When Water Balloons Sink - WIP

The Beginning

Ethan Sedgecombe III

There are two women in Ethan Sedgecombe III's life. Like many triangular relationships, the crowning point quietly watches over the other two, while the link between the two lower points is squashed under a mire of ignorance. However, there is no cunning or guile involved in keeping the two parties separate. Ethan's make-up is not that of the serial philanderer, nor does he brush his teeth with the paste of deceit. Indeed, he takes great care to ensure he is as honest and straightforward in his relationships - be they business or personal - as a plumb line.

Yet, for all his honesty, Ethan would not give up either woman... not that he has a choice.

Each morning, he wakes up looking forward to his daily interactions with his two obsessions: seeing them, hearing them, secretly salivating over every small detail, the subtle changes that will clue him in to their lifestyles, moods and wishes. He then spends the rest of the day and each night mulling over his observations, while anticipating the next interaction. The next time... an event he can never guarantee.

Now, you may turn your nose up because, well, one man, two women? It isn't exactly a situation smiled upon and encouraged in polite society. What sort of person wants to read about cheaters and bigamists and polygamists? No woman wants to be thought of as second fiddle and certainly no woman likes to be thought of as insufficient. Although, from a male perspective it might seem like Heaven to have two women in your life, neither knowing about the other.

But, I beg you to keep reading because it isn't his fault (how many times have you read/heard that?). Ethan neither set out to pursue, nor encouraged either of these ladies. In fact, and this will make you frown in confusion, he has yet to officially meet them.

Let me start at the beginning.

Chapter 1

Being the black sheep of the family ought to make it easier to revolt and do things that your parents disapprove of. Easier to make decisions that are not all about the greater (or family) good. Easier to be careless with your life and attitude.

Easier was never Ethan's way. Easier was never an option, because easier didn't always mean 'doing the right thing'. (Please, don't confuse right with proper, for the two are as different as chalk and mud in Ethan's world). Easier didn't always equate to sensible and easier had never, in his mind, been classifed alongside honourable. If there's one thing Ethan prided himself on, it's honour.

Lying and cheating are not words he's comfortable being associated with. Hence, he was not comfortable being associated with the Sedgecombes of Greenhaven, a well-known and distinguished family of barristers and lawyers who could stretch their lineage back to the days of Charles I, and proudly advertised the fact to anyone who cared to listen. Somehow, they always managed (contrived might be a better word) to fall on the winning side of the line dividing the country and fell into the nearest pit overflowing with honey and money. Perhaps jumped might be a better description.  Strife, struggle and scraping (-the-bottom-of-barrel) were not words associated with their esteemed family name.

Luck? Good Practices? Ingenuity and clever connections? Or perhaps it was sheer hard work and unfailing endeavour? Ethan only wished that were true, but he had read the letters and diaries, listened to the cackling tales of intrigue and double-cross, the prideful boasts of one-uppence and back-stabbing that continually added to the family's coffers, assuring them of invitations to the most prestigious occasions and, of course, awarding them access to the ears and doors of the most influential people in the land. The Sedgecombes had proved to be as pretty and poisonous as the foxglove and as sly and slippery as the eel. Ethan thought of himself as more of a hemp plant - versatile and mellow, with the survival instincts of a badger. His family hated badgers.