Streak - 38. Chapter 38

November 28, 2002

Thanksgiving Day

Goodwell, VA

Wade

The table had looked so neat, with beautiful place settings and other accessories, but now, halfway through dinner, it looked messy and disorganized, as people filled their plates and drank. I thought that was not too unlike what had happened to our group. Everything had started out looking so good, and now it had become messy. What I had planned out to be a magnificent dinner had turned into a disaster. Everyone had been pretty much reeling after Darius made his big announcement. I truly think we could have gotten beyond that, but then Mary Ellen dropped this bombshell on the group. I sat there, trying to figure out a way to save this event, but I was coming up blank. I looked over at Matt and drew strength just from his gaze, but I still couldn’t conjure up any major way to turn this dinner around.

I took stock of the people at the table. JJ had already gotten up and made his exit, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, but there was no hiding how upset he was. Matt and Will wore their feelings on their sleeves, and both of them seemed furious, probably at Alex for hurting JJ. Brad seemed to be strangely calm, which was surprising, since both of these revelations should have shaken him up. Stef looked a bit shell-shocked, because while he liked drama, this was a bit much even for him. JP was much as I was, looking stolid and calm, despite the chaos around him. My eyes landed on Alex, who sat in his seat as if he were paralyzed. The only time I’d seen him lose his cool was when we had our big fight up in the City, but then he’d been ranting and raving. He was visibly upset now, only this time he looked so disturbed he could be a deflated air mattress. I was staring at him, waiting for him to make eye contact with me. When he finally looked at me, I could almost see inside his mind, and see him reeling. He and I were really good at communicating non-verbally, and I told him with my eyes that he was visibly freaking out, and that he needed to get his shit together. It was rewarding that it worked, and I saw him pull himself out of his shocked daze.

“Please excuse me,” Alex said as he stood up. He strode out of the dining room with a confident step. He was obviously going up to talk to JJ, so that seemed to calm down his brothers.

“So what will you do?” Aunt Emeline asked Mary Ellen.

“I think I’ll finish dinner,” Mary Ellen said, in her perkiest tone. “Then after that, I’ll have to have a conversation with Alex.”

“That will probably go well,” Trevor said sarcastically, shaking his head at her and getting a dirty look in return. He and Mary Ellen had a strange relationship. They were cousins who fucked around, although I don’t think many people knew that. He had a good idea of how awful she could be, and while it seemed at times like he was pretty disgusted with her, they spent a lot of time together. I remembered that Trevor was the person she’d picked to escort her during my father’s funeral, which said a lot about how much she relied on him. It was hard to read Trevor: I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed, amused, or jealous. Maybe it was all three.

And then slowly conversation returned, as people mostly chatted with the people immediately around them. Gradually those conversations expanded, and the trauma that Mary Ellen and Darius had tossed at all of us was not forgotten, but it was avoided, and hidden. “Never a dull moment,” Matt said, referring to holiday meals with our families.

“No there isn’t,” I agreed.

JJ

The door opened, and since no one had knocked first I knew it had to be Alex. I stopped looking for my knife, and instead stood up and faced him. I braced myself for the inevitable, the ending of our relationship. I resolved that as pissed off at him as I was, I wouldn’t be bitchy, well, at least not for me. I had to do this right. The fact that I didn’t go apeshit on him should tell him how into him I was, if nothing else.

He walked up to me and collapsed onto the floor on his knees, then grabbed my hand. My first instinct was to pull it away from him, but I relaxed a bit. “I am so sorry,” he said. “It pains me beyond belief to know how much this must be hurting you.” And once again, he read me perfectly. He hit me with an abject apology, and I had a hard time staying mad at someone who said they were sorry, and was sincere about it. I pretty much forgot that a minute ago I was freaking out that he was breaking up with me, and instead almost got annoyed that he played me so well. It made it hard to rant and rave at him.

I nodded, walked over to the bed, and sat down. He followed me and sat next to me. “I should have asked you who you’d been with.”

“I should have known better,” he grumbled. “I have been so careful over the years, especially around the nouveau riche. The one time I let my guard down, this happens.”

“Nouveau riche?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. The Danfields were about as blue-blooded, and old money, as one could get.

“You must understand that to a Briton, all Americans are nouveau,” he said with a smile.

“Whatever,” I said, since I was obviously included in that description and that seemed to lump me in the same category as Donald Trump and people like him. That was truly insulting. “So what’s going to happen?”

“It would be preferable for her to terminate this pregnancy, but I doubt that is part of her agenda. I suspect she will attempt to force me to marry her.”

“Seriously?”

“It has happened before, where a wealthy American woman marries an impoverished peer with a title,” he said bitterly.

“You’re hardly impoverished,” I said.

“You’re right. That was a bit dramatic. It is just a bit frustrating, to see a dukedom like ours eroded away mostly by death taxes, but occasionally by mismanagement.” I looked at him, asking him to explain that. “Whenever the estate passes to a new heir, death duties are due, and they are due in cash. It has reduced us down to a townhouse in London, a massive country estate, and a fabulous art collection.”

“You don’t seem poor,” I said, not understanding.

“I am not poor. Supporting our lifestyle is not a problem. What is a problem is that when my grandfather dies, my father will most likely inherit the dukedom. He is all but a scoundrel, and will largely dissipate what is left; and even if he does not, when he dies the death duties will certainly require me to sell off the art collection, or maybe the estate in Derbyshire, or possibly both.”

“This is like something out of the 1800s,” I said, stunned at how things were so traditional in his world.

“Those days would have been preferable,” he said. “Taxes then were but a pittance compared to what they are now. There was a concerted effort to break up the largest estates in Britain, and it has largely been successful.”

“So you’ll marry her, and she’ll give you enough money to eventually cover the death taxes,” I concluded. I thought it was pretty awful; it made Alex seem like a whore.

“That is one possibility,” he said.

“Then I guess we’ll be over,” I said, unable to hide my sadness.

“That is not what I want.”

“It’s not what I want either, but if you’re married, it seems pretty obvious that’s what’s going to happen,” I snapped, letting my bitterness show through.

“I have no right to ask this of you, but I will do it anyway. I would like you to be patient as I work through this process. There are a lot of variables here.”

“I get it,” I said, in full-blown bitch mode. “I’m just supposed to sit patiently on the sidelines, pining away for you, hoping that you manage to spare a scrap of yourself for me.”

“Come on Jays,” he said, using his nickname for me. He called me ‘Jays’, since I had two Js in my name. “I don’t want it to be like that.”

“Well isn’t it?”

He sighed. “You make it seem like this is my decision.”

“Isn’t it? If you get married, isn’t that your call?”

He shook his head. “There is much more to it than that. If this goes through, it will be up to Mary Ellen and me to decide the bounds of our marital commitment. Everything else will be negotiated largely without my approval.”

“They can’t force you to marry someone you don’t want to marry.”

“Actually, Jays, they can. I impregnated her, so I made a choice, and I chose her. My grandfather will view this as merely cleaning up a messy situation, and trying to make it as advantageous as possible.”

And then my anger faded, and I felt really sorry for him. Will and I had both rebelled against my father’s control, but that was nothing compared to what Alex had to deal with. He really had very little control over his own life. “You must feel like a pawn.”

He smiled at me, because I was showing him that I still cared about him. “That is how it works. Someday, when I am the Duke of Suffolk, I will no longer be the pawn, but that day is not today.”

I really didn’t have a whole lot of choices, and in fact, I only had two. I could be patient, and work though this with him; or I could end things with him. There was really no way I could bring myself to dump him, at least not yet. I needed him. Just fifteen minutes ago, I’d been so distraught over losing him I was thinking of cutting myself again. The second choice really wasn’t an option for me. “I’ll be patient with you, but I don’t want any surprises. You have to let me know what’s going on.”

He brushed his hand across my cheek. “I will make sure you are as well-informed as I am.” I nodded. “I need to go back downstairs and discuss this with Mary Ellen.”

I leaned in and gave him a kiss, one that was so meaningful it surprised both of us. “If you need me, I’m here.”

“I will most definitely need you, and I will come looking for you as soon as these conversations are done.”

Will

“Where are you going?” Zach asked me, as I got up to chase after Darius. Dinner was finally over, and I was freed from the jail that was the dining room table. Darius had hurried out of here, probably trying to avoid me, but I was determined to catch up with him.

“I’m going to try and talk some sense into him.”

“He’s not listening to you,” Zach told me.

“I have to try,” I said, then strode away quickly before he could try to stop me.

I walked up to Darius and he gave me a dirty look. “I’m not going to argue with you about this.”

“Yes, you are,” I said, getting in his face.

“When did I ever tell you what to do?” he asked, posturing back at me. “And even if I did, how pissed off would you be? You won’t let anyone have the slightest bit of control over your life, but you think you have the right to do that to me?”

“If I was putting my life in danger, I’d expect you to say something.”

“If I’m risking my life, it’s for a good cause,” he said. “I’m risking my life for my country, and to try and make sure other people don’t have to go through what we did.”

“And if you’re killed, can you imagine what will happen to all of us? You saw how Dad was when Robbie died. He was pissed off because Robbie went back up those fucking stairs, got himself killed, and left us to deal with him being gone. You’re doing the same goddam thing. You’re willing to put all of us through that hell again? You would do that to Dad, to me, and to JJ?”

“I’m not going to get killed,” he said.

“Isn’t that the big risk? Isn’t that the chance you take? You go into a battle, how are you sure you’re not the one who will get popped?”

“Will, it’s my life, and I get to make the call on this. Not you, not Dad, and not JJ.”

“Yeah, well I think it’s fair that we at least get to have a say in this.”

“You’re being a fucking hypocrite,” he said, really pissing me off. “You would be so postal if I tried to control your life.” And that pissed me off even more, because I knew he was right.

“Maybe I am a hypocrite, and maybe I would go apeshit if you did the same thing to me, but at least I’d fucking listen to you, and consider what you had to say.”

“You think I wasn’t listening to you?” he asked me, with fire in his eyes. “I heard you, and I heard your arguments. You think I didn’t wrestle with the same shit before I made this decision? You think I’m that fucking stupid?”

“Right now, I think you’re that fucking stupid,” I said, gesturing at his uniform.

“Fuck you!”

“You cannot do this!” I said emphatically.

Brad

I think we were all relieved when dinner was over. I felt sorry for Wade, because he’d gone all out to try and make this a successful event, and it had ended up being much more dramatic than any of us had bargained for. Now that the meal was over, we broke up into clusters, and moved into the great room, or in my case, into the library.

“Are your dinners always this exciting?” Marc asked, trying to cheer me up.

“Sometimes,” I said. I led him over to where Darius and Will were arguing.

“You cannot do this!” Will said emphatically, still trying to convince Darius not to join the service, but our arrival stopped their confrontation, which was obviously a relief to Darius.

“I’m upset that you didn’t talk to me about this, or at least tell me what you were planning to do, but if this is what you want, you have my full support,” I told Darius. He stared at me, shocked, while Will looked at me like I’d betrayed both of them.

“Thanks Dad,” Darius said, and actually seemed to get a little choked up. “That’s all I wanted, was your support. I didn’t talk to you about this, because it was my decision, and I wanted to make it by myself.”

“You realize the trauma you’re about to put the Navy through.”

“What trauma?” he asked, confused.

“Stef will no doubt advocate that all the uniforms be redesigned,” I said, grinning at him. He laughed, while Will just glared at me.

“I think the uniform looks good on me,” he said, being cocky.

“I think it looks like shit,” Will said. I focused on him, drilling my eyes into his, telling him to chill the fuck out. “I’m out of here.” He turned and stomped off.

“I think it looks good on you, too,” Marc said. “That’s a pretty brave thing to do.”

“Thanks,” Darius said with mock modesty. “I just want to do my part to get the bastards who hurt my family so badly.”

“So you decided to join the Navy?” I asked, even though it was pretty obvious from his uniform.

“I like the water, and I like ships, so it seemed to be the best choice.” That made sense, since Darius was a traditional guy, and his grandfather had been a sailor. “But if I’m on a ship, it will be tough to be the guy who caps bin Laden.”

“I think you have to look at it as a combined effort. You probably won’t be the one to get him, but you’ll be part of the team that does,” I said.

“Maybe you’re right.”

“It looks like you lost out on your chance to be with Mary Ellen,” I teased, changing the subject to take us away from this topic that he really didn’t want to talk about.

“Maybe,” he said, raising his eyebrow. “I don’t see her as a faithful wife.”

“Neither do I,” I agreed. I gave him a nice hug, and he hugged me back firmly, in a way that was pretty demonstrative for Darius.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” he said, and then he wandered off to talk to Stef.

“I could use a break,” Marc said suggestively. He was an animal in bed. He was almost insatiable. He made me feel so vital, so young.

“Let’s go,” I said, and led him up to our room. We spent the next forty-five minutes fucking each other’s brains out, and then collapsed back onto the mattress, completely satisfied. Well, I was. Marc would probably be ready to go again in an hour or less.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” I said.

“I thought you’d be even more upset than Will about Darius going into the service. You were really calm, and really supportive.” I sighed, since I’d have to show him my manipulative inner psyche.

“What’s the biggest risk to Darius in joining the Navy?” I asked.

“That he gets sent to Afghanistan, or I guess, if we go to war with them, to Iraq.”

“He won’t be sent to the Middle East,” I declared.

“How do you know that?”

“I am the chairman of the board of a major defense contractor. Do you know how many friends I have at the Pentagon?”

“You’re saying that you’d have him stationed somewhere else?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I told him. I didn’t really care if other people thought I was scheming, or whatever they wanted to call it. In this case, the life or health of my son was on the line. I’d do what I had to do to keep him safe. “He’ll probably end up here in the US, or maybe Spain or Italy, or the Far East.”

“No wonder you didn’t bitch about it.”

“There’s more than one way to win an argument,” I said.

Wade

I had escaped to my study for a brief respite from the crowd, even though everyone had scattered to their own corners. I heard music coming from the conservatory, and there was undoubtedly a group in the basement, where we had a pretty amazing rec room set up. From a foosball table, to air hockey, to pinball machines, there was something for at least the younger people to do. As far as I could tell, that’s where Ethan spent most of his time when he was visiting, especially after he’d found the hockey machine. We had a contraption, like they had at the Hockey Hall of Fame that would shoot pucks out at you. I used to use it to practice my passing, but Ethan was a goalie, so for him, it was a good way to keep his reflexes up.

I heard footsteps and looked up to see Alex standing in the doorway. “May I intrude upon your solitude for a moment?”

I smiled at him, because he understood me, and my need to escape and think. “Of course,” I said. I stood up and went over to the seating area, set up much like the one in JP’s study at Escorial, while he closed the doors and joined me.

“I am not a little perplexed at this current dilemma with your sister,” he said. His tone was chipper, but I could tell that inside, he was much more upset.

“It’s not all that hard to figure out,” I told him. It was obvious to me what Mary Ellen was doing.

“I wonder if I may seek your advice, even though the other person in this equation is your sister,” he said, in his formal way.

“When it comes to my mother or Mary Ellen, I have a pretty easy time staying objective,” I said with a smile.

“Do you think the baby is mine?” That was actually a very good question, and with Mary Ellen’s slutty ways, it was a fair one. “Do you think she’s even pregnant?”

“I think she’s pregnant, and I think you’re the father of her baby,” I told him confidently. He looked at me, asking for an explanation. “Mary Ellen is manipulative and scheming, and she can be so heartless that she’s almost sociopathic, but one thing she is not is a liar.”

“It’s useful to have at least one redeeming quality,” he said ruefully, making me laugh.

“You’re the one who slept with her.”

“And you never had sex with someone and regretted it?”

My mind flashed back to my brief fling with Jeff Grimes, and how that had turned out pretty badly. “Touché.”

“You and I have been many things to each other, but most of all you have been a friend, and that is what I desperately need right now,” he said candidly. I looked at him and saw that he’d said that sincerely and he’d completely lowered his shields. He was asking me to put our friendship above family, which I could not do, but to the degree that I could serve both masters, I would try to help him out.

“Then that is what I will be. And if things get complicated, such that I am conflicted, I’ll let you know.” I paused after I said that to note that when I was around him, I actually started to talk like him, not with the accent, but with more formalized speech.

“What are my options?”

“I think much of that will depend on what Mary Ellen wants from you,” I said honestly. “I think that it’s very unlikely she’ll be willing to get an abortion.”

“Why?”

“As a politician, my father had many contrived views, but he was genuinely pro-life.” He looked confused. “In this country, that means he was firmly against abortions.”

“One would think that the decision to have an abortion would rightfully fall on the woman who is pregnant.”

“And that is the opposing point of view, the pro-choice group,” I said. “She’s had two abortions in the past, and my father was really disappointed in her, especially after the second one. She pretended like his scorn didn’t bother her, but it did.”

“I can imagine what that would be like. It will probably be much like the reception I get from my grandfather when he finds out about this.”

“Quite possibly,” I said, although I had no way to know how upset the Duke of Suffolk would be. “My father was a sexist in some ways. He never pressured my brother and me about the kind of woman we’d marry. For some reason, that was different for Mary Ellen. He was pretty vocal that she should marry into a good family.”

“That’s where I come in.”

“That’s where you come in,” I agreed. “My father’s death was hard on her, because she wasn’t at a good place with him. With this pregnancy, she has the tool to make him proud, even though he’s dead. She can have a baby, and presumably atone for the babies she aborted, and she picked a man from a family that my father may have approved of.” I said the last phrase with a smile.

“How serendipitous for me,” he said sarcastically, grinning back, then the grin faded. “So you are telling me I am about to be railroaded into marrying your sister.”

“I think you’ll make an awesome brother-in-law,” I told him, trying to keep things light, but he wasn’t ready for that.

“I suppose I could oppose this union.”

“You certainly could, but I don’t think it will do you any good,” I explained. He gave me a foul look for suggesting he had no control over his destiny, even though we both knew it was true.

“Why would my opposition be ineffective?”

“When Mary Ellen made her announcement, everyone looked surprised except my mother. Mary Ellen may be somewhat evil, but she is an apprentice compared to my mother. My mother is not only adept at scheming, she is also a master politician, and very powerful in her own right.”

“One can detect those traits, but your description makes them seem stronger than they appear when one talks to your mother.”

I chuckled. “She is an expert at dissuasion.”

“You have still not explained how she can force me into a union with her daughter.”

“Assume that you refused to marry my sister,” I said, and waited for him to get in that frame of mind. “How would your grandfather react?”

“He will be seriously annoyed by the whole thing, but I don’t think he would compel me into a marriage I do not want.”

I nodded. “And what if he were approached by a Member of Parliament, or more likely, a member of the government, or possibly the Prime Minister? What if that person explained to him that you had dishonored my sister, and my family, and that you were refusing to do the right thing?”

“I think he would be offended,” Alex said, surprising me.

“That wouldn’t have an impact on him?” In this country, if someone was approached by high-ranking Federal officials, it would probably make them stop and think about the situation.

“I doubt very seriously that my grandfather has much contact with the current government. He detests Tony Blair, who has all but gutted the House of Lords. And I think he would find it presumptuous that any of those people would think they had the right to tell him what to do about a family matter.”

I actually could see that. I would have probably had the same reaction if the shoe were on the other foot. “Then they’ll take a different approach” I mused. “The pressure would almost have to go through our embassies. I’m not sure how it will actually be handled, but you can expect there to be pressure. And in the end, it will be seen as an issue of honor.”

“I can visualize it quite clearly,” he said with dread. “A word from the embassy to Her Majesty’s private secretary, who mentions it to my grandfather. Or perhaps they’d get the church involved, and talk to the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

“Our diplomatic corps doesn’t seem to be operating at top notch these days,” I said, thinking of this nightmare they were creating in Iraq. “But it’s a good bet they’re smart enough to take those steps.”

“Do you really think they would do that?”

“They would do that,” I confirmed. “And then it becomes not a dynastic issue, but a diplomatic issue, and one that hits right when we are in one war together and about to start another.”

“I think what I want will be very unimportant, in that event. You’re telling me your mother is that powerful?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“Surely now that your father is regrettably gone, that must truncate her power considerably.”

I shook my head with a rueful grin. “My mother has spent her life in the capital. Her methods are simple. She will buy and sell favors as she needs them, always expanding her web. And in the event a mutually beneficial arrangement isn’t possible, she’s got enough dirt on enough people that she can usually get what she wants.”

“How is it that you have escaped her evil clutches?” he asked jovially.

“Because she underestimates me, or at least she has in the past,” I told him.

“You have depressed me, by showing me that my fate in this matter is almost certainly sealed,” he said with sad resignation. “What should I do?”

“Get the best deal you can.” He looked at me strangely. “Mary Ellen will be a rich woman. Most of her assets are tied up in trusts that my grandmother is in charge of, but my mother used to have control over. This is going to require my grandmother’s approval, and your grandfather’s acquiescence.”

“So I won’t really be negotiating directly with your mother or your sister,” he mused.

“I think that is how this is supposed to happen, but I think, in the end, it will end up being hammered out by my grandmother, because she has the money, and your grandfather, because he has you.”

“I am thinking back upon our relationships, in their many incarnations,” he said, making me laugh.

“We have been many things to each other.”

“Indeed,” he said. “But here, when I need you the most, you are a friend, and you have shed an enormous amount of light on this situation.”

“Thank you,” I said. “There is one aspect of things that will be up to you to work out.”

“What is that?”

“Our grandparents can agree on a marriage, and all the property and rights that will be exchanged, but only you and Mary Ellen can define the boundaries of your union.” He pondered what I said. “It is no great secret that she has been very promiscuous. She may not be opposed to a more open arrangement.”

“That is good to know, as I suspect that is what it will end up being.”

“How is JJ?”

He looked annoyed, but only briefly. He evidently came to the same conclusion that I did, that I had earned the right to know their deal. “He is angry, and hurt, and afraid. He is mad at me for my error in judgment; he is hurt that I have betrayed him, at least in his mind; and he is afraid that this will separate us. He is a huge source of strength for me, but I think I am even more important to him.”

“So what will happen with you two?”

“I’ve asked him to be patient, and to let me work this out. While I do, I will have to work to placate him. I think he will let me do both of those things.” That made me chuckle, thinking of the pound of flesh JJ would extract from Alex to make up for his forbearance.

“His family was largely docile when Mary Ellen made her big announcement, probably because they were still concerned about Darius. They won’t be so easygoing if JJ gets hurt badly.”

“It seems I am contained on all sides by powerful interests determined to bend me to their will,” he said, with real anger.

“Then you clearly understand the situation.”

“I do,” he said. I was hazarding a guess that he’d be uttering those same words in front of an altar soon enough.