the nuance in her brushstrokes. Slowly, she adjusted to the rhythm of his breath, the protective pressure of his presence behind her.
"How do you paint trees?"
Esme wasn't expecting this kind of question from Carlisle at all. With the rich, languid manner in which he had chosen to say it, it sounded more like he was pleading for advice on how to touch someone's soul.
The sincerity behind his curiosity startled her quite pleasantly, but she was happy to share all that she knew.
"Well, you need to start with a proper base coat, so I would pick a color that best brings out the brightness in the tree I wanted to paint." She dipped her brush into the vivid yellow and applied a wash of the color on the top right corner of the canvas. "This tree in the corner catches the most sunlight, so I'll start with this yellow... then I'll build it up from there."
Carlisle must have been fairly fascinated, for he was utterly silent while she developed each leaf with painstaking points of paint. There must have been a thousand things he could have been doing instead...and yet he was here, watching her paint like it would be a chore to do anything else.
"See how pure the colors look now?"
He uttered a soft hum of amused agreement and leaned down slightly to look closer. "It looks perfect."
Esme flushed secretly at the untrue compliment, hiding a grin of embarrassment. "I don't know about perfect, but I hope it will look more realistic with some extra time."
He was almost jubilant. "Keep going."
How she longed to turn and see his face, to see the joyful brilliance of youth that surely brightened his features. She could hardly resist the hints he gave her through the telling tone of his voice.
But to see him now would push her poor heart well past its reachings.
"I would, but it needs to dry now, unfortunately," she giggled shyly as she dropped her paintbrush into the turpentine.
"Oh."
"Oil paintings take a fair amount of patience," she sighed, petting the side of the canvas, "but they're worth it in the end."
He was quietly thoughtful for a while as he looked back and forth between her corner of canvas and the window with a critical eye.
She watched in slight amazement as Carlisle's fingers suddenly reached around her to pick up the paintbrush where she had left it to dry. He was presenting it to her, encouraging her with a teasing stroke of the bristles against her resting knuckles.
"Start the red tree now."
His voice was so soft, it was almost inappropriate.
Despite Esme's discomfort with the color red in recent days, she was helpless to mix the oil with every scarlet pigment within reach. Patiently, she showed him the subtleties each color had when placed just so beside another. She explained the rules of complements and tones and values, and how to go about fixing the occasional mistake.
He drank in everything she had to say, and his interest only seemed to deepen the more she revealed. Nearly forty minutes passed with as much ease as a wave on the sand, and a good half of what they saw out the window now appeared on the canvas before them.
Esme thought it would have been impossible to work with Carlisle's eyes watching her every move, but she was pleasantly surprised to find his quiet interest and his genuine questions actually put her at a thrumming sort of ease. He was an inspiration more than a distraction.
And all the while, the glorious heat from his body wrapped around her – far, far tighter than the woven fabric that lay over her shoulders.
"Are you warm now?" he finally asked, the chivalrous question tainted by velvet husk.
She was indeed warm. Warm by his doing, though not by what he had done to make her that way. There was no way to tell him it was simply him and not his fire which had warmed her.
"Yes," she whispered honestly.
She felt the suggestion of his fingers around her shoulders, and before her body could tense at the touch, he had gently pulled the shawl away, leaving her bare skin unprotected.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
The mark of finality those two words branded upon the air nearly made her weep. She wanted him to continue the careful disrobing his fingers had begun. If he were to begin with her shawl, he should continue with the buttons in the back of her blouse, and the fastens in the side of her skirt...
"Do you want to try it?" she asked him breathily.
"Hm?" Even with the tiniest hum of a word, he managed to exude his intrigue.
Undoing my buttons...
"Painting the tree." She raised the paintbrush for him to take, and his hand hesitated slightly before accepting it.
"Are you certain? I may ruin a masterpiece."
She would have believed he was only teasing, but something in his voice was distressingly close to real concern.
Esme smiled warmly over her shoulder and encouraged his approach by stepping to the side.
"You won't ruin it," she assured, seizing the excuse to touch his hand as she guided him closer to the canvas. "Just...paint what you see."
It was rather disorienting for Esme to watch Carlisle as he intruded upon her artistic space, rather fascinating to witness how new he was to the nuanced process – as if he feared one off stroke would mar not only her artwork but her heart as well. If she was not mistaken, there was a quiver, slight and subtle, in his fingers now…
"Base coat first," she reminded him, nudging the orange pigment in suggestion.
His eyes flicked to where her hand lay on the palette, and she let her hand slip away, being sure to brush the edge of his back as she brought her arm around.
Carlisle exhaled with a shudder as he tentatively touched the tip of the paintbrush to the pigment, then to the canvas. Esme was an attentive onlooker, and it did not fail to pass her notice that he was striving to mimic her precise motions. He had learned from her.
Her teeth gnawed her bottom lip in childish delight as he washed the left corner of canvas with slow strokes of the warm peach color she had subtly provided.
"Is that right?" he asked insecurely, unaware that she was struggling with the urge to kiss the very hand that painted.
"Yes, it's wonderful." Everything your hand does is wonderful…
His shoulders rested at her praise, and from behind him, she could see the sweet protuberance of one cheek as he smiled.
She hoped he could hear the grin in her voice. "Now add some of the details. More red, less oil."
He followed her instructions with a surprisingly natural finesse. He must have been paying very close attention to her rambling earlier. Every motion he made was exactly the way she would have done it. And he was almost better at it than she had been.
It shouldn't have surprised her. A surgeon was naturally gifted with his hands.
Her eyes watered slightly at the thought.
"It keeps changing," he sighed. His discouragement was painfully endearing. "From the wind."
Esme nodded behind him with a patient smile. "An artist has to struggle to capture his surroundings sometimes. It's the challenge that makes it so engaging, though." She tucked a long lock of hair behind her ear. "At least I think it is."
Shyly, she looked up and found him smiling at the partially finished painting with muted pride.
Did he realize the beauty of what he saw had been created by them?
Her own heart jolted at the very idea that these precious pinpoints of green and gold and red were their creation…
Brrriiing.
The telephone only ever cried for Carlisle.
Esme was crying for him just as much, but in silence where he could never know.
The surgeon's fingers lingered on the paintbrush for a stubborn moment before he reluctantly set it down on the palette. His eyes pierced Esme's with apology, and they were stirring with something so regretful, so tortured...almost like anger.
But she deflected this gaze with forgiveness, ensuring him that there would be a time to return to these blazing colors on their canvas, to create artwork together.
"Excuse me," he murmured, his words deepened by the sadness of his smile, abandoning the magic of their art in favor of necessary societal duties.
And he left her to paint the rest of her trees alone.
His voice in the other room as he discussed various ailments over the telephone was uncharacteristically disgruntled. This pleased her.
He wanted to return to her. She could hear this in the tightness of his tone, in the rushed flavor of his words. This flattered her.
With every stroke of color she placed on that canvas, Esme could not seem to pry her eyes away from the top left corner of wonderful red and orange speckles, knowing Carlisle had placed each of them there with unnecessary care. This thrilled her.
A part of him was in this painting, and she would be damned if she could not do the rest of it justice.
A/N: In the tenth chapter of Behind Stained Glass, you will find a collection of several love letters that Carlisle wrote but never sent to Esme. These are posted under "Chapter 10: Peacock Blue Ink."
