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"Is this what we hope to do to lift the veil cast across the estate, James? Braised loins and memories of childhood?" Lord Beckham lamented with a sigh.
"I know it's not quite my place to offer an opinion, m'lord, but... well, you know how Ms. Cauthfield and I felt about the... issue, at the Moors. You're a better man that that, m'lord. You're a better man than—"
"Anna. You can say her name, Mr. Malboro. Anna. There's no mystery as to what you speak of, when the topic of the situation at the moors crosses your lips. It's quite a frustrating euphemism," Lord Beckham intoned - not so much harsh, as miserable; crooning. "Your opinion is noted, though, as it has been quite a many times in the years passed since I last... spoke, with Anna," he added, his heart wilting briefly.
"Then... m'lord Beckham, perhaps it would behoove you to note that you've given yourself far too much pain and regret for something quite beyond your fault. If..." James held back the full brunt of his emotional tumult, only to earn to the faint glare of his master. He backed down, knowing cross words on the legacy of Lord Beckham's lost love would do little to deter the gloomy disposition of the man.
"I suppose it's time to listen to Lady Cauthfield's weekly haranguing of my self-reflection, then?" Lord Beckham asked stormily, lifting himself from the armchair and proceeding past his butler. Lord Beckham could recognize James's concerns - and he knew the old man had only the lord's best interests in his mind. But, he thought as he proceeded into the grand and sprawling hall on the third floor of Berrewithe Manor, neither well-intentioned James nor sprightly old Ms. Cauthfield would ever understand what it meant to be a man who could never again deserve the love of a beautiful woman. Neither could they know the sensation of failing at your life's duty - to make a woman happy, in the way only a gentleman could.
As his footsteps echoed through the shadowy stairwell, lush paneled stairs and walls gleaming in faint candlelights, he heard a storm rumble just beyond a wall of glass panes, elegant red-black curtains draped across the towering window at the second-floor landing. Lightning flashed just long enough for streaking of electric white-blue to illuminate his features; sullen, and tinted with the warmth of growing age, yet so deep; so entrancing, with a masculine cut to his jaw and a wild freedom to his dark hair. He gazed upon his visage, reflected in the lightning crackling through the windows; it would never satisfy him. A virile bed of stubble crested along his chin; something quite ghastly to see festering on the face of one who ought to be a proper gentleman.
The dining room doors swung open and Lord Beckham entered silently, the scent of fresh rain falling replaced by the thick scent and sizzle of stringy beef loins braised slow in pots with honey, stock, and spices. A recipe Lord Beckham had loved since his childhood, he knew that Ms. Cauthfield cooked it in trying times; she cooked it whenever she felt the need to placate an imperfect man. Though the scent pleased him, it brought back memories no longer idyllic, but tragic; memories viewed through the shards of a broken mirror.
"You're finally here! I've been braising this meat all day," exclaimed the elderly woman in the frumpy white linens, her voice full of exasperated mirth. All at once Lord Beckham's countenance changed;
while the smell of the meat and the welcome smile of his loyal maidservant would normally seem so inviting, tonight was not a night he wished to again entertain her patronizing attempts to cure his foul mood, or to hear her speak once again on how little regard she had for the lord's lost love, Anna.
"Ms. Cauthfield, I certainly appreciate the sentiment, but I feel that perhaps tonight would be an evening best spent alone, with a simple glass of sherry to keep me company. I certainly hope you won't take offense," Lord Beckham murmured apologetically. Ms. Cauthfield sighed, deflated, shaking her head.
"M'lord, we do this because we care about you - James and I," she added, as her master turned his back to the door. "You do quite understand that, don't you? We're concerned. This spell that witch has cast upon you—"
"Ms. Cauthfield, I know in no uncertain terms how poor you happen to regard Anna, but I'll not have you speaking ill of her like that so boldly to me his evening," Lord Beckham growled. "Please. Enjoy the braised loins between the house staff - I know James has quite a love for your cooking, as well. I apologize for appearing mercurial, Ms. Cauthfield, but I simply don't have it in me tonight."
"Will you ever have it in you, m'lord?" Ms. Cauthfield asked, bedraggled. He took a long, contemplative silence to consider that before leaving the dining room.
CHAPTER FOUR
"M'lord! Look at what a wonderful day it is!"
He heard the metallic shlllick of curtains drawn open against steely curtain-rods; he felt the sun leap through smudged windows, glaring into his pulled-shut eyes. A beautiful day had taken off across the rolling moors, and the glower of the day's burning beams pulled him harshly from reverie; a meandering and painful dream he had too often, one that he couldn't forget; one that floated through his mind almost any time he pulled his eyes shut and closed out the sound and the light and the life of the world.
Rain pattering across a courtyard; stands of roses woven through bright-white trellises, lining a cobblestone pathway. Beautiful flowerbeds flanking rows of empty benches; the disembodied sound of a reception, a party meant just for him; for him, and for his love.
Rain darkening what should have been a day to remember for all his life... a day he thought, until then, that he was born deserving. The day he and Anna would meet.
Instead he found only soggy bouquets; eyes strained wide in surprise. Gossipy murmurs as throngs of men in their white suits and women in loose, flowing gowns woven with lacy, floral patterns stood beneath the cloistered halls lining the courtyard, grass flooded as he fell to his knees, soaked by the storm that had claimed a day he had dreamed of; the day he and she would exchange something sacred and inviolable.
He closed his eyes to shoo away the sunlight for just a few more moments, so that he might masochistically recall that day; the day that haunted dreams both waking and asleep. The day that taught him he didn't deserve love. He had always heard of her as flighty; as a 'firebrand'. She never imagined that she would so quickly turn away from his love, and he could only reason that she did so, and did it so easily, because he had never earned that love in the first place. He knew he could never earn anyone's love.
How could any woman truly ever love me?
"Chase the dreams away, m'lord, it's an exciting day to wake up to," the chipper old woman's voice chimed. He opened his eyes again to see a figure cast in the shadow of the day, wrapped in sunlight that blinded him. As his eyes adjust and the muddled patter of rain from his dream ebbed away in his ears, he sighed in desperation on seeing a woman too familiar to him standing in the light at the window.
"Ms. Cauthfield, yes, good morning," Lord Beckham groaned, rolling onto his back in the bed. Confused and perturbed, his rather grumpy tone fell upon his loyal, bright-eyed servant like a particularly unceremonious cudgel. "And for what doubtlessly pressing concern have you implored me rise from bed so early?" he asked sarcastically.
"So much impudence for your family's longest-employed servant," Ms. Cauthfield humphed as she went about picking up articles of clothing scattered about the bedroom, straightening the lord's writing desk as she passed. "I helped raise you, you know. Your mother, may she rest peacefully, found herself so often utterly baffled on what to do with you, m'lord. I think on her often," Ms. Cauthfield sniffled nostalgically. "And with how you've been these past years, m'lord, I can certainly begin to understand how at a loss she was, regarding you."
"Ms. Cauthfield, don't you think it's perhaps a bit early in the day for one of your brow-beatings?" Lord Beckham lamented, sighing as he came to sit on the edge of the bed, chasing away a long yawn.
"Would you prefer it if I perhaps waited until dinner time, instead?" Ms. Cauthfield responded with a cheery chirp, responding to his facetiousness with a rapier-strike of her own. "By then you'll be quite prepared, won't you?"
"You're fortunate to have a master as caring and as forgiving as I can be, Ms. Cauthfield," the lord grumbled; the old woman showed no amount of intimidation, knowing that the master was quite a bit of bark, but far too kind a man inside to bite.
"Besides, I have to give you your verbal rappings now, as you'll be quite tied up by dinnertime, won't you?" Ms. Cauthfield asked knowingly. Lord Beckham couldn't recall precisely what the old woman was referring to, his expression perplexed. He had not exactly developed much of a habit of inviting company to the manor for dinner... though Ms. Cauthfield often had little hesitation in arranging such dates on his behalf, the precocious old woman.
"And to whom have you extended an uncalled-for invitation to my manor for this evening, then, Ms. Cauthfield?" he asked accusingly, standing and straightening the loose silken garments clung to his strong frame, his virile, broad chest exposed by the low-cut neckline.
"I should take it with no surprise but only a consigning sigh, that you've already forgotten what happens this evening, shouldn't I?" Ms. Cauthfield exclaimed in disappointment. After another night of tossing dreams; of visions of red roses left in the rain, lovingly-cut flowers trampled beneath pounding horse hooves, he had little notion in his mind to entertain these sorts of motherly naggings, even from Ms. Cauthfield, who he gave quite a bounteous handful of leeway to.
