Chapter the First: In Which Anthony Strallan Disgraces His Family
Locksley, Yorkshire, December 1915
"Well. It's done, then."
Anthony Strallan sank wearily into the chair opposite his father's desk and nodded. "Yes. It's done." The train back up from London had been freezing, and even now, in the warmth - both literal and metaphorical - of Locksley's library, Anthony didn't think he'd ever stop shivering.
Anxiously, his mother squeezed his shoulder. "My most darling boy, you must be exhausted. I'll have Mrs Cox send you up a tray."
Anthony managed a fragile smile. "Thank you, Mama."
"Not at all." Another squeeze to the shoulder, a kiss dropped on the top of his father's head, and she had turned for the door. "I'll leave you and Papa to talk."
It was ominous, that. Anne Strallan was not generally the sort of mother given to gendered divisions of parenting, and Anthony couldn't imagine that such a regression, at such a moment, betokened anything good.
He was perfectly correct.
Phillip Strallan looked impassively at his son. "Will she stay with him? Lawrence?"
Anthony shrugged helplessly, the mention of his wife - his former wife - doing nothing whatsoever to help the bone-deep tiredness seeping through him. "Her father wants her to go back to Leicestershire first, let the dust settle. But after the divorce is finalised… I can't imagine Captain Lawrence will want to wait too long." After all, in the middle of a war, with the risk of a field posting at any moment, Maude and her lover would be fools to delay, now all of the... legalities had been arranged. Ruefully, Anthony bit back that opinion; his father would only say that he were being far more generous than the current circumstances warranted.
Phillip grunted in decided disapproval. "Well, much joy may she give him." He might as well have said 'Hang them both.'
"Quite." Silence fell momentarily, silence that Anthony felt compelled to break. "Papa," he swallowed, throat raw with the weight of what would come next, "I want you to know that I'm fully aware of the scandal this has caused - that this will cause, for a good while yet - and I'm so grateful to you and Mama for - for sticking by me. I've already written to Diana to say the same - "
"Of course we'd stick by you. And you know very well that your sister would walk over broken glass if you asked it of her." True enough, as would her husband. Whether Archie Chetwood's employers at the Foreign Office would be so understanding of a diplomat in possession of a divorced brother-in-law remained to be seen, Anthony thought grimly.
Phillip exhaled, a noisy, irritated sound. "I won't pretend that divorce is something that I find remotely palatable, Anthony, but… well, the thing is done, and I understand your reasoning. I will ask only one thing."
"Anything."
"Anything?" His father smiled thinly, the first sign of amusement Anthony had seen from him in several months. "Didn't I ever teach you not to make promises in ignorance?"
"Yes, sir. But I - I don't believe I've any right to refuse just now."
"I see. Anthony, you married Maude of your own volition, for love. At the time, I made no objection, despite mine and your mother's… personal doubts… but even you must admit that it was a disaster of cataclysmic proportions from start to ignominious end."
Ouch. But then, Phillip Strallan never had been one to mince words. His son would just have to swallow them.
"Yes. I do admit it."
"Good." Phillip shuffled together the papers on his desk with an air of finality. "Then you will, of course, agree that your next bride ought to be chosen by me."
In the dead, stunned silence that followed this pronouncement, he added, lightly, "Shall we go and join your mother?"