CHAPTER EIGHT

Even though Mr. Whitlock and Mrs. Cope seemed to be one in the same when it came to their beliefs and discipline, Mr. Whitlock made vastly different choices than Mrs. Cope that brought him to live his life the way he did. He wasn't foolish enough to marry but he did have love for someone. Even though the woman remained unmarried and alone throughout her life, Mr. Whitlock knew it was better to love her from afar than to ever contemplate marriage. It was a secret he kept very close to his chest and one he dare never tell.

Jasper Whitlock came to the Cullen Manor long before his current master was ever born. Even though he was rather young at the time, Mr. Whitlock had been a loyal confidant to Carlisle Cullen up until Carlisle's last breath. He had seen the household go through the oddest changes during his tenure. For one, Carlisle was a strict man who lived by a certain code, a code that Mr. Whitlock found himself believing in wholly. However, when his master's wife, Esme passed away shortly after his Master Edward was born, Carlisle changed.

It took the passing of his wife to wake Carlisle up from the hypocrisy and cruel ideas his father had imparted to him. When was this feud going to end? So Carlisle set off to seek a conference with his apparent enemy; the leader of the Swans.

Mr. Whitlock had the greatest respect for the Cullen family and like the divided town; he believed he was on the right side. So when Master Cullen came home after his meeting with thee Charles Swan, he told Mr. Whitlock that he did not want to leave behind a legacy built on the hate of men who had come before him. Carlisle wished to make peace and bring peace to the residents of Haven. Carlisle Cullen had lost his wife, his reason for being, like so many others in town fated under the supposed curse but he hoped that maybe something could change the future for his son. If bringing peace would do that, he would give up any grudge for that opportunity.

Mr. Whitlock was disgusted by the idea of mixing with Swans and their lot. He didn't want to have any part of his master's new vision but he remained loyal enough to stand silently behind Carlisle hoping he would come to see reason someday. However, Mr. Whitlock didn't have to wait long. Charles decided to leave the town one day and with him, he took the only other remaining Swans from Haven. Peace slowly came with Charles Swan's departure but when he left the village, things for the residents were not better, they seemed to become worse.

Carlisle Cullen made sure that his son, Edward understood about their family history. He educated Edward on the peace treaty with the Swan family and made him promise that if the Swan's should return, he would treat Charles and any other Swan with the upmost respect. Carlisle was happy for Charles when he decided to move out of the area. Charles had visions of leaving behind this past and finding a new future. Charles Swan secretly hoped that if he left, he would be exempt from the curse and free to find love. But after Charles's departure, it slowly became apparent that the town would suffer even more for his absence. It wasn't until Edward had become a gentleman that Carlisle conveyed to his son his theories of how the absence of the Swan's in Haven may have caused harm.

"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet."

"Again," Rosalie said softly.

This was what Alice and Rosalie Cullen did every night before bed. Alice would recite the week's recitation out loud, over and over and Rosalie would learn it from hearing Alice.

Dinner had definitely been a strange affair. Both of the girls were having trouble concentrating on their homework that night.

"Rosalie. Do you think father is going to fire Miss Swan?" Alice finally broke the ice and dared to venture toward the topic that both of them knew they shouldn't speak of.

"I don't know. She does seem to upset him."

"I like…Miss Swan. I don't want her to go," Alice sighed.

"I know but she has a completely different way of teaching and I don't know how beneficial that will be yet." Rosalie paused. "But did you see Mrs. Cope's face?"

"I thought her head was going to pop off," Alice giggled.

"That would have been a sight."

Both of the girls shared a laugh and took time to reminisce of the night that their new governess got the better of Mrs. Cope.

Meanwhile Mr. Whitlock was given the order to march a plate with the evening's meal to Miss Swan in her quarters. Master Cullen watched as Mrs. Cope scooped a decent sized portion onto the plate before dismissing it.

Master Cullen finished dinner with his daughters and dismissed them before entering the kitchen to locate Mrs. Cope.

"I want you to serve up a plate of dinner that will be sent up to Miss Swan. I am watching you so be careful," He warned.

Mrs. Cope felt offended by her master's words. Wasn't he going to apologize for the girl's rude behavior at all? She concentrated a great deal on the plate as she placed the contents upon it.

"More," Master Cullen barked.

Mrs. Cope flushed and served another helping.

"Mr. Whitlock, please see that Miss Swan's plate gets to her untampered. And then ask her for a list of things she requires from the store. Tomorrow morning, I expect you to fetch the items off her list and have them available before her lessons."

It was Mr. Whitlock's turn to find offense in his master's words but he did not comment. He picked up the plate and glass of red wine that the master had poured and left without another word. As soon as the swinging kitchen door closed, Master Cullen turned back to Mrs. Cope.

"I told you that the Swan girl was to be left alone. Apparently, you have found ways to make her stay here an unpleasant one. When you make her unpleasant, you make me unpleasant. This will be my last warning to you; do your job! Serve her or find somewhere else to serve. I will be docking your pay this period in hopes that you will learn your place."

Master Cullen swept out of the room leaving behind a most distraught Mrs. Cope. His mind was filled with nothing else but Isabella Swan. He almost felt choked by the idea of her. Suffocated. There was a tightening in his chest and instead of returning to his office, his feet took him else ware.

Down the long path that Isabella had been down twice within the last week, Master Cullen knew why he was headed in the direction of the cemetery. He needed Hope. He located her grave easily as he had placed one of the largest stones there. An angel statue lay over the grave that contained the remains of his dearly departed. He hadn't been here in years. Visiting gravestones never made sense to him. The person wasn't there anymore so why would you need to go?

"Hope." He muttered. "Oh Hope! Where are you now? This is your entire fault. This girl…it's all your fault."

Master Cullen hated himself for blaming his wife but if she hadn't been so stubborn, she would be alive and there would have been no need for any governess. Master Cullen felt his back hit her stone and he slowly slid down it to sit upon the grass. It was unusually dark that night and he should have not gone so far without some sort of protection but at the moment he didn't have a care.

The only thing he did think about was Isabella Swan and the plan he devised to stay away from her. Time is what he believed would help. If he was separated from her and unable to get into fiery debates with Isabella, then maybe he would find himself uncaring once more.

Isabella lay on her bed staring up at the underside of the canopy in her quarters. Her stomach grumbled once more and she patted her skin silently apologizing to her empty belly. It had been almost a whole hour when another knock came on the door. Isabella had no more energy for whatever mood swing Master Cullen was going to bring at her this time so she ignored the knock.

The knock became even more persistent and it occurred to Isabella that Master Cullen would never have the patience to knock twice; he would simply enter even without invitation. Not really wanting to see anyone else at the moment, Isabella had half a mind to continue ignoring the knock but eventually she gave in and pulled herself off the bed.

"Mr. Whitlock," She sighed. "What can I do for you?"

For a moment Isabella wondered if Mrs. Cope had a chance to tell Mr. Whitlock about her fit she threw in the dining room.

"Master Cullen has asked me to bring this plate up to you," He began.

Isabella eyed the plate suspiciously and wondered if something had been done to the food on it.

"He instructed me that the plate was to remain not tampered with," Mr. Whitlock said sensing her hesitation.

"And let me guess, you always do what the Master tells you."

"Absolutely. "

"Really?" Isabella eyed him skeptically.

"If you cannot perform the position adequately, then you should not perform it at all."

Isabella had a feeling that there was a message somewhere in that statement meant for her. Instead of giving a rebuttal, she thought it was best to take the plate and glass from him so Mr. Whitlock could be on his miserable way.

"Master Cullen has asked me to obtain a list of things you require."

Isabella walked over to her settee with the plate and glass in hand and sat down.

"List? Like shopping list?" She inquired.

"Yes," Mr. Whitlock replied.

Isabella scrunched her forehead surprised that Master Cullen would make good on his word. She slowly placed the plate and glass down on the short table in front of her and rose up off her seat. She walked over toward the desk and extracted a piece of paper. She didn't know how short the leash was from her master and she did not want to push him too far so she stuck to some basics. She wrote down: White paper, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue sticks. She then thought for another minute and proceeded to write down a few food items that could last her if Mrs. Cope was being impossible again.

"Here you go. Please tell your master I appreciate this and I hope that he will allow me to make another list soon."

Another list? Mr. Whitlock thought. She had already asked for too much and she expected to get more supplies from the master? Mr. Whitlock snapped the list out of Isabella's hand and left the room before he heard one more word come from her mouth.

"Thank you," Isabella grumbled to herself after Mr. Whitlock's hasty departure. If she actually succeeded with acquiring the items on the list, she would need to be sure to thank Master Cullen. Maybe some kindness his way would earn a returned kindness.

The next day brought on a host of surprises for Isabella. When she woke up, she found the three uniformed dresses hanging in her closet. She carefully inspected each dress believing that Mrs. Cope was not above accidentally leaving behind a forgotten needle but each dress was exempt. Then when Isabella went down stairs now adorned in her new uniform which was still unshapely but at least short enough so she could walk, the second surprise was that a full breakfast laid waiting at her place. Of course she inspected it closely to see if there was any reason that she should not eat it but found none.

And the last surprise for the morning was that each one of the supplies that she had requested sat neatly on her desk when she arrived in the classroom. Alice and Rosalie stepped up to the desk with Isabella and marveled at the new additions.

"Wow. We've never had so many colors before," Alice gasped.

"Just think of what we could do with that many colors," Isabella said.

"But…how are we going to utilize this so that we still learn properly?" Rosalie asked.

Isabella could sense Rosalie's trepidation and knew what she was anxious about. The master's words spun around Isabella's head and reminded her that if their grades faltered, she would be responsible for it. But she couldn't focus on that, she had a job to do and it wasn't going to get done by worrying.

"Why don't we take our seats ladies and we will begin with our lesson in geography."

Both Alice and Rosalie did what they were told and took their seats behind their desks. Isabella pulled out two clean sheets of white paper and handed them out to the girls who sat anxiously waiting.

"I see that you studied China last week. This week we will begin with an overview of Africa and then dive in further throughout the next four weeks. I want you to pick a color and draw to the best of your abilities the shape of Africa without looking at a map and let's see how close you come."

Rosalie picked the red marker and Alice the pink. Each of the drawings was flawless in their outlines of the African continent. It impressed Isabella a great deal how close to the actual picture they were.

"Perfect! Of course. So what we are going to do is, I want both of you to come up to the map and look at Africa and try to memorize as many countries, lakes, rivers and anything else you can see. Take ten minutes and then when that's done, I will quiz you to see how much you retained."

The girls studied the map and then using the outlines that they had drawn, Isabella would call out a name of a country or otherwise and the girls would have to write down on their map where they believed the correct answer resided. Of course they weren't going to get every one right the first try out but both Rosalie and Alice found themselves having fun with the quiz and they also found that when they did learn a correct location and was able to correct themselves, they would never forget again the right answer.

Throughout the week, Isabella found new ways to bring in her new way of teachings with the girls. She tried to use art as much as possible to show that art existed in every part of their lives, they just never knew it.

The most disturbing surprise Isabella would encounter was that Master Cullen had been mysteriously absent from the house and even his required dinners. She had wanted to thank him for the supplies and his apparent talk with Mrs. Cope who continued to feed her properly even though she didn't speak or look in Isabella's direction.

Isabella attempted to casually find out from Mr. Whitlock on Master Cullen's absence but Mr. Whitlock was not forthcoming with information.

"It's none of your business what Master Cullen's business is. If you need something, you need only to submit it in writing."

Isabella sighed and shook her head comically. The only way she could endure the ill-tempered residents of the Cullen estate was to believe that they were nothing more than comical cartoon characters. She was sure any outside observer would find her predicament rather amusing if they really thought about it.

"Of course. How silly of me. Please let your master know that I very appreciative of the supplies he provided."

And once again before Mr. Whitlock could come back with some biting remark she marched off toward her quarters to deliberate on her employer's absence. With how menacing Master Cullen could be, she should be relieved but ever since that kiss in the maze, she had begun to think of him in other ways, ways that she should not think on.

Master Cullen was having the same difficulties just rooms away. He had taken every precaution possible the last few days. He would wake obscenely early and leave the house when not a soul was stirring. He would stay late at work and enter the home when he knew that the girl would be down at dinner and then lock himself up in his office until she was in her quarters for the night.

He had not seen her or heard a word from those lips in nearly four days and his thoughts had not diminished but instead worked harder to break through his stubbornness. Master Cullen would experience moments when the darker thoughts would break through and remind him how intoxicating her taste was. He would find the bulge in his pants straining the fabric and that was usually enough to wake him so he could punish himself with another icy shower.

The worst part was that he had instructed Mr. Whitlock to not mention Isabella in the slightest unless it was deemed necessary or important and so with this decree, he had been unable to hear even the most minor detail and that upset him greatly.

Tomorrow would be the day of assessment and he would have no choice but to face her. It was required that she be present when he went over his children's work from the week. He absently wondered how they were doing with the young governess's inventive ways of teaching. Did he want to see his daughters succeed? It would mean that he was wrong and surely that would be most unnatural. Master Cullen shook his head, no, his daughters were sure to fail under the new way of teaching.

The ruler.

Isabella would probably be upset with him for having to punish his daughters once more but maybe then she would see the reason behind the methods that had been proven effective. Contrary to what it may have looked like, Master Cullen did not wish to make life hard on Isabella but more so he hoped that she too could learn a thing or two about respect and discipline while she was residing within the home. Master Cullen imagined how he would make life for whatever gentleman she ended up with easier if she left here with some sense of her rightful place.

That was a disturbing thought. Isabella with another man. It was a very disturbing thought and one that would cause the master to toss and turn the rest of the night. It was because of the picture that Master Cullen had created in his mind of Isabella in front of some shabby home with a man different from himself on her arm that caused his focus to change dramatically the moment he saw her on Saturday evening, waiting with the girls for assessment.

Isabella who stood in her place, dressed in the most unflattering outfit. Master Cullen was surprised to see her in her uniform since she need not wear it on the weekends and he took note to ask her about it later.

Isabella tried to keep her focus off her employer but his appearance was cause for her concern. Why were his eyes so aged? His hair did o't hold the normal perfect structure. Even his suit found a place or two to wrinkle.

Master Cullen sighed and opened the folder that held his daughter's performance for the week. He looked down the list of grades and found it suspicious that every column held a sharp red letter "A."

"It seems shocking to me that both of you were able to do so well on every single subject this week. I wonder how that was possible especially since you struggled last week with math, Alice."

Alice felt her mouth go dry hearing her father call out her name. Was she to respond? But she didn't get a chance to.

"Isn't it shocking? You mean shocking that there is another way to teach other than droning on from an old book. Anyone could read aloud from a book," Isabella challenged.

"Rosalie, are these marks true? Don't lie to me," Master Cullen demanded.

"You think I falsified their efforts?" Isabella spit.

"I am not speaking to you, Miss Swan. Rosalie," He barked.

Rosalie stood quivering on her spot. "Uh…it was a different way of learning but to the best of my knowledge, our marks are correct father."

"And if I were to give you a quiz right now, you think you could be successful?" He asked.

"I can't imagine anyone being successful with you barking at them," Isabella stated.

"Miss Swan, you do not need to speak until I ask you a question directly," Master Cullen snapped.

"Need? Maybe not but I will speak when I feel I am being mistreated. The girls' marks are correct. Just because I was right and you were wrong doesn't mean you should penalize or antagonize them for their efforts."

Master Cullen dropped the folder down onto his desk and walked around until he was one foot away from Isabella. He looked into her eyes purposely and she did not back down from his challenging gaze.

"Alice! I want you to spell advantageous."

Isabella narrowed her eyes ever so slightly. Of course he would choose that word to give her. It upset her that he would pick on Alice especially when he knew how she did not do well in stressful situations. Her nerves always seemed to get the better of her.

Alice's palms began to sweat and all the letters that she had been able to put together just the day before seemed to vanish.

"Advantageous," She repeated. "A…"

Alice took a minute to moisten her lips to try and complete the task.

"A…" She began once more unsteadily.

"You're a monster," Isabella spit. "You have no care for their well-being, do you?"

"Miss Swan!" He barked.

"No! This is ridiculous. You know she has nerves and the pressure you put on these children is ridiculous."

Isabella walked from around Master Cullen and headed straight for his desk.

"You wouldn't care what marks they received as long as there was a reason to beat them for it." Isabella picked up the ruler and walked back toward Master Cullen.

"Girls. You are dismissed," Isabella said.

Both Alice and Rosalie looked toward their father not knowing what they should do.

"I am the only one who dismisses," Master Cullen snarled.

"Oh believe me; you don't want them here for what I have to say to you."

Master Cullen sensed an epic sized tantrum about to come from Isabella and so for once, he listened to her.

"Wait outside. I am not done with either of you," Master Cullen said to his daughters.

Alice and Rosalie scrambled to leave the room quickly. They waited next to the door with their eyes wide.

"How dare you speak to me like this in my house, in front of my children."

"How dare you!" Isabella shouted back at him. "It's clear to me that the only thing that brings you pleasure is using this to turn young girls backsides red."

She shook the crude instrument in her hands in her master's face.

"You want to use this on me, don't you?" She began to toy with him. "You would love nothing more than to bend me over that desk, pull up my dress and turn my white ass red."

Her words were stirring. He did imagine that but he wasn't picturing his ruler in his hands. The temptress was turning him on and he hated her for it.

"Guess what, Edward," She purred his name. "You will never lay one fin…"

He cut her off by swiping the ruler out of her hands.

"You wish to push me Miss Swan, don't you? You really believe that you hold some sort of power over me?" Master Cullen looked into Isabella's eyes and lied to her once more, "You are nothing. I could take this ruler and beat you into nothing and there isn't anyone who could stop me and nothing you could do about it."

Isabella lost the challenge in her eyes and for the first time she truly felt in fear for herself. She slowly took a step back feeling a shallow breath come out of her mouth as she trembled. She took another step back and with that step, Master Cullen was finally able to notice the fear in her eyes. It broke him out of his menacing trace and he realized what he done. He had scared the very person for who he had come to care for most. There was no denying it anymore. He cared for her, even though it was inappropriate. His feelings, the appropriate ones and the inappropriate ones, they were strong and now he had scared her.

Isabella, feeling a sense of self-preservation found her feet and fled from the master but this time her wits didn't take her down the same road as she had been down twice that week. She did not want to be found and knew it was best to run as fast as she could in the general direction of the town. If she stayed on the road, Master Cullen would surely find her.

She could feel her lungs fill with the cold air and it harmed her chest but she kept pushing onward because she could hear the master screaming out her name as she went. She must have had a good start on him because he was certainly faster, however he was not fast enough.

Isabella reached the graveyard and was relieved because she believed that she might be able to lose him if she hid behind a stone. She dodged stone after stone; trying to find one large enough to squat behind until Master Cullen would pass.

She slowed her feet down not able to cease the burn in her chest as her lungs had worked themselves over. Gasping for air she walked at a quickened pace to come across a large stone with a giant Gothic cross adorning the top. She closed her eyes hoping to moisten them because she could not believe what she was looking at.

There, etched in large bold letters was a name that filled Isabella's body with fear.

Isabella M. Swan

AN: Once again thank you soo much for the reviews! I am so happy to read how many of you are enjoying this. I really thought I would be met with more opposition so it really excites me when I read so many positive kind remarks.

See you next week!

Disclaimer: Story is mine, characters belong to Stephanie Meyer.