The Adeliede Affairs [ON HOLD]

Chapter Six

30th May, 1964

Edward was in the rose garden, pruning his bushes and singing to them. The rose garden was another one of his passions, besides painting. He tended to them ever since he was a child who learnt how to till the soil. You might call him the Beast who loved his roses, but he was a handsome beast nonetheless.

The rose garden was his passion, his brainchild and the fruit of his efforts. He didn't do it because it pleased women (which it did, of course), but because when he was here, cradled amongst the smells and their velvet softness, he got to stay with his mother's memories. It felt like as if she was here, with him and listening to him. He smiled.

He sung a tune from his favourite collection that he kept as a teenager. He hummed the tune.

They say, if you don't let it,

You're going to let it eat you away,

I'd rather be a cannibal baby,

Animals like me don't talk anyways

Feel like an ambulance, chaser of faith,

Pray I could replace her,

Forget the way her tears taste,

Oh the way her tears taste,

Put another 'X' on the calendar, summer's on it's deathbed,

There is simply nothing worse, than knowing how it ends,

And I meant everything I said that night,

I will come back to life, but only for you,

Only for you...

He sighed at the beauty of these lyrics, at how truthful they were and how much they reflected on him. His melancholy.

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Selena never meant to eavesdrop on Edward, but it was alas, the inevitable. She did not want to interrupt his singing, it was so beautiful. She had loved the song, and she started humming with him, somewhere in the middle.

She never realized that he had heard her, and that he was in front of her by the time she opened her eyes.

"Boo..." he said, with a little butterfly smile on his face. "You could just walk into the garden, even if I am there. But just come with me, I need to show you something."

He pulled her delicately to the last trellis, bare and white with hair-like veins delicately twirled around the wood. The few flowers which were in bloom were beautiful. Selena looked at them, smiling. They were orange with black centres, quite unlike the ones she ever saw. 

"Definitely not perennials. What are they?" Selena looked at Edward, who was grinning like an idiot from ear to ear. "Why don't you give it a name, your Highness?" He did a mock bow. She laughed.

"Oh, I don't know. It looks like a black eye. Black-eyed pea flower?" 

"Keep guessing.."

"I give up. I refuse to play any more and if you tease me again sir, I will just ---"

Her words caught between their lips as Edward softly kissed Selena. She stilled; it was surprising, but she didn't mind it. Before she knew it, she was kissing him back before he softly pulled away, all red in the face and nose. She looked away, embarrassed. But yet, she was happy. 

As she was about walk off, he called to her.

"They call them black-eyed Susan. I'd call them Black eyed Selena." She detected that smile in his voice.

She ran off inside, blushing crimson.

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At this precise moment, Stanley Hall was showing his guest his library. His 'guest' happened to 17-year old Katherine Burgh, the daughter of an old acquaintance of his father's.

He had realized that her chaperone had also silently entered behind them. He smiled at Katherine, and she smiled back. Girls liked him, he got that a lot. Very often.

"You see, my dear...everything in this room is mine. Earned it, collected it, kept it and deserved it. The books, the murals, the tapestries. Everything here is essentially...mine." He showed her his book collection.

"I really like your reading taste, Mr. Hall. Very delightful, your collection I mean.." Katherine said in a confident yet feminine tone. It reminded him of Elizabeth, and it reminded him of the price he had in mind.

"Tell me more about you, Lady Burgh." He simply stated with a smile, that showed he was genuinely interested. Katherine was simply flattered by it. He had that effect on people.

"Well, I like to paint and sew. I can also trim hats and choose the right kind of lace. I can..." SHe went on about her many virtues as a house wife. Sanley had already tuned her out, carressing his large cabinet door.  It was a 16th century vintage, crafted by the best Swedish cabinet maker ever.

He opened the cabinet and took out a pistol. It was unloaded, but he was not going to tell her that. He took it and weighed in his hand, and he heard her audible gasp. He looked up and smiled.

"One of my prized possessions. It belonged to my great grand father." He looked at her, smiled and cocked the pistol. She gasped and he could sense her chaperone wincing somewhere in the back, near the bookshelves.

"It is said that Stanley Hall Sr. was amazing with a pistol. He could aim from about 40 feet without hitting anything else but the head. A clean head shot." He lowered the pistol. "In India, they say he defended himself from a tiger with this pistol." He smiled in awe. "How unbelievable, right?"

Katherine could only nod in terror. She was suddenly scared of this strange man. There was no way she could ever be his life partner. She didn't even want to be in the same room as him at that moment. 

"He sounds like an impressive man, your great grand father." She managed in a shaky voice. "I think we should be going downstairs. Maia?" She got up.

Her chaperone, a heavy set woman of middle age, stepped out from behind a shelf and opened the library door. Katherine, with her head down, exited quietly.

Stanley smiled. It was not a normal people smile; it was a fox smile. The same kind a fox would ive before attacking it's victim. She was of no trouble anymore, and he was free again. Free to pursue his next target. He carefully kept the vintage pistol back into it's velveteen case and put it back in the drawers.