chapter eight: shattered

Esme surveyed Rosalie's room for what seemed like the thousandth time. She wanted it to be presentable. Edward had said their father had never laid his hands on her, but that didn't mean it could have been any easier to live in this household than it had been for Edward and Carlisle. The least Esme could do was make sure the sheets weren't covered in dust.

Edward's room had been very spare, as though he was trying to convince people that no one lived there. Perhaps he had brought more personal things from school—she hadn't gone into his room since he had arrived. But Rosalie's was the opposite—there was a bottle of Coty rose perfume laying on its side on the vanity and drawers closed with silk chemises half-hanging out of them. She wondered if Rosalie was just messy, but the whole place looked more as though it had been ransacked in a hurry. She could imagine a teenage girl being sent away to boarding school throwing this and that into her luggage with angry tears in her eyes.

She shouldn't be too fanciful. She knew very little about Rosalie. She didn't even know what she looked like, although under her bed she had found a photograph, half-tinted as though someone had sat down to color it and then lost interest after filling in the green of a coat and the pink of a dress. There were several girls grinning at the camera, all pretty and young and well-dressed, and she was sure one of them must be Rosalie, but there was no indication of which. She had put the picture on the vanity, next to the righted bottle of perfume. She didn't put the clothes back into the drawers, though; she doubted a teenage girl would take kindly to someone she had never met going through her room.

She could not deny she was a bit nervous for this new arrival. She had been nervous to meet Edward, but Carlisle had never had any sort of amiable relationship with Rosalie, and from what he had told her, neither had Edward. Sibling bickering was unavoidable at the best of times, but she hoped the delicate peace didn't implode completely.

She heard the car door and peered out the window. It was raining lightly.

Carlisle was closing the door behind an exquisitely beautiful young lady smartly dressed in a navy blue traveling suit. The blurry gray photographs did not do her justice. Esme was reminded of high school, when the richest girl in town, Mary-Helen Harris, had always looked straight out of a fashion magazine—but she would have been embarrassed and mousy-looking next to Rosalie Cullen. She was tall and pale and obviously lovely even from the distance Esme viewed her from. Her hair was gold underneath her black hat.

"The train must have been late." Edward's voice behind her made her jump. She hadn't noticed him come up to look out the window. He turned away.

"They're about to come in," Esme said, turning back from the window. "Are you going to come down and meet them?" She asked hopefully.

Edward shook his head with a quiet scoffing sound, and then he was gone. Esme pressed her lips together and descended the staircase alone just as the front door opened and Rosalie entered, followed by Carlisle with her suitcase.

As she removed her coat, her eyes fell on Esme and flicked up and down dismissively. Up closer, she was even more stunning than Esme had thought she was. But she also looked resentful and unhappy.

"I'm sorry we're returning so late," Carlisle said as he came into the house, closing the front door behind him. "Rosalie, this is my wife, Esme. Esme, this is my sister Rosalie."

"I'm glad to meet you, Rosalie. I hope your journey wasn't too unpleasant," Esme said.

Rosalie raised her eyebrows. "Obviously you have never been on an ocean liner, then," she said, as though she couldn't believe Esme's stupidity. She glanced at Carlisle, who was frowning. "So Edward is already here?"

"He arrived a few days ago," Carlisle said.

She huffed as though this was some terrible wrong, and then whirled around and picked up her suitcase, which Carlisle had set down to take off his coat. "I'll be in my bedroom," she tossed over her shoulder, and then she was hurrying up the stairs.

Esme met Carlisle's eyes. "I'm sorry," he said before she could say anything.

"You have nothing to apologize for. We had nearly a day of peace," Esme said with a smile. "I was going to put supper out now but we should wait a bit for her to refresh herself after traveling."

Carlisle did not return it. "I'm sorry Rosalie spoke to you that way. She has no quarrel with you."

"She has no quarrel with anyone in this house, but she is a teenage girl and she's been dealt a bad hand." Esme met his eyes. "Really, it doesn't hurt my feelings that she thinks I'm provincial. For one thing, I am provincial."

"You're not," he said, frowning.

"Things will improve. They did with Edward. And then Alice will arrive in a few more days, and everything will get worse again, and then it will improve again." Finally he chuckled at her words, and she felt absurdly satisfied at having lifted his mood. "And they'll understand you've done the best you can."

"I didn't bring you here to be insulted," Carlisle said quietly. "I apologize."

She knew he wasn't joking, but his words made her feel incredulous. The spiteful words of a grieving child couldn't perturb her. She had heard much worse for much longer. "Surely you can't think I'm that fragile, can you?" She was only half-joking.

He shook his head, speaking earnestly. "It's not that I don't think you can endure it. But I don't want you to have to."

"Oh." She swallowed. She didn't know why she felt so discomfited whenever he said something very kind to her. Of course Charles and his parents hadn't been like that, but she had enough sense to know how people should react when others were kind. But it made her feel guilty somehow, as though she was getting one over on him. "Well, I'll get supper on the table. It should be ready soon, so you might fetch Edward and Rosalie in a half an hour."

"I can help you," he said, and she shook her head.

"There's nothing left to do, it was very simple. There's only the chicken and sweet potatoes in the oven. And the salad and the cake are already in the icebox." There wasn't much variety to be had from the groceries here, probably owing to the weather and the remoteness of the area. She hoped everyone didn't tire of her cooking over time.

It was about half an hour until Edward appeared, and Esme sent him to fetch Rosalie, which he did despite his reluctant expression. Rosalie arrived, changed into a black linen dress and black tuxedo sweater, and sat next to Edward. Esme had stopped setting the table with Carlisle at the head; he sat next to her on one side now, facing the children. She was quiet as they sat down to supper, and as Edward and Carlisle spoke lightly of some unimportant things. Esme watched Rosalie, who said nothing and did not look at any of them.

When they fell silent Esme looked over at Rosalie, picking at her salad across the table. "It was raining quite heavily earlier. I hope you weren't at the station long, Rosalie."

Rosalie pressed her lips together. "No, Mrs. Cullen."

"There are only ever a few passengers debarking in Forks, and they're usually men looking for work. It was easy to spot her," Carlisle said.

"My parents would hire three or four farmhands every summer," Esme said, "who were traveling men who rode the rails looking for work, and they all ate supper with us every night—and I always liked to hear their stories. Even better when my mother was out, because my father didn't make them hush like she did when she thought the topic inappropriate for me." She smiled. "I used to wish I could be a traveling man like that, but I was never much good at threshing wheat."

Rosalie's eyes passionlessly flicked up and down her person. "So you dress that way because you are from a farm in Ohio."

"Rosalie," said Carlisle with a sharp frown. "Don't speak to my wife like that."

"Our lives can't all be as worthwhile as yours," Edward said. "Spending other people's money and making a fool of yourself across two continents."

"Edward, don't." Esme said before Carlisle could.

Rosalie rolled her eyes as though bored by Edward's comments. "There's no need to insert yourself, Mrs. Cullen. I do not think an Ohio farm girl has any deportment lessons for us."

Esme hurried to reply before Carlisle could speak—his lips were already parting and Esme didn't need anyone to jump to her defense again. "Certainly you're much better travelled than I am, Rosalie, but even in Ohio we know how to speak politely at the table."

Rosalie pressed her lips together.

In the silence Esme grasped for something to say. She could think of nothing, but Carlisle came to the rescue. "There was a telegram today from Mary Alice's residence. She will arrive on time in a week and a half and I shall be going to Port Angeles to retrieve her. Depending on when her train arrives we may have to stay there overnight."

"Is there a better grocery selection there? Perhaps I can give you some requests," Esme said.

"I can't recall anything about the grocer's. I always took my meals at the hotel when I stayed there. But if you give me a list I'll do my best."

"Thank you," Esme said. "We can get along here fine, but I'm afraid I'm not very inventive when it comes to cooking."

"Did you make supper, Mrs. Cullen?" Rosalie asked, furrowing her brow. It was obvious she was not intending to compliment Esme on the meal. Instead, she was looking at Carlisle as though he had committed some wrong.

Before he could reply, Esme nodded. "Yes, I did. I know your father employed a cook, but there isn't any staff here at the moment."

"I rang for the maid and no one came," Rosalie said with a frown. "I thought perhaps she was taking her half day."

"The maid who was here last took another position after William died," said Carlisle. "We have not engaged another."

Rosalie raised her eyebrows. "If you cannot find one how will anything get done around here? Am I going to be expected to do the washing?"

"I don't think it will come to that," Esme said. "But we have been managing without any servants."

"But this isn't the frontier," Rosalie said incredulously.

"I've looked at the household accounts, Rosalie. Even when there was staff, the laundry was sent out to one of the women in town who takes in washing," said Carlisle. "There was no one to engage when we came here and so Esme is kind enough to manage until one can be found."

"I want a maid," said Rosalie. "I don't care if Mrs. Cullen does not. She doesn't have to make any use of her."

"Perhaps another time," Carlisle said. "But even if we wanted to engage one I do not think you could. I asked about it in town and there are no girls looking for work at the moment."

"Take her from another house," Rosalie said as though this was obvious. "Offer her twice the rate. Father did it all the time."

"With what, your pocket money?" Edward asked.

"With the household funds." Rosalie's eyes turned on Esme. "This is my house. I've lived here since I was a child. I do not need a stranger from Ohio coming here to tell me how things should be run. It is disgraceful to have no servants in this house. To have your wife cooking for you like a servant. People are talking about it, surely."

"Certainly this is your home, Rosalie," Esme said. There was nothing she felt she could say without sounding horrifically condescending. She had worried in passing that Rosalie might feel supplanted as lady of the house but she had not anticipated she'd disagree with them so sharply on how things would be done. "And I'd like you to have a say in how things are run here—"

"You'd like me to have a say?" Rosalie scoffed. "You arrived here two weeks ago. This is not your house."

Esme had no reply to that. It was true, even if disagreeably said. There was no good way around it.

"Esme arrived here as my wife, Rosalie," Carlisle broke in. "I grew up in this house and it has passed to me now that William is gone. Thus it is my house, thus it is my wife's, as well as yours and Edward's as it has always been. When Mary Alice arrives it shall also be hers. It would be impossible to engage someone now. We can revisit the idea in the future." He spoke calmly but firmly.

Rosalie opened her mouth slightly to retort, a hard look in her bright, lovely eyes, but instead she pressed her lips together, stood up, and, without looking away from Esme and Carlisle on the other side of the table, threw her dinner plate like a discus at the wall.

Everything stopped and faded away and disappeared except for the sound of the empty plate shattering on the dark wood wall.

Her wedding night had been a poor experience, and his annoyance at her reluctance the following nights had made all of those also poor experiences. So when she realized he was seeing other women she had been relieved in an awful sort of way. She thought it might at least be an outlet for him and prevent her from having to deal with him for a night, an afternoon.

But he would return smelling like other women's perfume and snap at her, and find even more fault with her than usual, speculate about the men she must be cuckolding him with. Maybe it was out of some twisted sense of guilt he wanted to quiet by reminding her of all the reasons she ought to be betrayed. And many of those nights would end with him pushing her roughly down to the bed anyway, as though he wanted to reminisce.

And that had been her life for a short while. But one evening as she ventured down to the kitchen, looking for the newly-hired maid, Brigit, she heard her husband's voice behind the door. "That is how the French whores do it," he had been saying, and when she opened the door, Brigit was on her knees, fiddling with his trousers.

Brigit was barely fifteen. This was unable to be borne. Esme had snapped at Brigit to get out and do something more useful with herself. Brigit had left the pantry without even a blush, flouncing by her victoriously, surely thinking Esme was angry at being replaced with a younger fixation.

"She is a child, Charles. She shouldn't even be out of the schoolroom." Brigit had left school at ten with a widowed mother to support, she had told Esme when she took her on. That had just been a month ago. How long had this been happening?

"Nothing happened. I was searching for something in the pantry and she came inside behind me," Charles had snapped. "You're crazy if you think that I want anything to do with that ugly little whore."

Esme knew she wasn't crazy. She knew she had seen him with his hand around her skull, her on her knees in front of him. She wondered if this was even the first time. Brigit wasn't like the women in town. She was a child, uneducated and poorly brought up. "I am dismissing her." She couldn't come back to this house. She had to be away from him. The next maid would be at least thirty, and preferably very plain.

"Like hell you are. Leave it alone."

"She leaves this house today," Esme said, and pressed her hands together to avoid them shaking. "Today."

"I said leave it alone, Esme—!" He made his point with a slap to her face that snapped her head back and left her neck aching and the whole right side of her face stinging. "Damn you!"

She had to get out—she always had that thought one moment too late. Everything in her froze for just a second too long. She turned around, towards the kitchen. She would have to run up the stairs and then through the parlor and up the staircase that led to their bedroom, and she would lock the door—

She was on the kitchen stairs when she felt him grab her by the hair. Her neck wrenched backwards and she fell backwards off the steps, rolling over her ankle as she fell back against his chest.

He held her tight against him, hand still tangled in her hair, voice coming in a sour breath above her. "Perhaps if you were friendlier to me I wouldn't even think of her, but you're not! You're always looking at me as though I can do nothing right. You are determined to sulk and be unhappy. Well, little girl, I'll give you something to sigh over." He shoved her forward into the pantry door, and she heard pots and pans crashing to the floor inside, the clanging like a bell in her head. She didn't move from there, remained crumpled in a heap against the door, hoping that if she stayed still he would feel he had made his point. But she heard him crashing around still, and then just by her ear a crash as one of the china plates hit the floor just next to her head. She shut her eyes against the shards as he threw another, but this one was further away.

There was a long silence as she waited for him to leave. She tried not to breathe.

Finally he sighed heavily. She heard his footsteps heading for the door.

"You can stop playacting, Esme," he said flatly as he went up the kitchen steps. "You brat, it did not even hit you."

Esme opened her eyes to watch the door slam behind him, and she lay on the floor forever, and nothing but the tiny white tiles of the kitchen floor and the shards of broken china existed anymore, and she stayed there feeling the tiles warm under her stinging cheek like this was a raft floating in a gray nothingness, and she could see nothing, and she could hear nothing, and she could feel nothing except the sting of her face where Charles had hit her.

"Esme," someone said very softly.

It was Carlisle. The tiles she were clinging to swayed slightly on the tide of grey nothing that enveloped her. "Esme, where are you?" His voice was calm, standing out amongst the waves of fear. Carlisle was not in Charles' house.

"Where am I," she breathed. What kind of a question was that?

"What do you see in front of you?"

What did that mean?

"Tell me something you can see, sweetheart."

The novelty of sweetheart gave her pause, punctured the fog around her like a beam of light, and this distraction made her slightly more aware of her surroundings. Dark wood, carved and winding, the corner of a green coverlet, the bed she had been sleeping in for these past days, but she had to fight to really look at it and see it. "The bed." Her bed. Her bed in the bedroom at Carlisle's house. This wasn't Charles' house at all. This wasn't her kitchen. She wasn't on the tiles there.

"Do you see the walls?"

"They're white striped. Red flowers." Not blue like the kitchen. Not green like the parlor. Not yellow like the bedroom…

"Can you feel anything?"

As he said the words it was as though the ground suddenly appeared underneath her. "The carpet." She was on the floor. Her skirt was crumpled around her, and she could feel the carpet fibers against her stockings.

"Anything else?"

"My blouse." She put up a hand to touch the collar where it brushed against her clavicle. She wanted to shut her eyes, but she didn't dare to, and forget again that she was here, she was away from all of it, this was now and not then. She moved her head slightly, and then realized. "Your hand…on my head." His hand was cradling the back of her skull gently, his thumb resting lightly on the nape of her neck.

When she said that his hand disappeared. "I apologize. I didn't want you to hit your head on the bedpost." As she fully filtered back to herself, so much more quickly than she ever had before after one of these episodes, she realized that he was sitting closely next to her on the floor, but he had made sure not to touch her except for his hand shielding her skull.

She could feel her heart beating through her whole body. It wasn't racing as it was before, but she felt as though her whole self shook with each beat, as though it was all that was holding her up, and every other part of her was wilting with exhaustion.

Even though she was horrifically embarrassed, and ashamed, she couldn't bring herself to be alone right now. She was terrified that if she was alone she was going to forget where she was again. Instead she leaned to the side just slightly so that she was resting against him, her head on his shoulder. He had been so close to her she didn't have to move anything but her head.

He felt devastatingly stable, like an anchor in a storm. Feeling the warmth of his shoulder and hearing the quiet sound of his breathing made her feel more like herself living in the world as it was. Without saying anything, he put his arm around her. She stared down at the the starched collar of his shirt, not wanting to look up at his face. He smelled good, like the forest around them after a vigorous rainstorm—like cleanliness and coldness and vetiver.

"Has it been long since...supper?" She dreaded his answer.

"No, not long at all." His voice was careful. "Do you remember excusing yourself? You went to the kitchen. I think you took the cake out of the icebox and put it on the kitchen table, and then I think you took the back stairs up here to your room. I came to see if you were alright. I knocked, but I don't think you heard me. You were sitting here on the floor."

Yes. This had happened to her before, although usually while she was in the house alone, and the only way to tell was to retrace her steps back to her last memory, how long ago it had been. She had no recollection of leaving for the kitchen, of touching the cake. But it had happened before like that, where she had kept going for a moment, mindlessly. She was glad some instinct had told her to flee and hide so no one else could see.

But Carlisle had seen now.

"I'm sorry," she whispered finally, wanting to hear her own voice aloud and remind herself that Charles was the ghost, not her.

"You didn't do anything wrong." She was so close to him that when he spoke, she felt his lips brush against the top of her forehead for a moment.

"This doesn't happen…very often." She wondered if he thought she'd deceived him, that he hadn't expected to have a basketcase for a wife of necessity. She was a most inconvenient bride for a marriage of convenience, to be sure. But he had proposed to her following her confession that she'd tried to end her life, so perhaps he had had some sense of how damaged she was. "Everything...goes away sometimes. I'll try to be better now. It wasn't so bad this time. That's probably because of you." She stumbled on the last word, realizing that she shouldn't be telling him this. As if he needed more reason to think she was a lunatic.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he said again, with more emphasis. "This happened to the soldiers and the villagers in France. Sometimes they couldn't help but find themselves back in a terrible memory. It helped them to focus on their surroundings and their senses."

"They were in a war," Esme said softly. At least they had an excuse. Charles had made her life miserable, had made her wish she was dead, and now that he was gone she still couldn't move on from him. She had always feared that she was broken in a way that was irreparable and now it was confirmed—because if she couldn't be sane now, with Charles dead and his parents across the country, with people who treated her kindly for the first time in years, and nearly everything she had ever wanted, how would she ever be fixed? She wouldn't be.

"They experienced terrible things, and so have you."

"No terrible things, I was just...I was startled." She cringed inwardly. Like a spooked horse. Those never sold for much. He didn't say anything, and she knew he didn't really believe her, but at least he gave her the dignity of pretending to.

"Before, you called me…" she was too flustered to say it. She was glad she wasn't looking at him.

She felt him stiffen slightly. "I'm sorry to be overly familiar. I…" he seemed to want to say more, but stopped talking abruptly. "I was worried for you."

She took a breath and pulled away from his arm so that she was sitting upright, and he got to his feet and offered her a hand to do the same. The room felt slightly tilted when she stood up, but she regained her bearings in a moment. "I should...I should clean up supper. You did eat?"

Carlisle glanced at the closed bedroom door. "You don't have to worry about that. Edward and I took care of it all."

"Thank you." She touched her fingertips to her temples. She was getting a headache. "Did you leave something for Rosalie? She may come down when everyone has gone to bed." She couldn't bring herself to be angry at the girl even if she had thrown the plate. It was not her fault that Esme could be so startled by a broken plate. She didn't know Esme was a basket case.

He shook his head. "I didn't think of it—but she knows where the kitchen is. I'm going to get you a cup of tea. And you barely ate, too."

"No—no, I'm fine." She brushed her hands down her skirt.

"It's no trouble." He turned to cross the room, but she followed him.

"No, I—don't do that. I just want to be alone, please." Horridly, she felt her voice crack on the last word, and looked away from the concern on his face. It made her sick. Before now he had thought she was helping him. She had felt competent and capable. And now...now he knew.

He had thought she was helping him, and now he knew she was just another problem.

Carlisle shut Esme's door behind him. He stood still for a moment, trying to control his racing thoughts. He had known something was wrong immediately when Esme had stepped out and since then he had shifted into his doctoring mindset, processing everything at a distance except the task at hand—to help her.

Now that she had sent him away everything else came flooding back to him. Somewhere in himself he was angry with Rosalie for her outburst sparking such a reaction in Esme, but that anger was dampened by the rational part of his brain, reminding him that there was only one person to blame for all of this, and it was himself. Rosalie did not know what Esme had been through. They did not know what Rosalie had endured. It had been his actions that had brought them all together under this roof. He should have managed it better somehow.

He had seen Esme's body, with the bruises and healed over breaks, when she had been admitted to his hospital in Ohio. That alone told a terrible story, and he wasn't naive enough to think her treatment had been limited to only the injuries that lingered. But to see before him the extent of how she had been affected mentally by her marriage was different than speculation. His anger at Rosalie dimmed still. Any rage in him was reserved for Charles Evenson so wholly that it did not admit any other subjects.

But Charles Evenson wasn't here. He had died undeservedly unpunished for anything he had done and left the shrapnel of his worthless existence in those who had known him and still lived. Not worthless—that implied only a lack of value. His life had been a detriment to the world, worth even less than nothing.

Then Carlisle looked up and found he was at Rosalie's door, which he had walked to nearly without thinking. He knocked once and then opened the door without waiting for an answer. He did not think Rosalie would bid him come in anyway, and it was early enough she could not be sleeping.

Rosalie was sitting at her vanity and staring into the mirror, tracing her fingertips with her cheekbones when he entered. She turned to look at him. She was only surprised for a moment and then she was cold and defiant, obviously expecting some sort of punishment.

She thrust her chin out and raised her eyebrows at him. "Did you want something?"

Even if he had been angry with her, he wouldn't have given her the satisfaction of showing it. He knew that was what she must want. "I came to tell you that there was food for you in the kitchen, if you are hungry later. I know you did not eat."

She obviously hadn't been expecting that response, but she covered that surprise fairly well. She rested her chin on her hand, glancing back into her vanity mirror. "I am not hungry. Goodnight."

"If you are angry at anyone, Rosalie, be angry with me. But do not take it out on my wife." There was a possibility saying this would only make things worse, give Rosalie the key to how to truly get under his skin, but he decided to take a chance on the fact that Rosalie wasn't cruel, just like Edward wasn't. He did believe that. "She's had a difficult life herself—as you have. I want her, and you, to be comfortable in this house."

Rosalie blinked, then looked away, lips pursed in disinterest. "My father threw plates very often. It's why we are missing so much of the Dresden china."

It was easy to grasp her meaning. My father. "I know he did."

"Do you?" She said lightly, like he had just said something uninteresting at a party. "Maybe Mrs. Cullen should pull herself together like I did."

He knew she was trying to be argumentative. He knew she was deliberately trying to stoke his anger. He was almost sure it was a test of his character, perhaps subconsciously, wondering how far she could push him before he showed himself to be like their father. And still he had to fight to stay controlled and ignore the anger which was his instinct when she spoke about Esme like that.

"You don't know anything about what she has endured—it is not my place to tell you. But if you did, you wouldn't say that," he said, keeping his voice calm through years of careful practice. "He was a monster, Rosalie. Now he is gone. Why would you want to take his place in anything?"

His eyes had drifted from her face when he said that, lost in his own words, his thoughts of their father. But when he looked back at her face her eyes were closed. Her chin was still in the palm of her hand, but now she moved her hand to cover her lips, and Carlisle wondered if her expression could not be controlled.

When she didn't say anything, he turned to leave. He had nothing more to say to her tonight, and he did not want to intrude further.

As his hand touched the doorknob he heard her say something quiet, muffled by her hand still over her mouth. "Was Mrs. Cullen very upset?"

"She was not upset, she was merely startled and collected herself. She has spoken very kindly of you since, and was concerned you would be hungry, so she did not take to heart your trying to show her she is unwelcome."

Rosalie didn't look at him. "She didn't have anything to do with it."

It almost sounded like an apology. "I know," he said. He feared anything more would cause her to retreat further. "Goodnight, Rosalie."

She didn't say anything more as he closed the door.

Despite the clouds, it was still dimly light out, the summer evening fading into dusk. Carlisle found himself ascending the stairs again, and going into his room, but he did not think about sleep. He found himself standing in front of the door that adjoined Esme's room. He raised his hand to knock and then lowered it, and then raised it again and lowered it again. Perhaps she would not want to see him. Or perhaps he was only seeking her out selfishly, to try to absolve himself of the feeling that her pain was his fault.

Before he could decide to knock again he heard the sound of water running through the pipes and he stepped away from the door. He wouldn't disturb her if she was going to take a bath and go to bed.

Restless still, he left his bedroom and stepped out into the hallway. He headed to what had been his father's study. Perhaps there would be something to distract himself with there. But as he walked down the hall he came upon Edward standing in the doorway of the music salon, watching him.

When Carlisle stopped before him Edward's gaze fell to the bedroom door at the other side of the hall, then back to Carlisle. "I hope Esme didn't take that too personally. Rosalie cannot stand it when she doesn't get her way."

"She didn't," Carlisle said. "She's fine. But Rosalie seems very angry. Is it with me?"

"I don't know how she thinks," Edward said dismissively. "But I doubt it is you. She used to be more frivolous—I suppose she still is, but she's been angry ever since Father sent her to the convent school. I suppose she thought she was his favorite or something like that, until she was expelled from her old school. I always knew she wasn't, though, so I wasn't surprised."

"Wasn't his favorite child? You were?" Carlisle couldn't keep the skepticism out of his voice, knowing how badly William had treated Edward.

But Edward shook his head. "No. You were. Just from the few times he spoke of you, I could tell. Perhaps he respected that he couldn't control you, even if he hated it. And it all worked out perfectly for him, I suppose, even if he didn't mean it to."

"What, his dying did?" Carlisle frowned.

"Well, it got you back here, didn't he?" Edward's gaze was knowing in a way that made Carlisle uncomfortable. He had not realized before how perceptive Edward was. "You were estranged from him. He could have changed his will, not left you everything. Obviously he was sure you'd come back eventually, either on your own when we were older, or now, because you felt you had to. He never doubted it."

Carlisle nodded and didn't reply. Edward turned back into the music salon, and he was alone in the hallway, looking at all the closed doors.

wow it has been forever! wayyy longer than i meant it to be. but i (1) passed the bar [in the fall] and (2) got a job [like a week ago that i started on Monday] so it's been kind of a whirlwind. hopefully now that i am in a routine i will upload more regularly but also famous last words...but i have like two friends in this city and a personal life that makes me want to pull my hair out so i'll have a lot of time to write while sitting at home lonely i guess. i hope all of your lives are going well. thank you for all the kind words and faves and follows because they really make me so happy. i've decided i enjoy sharing a historical fact i find fun about each chapter when there is one so this chapter's is that the tuxedo sweater was a style of cardigan worn by women in the 1920s that was kind of a loose wrap to be worn casually at home over a blouse or a dress. idk if this comes across, but i have thus far been imagining Esme in mostly 1918-1919ish styles because my head canon for this story is that while Charles was upper middle class when they married, his vices ended up making them fairly badly off by the time he died, and that combined with his general neglect of Esme's well being and mistreatment of her meant that she didn't really keep up with modern fashions. whereas Rosalie has a very modern and trendy wardrobe, which i am happy about because i love historical fashion. sorry Esme.