3rd May, 1891 — Fitz's Flat

Fitzroy had returned to England without her noticing and any semblance of calm Harriet had managed to achieve after Faustus' visit had immediately disappeared in less than the second it had taken her to apparate to her son's front door. She had no intention of giving him fair warning - it wasn't as though he had taken any pains over surprising her!

(At least he hadn't been arrested this time.)

The servant that opened the door did not even blink at her presence, taking her cloak without comment before directing her to her son with the air of a man who would have much preferred to be on the moon for the afternoon.

"Fitzroy Tiberius Prewett," Harriet said sharply as she opened the door, noting immediately that her new daughter-in-law was not here. Good. She could only deal with one problem at a time.

Closing the door behind her she narrowed her eyes at her son.

"The last time I saw you you assured me you had 'no sight set on marriage'," Harriet said calmly as she pulled the letter containing the notice of his marriage from her pocket and cast her eyes over it again before looking up at her son. "Imagine my surprise."

---

Fitzroy Prewett | Aldous Crouch

The following 2 users Like Harriet Prewett's post:2 users Like Harriet Prewett's post
   Angelica Selwyn, Camilla Prewett

It had been cowardly to wait so long to inform his mother, but then, Fitzroy Prewett had not been convinced the woman would not descend upon Algiers and interrupt the only good thing about a hasty, forced marriage (lots of enthusiastic sex). He had weighed his options, and chosen privacy, though even then he had known it would not last for long.

Still, it did not stop him from wincing at the sound of his full name upon his lips, and Fitz cast a sharp, accusatory glance at his butler—the traitor!—for allowing her in in the first place before the man made a wise and hasty exit from the study.

He could not quite meet his mother's eyes.

"A pleasant surprise, I hope?" he asked weakly, knowing very well indeed that it was not.

The following 1 user Likes Fitzroy Prewett's post:1 user Likes Fitzroy Prewett's post
   Camilla Prewett

---

— graphics by lady ❤ —

Harriet pursed her lips and resisted the urge to throw a vase at him. (Fitz, of course, didn’t have vases but that was not the point.)

“Akin to when they told me your father had been murdered,” she said sharply and pushed away the part of her that immediately regretted the cruelness. She was many things but Harriet was not cruel and yet here she was, wishing to hurt her own son because he had hurt her.

Why hadn’t he told her? What in god's name had happened on that boat?

  

Fitz physically recoiled as if struck. Indeed, he would have been less surprised if she had struck him. It certainly would have stung less. Plainly humour was no longer upon the table, and Fitz stiffened.

"I could have been murdered as well, if you'd have preferred," he returned coolly. "Or you may wash your hands of me—of us—if you find the situation so distasteful."

He knew, of course, that she would take the news badly, knew that he deserved it, but knowing and experiencing were two entirely different matters. Was it so much to ask that she feel her feelings in her own home and leave his alone until she had calmed down?

  

---

— graphics by lady ❤ —

“Distasteful?” She said in strangled tones. “Do you imagine for a moment I don’t know how to cope with something distasteful?”

Harriet dug her fingernails into her palms, the anger that surged through her familiar and like nothing she had ever wanted to experience again. When Gideon had died her gilded world had been shattered and she had wanted to hurl the shards that remained at anyone that came near her – that anger had pulsated below her skin like a current and this… this was different.

Because losing Gideon, much as she had cared for him, had not broken her heart. But her darling boy ignoring her definitely had.

“Why?” She asked, tears very nearly in her eyes.

The following 1 user Likes Harriet Prewett's post:1 user Likes Harriet Prewett's post
   Havelock Nott

If he thought for a moment that she would believe him, he might have lied and muttered something about the unexpected nature of love. Fitz, however, knew his mother better than that.

"Her brother forced the issue," he answered simply, his gaze still cool. "Matilda found us in rather a compromising position."

At the mention of his cousin, Fitz mentally thanked his lucky stars his mother had heard the news from him and not from Aunt Hermione. That would have been a thousand times worse.

  

---

— graphics by lady ❤ —

Harriet tilted her head back to rest against the door, unable to look at her son as her fears – and really, expectations – were confirmed. Of course it involved sex. And of course Fitzroy had had the misfortune of being caught out not only by his cousin but also a woman who was married to his bedmate’s brother.

Surely there had been a pretty maid aboard that could have relieved the same urge without it leading to this?

“How could you have been so stupid?”

People would talk about the haste of it all, assume – correctly – that someone’s honour had been compromised and that the newly weds had needed to be managed. (Did it sting more than she hadn’t been the one to do the managing?)

“On the plus side she appears to be just as reckless as you. In that you’re well matched.”

The following 2 users Like Harriet Prewett's post:2 users Like Harriet Prewett's post
   Camilla Prewett, Domitian Zabini

"I consider it more unlucky than stupid," Fitz dedpanned. "Though I will concede to 'ill-advised'. Regardless, I could do a great deal worse than Camilla."

Under different circumstances, he might have chosen the former Miss Zabini for himself.

The following 1 user Likes Fitzroy Prewett's post:1 user Likes Fitzroy Prewett's post
   Camilla Prewett

---

— graphics by lady ❤ —

The stinger was that he could have done a great deal better that Camilla Zabini. (Of course, what truly galled her wasn’t the girl in question – who, admittedly, was quite well-matched to Fitz – but the haste of it all and the fact that her son seemed indifferent to her pain.)

“I can hardly dispute that,” Harriet admittedly, though it was more akin to getting blood from a stone than a blessing from one’s mother. “Why couldn’t you have waited? I assume you would have had the sense to at least wait to see if you strictly needed to do the honourable thing.”

  

Fitz gave a snort of disbelief.

"You truly believe I would not have done precisely that," he challenged, "had her brother not forced the issue? Matilda found us, Mother."

  

---

— graphics by lady ❤ —

Harriet closed her eyes to assuage the image that popped intrusively into her mind. Fitz had always done as he pleased and she had been happy enough not knowing about his assignations, but hadn't she known deep down that it would always probably lead to this? Was this, in fact, her fault for not being a stricter mother?

"I expect he was proud of his sister for snaring you," she said with contempt though truthfully she knew it was not the case. She didn't know the younger Zabini man at all but if he took after his father in any way then Harriet could hardly imagine him being so calculating. "Perhaps he sent her to accomplish just that? Merlin knows that family seem determined to use ours to claw their way back to respectability."

Technically Calliope was not their family of course but she was the sister of Harriet's late brother's granddaughter-in-law and that was close enough with the mood she was in.

The following 1 user Likes Harriet Prewett's post:1 user Likes Harriet Prewett's post
   Fitzroy Prewett

"If he was even vaguely pleased," Fitz remarked dryly, "he hid it remarkably well. I do not believe he is particularly fond of either of us at this juncture."

A hasty elopement, he did not say aloud, seemed ill-advised for a family looking to find respectability.

  

---

— graphics by lady ❤ —

“His opinion is hardly the one I am concerned about,” Harriet replied snippily. The best-case scenario was that society would indulge in a little schadenfreude at their expense before carrying on. Camilla would be accepted eventually, because she already was acceptable – mostly – but until then they would simply have to keep their heads down.

And then there was the other possibility: that society would never forget, her fierce guardianship of the family would be for nothing and they would spend more decades living with the residual scandal.

Fuck, she needed a drink.

“Though I can sympathise with it.”

  

"What's done is done," Fitz offered tightly with a subdued shrug. No amount of his mother's displeasure could undo it—no one would ever suspect of not consummating a marriage which took annulment off the table. He was a lot of things, but callous enough to divorce a wife for being inconvenient was not one of them. That left all involved parties with acceptance as the lone option, however begrudging.

(To be fair, they did not have an enthusiastic sex life as a result of the marriage to soften the blow like Fitz did.)

  

---

— graphics by lady ❤ —

The reasoning was sound even if it annoyed Harriet to her very core. There was nothing to be done about it now and it galled Harriet more that she had not been involved in a single moment of the marriage than the marriage itself. Camilla Zabini was a fine choice and a good match for her son: it was a shame they were such a pair of sluts that it had to happen this way.

"I need a brandy," she said in a manner that might have been misconstrued by others as casualness when in fact it was the furthest thing from. If her son knew what was good for him then he would not make that mistake.

The following 2 users Like Harriet Prewett's post:2 users Like Harriet Prewett's post
   Aldous Crouch, Havelock Nott

Dutifully, Fitz rose to oblige, feeling very much as though he needed something stronger than brandy. He loved his mother, but damned if she could not be a hurricane at times.

  

---

— graphics by lady ❤ —