~ Part III ~

~ The Tempest ~

1.

~ "Oh poor Arthur!" Lady Percy said sadly. "Are you and Olivia alright?"

"Yes." Ariadne said. Eames sat beside her and the three of them watched snow pile up outside the conservatory windows.

"Were you on the ship, dear?" she asked. The older woman ever practical.
"No, Olivia and I were here at home." Ariadne told her.

"This is just too much for one family to bare. Did we lose anyone else? Was Mr. Cobb traveling with him?" Lady Percy said.
"No, Mr. Cobb was in New York when it happened. He came back for the funeral and he's been staying with us a few months to help Eames settle the estate." Ariadne told her.
"Oh yes, the entail." Lady Percy sighed darkly.

She glared at her nephew. A grown man, but still a child in her eyes.

Her nephew obligingly looked ready for a lecture.
"Eames, you have a responsibility to your cousin's widow. She must always have a home here. Not just house room, but this must always be hers, and Olivia's home. You are their nearest male relative and they are yours to care for." Lady Percy said.

Eames sat a little straighter.
"I know they're mine to care for." he said and Ariadne felt herself blush.

She could feel his eyes on her and looked away as she felt nervous sitting so close to him.
"Now, tell me why is your mother in this house, Eames?" Lady Percy asked. "Your uncle would never have allowed it."
"She announced she was coming for a visit, and she seems to be staying a little longer than we had hoped." Eames explained.
"This is not her house. She married your father and left home at sixteen. She came back because he couldn't support them and they had no place to live." Lady Percy said.

Ariadne felt like an outsider, spying on Eames' personal life, but didn't dare take her leave.

"Then, if you please, they took you away from us to India. We didn't hear from her until you were in you were ready for school. By then Juniper had gotten tired of being a mother and wanted to send you here to England and have us pay for it." the older woman went on.
"I know Aunt Percy." Eames sighed.
"Eames, I've said it many times that she is not welcome in my house. Why did you allow this?" Lady Percy hissed.
"Aunt Percy, the day after the phones were installed in the house and in town, you fell ill. You almost died. You... you weren't yourself." Ariadne explained.
"That was over a year ago, Aunt. We thought you wouldn't make it." Eames added. "Ariadne made sure you were taken care of and when mother came back, she just started taking over."

Lady Percy sat back a little and tried to compose herself.

"She must be told to leave. To go back to India." Lady Percy said.

"She's still my mother, Aunt." Eames said.
"Your mother." Lady Percy scoffed. "She never treated you well, even when you were a baby she ignored you. When you came back to us, you were sickly, undernourished and as wild as a heathen. Your Aunt and Uncle sought the counsel of a lawyer to have her rights terminated. The woman put her twelve year old child on a boat from India to England all alone. You came off that ship with cholera and you nearly died!" Lady Percy said.

Ariadne looked at her friend and Eames avoided her eyes. She never knew this about him.
"Why we couldn't even send you to school until you were recovered. She never even wrote to you." Lady Percy went on.
"Aunt Percy, it's late. Why don't we talk about this after we've had a good night's sleep?" Ariadne asked.
"It seems I've been sleeping enough." Lady Percy said and looked ready to cry. "When Miles told me this evening I had been ill, I... I knew I had been sick. I didn't know it was as bad as all that."

Ariadne reached out and took her hand.
"I'm so sorry, Aunt Percy." Ariadne told her.
The older lady shook her head and held her composure.
"Miles also told me that you took care of me. That you didn't send me off to some dreadful house for the old and unloved."

"She would never do that." Eames said and took his aunt's other hand.
"I know." Lady Percy said sadly. "I know I haven't exactly welcomed you to this house, Ariadne. But I want you to know I think your a wonderful girl. I'm truly sorry about Arthur."

Ariadne felt herself smile then.
"In the morning, the three of us can breakfast here. You'll be surprised to see how much Olivia has grown. Phillipa will be happy to see you're back. She hasn't spoken much since Arthur died." she said.

"Poor child." Lady Percy mused. "We must do all we can for Phillipa now."

~ Lady Percy was well enough to walk up the stairs to her rooms. Eames carrying her wheelchair as Ariadne held the older woman for balance.

The nurse met them at the door to her rooms.
"She just came out of her fog this afternoon after everyone left for the party." she said. "She wanted something to eat and wanted a bath."

"I'm tired." Lady Percy admitted as Eames led her back to the bed.
"I don't know why she came out of it." the nurse admitted.
"We'll have the doctor come and see her in the morning." Ariadne sighed. "Don't worry. We'll keep you on. I suspect she's a long way form being fully recovered."

The nurse nodded and Ariadne watched Eames kiss his Aunt's temple and bid her good night.

~ Alone in the hall, alone for the first time in what felt like ages, Ariadne and Eames exchanged knowing looks.

"Why didn't you tell me; about Juniper putting you on a ship like that?" she asked. "I mean, you were a child."

Suddenly, so much about her friend made sense. The attachment to women and the need for their affection, the recklessness, the always leaving when he felt rejected. Not to mention the intense love he thought he had for her.

Eames sighed and looked uncomfortable.

"Mother wasn't like you." he admitted. "She wasn't endowed with this natural love for me the way you are with Olivia."

"Every mother loves her child." Ariadne exclaimed.
"She had lost babies before I was born. She kept her distance from me." Eames said with a shrug.
"Eames, there is a difference between keeping one's distance and putting a child on a ship alone. Cholera? You had cholera!" she said in disbelief.
"Let's not over react. I caught it on the ship. I wasn't sent to England with it." Eames assured her.

"Don't make excuses for the woman." she whispered. Ariadne fearing their conversation might be overheard looked down the hallway. "She never wrote to you, sent you away to school and now wonders why you're not the perfect son? As if she had nothing to do with it!"

She had never hated anyone, not even Mrs. Abbot, as much as she hated Juniper just now.

"You're one to talk." Eames said with a little smile.

"What do you mean?" Ariadne asked and backed away from him.
"You were just as unloved as I was. You were sent off to school and then abandoned when you came up wanting." he reminded her.

She glared at him and he gave her a pleased little smile.
"We're cut from the same cloth, Ariadne. People don't see it right away because we you're so much better at hiding it then me, but we're just the same. We were tolerated as children by parents who never loved us. We were rejected and sent away. We have a tendency to sabotage ourselves and our own happiness by defying others and social conventions. We make up dream worlds to cope with the fact that we're imposters in our lives. That no one knows how bad we really are." he said and moved closer.

"Eames." she breathed and stepped away from him. Her back hitting the wall and she was neatly trapped.

What he said was true, and she didn't want to believe it. She wasn't as bad as Eames, surely, but she knew he was right. She was forever rebelling against herself. In the first few days of her marriage to Arthur, she defied him at ever turn. Almost daring him to hurt her, to leave her.

He would not be tied down to his wants and what he thought he needed. She wouldn't let him bully her or tell her what to do. It had caused a lot of friction in their marriage, and she knew if she was a good wife, she would have been more submissive to him.

Why was she like this then? So head strong and disobedient? Was it the same reasons Eames was so amorous with other women? Were they really that much alike?
"Do you like this Mr. Fredrick Hays?" Eames asked as he stepped closer to her. His eyes meeting hers in a way that made those butterflies come back into her belly.
"I just met him." she confessed. "We're hardly getting married."
"I know a little about women." Eames said as he ran his hands up her arms and she shivered at his touch. "A single woman never looks at a single man without considering his prospects in matrimony. In the first five minutes of meeting him, you weighed and judged him worthy of husband materiel. Otherwise, you wouldn't have agreed to see him again."

"How clever you are, Mr. Eames." she whispered as his soft lips gently kissed hers before she could stop him.

She was smiling as he pulled away from her, then leaned forward to kiss her again.
"How clever you think you are." she corrected with a grin as he kissed her over and over again till her cheeks burned.
"I am quite clever." he agreed as she could feel his mouth curling into a smile as their lips met. His touch, his affections, still chaste, but her body felt luxurious and responsive to him.

'More.' she thought as his lips grazed down to her exposed neck. His mouth feasting on her skin. 'Do more!'

"You whore!" came a scream from down the hall.

Sorry no post yesterday. Too busy and crazy.

Today is my 35th birthday, and I woke up to a really AWESOME "Wizard of Oz" birthday cake from my husband. He's good about my cake on my birthday. Last year it was Zombies, the year before that, it was "WALL-E".

I'm going to have lunch with my Dad and hopefully, 35 will be a very good time for me.