Chapter 5

"And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked.
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter.
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—"

Isabella, Boston, June 1769

I suppressed a yawn that bubbled up as I helped Jacob load the horses' feeding bin with fresh hay. Although I tried my best to hide it, Jacob saw and he flicked a strand of hay at me with a smirk on his face.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty," he joked, "it's reaching midday. Why are you so tired?" I laughed as I picked the hay out of my hair and flicked it back at him.

"A girl can have her secrets, can't she, Jacob?" I teased him. His face fell as my words hit him, and I immediately regretted my jest.

"Since when have we had any secrets from each other, Isabella," Jacob said forlornly, his brow crinkled as he looked at me. I looked back to my work, not wanting him to see the guilt on my face as I lied. Even though I felt sure that Jacob would understand and come to accept Edward as a friend, too, something held me back from telling him.

"Never. I was only teasing you, Jacob. The moonlight kept me up last night, that's all," I replied, carefully keeping my voice light even while my heart was pounding underneath my ribs. Somehow, although I knew that I could trust Jacob with my life, I also knew that he mustn't know about Edward. Not right now, at least. I kept working at the hay until I felt Jacob's eyes leave my face, and I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

I had been friends with Jacob for a very long time. Charlie had taken him in when he was but five years old. I was with Charlie when we discovered the little boy that he was then. I was four years old at the time. We had struck out towards the farm of a friend of Charlie's who was moving his family south to look for more opportunities and was auctioning off much of his property that he didn't want to carry with him. As we rode through the forest, the smell of smoke reached our noses and curious, we followed the scent until we reached a burnt Native village. Charlie covered my eyes, but not before I caught a glimpse of the destruction, both human and structural, that had been sown through the poor little dwelling. To this day, I could still picture all the bodies that lay strewn and broken on the trampled earth. I remember asking Charlie what had happened and that was when he explained to me that while we had never considered the Natives to be any less than our friends and gracious hosts who allowed us to share this beautiful new world with them, there were others who did not share our views. Instead, they viewed the Natives as less than human but animals to be hunted and cleared from the lands that they believed to be rightfully all theirs, simply because they had the gun power to do so.

We were about to leave until we heard a little cry coming from one of the dwellings. It sounded like a child and Charlie immediately turned back towards the sound.

"What is it, Father?" I'd whispered.

"Stay here with Robert, and I'll go see," he'd told me, as he handed me off to our old stablesman, "and keep your eyes shut." I didn't have to be told twice, since I had no desire to see any more of the carnage in that dreadful place and I kept my eyes firmly screwed shut as I felt Robert's arms encircle me. But I kept my ears open and I heard Charlie's footsteps on the earth and the creak of a door. The whimpers that we'd heard faded and after a little while, I heard not one, but two pairs of footsteps, one heavy- Charlie's – and one much lighter, as we started moving away from the destroyed settlement. Eventually, we stopped and I felt myself being lifted off the horse and set onto the ground.

"You can open your eyes now, Isabella," I heard Charlie say, and I peeked through my eyelashes. My vision focused in on little dark arms, clutching Charlie's trousers, and a pair of dark eyes peering warily at me from behind Charlie's legs. It was a little Native boy, and he looked absolutely terrified of me. The little boy was Jacob, as we later named him. His parents had been killed in the raid of the Native settlement and he had been left all alone in that dwelling before Charlie found him. That was the day that Jacob joined our little family. Charlie decided that then and there as it was obvious the little boy had nowhere else to go and he could have found no better home then with us. I was simply happy to have found a playmate. Before Jacob joined us, it had only been Charlie and I and the rest of servants, and I'd been quite a lonely child as Charlie had neither the time nor the inclination to see to it that my days were filled with anything other than my own lonely games with myself and my imaginary friends. Now, I could have a real friend, someone of my own age that I could play with. And that's what Jacob became. In respect to the inn, he was a stable-boy in training, as Robert was getting old and unfit to do the work that was required of him, but in respect to me, he was my only friend until I found Alice and Rose, and I still held him very close to my heart. I taught him how to speak, read, and write English, and he taught me how to ride a horse, and how to recognize what in the forest was edible and what was not. He taught me how to tie and untie knots and I taught him all the fairy tales that Nellie, my old nursing maid, had read to me when I was but a babe.

And so we grew like this together through the years, and although Jacob slept out in the barn (he liked to be close to the horses, he explained when Charlie offered him a room in the inn), he was as much a part of the family as I was. It was true that Jacob and I shared everything together.

But, lately, something had felt changed and that feeling didn't leave me as I hurled the hay over into the bin. At first, I thought it was the fact that for the first time in my life, I was keeping something from Jacob, but it was more than that. Something had changed in him, too. I would catch him looking at me sometimes when he thought I wasn't noticing, and there was something in his eyes that I'd never seen there before. It made me uneasy. I felt self-conscious around him now, in a way that I hadn't before. Perhaps that's what made me keep this secret from him for so long.

Finally, all the hay was neatly packed into the horses' feeding bin and I laid my pitchfork against the wall, brushing my hair back from my face. Wiping my hands on my apron, I snuck a glance at Jacob, and was relieved to find that whatever doubt I'd seen on his face before was now gone. It was my old Jacob again, from my childhood days. I smiled at him and he smiled back at me as he wiped his own hands on his trousers, opening the door to the stable and leading out one of our mares. She was to be sold off today, and I was sad to see her go, even though I understood that we desperately needed the money that we would get from her. I walked over and patted her mane as Jacob fitted her with a bridle and a saddle. She nuzzled my face with her soft nose.

"Poor Bonnie," I remarked sadly, "I hate to see her go."

"I do too," Jacob said gruffly as he cinched in the leather straps of her saddle, "but you know the inn needs the money." I nodded in acknowledgment as I said my silent goodbyes to Bonnie. Jacob glanced outside as we both heard Charlie call his name.

"It's time for us to go," Jacob said, "it's almost midday and the auction starts at twelve-thirty." My heart jumped at the words "almost midday" and I glanced down the road, remembering Edward's promise to me. Jacob and Charlie must be gone before he arrives.

I turned back to Jacob, "Yes, you better hurry. You wouldn't want to be late." But I couldn't help glancing back to the dusty road, expecting at any moment to hear the hoof beats that would carry Edward to me. Jacob followed my line of gaze before I whipped it back to look at him. His eyes were dark, indecipherable as he slowly turned to look at me. For a second, something flashed in them that made him unrecognizable. For a second, he looked almost… wolfish. There was something hungry in them that made me shiver. But it was only for a second, so fast that I wondered if I'd imagined it.

"What are you looking for, Isabella," he asked me, as I scrambled to come up with an explanation.

"I was only wondering if it might rain today," I answered him, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. And indeed, there were dark grey storm clouds on the horizon, "if it does, you and Father would be smart not to forget your cloaks."

I sighed as Jacob seemed to accept this explanation, kissing the top of my head before he strode away to pluck his and Charlie's cloaks from the hook by the door.

"Thank you, Isabella," he said as he swung himself over Bonnie, "we'll be back before you even think of it."

"Don't be too quick to sell her off," I called out as I watched Jacob and Charlie ride down the road, "she's quite dear to me. Make sure they know what she's worth!"

As soon as they disappeared down the road, I spun on my heel and raced back to the main road, watching to see if a tall, bronze-haired figure would appear from amongst the trees. But, there was no sign of him and it was past midday now. My heart beat faster as my mind played me a cruel montage of all the possible reasons why Edward would not be here right now, even though I knew that it was more likely that he had run across some banal difficulty in his dealings and that he would be back for me tonight. I was so intent on the road that I did not notice the hooves clopping up to me until I felt a horsey breath on my neck and a voice softly saying:

"My love."

I almost fell down in my surprise, but I managed to catch myself in time, and I turned around to see Edward on his horse, the golden buttons of his jacket glinting in the midday sun. Just inside of it, I could see peeking out the dark red of the ribbon that I had given to him the night before. I let out a sigh of relief.

"Edward, you almost scared me to death," I said, "I couldn't help but think of what might have happened to you." Edward extended a hand down to me and I took it as he pulled me up behind him onto his horse. I rested my chin on his shoulder as he turned his head and gave me a quick peck on the nose.

"I told you I'd come back for you, didn't I? Have a little faith in me, Isabella."

"I do have faith in you, Edward," I countered, "It's the rest of the world that I have little faith in." Edward spurred the horse to a trot and soon, we'd entered the cool shade of the forest, the main road slowly but surely disappearing behind us.

"Where are your father and Jacob riding off to with Bonnie?" Edward asked curiously, "That's not Jacob's usual horse."

"We're selling her."

Edward turned and looked at me, surprised, "Selling her? But that's your horse, Isabella. You love Bonnie."

I shrugged, "I do love Bonnie, Edward, but there's no other reason for me to keep her. I like to ride her around the woods, but she isn't used for any work around the inn, and we really need the money. The inn hasn't been doing very well, with all the new taxes coming in."

Edward was silent as he considered what I had told him, and the only sounds for a while were the horse's occasional spluttering and the chirping of the birds. I put my cheek against his back, enjoying the feeling, the solidness of him. When he spoke again, the sound ran through me, tingling down to my toes.

"Then let me help. I'll give you some of the gold I procure and the inn will be just fine. You won't have to sell Bonnie."

I shook my head, "No, Edward. That wouldn't be right. I'm sure there are people far worse off than Charlie and I who need that gold more. Charlie and I can get by. Besides, I've already made him promise to try and sell Bonnie off to a local man, someone who's nice and will treat her well. Maybe, he'll even let me come by and visit her every once in a while. I might not be saying goodbye to her forever."

Edward turned around and gave me a kiss, a real one this time.

"Isabella, if Charlie only knew what a treasure his daughter really was, he would keep more careful watch over you, instead of letting someone like me whisk you away."

I blushed, "Anyone would do the same."

"I've seen many fine ladies, Isabella," Edward said seriously, "women who have much more material belongings in this world than you do, but your generosity beats all of them. Many of them care only for themselves and their looks, but you have something in you that makes you infinitely more rich and beautiful. You have kindness, Isabella. Beyond measure."

I blushed even more at his ardent words, quickly changing the subject before my cheeks could actually burst into flame.

"So where are you taking me, Edward?" I queried, "are we going to see the reverend, now?"

"No, not yet, love," Edward answered, "there's something I'd like to do first and someone I'd like you to meet. And we have much to talk about before we can pronounce our love for each other before Father Carlisle."

I desperately wanted to find out what more it was that we had to talk about, but I realized that Edward was in no mood to discuss it now. So I bit my tongue and thought about who we might be going to see, if it wasn't Father Carlisle.

Eventually, the trees started clearing out and the sounds of the busy town reached our ears. Edward reached around and wrapped his scarf back around his face, so only his eyes were visible.

He turned around to me and murmured, "Keep your head down, Isabella. No one ever recognizes me like this, but if they do, I don't want them to recognize you, too." I nodded, unwrapping the scarf from around my neck and draping it over my hair so that it covered my face like a veil. Soon, we entered the town and I heard the familiar cries of the baker and the butcher and blacksmith. But those sounds died out as well as Edward led the horse towards a part of the town that I was unfamiliar with. I peeked from behind the scarf to my left and right and what I saw shocked me. There were emaciated women with equally emaciated babies sitting in the dust of the road. They looked frazzled as their babies wept and wailed, their tiny little bird-like mouths open, searching for nourishment that never came. There were older children too, watching us pass with the saddest eyes I'd ever seen, their feet bare and dirty on the cobblestones. I jumped as I felt fingers on my skirt.

"Please miss," a wizened, gnarled old beggar rasped, "have you any food or change to spare?"

After I recovered from my initial shock, I patted around my pockets for something, anything I could give this poor man, but I had nothing on me. It was then that I heard:

"Here you go, Ben," Edward said, "and there's extra in there for some milk and bread for your grandchildren."

As Edward handed over a burlap bag of jingling coins, the beggar's eyes widened in recognition, and a smile broke across his wrinkled face, "Why, Edward! I hardly knew it was you. Thank you, my son."

"There's no need to thank me, Ben. It's not my money. It's simply your own just earnings that have been stolen from you by our gracious lords of England. I simply saw to it that it was returned to you. How are Mary and the babies?"

"Oh, they've been doing much better since the last time you came, Edward," Ben replied, "I can't thank you enough for all you've done for us. Jim is doing the best he can but even before the taxes are collected, it's only just enough to keep us all going. I'm only sorry that an old dog like me can't do any more to help than to beg." Ben's voice was filled with shame towards the end. My heart throbbed with pity for this poor man and his family.

"I'm sure you're doing everything anyone could do in your situation," Edward comforted the old man, "Besides, as long as I am here, you and your family shouldn't have anything to fear." At these words, the old man clutched Edward's hand and he stopped the horse.

"Edward," the old man rasped, urgency in his voice, "you must not let those bloody Redcoats catch you. There are posters of you everywhere now; your face is on every corner. And they've raised the bounty to 150 pounds. No one here will ever betray you, because I know who the Redcoats are. As soon as they give you the bounty, they'll take away all but two measly pounds for tax, and then where will we be? Right back where we started, and we will have lost you. But Edward, be wary. There are some who are still in line with the British and they won't hesitate to betray you for 150 imaginary pounds. Be wary, son."

Although my blood ran cold at Ben's words, Edward chuckled and placed his hands over the beggar's dirty fingers, "Ben, you know as well as I do that those knuckleheaded Redcoats don't have a thimble's worth of brain between the lot of them! They'll never catch me. I assure you."

Ben nodded and withdrew his hands from Edward's, "Just so, just so. All's I'm saying is that they seem mighty desperate to catch you and that, in combination with stupidity, never bodes well for anyone. Well, now I know that I have warned you. Godpseed, Edward, on all your ventures."

Edward bent his head towards the old man, "Good day, Ben." The horse continued to advance through the sorrow filled streets and I leaned in close to whisper in Edward's ear.

"Edward," I began, "maybe it's not such a good idea for you to be here, considering what Ben just said."

Edward turned his head slightly, his lips curved in a slight smile as he whispered back, "Do not fear, Isabella. I've been avoiding the Redcoats for quite a while now. If anyone can do it, it's me."

I tried to take comfort in Edward's words but a persistent fear still gnawed at my gut as we reached a little grey door near the end of the long alleyway. As I listened carefully, I could hear little babies crying inside, not just one but what seemed more like ten.

Edward rapped on the door before a female voice from the inside, shouted, "Come in!" Edward opened the door and led me in. The dwelling was small and dim but warm, and the smell of fresh baked bread wafted across my nostrils. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the rooms, I saw a woman hurrying towards us. She looked to be in her early 40s, about the age my mother would have been had she been still alive. Her face looked worn and haggard, but still, she was a handsome woman. Her face lit up when she spotted Edward and she flew to him, holding his face in her hands and giving him a kiss on each cheek.

"Esme," Edward addressed her, "I've told you; it's not safe to leave your door unlocked with all these Redcoats around now. And what are you doing saying, 'Come in' without even looking to see who it is?"

Esme gave him an amused look, "Oh fiddlesticks, Edward. No one comes to visit me besides you. Who else could be at the door? Now let me look at you. Are you hungry? I stuck some bread into the oven half an hour ago. It should be about done now." It was then that she noticed me standing there and her cheeks reddened, "Oh! I didn't realize we had company. Let's see, you must be Isabella!"

Edward laughed at the surprised expression on my face as I recognized my own name, "This is Esme, love. And you're right, Esme, this is Miss Isabella Swan, Charlie the innkeeper's daughter."

"Why, Edward," Esme exclaimed, "she's even more beautiful than you told me. You didn't do her justice."

It was my turn to blush now, as Edward replied, "Well, it's not easy to, Esme."

"It's very nice to meet you, Esme," I finally found my voice, "I'm sorry I don't know as much about you as you do about me."

"Well, I can see that Edward hasn't told you much," Esme said, as Edward looked down at his boots, "but come in and I'll find you two a place to sit so we can talk as much as we want. It's not civilized to stand about here in the doorway like this." Esme ushered us further into the small apartment. Upon entering the main room, I gasped in surprise. Every available space and corner was taken up by cribs and in each crib was a baby, some seemingly just born and some almost walking. There were older children, too, ranging from ages two to twelve, with the older ones trying to comfort the crying babies. Esme had returned with three crates in hand.

"I'm sorry there aren't more comfortable sitting arrangements than this," she said, but Edward took our crates with as grateful a smile as if she'd offered him a throne.

"Esme, are all of these children yours?" I asked in amazement.

Esme's eyes widened and she laughed in surprised amusement, "Oh heavens, no! Of course they're not all mine. No one woman could give birth to such a brood as this."

"Esme takes in children who have no one else to go to," Edward explained to me quietly.

"Oh yes," Esme agreed, "and it wasn't always this crowded here as it is now. It seems that there are only more and more unwanted babies with all these godforsaken taxes that have been placed on us. Women are increasingly left with no way to feed their children or dying trying to and so, the children come to me."

"I see, and Edward is… your son?" I ventured. Their relationship seemed very filial to me, and she was about the right age for it.

Esme gasped, "Edward, you really have told her nothing! Why, you have nothing to be ashamed of."

"That's because you'd let me get away with murder, Esme," Edward mumbled, as he looked anywhere but at her or me.

"Fiddlesticks," Esme retorted, "I've boxed your ears plenty of times when you were younger for you to know that's not true, Edward Anthony Masen Cullen." I sensed there was a story to be told here so I waited for someone to tell it to me. Eventually, Edward was the one who broke the silence.

"No, Esme is not my mother," he began, "but she might as well be, as she was the woman who took me off the streets when I was but eight." Edward looked up and saw my look of confusion, as did Esme.

"You'd better start from the beginning, Edward. The poor girl looks bewildered."

Edward took a deep breath and began again, "My mother's name was Elizabeth Cullen. She was the daughter of a wealthy lord who had come here to reap the riches of the new world. I never knew my father, never knew anything about him, except that he was a soldier, a Redcoat that my mother had fallen in love with one summer. But as it turned out, he wasn't worthy of her love. After she discovered that she was pregnant with his child, he left her and never returned and she was left to care for the babe all by herself. Soon enough, her family too discovered that she was with child, and they threw her out, disowned her entirely, declaring her a smirch on the family name."

"You were the child," I whispered.

"Yes, I was the child," Edward confirmed.

"Edward, you're of noble blood?" I realized.

Edward snorted, "Hardly. I'm what my grandparents would call a bastard. They would never claim me as their blood." I was sad for Edward, and sad for the cruelties in this word. To throw out your own daughter and to disown her little baby son! I couldn't imagine anything worse.

"What did she do then?" I prompted. Edward was silent for a moment, as if to steel himself for his own story before he continued again.

"She was high-born, so she had very little skills to earn her keep. She didn't know how to cook or clean, and so she begged for a few years. When she gave birth to me, she was alone, and she raised me alone, without any friends to lean on. All her friends had shunned her, too. She had no one. Eventually, some man made her a little proposition because I'm sure she wouldn't have gone to this herself. But because she desperately needed the money, she took the proposition, and soon, she grew to rely on these little propositions to live. Eventually, she saved enough money to move her and myself off the streets. It wasn't enough to rent, but it was enough to buy the materials and hire a man to build herself and me a little shack in the woods to live in. It wasn't much, but it was a roof over our heads, which was more than we could say for the streets. I was almost two at this point. We lived there for three years, and she continued accepting those little propositions to keep food in our mouths. It was all she knew to do. And while I remember happy times with my mother, she who loved me and kissed me, calling me "her brave little boy," that's what many of my memories of my early life are: strange men coming and going from our little shack at all hours of the evening, some staggering drunks and some quite well-dressed, obviously wealthy. They never saw me. Mother wouldn't let them. Anytime she had men over, she told me to hide in the little cubbyhole she'd built for me, and that was where I'd sleep most of the time. But, I'd still hear them coming and going, and I'd peek out the little crack in my cubbyhole at them. Some of them were kind to my mother but many of them were not. Long were the nights when I would wake up to my mother's screams, hear her cries as a man beat her." His voice sounded sick now and I felt sick, too, hearing this sad history of Edward's mother. I felt that I wouldn't like what was coming next.

"Oh Edward," I exclaimed, as I made to move towards him, so I could take him in my arms, kiss that sick tone out of his voice. But Esme stopped me, and the look in her eyes made me understand that Edward had to get all of it out now, or else I'd never hear the rest of it. At this point, I wasn't even sure I wanted to, although I wanted to know everything there was to know about Edward. For a few moments more, there were only the cries of the babies in the background until Edward took up the story again.

"It continued like that for three years. Three years of endless nights. I was paralyzed in that cubbyhole, because my mother had ordered me on no uncertain terms that I was not to emerge until the men were long gone, no matter what I heard. To this day, I can't believe that I actually listened to her."

"You were a little boy, Edward," I cried, aghast, "what could you have done?"

"Something! Anything! No, instead I laid there like a coward and listened to her take the beatings, night after night. Her 'brave little boy.'" He was trembling now, and I longed to go to him, but Esme still had that look in her eyes, so I stayed put.

"I remember quite clearly the winter she took sick. I was five years old. I didn't know what it was then, but I know now that it was consumption. Near the end, she was coughing up a lot of blood and her brow felt like fire. Thankfully, the men had stopped coming. They knew what was happening to her and they were afraid that she would give it to them. We couldn't afford a doctor, so when she got worse, I ran to the town, begging passersby to give me the money and the knowledge to make my mother better. One day, a kind woman saw me on the side of the street, and she gave me a few silver coins to take to the apothecary and told me what to ask for. Her sister was sick, too. I'll never forget her face. I've always wanted to go back and thank her, but I never saw her again. I rushed the medicine back to my mother, but it was too late. She was gone. I stayed by her side for three days before they came and carted her away, like she was so much rubbish that someone had left outside their door to be picked up. That infuriated me. They had to tear me away from her. But that was it. She was gone."

Edward's entire body was bent over, his elbows on his knees, a picture of perfect agony and defeat. I had never seen him like this before, and it scared me. He looked beaten. I glanced over at Esme, and before she even completed her nod, I'd rushed over to Edward, kneeling at his feet as I took his face into my hands and looked up into his eyes. The pain in them took my breath away, so that I almost choked on my next words to him.

"Oh, Edward. My love. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry," I murmured, as I reached up to kiss him, to kiss the pain out of those green eyes, forgetting that Esme was even in the room. His fingers closed around my wrists as I kissed him, still holding his face to mine, but he pulled away.

"So now you know, Isabella. Now you know who I really am. Can you still do it? Can you still marry me, knowing who I am? The coward bastard son of a worthless father and a whore mother?" he asked bitterly. My jaw dropped as I stared at him, while Esme exclaimed in horror at his language.

"Edward!" she admonished.

I only kissed him harder, and when I finally broke away, I looked into his eyes fiercely, "Edward, I want you to listen to me. Are you listening? This changes nothing of how I feel for you. I love you. As much as ever. Your father could be the devil himself for all I care. And your mother—she was only doing what she had to do to keep herself and her little boy alive. She may have been a- she may have had to sell her body, but for why she did it, she's more a queen than any in my eyes. In fact, she sounds like a lovely woman. I wish I could have had the chance to meet her. She must have been an extraordinarily good sort of lady to have produced someone like you. And Edward- stop blaming yourself for what those men did to her. There was nothing you could have done. Nothing. She was right to tell you to hide away. If that's what those men were doing to her, imagine what they would have done to you. And if that makes you a coward, why then, hang me now as a murderess. My own mother died giving birth to me. The doctor said that I had taken too long to come out of her womb. If you were a coward, then I'm something far, far worse." At this, I offered my neck up to him, as if for the noose. Edward swiftly bent down, but he only kissed it, and crushed me to him in a tight embrace. I returned it just as tightly.

"Isabella, love" he whispered into my hair, "no matter what I do, I'm afraid I'll never quite deserve you." I shook my head vehemently in denial of that sentiment. I was who I was because of my happy circumstance. Although I never got to know my mother, I still had a father who loved me, distant though he was, and who provided a roof over my head and food in my stomach. I had no reason not to be good. Edward was who he was despite his circumstance. Despite everything that had happened to him, he was not only good, but the best.

"Edward," I told him, "you told me once that the world wasn't rainbows and butterflies, that you were no more a thief than the people who you stole from. I didn't know what you meant by it then, but oh Edward. I understand now. I do."

A sniffle caused both Edward and I to turn our heads towards Esme, who had a handkerchief raised to her nose and was looking at us through teary eyes.

"Esme!" Edward cried in dismay, "What's the matter?"

"Oh Edward," Esme replied, laughing through her tears, "Don't mind me. I'm just so happy that you two have found each other. Really, don't worry about me. These are good tears, joyful tears."

Edward looked at me once before bringing my clasped hands up to his mouth and kissing them. Then he went over to Esme and before she could protest, took her handkerchief from her and tenderly wiped away her tears. This only made Esme cry harder. Eventually, Edward just gave up and held her, rocking her back and forth as her tears soaked his shirt. As he did so, Edward turned to me and said:

"I haven't explained Esme's part in all this yet. When my mother died, I was all alone in the world. She'd left me some money, but the same people who took her body found it and they took that too, proclaiming it to be payment for the disposal of her body, even though it went into the common mass grave anyway. But they didn't take the address she'd left me. I couldn't read just then, but I recognized letters, and so I took that little slip of paper, left the hut that I'd called home since I could remember, and wandered around Boston, hoping to match up the letters with a street name. Eventually, a cobbler spotted me and took pity on me. When he read the address, he was astonished. Yet he pointed the direction of the road to me and wished me luck. Well, I followed that road and when I reached the end of it, I found myself standing in front of this ostentatious manor, ten times the size of my shack. It turns out that my mother had left me the address of her parents' home, the very home she'd been turned out of, in hopes that time had dulled her parents' anger and that they would take pity on her little boy. But I didn't discover this until later. At that point, all it was to me was a big house. When I knocked on the door, a manservant answered it. He was about to turn me away before I handed him that worn little slip of paper. He asked me who had given it to me, and when I answered him the name of my mother, his eyes grew wide. He allowed me into the foyer and told me to wait there. There was some commotion inside the household, and then suddenly, a man came out with a woman following him. They were both older than my mother and later I would realize that these were my grandparents. They peered down their noses at me, looked at my dirty clothes and face, and the first words out of their mouths were, 'So, the little slut has finally gone, has she? Took her long enough." Then, I couldn't believe they were speaking of my mother. I know better now, and some days, I still can't believe it. To speak of their own daughter in such terms! They looked at me sternly, and said, "Well, I suppose she means to push her bastard brat onto us. I've no doubt that you're her son. You have her eyes. No doubt you'll bring the same shame to us as she did." And out the door I went. And then, I knew that I was very truly alone."

My blood boiled as I heard this. For the first time in my life, I wanted to hurt somebody. I felt a bloodlust for those awful people, who could turn a little boy out into the cold like that. And not just any little boy, but Edward! Their own grandchild!

"So, I had to fend for myself. I begged for a few months, but I quickly realized that the world had a dwindling supply of compassion. If I continued to rely on begging, I would starve. And so, I quickly learned to steal. Instead of asking for what I needed, I would simply take it. An apple. A pair of shoes. Some gold for a blanket for the winter. I survived like that for three years and I took it all without a bit of shame. Except for the day I met Esme."

Esme smiled at the memory, and continued Edward's tale, "He was such a tiny little thing then, Isabella. As small for his age then as he's tall now. I couldn't believe that he was eight when he told me. I thought he must be lying because he looked but five! But you know as well as I do that those eyes don't lie. Such a sad little creature. His clothes were less than rags. I thought they would crumble to dust when I touched them."

Edward laughed mirthlessly, "Oh yes. Clothes were the one thing that were difficult to steal. They never fit, and were either too large or too small. Well, I was thieving that day. They were apples from the grocer's. I'd already had two stuffed down my shirt when I caught Esme's eye. She was looking right at me, and I knew that she knew exactly what I was doing, and I wouldn't have cared if the grocer hadn't caught me right at that very moment. He had me by the shirt and all the apples had fallen out of them. He was shaking me, yelling in my face, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Esme hurrying over. I thought she was coming to corroborate the grocer's claim, since she'd clearly seen me sneaking the apples, but she surprised me. She rushed up to the grocer, and pleaded with him to release me. She claimed me as her own and produced the necessary coins to pay for the apples I'd tried to take. The grocer seemed undecided what to do at first, but it appeared that he knew Esme, so he took her money and let me go, bagging up the apples and handing them to her. Esme, never having let go of my hand, walked with me until we were out of reach of the grocer's eyes and ears. At that point, she bent down and looked me in the eyes. She asked me my name, where I came from, who my mother was. I told her all this honestly. She then explained to me that she knew the grocer, and that I mustn't be too cross with him for treating me so roughly. His little daughter was gravely ill and they were up to their ears in doctors' bills. They were struggling to stay afloat. I'd never felt any shame for my stealing until that very moment. I'd never thought about who exactly I was stealing from, but Esme made me see that they were honest people who were only trying to keep their heads above water in this world, just as I was. To my surprise, she offered me her home to stay in. I didn't deserve it, but she offered anyways."

Esme was shaking her head at Edward's last words. I glanced at her curiously.

"He's not telling you everything, Isabella," she sighed, "Just like him to leave out all the best parts of himself. He wasn't just stealing for himself then. Oh no, not even then. I discovered that he had a little following of other children. He was their hero because he provided everything for them. The shoes on their feet, the food in their mouths. Even then, his motivations had little self-interest in them."

"And of course," Edward said, smiling at Esme, "the dear lady took all of us in. We became her children and she became our adoptive mother, teaching us the value of a virtuous life full of compassion." He knelt and kissed her hand, sincere gratitude emanating from every gesture.

Esme sighed, "Oh Edward, there wasn't much I taught you that you didn't already know." Edward kissed her hand once more before returning to his crate.

"I stopped stealing for almost eight years. That was when the taxes first began, and I could see that Esme was struggling, what with all the more children coming in and the rising costs of everyday life, and so I started again. But this time, I picked my targets more carefully. I chose those who obviously profited off of these unfair new laws, and who profited off of them with seeming relish, strutting around with their big money bags, almost daring me to come relieve them of it. And that was the start of everything after."

"I was against it at first," Esme mused, "I wasn't about to let him risk his neck just for me. But then, I saw how much he helped this little alleyway of the poor and the destitute. So many people who would have otherwise starved, they survived because of Edward and the danger he puts himself in for them. I've never seen him keep much of anything to himself. By the time he's done handing everything out, he only has a pound or two left over for himself to buy the evening's bread and butter. And even that he gives freely to whomever he may encounter that looks hungry."

Edward sighed, shaking his head, "Esme, I brought Isabella here so she could learn the truth about my past, not so you could sing my praises." Edward looked so weary, worn out from telling the story of his frightful past as he turned to me with a question in his eyes.

"So there you have it Isabella. That's the entirety of my sordid past. Would you still have me, even now?"

I looked at him quite seriously before I went and put my arms around his neck, "Edward, I decided a while ago that it didn't matter to me where you came from. This changes nothing. If anything, I love you all the more for it."

Edward shook his head, a smile playing on his lips before he kissed me and said, "Isabella, you are incredible."

"Let's go find the reverend now, shall we?" I whispered.

"Soon, love. I promise you. There's one thing yet that I must do before we wed," Edward told me, "I wanted to give you some time to think this through, after you learned who I truly am, to change your mind if you needed to."

"Edward, you'd have to declare yourself a member of the undead to make me change my mind. I think I would still marry you even then," I said pigheadedly.

Edward chuckled at my stubbornness, "As you wish, love. In that case then, we shall be wed as soon I have the affairs in order." I could feel the biggest smile spread across my face as I thought of it. To be married to Edward! I felt as if I were in a dream. Only the warmth of Edward's arms around me convinced me that I was awake and that this was all truly happening.