"Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got." Robert Brault
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XXXI.
Joe was immediately startled by the sound of the bedroom door opening abruptly. His father promptly entered and slammed it behind him.
"Viscount!" remarked Adam, equally as surprised at John Parish's rough entrance into the bedroom.
John's eyes flicked between his two sons, eyeing Ed first as he sat on the trunk at the end of Joe's bed, before his attention settled on Joe, who was laying atop the bed linens being attended to by the Beresfords' London doctor, Doctor Winfield.
Joe was certain that there was an element of relief in his father's cold eyes when he saw which son it was in the bed being attended to. The way that his eyes had flicked between them indicated to Joe that there had been an element of doubt. John was clearly pleased that it was not Ed afflicted by the mysterious ailment.
"What is the meaning of this?" John demanded to know, rudely marching towards the bed and standing before the doctor. "What is wrong with him?"
Doctor Winfield had just been listening to Joe's heartbeat, and so was stowing his medical instruments back in the leather bag he had brought with him. "Are you this boy's father, sir?"
John's jaw tensed, before he gave a stiff nod.
"You have nothing dangerous to worry about, but rest is required in order for Mr Parish to return to full health. My diagnosis is exhaustion and dehydration. That is the reason for his collapse."
"Tired?" John's brows rose quizzically. "He is tired? And ... and thirsty?"
Joe felt a tremor travel down his body at the tone his father was using. He could not help but feel that there was something else contributing to the clearly foul mood he was in. Though, Joe could have been correct in assuming that it was the very fact he had not been diagnosed with a deadly bout of smallpox that was afflicting his father so. 'Twas a pity that Joe would live, it seemed.
The doctor nodded. "Yes. Both are contributing symptoms to a man losing consciousness. I prescribe plenty of rest and fluids. Water, wine, whatever you fancy, young man."
"Thank you, Doctor," Adam said gratefully, before he produced his money purse from the inside of his coat. He walked around the bed and paid the doctor, before ushering him to the door.
"That brat needs to be thrashed so hard, she ought not to be able to sit down for a week," John hissed under his breath. He eyed Adam, before uttering to Ed, "You will teach her respect when you are married, do you hear me? In my day, if a woman, a girl, spoke to a gentleman like that, she would have been slapped around her ears. That girl needs to be beaten into submission."
Joe was well used to his father's vicious words, but this time, they were not for him. It was not until John had directed his loathsome comments at Ed did Joe realised that his father was referring to Perrie.
The image of Perrie, black and blue, covered in bruises, whimpering, crying, suddenly filled his mind, and it turned Joe's stomach inside out. The first thing he had heard as he had drifted back into consciousness was Perrie's threat, her threat spoken in a voice that was filled with fear for him. Joe was only allowed to die by Perrie's hand.
Well, any man who so dared strike her would die by his hand.
Another image suddenly struck Joe, and it seemed rather obvious now that the thought had come to him. What was the meaning of this vitriol? John was clearly furious with Perrie, but what had she said or done to provoke this sort of reaction?
"Papa, I want to come in!"
Joe's ear pricked up at the sound of her voice, her protestations, from outside of the open bedroom door. The doctor had departed, and Adam was standing on the threshold blocking Perrie from entering.
"You will not enter the bedroom of a man. This is not up for debate," Adam refused pointedly.
"It is not as though I will be unchaperoned!" Perrie practically growled. "Papa, you are acting like an ogre! Please!"
"Hateful brat!" John snapped quietly. "The nerve of that wench to speak to her father that way. Why, if she were my daughter, I would have beat that behaviour out of her in infancy. It will be your responsibility, Edmund."
Joe could hear the desperation in Perrie's voice. She was anxious to be inside, and the selfish part of himself hoped that her ambition was to be near him. But his father's violent remarks were far too threatening to ignore, and both Joe and Ed's eyes met as they seemed to be thinking the same thing.
Joe could still see the guilt wrecking his twin's face. He still knew that there was much to say. He still had a lot to comprehend after he clearly had not known his brother half as well as he had thought. But they were likeminded on this issue.
"Thank God she was not born your daughter then," Ed managed to say, his voice not nearly as strong and confident as it usually was.
John's eyes narrowed, and they formed into a glare directed at his eldest son. "Don't you dare take such a tone with me. You will do as I say, and I need not remind you why."
Father knows.
The thought suddenly flooded Joe's mind as he once again heard that vague reminder. John had said it to Ed numerous times in Joe's presence, reminding him of his instruction to court and marry Perrie. But Joe had never heard it knowing that their father knew the truth about Ed.
Ed had fearfully asked Joe if he would turn him in. Was their father holding this secret over Ed's head? Was he using this to get what he wanted? The idea did not seem beyond John Parish at all.
Joe didn't speak to it. He would not insinuate just in case he was wrong, and he did not want to put the idea into his father's head. But was still seething about his comments about Perrie. Ed might have had something to lose, but Joe did not. What did Joe have?
"You will watch how you speak about Lady Perrie." Joe voice did not quiver once. It was perhaps the sternest tone he had ever taken with his father. "You would take care never to threaten her with violence in my presence."
Joe had never seen his father's head whip around so quickly. John bore an expression of sheer disbelief at hearing Joe talk back to him. John stepped slowly towards Joe, and whispered through clenched teeth, "The duke might neglect to discipline his brats, but I would never allow any of my offspring to walk around unpunished. Were the duke not here, I would make it so you could never walk again."
Better me than her.
Joe had tried. He had tried to stand up to his father, but as soon as he had, and he had received his father's irate hisses, he could feel whatever gall he had shrivel up and retreat, and the worst feeling of cowardice flooded through him.
"The both of you need educating," John decided, just as Adam returned to Joe's bedside.
***
Later that night, Joe was roused from his sleep but something shaking his shoulder.
"Joe! Joe, wake up!" came a hushed whisper.
Joe's eyes sprung open, and he was suddenly met with the candlelit face of Perrie leaning over him. She was at his bedside wearing a dressing gown over her long nightshirt, and her hair was loose and curly at her hips, save for a handful of rags tied around her face.
"Are you mad?" Joe accused, his voice embarrassingly thick with sleep.
"Probably." Perrie smirked.
Joe rolled his eyes as he shuffled his body up in his bed so that he was seated. "Your father will kill you."
"No, he won't." The confidence in Perrie's voice would have once irritated Joe. Such an ability to get away with wrongdoing, to know that no matter what she did, her father would never discard her, had once hurt him deeply, and it would have elicited a harsh reaction from him. He would have called her names, and he probably would have tampered with her breakfast.
But this was how it was supposed to be. Children broke the rules. Children pushed the boundaries. Children incurred consequences, but they never lost their parents' affections. A mother or father's love was constant. Good parents' love was constant.
Perrie deserved the constant love that was showered upon her. Joe would never begrudge her that again.
Perrie's blue eyes became wide, worried, and searching as her grin faded. "How are you?" she asked with earnest care. She gently placed her candle down on the table beside his bed, and with this hand, she reached out for his. Joe did not move as Perrie's little fingers curled around his own.
He couldn't breathe.
"I was terribly afraid for you, even before I left for London," Perrie continued. "Our last conversation ... I could not get it out of my mind. I didn't want you to leave, and all I wanted was to listen and understand, though I know you struggle with this and I am not prying, I swear! But London is so big and if you were really going to leave, it would not have been difficult to disappear and then I thought, what's thirty miles? I've never ridden that far before and I thought I would have a rather sore ... derrière ... so I convinced the servants to bring me here and –"
Perrie's words descended into nervous rambles as Joe failed to reply to anything that she said. Joe could see that she was doubting herself with every word she spoke, and his own guilt began to creep back into his head. It was crippling.
He had just heard his father, some hours ago, say with utmost determination that this beautiful treasure of a madwoman ought to have been beaten into submission. Joe already knew he was like his father. Would he ... would he grow up to think that way? Would he grow up to hit a woman?
The thought was terrifying. Joe wanted to be sick at the very idea, and his shock and horror must have been displayed on his face as Perrie jumped away from him, releasing his hand.
Joe, instinctively, seized it before she could retreat further than a few inches. "I ..." he rasped.
Perrie was frozen still, staring down at him.
"I would never hit you." Joe was overcome with emotion as he made that promise to her. There was an element of doubt, a cruel voice in his mind that taunted him about making a promise that he could not keep, but Joe had to make it. He could never do that, and even when he grew up to be exactly the man his father was, Joe would force himself to throw his hand into flames before he would lay a hand on a woman.
"I know," Perrie whispered. "I have given you plenty of reasons to hit me over the years, and you never have."
"What?" Joe snapped. He had not meant to sound so short, but he could not believe those words had just come out of her mouth. "Perrie, you could light me on fire, and that would still never be an excuse. I won't hurt you, I won't."
"Shall we test your theory?" Perrie swallowed as a wicked smile teased her lips. Her eyes flicked to the flickering flame of her candle. When Joe did not join in her teasing, her face softened. "It is not me you are trying to convince, clearly. Will you tell me what is troubling you?"
The words bubbled to Joe's lips, but the guilt was there to stop him. Perrie was frightened that he would leave, but there had been a reason why Joe had intended to depart.
He did not deserve one iota of the concern Perrie was showing him. She had travelled across the country because she was so concerned for him. She was too good, and he had treated her like garbage since she was a child.
If that was not his proof for what he would become when he was older, then he did not know what was.
"You should hate me," he murmured, his voice thin and fragile. But he kept hold of her hand.
"Why? Hating yourself does not seem like it is much fun. I do not think I should like to join in." Perrie spoke with such wit, and yet such warmth, and it made Joe hold onto her tighter, and only because he was determined to let her go. His hand refused.
"I am not good."
Perrie pursed her lips. "I disagree." She shrugged her shoulders.
"I have tortured you."
Perrie smirked. "You tried to. Your attempts were very admirable, but we can all agree that I am the master at our little game."
"You don't understand," Joe retorted, his voice breaking. "It wasn't a game to me. I was punishing you!"
"What did I do?" Perrie's voice was tender then. She spoke in a way that showed sympathy, and not in the way that she believed she possessed any guilt.
What had Perrie done? She had simply walked around knowing that she was beloved. "You had a father who loved you. You ... you had a mother."
Perrie's face contorted entirely with compassion, and her compassion was not what Joe deserved. Why was she not understanding this?
"Don't look at me like that," he ordered shakily. "You should be disgusted with me. I tormented you for years because I envied you, Perrie. I took out everything on you, and you were innocent! I punished you for all of it!" Joe turned his head away from her and he tried to regain control of his voice, which had become more and more broken as he had gone on.
But Perrie then seized his jaw with her free hand and she forced him to look at her. She was nearly kneeling on the bed; her face was mere inches from his as her blue eyes bore into his. "I gave as good as I got, Joseph Parish," Perrie said firmly. "Envy is a natural human emotion, and I do not blame you for it because your father is a toad. I will not have you punishing yourself for anything that we started as children. Children, Joe."
"I'm not good," Joe repeated quietly, his chin still firmly in Perrie's grasp.
"Hogwash," Perrie dismissed. "Am I not good? I participated in our antics very willingly. Am I condemned?"
The words then began to fall out of mouth without the barrier. He needed to convince her. He needed Perrie to understand. "I am not good. My brother doesn't trust me."
"Your brother would step in front of a bayonet for you," Perrie stated with a dismissive tsk.
"I am exactly like my father."
Perrie released Joe's chin, only to shamelessly run her hand over his face, before combing her fingers through his hair. Joe felt a shiver run down his spine. "Hmm, I don't see any toad scales or pond sludge on you. You certainly don't look like your father."
"Toads do not have scales."
"Your father's kind does. Big, slimy ones."
What had she said to his father? Joe wondered. She was a startlingly impressive young woman; with the sharpest tongue he had ever come across. She had most certainly used it to come to his defence, Joe could see it in her determined gaze. Perrie was firmly on Joe's side.
But she should not have been. "I killed my mother."
Perrie did not have a quick response to that. Her hand immediately dropped from his face as her jaw dropped open. But her shock was short lived as the sound of his father's footsteps sounded in the hallway. Joe would have known those proud, haughty strides anywhere.
"Hide!" Joe hissed. "Under the bed!"
Perrie was still completely floored by Joe's confession, but she managed to find some composure to drop to her knees and scramble underneath the bed. Joe leaned over to see her drag in the hem of her dressing gown just as he blew out the candle on the bedside table.
About four seconds later, Joe's bedroom door opened, and his father marched in, carrying his own candle. Joe feigned sleep, but he knew that he looked rather awkward in his upright position.
"Get up!" John demanded.
Joe blinked his eyes a few times, before he frowned. His father was fully dressed, and the time was gone midnight.
"You and your brother are going to be receiving an education tonight," John continued icily. "You are going to learn how to properly bed a woman, and then how to control her. Get up now!"
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Hope you enjoyed it!!
This will be the last chapter of the holidays, I'm afraid. Next chapter will be up Saturday week, and we'll be back to our usual Saturday night dates.
I love Perrie and Joe so much. They've got a big piece of my heart right now. I always feel that way about every couple I write, but these two man......
It's the enemies to lovers trope, gets me every time hahaha
Vote and comment xxx