Thanks to MissMaj and Wordy Bitches for their rec. I'm both fascinated and mildly disturbed (in the best possible way) by your site banner.

Thanks to Emmy, Jess and Perv Pack's Smut Shack for their rec (your name's a tongue-twister, I can't say it quickly, not even in my head). And I had to google "Flangst". It sounds like a cross between a cut of meat and something really, really dirty. I was disappointed to discover it's neither.

Thanks to The Lemonade Stand blog for their mention. I've been twice the bridesmaid and never the bride, but I'm quite content just to be mentioned :)

My Dearest Chocolate-Covered Digestive Biscuits (McVites only, never, ever generic brand),

I know this has been the longest I've gone without an update (3 weeks). I apologise for the delay. I realised that I had no way of letting you it was going to be late without triggering a false update alert, so I've decided to start using the Twitter account I've been name-squatting since June. If you want to follow me, just search "wildredpoppies" or link from my profile.

Thanks for reading. Your reviews make me laugh, cry and only very occasionally fear for my (and Garrett's) personal safety.

Love,

WRP

I'm writing an AU-take for "A River Between" for the Fandom for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Details and link on my profile. Please donate generously.

Chapter 14 – The Letters

Previously...

"There's something else I never told you. The lawsuit...it got really ugly towards the end. Edward was very upset...he started a countersuit against your father.

"Isabella, your father received the letter informing him of the countersuit the morning he suffered his heart attack."

"Your father was losing the case. I think towards the end we all knew it was a lost cause. That also meant that he'd be ordered to pay the Cullens' legal costs as well, and you know how his finances were at that point...which was why it made no sense for the Cullens to countersue him for damages. I mean, why kick a man when he's down? It was just so unnecessary...so vindictive. I think that was what tipped your father over the edge, the stress of it all."

A blunt, heavy numbness sat on Bella's chest and spread slowly down her limbs. For the next few seconds, it was as if she had been plunged underwater; her vision was blurred, her hearing muffled. Garrett's mouth continued to move while she blinked at him, trying to fashion the sounds into words and meaning.

"I'm sorry to break this to you now...I only realised you didn't know when I saw you get into his car. I thought to myself, there was no way Isabella could be this friendly with him if she knew what Cullen did..."

If she thought she was completely numb, she was wrong. A new, ugly emotion crept in. It was Guilt. Closely followed by her toxic little sister, Shame.

"Look Isabella, maybe you don't believe me, but I'm sure the documents are somewhere amongst your father's things." Seeing that she was still in shock, Garrett gently pulled her to sit on a bench by the path.

"Isabella, I know Edward, we practically grew up together. You know my father was a gardener for the Cullens. After he died suddenly, Carlisle Cullen took an interest in me. He paid for me to go to the same posh public school as Edward so that I could receive the best education. Later, when I got into Oxford, he paid for that too. He was like a father to me.

"Edward...he's not a bad person, we just never got along. I suppose I needed a father, and he didn't want to share. Maybe he felt threatened by me. Sometimes I wonder whether Edward would've been so aggressive in your father's case if I hadn't been involved..."

Something didn't quite make sense and Bella clung to this little discrepancy like a drowning woman. She just barely choked the words out. "Garrett, if Carlisle was like a father to you, how did you end up on opposite sides?"

"I used to intern for Carlisle in the summer holidays. You know, I had this stupid idea that I would work for him after I've graduated, so that I could repay him for everything he's done for me. That just made Edward even more hostile. It didn't help that I started dating his cousin Alice when she visited them for the summer. It was a summer romance that ended badly. I don't know what Edward said to Carlisle, but after that, though he kept paying for school, it was clear that I was no longer welcome at the Cullen Mansion.

"So, I know Edward well. We didn't run in the same circles at Oxford but I know him. Like I said, he's not a bad person, but the estate means more to him than anything else. He'd do anything to protect it."

Bella leaped from the bench, suddenly desperate to get away from Garrett and his words. It wasn't his fault she knew, he was just the messenger, but she couldn't help the bile of resentment that was rising in her throat.

She resented that he dredged up the feud that she had taken so long to come to terms with.

She resented that his words had blown apart the fragile little life she had painstakingly rebuilt from the pieces of her former existence.

And most of all, she resented what this meant for her and Edward.

Garrett seemed to understand that she needed space. He trailed behind her as they walked towards the cottage together, both lost in their own thoughts.

She reached home without remembering quite how she got there. She hovered by her front door, willing him to leave so she could think. Garrett however, had one final blow to deliver.

"Isabella, I'm not sure whether it's appropriate for me to say this...I'm just really worried about you..."

"What is it, Garrett?" Her tone was weary.

"Back in Oxford, Edward was quite the Casanova. The girls never lasted very long. Weeks, sometimes months...it never gets serious. The oddest thing was, they all looked the same – small, slim brunettes with long hair. Tanya was the only exception. It was a long running joke in the college. Cullen and his little brunettes. What I'm saying is, Isabella, you're exactly his type."

It took Bella a full twenty-four hours before she gathered enough courage to look for the Cullens' countersuit documents. After Garrett dropped her off at the cottage on Saturday, she helped her mother pack the rest of her luggage before seeing her off. Renee had been so excited about her ski trip she didn't notice her daughter's inattentiveness. After that, Bella cleaned, scrubbed, tidied, did the laundry and cooked enough food to last the week to avoid facing the inevitable. On Sunday morning, she could bear it no longer and went through her father's boxes. She found it easily; it was kept together with all the papers they had found on his desk when he died. They had meant to go through them at some point but had forgotten in the midst of funeral arrangements, the news of the bankruptcy and the eviction that followed.

The letter, though full of legal jargon, was clear on one point – the Cullens did indeed countersue Charles Swan for damages.

She thought about her father.

She thought about running into the Cullens for the first time in her father's library and how awkward Edward and Carlisle had been during that encounter.

She thought about Edward's tenacity in pursuing her to work for him, and how he had been practically throwing valuable books at her since.

She thought about how furious he had been when he saw her with Garrett, and how he had warned her to stay away from him.

It all pointed to one logical conclusion: guilt.

Were his romantic feelings for her an extension of that guilt? It was certainly plausible. How convenient that she already fitted the physical description of a "Cullen Brunette".

The more she thought about it, the more she realised that she had been in denial the whole time. Edward could have hired someone more qualified to catalogue and integrate the book collections. Instead, he insisted on giving the job to her, a fresh graduate with no experience, one who could only work part-time.

Guilt.

Edward had wanted only one book, the First Edition of "The Great Gatsby", and yet he had bought her father's entire collection at considerable cost, volumes from which he had been giving to her at every opportunity.

Guilt.

For a whole day and a whole night, she argued with herself. She went over every detail of their interaction, examined every little thing he had ever said to her, done for her. Her theories swung wildly from extreme to extreme. In her darkest hour, she was convinced that Edward was a Machiavellian monster who concocted an elaborate plan to pursue and bed the daughter of his deceased enemy so that he could humiliate her to gain a final, sick triumph. At other times, she held the thinnest hope that somehow Edward knew nothing about the countersuit, and that his feelings for her were real. As dawn broke, and her tears finally ran dry, she reached a place somewhere in the middle: Edward had been trained from young to be responsible for the estate. When her father's lawsuit threatened his land, he over-reacted. He felt guilty about her father's death and saw in her an opportunity to redeem himself. Along the way, some degree (and she didn't know how much) of genuine feeling developed, but it was rooted in guilt and shame.

As she settled on this explanation, a wrenching hollowness also settled on her chest. She identified the feeling as heartache. It was laughable, she thought to herself, that just two days ago, she had been happy. Now, she could see how rickety that happiness was, for it was built on a lie.

A few hours later, Bella arrived at the library, her steps alternately propelled and slowed by anxiety and dread. She was desperate to hear Edward's side of the story, but she also expected it to be close to the conclusion she had already drawn. She was greeted with complete silence.

Placed prominently in the middle of her desk, was a piece of paper, with just four lines of verse in Edward's familiar script. It was a riddle. From the last line of the verse, she surmised that Edward had written her a letter and hidden it, away from the prying eyes of the household staff and anyone who might have wandered into the library. He was trusting her to solve the riddle to find his letter.

Bella looked at the laden shelves around her. There were thousands of volumes in the library; the perfect place to hide a secret letter from one bibliophile to another, would of course be in a book.

She let out an exasperated breath. She was in no mood for games, but she also had no way of reaching him. She read the lines again:

Little beauty of the sea,

Who's the prince of your land?

Has he friends or foes, at rest,

Who'd shield my letter in his hand?

Bella thought for a moment, her exhausted brain whirring at the challenge. The first line "Little beauty of the sea" probably referred to "The Little Mermaid", but who was the prince of her land? There was no specific "land" mentioned in the original fairytale, nor did the Little Mermaid have any brothers. Bella knew she would have to think beyond the actual text of the fairy tale. Little Mermaid's land...of course! "The Little Mermaid" was written by Hans Christian Andersen, who was Danish, so the "prince of her land" would have to be the Prince of Denmark. Bella scoffed. The most famous Prince of Denmark in literary history, was of course, Hamlet. In fact, the full title of Shakespeare's play was "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". She moved on to the third line "Has he friends or foes, at rest,". She knew very well who Hamlet's friends were, and the tagged-on "at rest", was obviously a clue to help her narrow the field to just one work. She headed for the "English Drama" section of the library. Once there, she glanced past shelves holding Shakespeare's plays and started scanning the works written in the latter part of the 20th century. She found the thin volume easily. The title? "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were childhood friends of Hamlet who later betrayed him, hence "friends or foes". As she removed the letter from the book, her thoughts were noxious. How fitting, that Edward should use "Hamlet", a drama centred around the betrayal and death of a father in the struggle for power. How apt, that his letter was concealed in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead". After all, the two were minor characters in the original Shakespeare play, mere collateral damage in the bloody clash between Hamlet and Claudius. Am I collateral damage? She wondered morosely. In her bitterness, she was caught off-guard by the sweet ramblings of Edward's letter.

Dear Bella,

Apologies for the convoluted way this letter has been delivered to you. Please let me get you a mobile phone so I can bombard you with wildly inappropriate text messages. Inappropriate because technically, I'm your employer. That makes me uncomfortable until I remember it's the only way I get to see you. You are the best part of my weekday.

I miss you. On Saturday, I drove past your house twice, like a lovesick schoolboy. I didn't see you, only your mother. She gave me the most evil glare. It's almost as if she knew what I'm planning for the weekend. Given our collective family history, I can understand why she doesn't like me. When it's time to properly introduce myself, I shall come armed with lavish gifts to appease her. Does your mother like diamonds?

Speaking of the weekend, I've made arrangements for our long weekend trip to Oxford. I'd love to show you my old haunts, and maybe the Bodleian Library. Accommodations-wise, I wavered between the privacy of a cottage and the convenience of room service in a hotel. Privacy won. The weather will almost certainly be dreadful. We can pretend to sightsee for a couple of hours before retiring to the cottage citing poor weather conditions. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no need to pack much clothing.

Everyone's noticed how I've been grinning like a fool. Jasper keeps dropping sly hints about how I should go to the library to "admire my new acquisition".

I have completely lost control over my employees. My beautiful librarian has me wrapped around her little finger while my estate manager has absolutely no respect for me - I have never been happier.

In case you're still in any doubt, I am completely and utterly bewitched by you.

I'll be working hard this afternoon to make up for taking Friday off, but I will come by to walk you home. Wait for me. I might be a little late but wait for me. I need to see you.

I'll be spending the rest of the day trying and failing not to think about you.

Yours distractedly but yours nonetheless,

Edward

Her hands were wet. It took her a moment to realise that she had been crying. It suddenly dawned on her that she couldn't face Edward. When it came to him, she couldn't trust herself. Looking back, it was almost absurd how he wore down her defences every single time. He got her to work for him even though she had initially refused the offer. He persuaded her to spend an extra hour a day reading for him, which led to their first kiss. He proposed and subsequently won the wager, which led to their first date. She never had any control.

Bella took a deep breath and carefully wiped the tears off her face. She wrote a very polite and impersonal letter of resignation which she tucked into the copy of "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead". In a moment of weakness, she pocketed Edward's letter. She took slow, mechanical steps out of the library. After she locked the external door of the hidden passage, she bent down and shoved the key through the gap under the wooden door. The sound of the metal skittering across the stone floor gave her a perverse satisfaction. Now she couldn't get back in even if she wanted to.

It was one o'clock. If she hurried, she could leave Forks before he even knew she was gone.

Did anyone guess the riddle?

Thanks for reading!

I'm writing an AU-take for "A River Between" for the Fandom for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Details and link on my profile. Please donate generously.