Unterralym

Chapter 1

            Carter looked at himself through the mirror. He wore an open black suit with a white dress shirt underneath. He wore black pants and black, polished shoes. He started to button up the buttons on his suit from top to bottom. He looked over his clothing, and smoothened out the wrinkles he could find. He made sure his normally tousled, black hair was kept intact. It was then that he heard light taps on his door.

            “Carter?” his father sounded through the door, “May I come in?”

            “You may.”

            The door creaked open, and he saw his father with his black hair tied back and a suit identical to his. He had a blank expression as he stared at Carter. “I see you’ve cleaned up pretty well.”

            “I have,” Carter replied, resisting the urge to say, Only because you ordered me to.

            His father closed the door and walked in front of him, staring him down. “Do not mess this up, son. If she gets a bad impression of you, Ms. Fentille can cancel the engagement.”

            Carter nodded. Ms. Fentille was a wealthy woman, a woman wealthier than his dad. Having a sort of money lust, he had somehow managed to convince Ms. Fentille to have Carter to marry her eldest daughter, Erin.

            “Good.” His father turned away and opened the door. Before the stepped out, he faced Carter and said, “Who knows, maybe you just might like this Erin. I hear she’s quite beautiful.” Then he walked out and closed the door behind him.

            He looked back at the mirror and checked himself over. He wasn’t really that nervous, but it was the first time that he will be meeting his fiancée, despite the fact that they’ve been engaged for as long as he could remember. He walked over to the door and opened it. Before leaving, he checked his room, making sure he didn’t forget anything important. He noticed the hilt of his sword gleaming in the corner of his room behind his bed. Normally he would take it with him wherever he went, but this was a formal meeting; there was no need for weapons.

            He was tempted to take his sword, thinking of what precautions he might have to take if anything were to happen while he was meeting the daughter of Ms. Fentille, but then shook off the thought and hurried out of his room before the temptation of bringing it overwhelmed him.

            Immediately, his eyes met with one of the house’s maids, startling him. She, in turn, was surprised and held her arms up in a defensive position. Once she realized who it was, she let her arms down slowly and said, “Mr. Bentalon, shouldn’t you be meeting with your fiancée by now?”

            “I will be, sorry to startle you.” He walked past her to the staircase as she curtsied towards him. The steps were carpeted with an ornate design, and the railing was made of marble.

           His father waited for him at the bottom of the stairs and was looking around, almost as if he hadn’t noticed him yet. Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, he took notice of him. “You finally ready, son?”

             He nodded.

            “Well then, let’s get moving; you can’t keep a lady waiting.”

-=-=-

           The horse drawn carriage had finally arrived at the Fentille household. Carter looked out of the window and had expected to see a building even bigger than a mansion with a beautiful front lawn filled with stones and a fountain with flowers blooming on a flowerbed. He saw a beautiful lawn with flowers, but no decorative stones other than the cobblestones leading to the door, and not a fountain, and what he had seen wasn’t any bigger than a mansion; it was much smaller, just slightly larger than a moderately sized house.