Saturday, January 19, 1924
The patronus that had lingered at the edge of their property had startled her. An English Spaniel, sitting still at the edge of their property, unable to cross the wards Cassian had cast. It stared patiently at the house, waiting for Rosie so it could deliver its message.
She'd stood, hand on her steadily growing belly, staring back, a cold chill running over every inch of her body.
Her grandfather.
She'd know his patronus anywhere, having grown up at the man's side, always tugging on his hand or arm for the attention he lavished on her when her own father refused. Robert Laurence was a far cry from the two boys he and her grandmother had raised, and she had nothing but fond memories of the man. He'd never been cruel with her, or threatening. He'd always treated her gently and took her on fun outings that were meant to only be for boys.
But he was still the father of Leo and Arthur. He was still the grandfather of Thomas.
Her grandparents hadn't tried to communicate with her or see her since she and Cassian had returned to England. No letters, no visits. They'd moved out of the main castle, opting for a smaller cottage outside of London, seeing as her grandmother still enjoyed her society luncheons. The woman had never liked Rosalie - or anyone in the family for that matter - and it was no surprise to the young woman that she'd left the moment her sons were apprehended.
She'd never expected to hear from either of them again. She figured they likely blamed her for everything, but a part of her had hoped - her granddad at least - would have understood that she had been put in an impossible position.
When she'd gathered enough courage to approach the patronus, remaining safely behind the wards, just in case, the message had been surprising. Her grandfather had heard from James that she was expecting, and he and her grandmother were inviting her to their home for tea. The message hadn't expanded on what the meeting was meant to be, or what they wanted to see her for, only to come, and when.
She'd banished the patronus without a response and returned to her gardening, her mind racing for the rest of the day.
When Cassian had gotten home, he'd made it clear that he didn't want her going anywhere near that cottage, especially alone, and Rosie had agreed that she'd had no intention to do so. As much as she loved her grandfather, her trust in the family - outside of Julia - was shattered. If Thomas could turn on her so easily, who was to say that the others couldn't?
Instead, they'd decided on Arundel and that Rosie would ask Julia to accompany her.
When her grandfather had agreed with a date and time, Rosie had apparated onto the estate with Julia and her boys at her side. Now they sat, waiting quietly in the family room, while Jude and Evander played upstairs with Adira in her nursery.
"Are you nervous?"
Rosie nodded, her blue eyes finding her cousin's brown with more fear behind them than she'd meant to let on. "It's alright, Dove," Julia murmured, wrapping her arm around the young woman and placing a kiss against her temple. "You're safe with me." Rosalie knew that, but it didn't stop the way her hands shook in her lap, or the way her stomach turned over on itself. Morning sickness had mostly gone away, but this was a different kind of sick. One born of trauma, and not of pregnancy.
When her grandparents entered the room, both of them impeccably dressed, she stood immediately, curtseying to both, who then curtsied to Julia. It was silent as Robert and Elizabeth sat on the sofa opposite her, her grandmother's hard stare already narrowed in on Rosalie's small belly. Her grandfather shared a look with Rosie - one she hadn't seen before, and didn't know how to interpret.
As the silence stretched longer and Rosie didn't know what to say, Julia took up the reigns.
"So as you can see, Rosalie's expecting and - "
"We already knew."
Julia fixed her aunt with a raised eyebrow, her gaze hardening, as Elizabeth lifted her chin but said nothing more.
" - and so we'd prefer to keep this short and cordial. There's no need to stress an expectant mother."
Elizabeth scoffed, folding her hands in her lap as she lowered her shoulders and looked away.
"Something you'd like to say?" Julia asked, but Robert spoke up, looking directly at his granddaughter.
"How far along are you, Rosalie?"
The young woman glanced between her grandparents, feeling herself shrinking beneath her grandmother's obvious contempt. "A little over four months."
He nodded, but the silence stretched in front of them again. Julia reached between them, taking Rosie's hand in hers.
“You were not at Christmas,” her grandmother finally said, returning her icy blue eyes to the girl, the same Rosalie had inherited from her. She tilted her chin slightly. “Did you not think it important to spend your first Christmas home with your family, or has marriage relieved you of those obligations as well?”
"Elizabeth."
"She is a grown woman and perfectly capable of answering for herself, Robert."
“I spent Christmas with my husband and his parents,” she answered carefully. Rosalie's fingers tightened around Julia's, but her grandmother's gaze never moved from her.
"Don't speak his name in front of me."
"I didn't say his name, Granny," Rosalie protested, her face suddenly growing hot with an unexpected anger, "But it's Cassian in case any of you have forgotten." She knew they hadn't. Cassian was the entire reason for all this family turmoil. Turmoil that had never needed to happen if they'd simply given him a chance and tried to welcome him instead of writing him off at first discovery all those years ago.
Her grandmother regarded her for a long moment. "No one has forgotten him."
Something in the way she said it made Rosalie’s stomach tighten. Her grandmother sat perfectly still, hands folded atop one another in her lap, her expression composed enough that anyone walking into the room might have assumed they were simply discussing dinner.
“It would be rather difficult to forget the young man at the center of so much unpleasantness.”
Rosie discarded it, sitting up straighter, telling herself to look only at her grandfather, lest she wilt beneath her grandmother's obvious hatred. “It was our first one in our new home. He built it himself and we wanted to spend - ”
“Yes. I’m sure it is very charming.”
Rosie stopped. There was nothing particularly cruel in the words themselves, but she knew that tone. She had heard it used for ugly dresses, unfortunate marriages and women her grandmother thought to be crass and uncouth. “It is,” Rosie said, a little firmer. “Cassian worked very hard on it.” Her grandmother’s mouth tightened.
“There really is no need to keep saying his name as though repetition might improve my opinion of him.”
Rosalie had never thought it would. She could say Cassian's name a hundred times, and it would only sour her grandmother further. There was nothing she could ever do that would soften Elizabeth to her husband, or the baby she was carrying for him. His blood wasn't worthy in the woman's eyes, despite his character or the way he loved her.
Her grandmother had always been a miserable woman, and Rosie was beginning to question why she had even bothered coming. “I’ve only said it once.”
“Such admirable restraint. It's unfortunate you didn't practice the same restraint in regards to Thomas.”
Julia’s gaze hardened, her own posture warning that the conversation was moving dangerously close to an abrupt conclusion. “Careful.”
Elizabeth turned her eyes toward her niece. “I have been careful for nearly two years, Julia. I find it has accomplished very little.” Robert shifted beside her to look at his wife. “This is not why I asked her here.”
“No,” Elizabeth replied. “You asked her here because you have spent the better part of two years pretending she is still the child who followed you through streams in muddy boots. She is not.”
Rosalie's expression softened, mirroring her grandfather's as he turned back to her. How simple life used to feel. How monumental the world was, and how safe she had felt in those streams with her grandfather's hands on her shoulders. She still didn't understand how it had all come to this.
Would her son or daughter ever know Robert the same Rosalie had? She didn't worry - but resigned herself - to knowing they never would.
Her granny would see to that.
“No,” Rosie said quietly. “I’m not.” Her grandmother seemed almost satisfied by the admission, though there was no triumph in her expression. Elizabeth didn't need it. She had always possessed the certainty of a woman who believed time eventually would prove her right, and Rosalie suspected the last two years had done very little to challenge that belief. Her eyes lowered again, lingering briefly on her granddaughter's stomach before returning to her face. There was nothing grandmotherly in the look. No curiosity about whether the baby moved yet, whether Rosie had been well, whether she was frightened or excited. Elizabeth looked at the slight curve beneath her dress as though it were something disgusting that needed to be carved out.
Her hand instinctively went to her belly, covering it from her grandmother's view. "Oh honestly, Rosalie. You needn't behave as though I intend to attack you."
The young woman almost laughed. There was nothing funny about the statement or the meaning behind her grandmother's words. Instead, it was the sheer audacity, the almost ignorance of claiming Rosie should know that her child was safe amongst the same people who'd successfully killed her last.
“I don’t know what anyone intends anymore.” For the first time, something sharper moved behind her grandmother’s eyes.
“How very convenient, considering the only murderer in this room,” her grandmother gracefully beckoned to the girl, a cold smile stretching across thin, wrinkled lips, "is you."
Elizabeth rose, smoothly, showing no signs of her age and quietly removed herself from the room, apparently finished with the conversation, before anyone could respond. Julia sighed, shaking her head as the door closed behind her, and she wrapped her arm around the girl once more. "You don't listen to her. No one else believes that."
Rosalie sat, hearing Julia's words, but unable to absorb them. Her eyes had gone blank, her posture slumped slightly as she each quiet breath came shaky in her chest. A murderer. It was the first time anyone had said that word to her, and it came from a woman whose hatred could cut like a knife.
She'd always known her grandmother would blame her, but actually hearing it did something to the girl that broke what little resolve she'd come with. Her face crumpled as she dropped her face into her hand, her shoulders shaking as the tears came. Julia held her quietly, both women seemingly forgetting the man that still sat across from them.
It felt like ages, before Robert finally spoke.
"Are you alright?"
Rosie looked up, her cheeks wet and her eyes reddened. Her grandfather rose from his chair and crossed the distance to sit on the other side of her. Julia moved back, to allow him to pull his granddaughter in close. Rosalie melted at the warm familiar scent of coffee and cocoa that drifted from his coat, and she wrapped her arms around his middle, dropping her face into his shoulder. She couldn't answer. It was a difficult question with many different answers.
"Are you happy? Does he take good care of you?"
Rosalie nodded into his chest, swallowing another gulp of tears that threatened to explode out of her. "He's better than I could have ever hoped for," she answered, and finally pulled back to wipe at her tears. Robert reached into his back pocket, retrieving a handkerchief to help her wipe her eyes. "You would love him, I know you would." Robert's expression dropped slightly, and he was careful in his reply.
"I think things are too complicated for that now, Rosie."
The man had lost his grandson and sons, and while he didn't hold the same belief that it was all Rosalie's doing, he wasn't evolved enough to admit that it didn't color his perception on the present. He looked at her a long moment. His wife had had her say, and Merlin knew no one would have been able to stop her anyway, but there was no point in continuing to punish his beloved granddaughter for things everyone had had a hand in destroying.
"I loved your father. Arthur too. Thomas." His expression tightened. "I still do. What they did doesn't erase that any more than loving them excuses it."
Rosalie nodded. She knew, as a mother, even if her child did something horrific one day...they would still be her child. She would still be their mum. How did one turn off love? She'd certainly never been able to, for anyone she'd ever cared about.
"But when James told me you were expecting..." Robert paused, his eyes dropping briefly to the small curve of her stomach. "Two years suddenly felt like long enough."
Rosalie's throat tightened, hoping beyond hope that he was about to say what she desperately wanted to hear.
"I was angry. I was grieving. Perhaps I still am." His gaze returned to hers. "But I don't want to meet my great-grandchild one day and realize I chose to spend all this time not knowing their mother. Your grandmother doesn't have to have any part of it."
She inhaled deeply, and turned to look at Julia. Her cousin only smiled gently, but didn't offer any advice. This was purely in her lap.
"I'll have to talk to my husband first." Rosalie would never make a decision about who her child could be around without Cassian's input. If he said no, because he was worried for his son or daughter, then that was the answer, and her grandfather would have to live with it.
"I'll let you know."
just like the white-winged dove
Ooh Baby, Ooh, Said Ooh
