11th March, 1894 — Selwyn Home, Wales
Trystan Selwyn
Elias Grimstone

Loose-limbed and with half-lidded eyes Ambrosia considered, not for the first time, that her marriage would be idyllic if they could exist only in moments like this. After so many years they had found a rhythm (so to speak) that suited them in this aspect of their life together, even in certain others were still woefully unsatisfactory.

Trystan might be an excellent lover – although, unlike him, she did not exactly have much comparison – but he was a complicated beast of a husband. True, he was hardly the first man of their class to stray but then the others had not been married to her so why shouldn’t she expect better? Was it not enough for them to lie together like this, in relative harmony and comfortable silence?

Perhaps one day he would come around to her way of thinking? Of course, the likelihood was that he would remain unfaithful until such time as he could not complete the deed with her either, which did not fill her with much more optimism.

She laughed suddenly. Speaking of limp husbands.

“I forgot to tell you,” Ambrosia said casually, recalling the planned strike that her husband had almost distracted her from. She remained reposed, quite languorous still, but her eyes fixed on her husband, waiting for his attention before she spoke: “I think Adrienne is expecting.”

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   Adrienne Lestrange, Angelica Selwyn

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Ambrosia's got 99 problems but this hot af set from MJ ain't 1 of them

It was a satisfied silence they had fallen into together, which was always one of their more pleasant states – but of course Ambrosia could not resist finding a way to have the last word, whatever the activity. He berated himself for getting so comfortable, and for not feigning that he had dozed off already.

He didn’t know whether his wife had ever forgotten to tell him something, either; indeed, as far as he knew, her every move and word was meticulously offered, a thousand different little ways to twist in the knife. Her unprompted laugh was warning enough.

But Adrienne, expecting? This was news to him, weaponised or otherwise – and Trystan was a little startled and a little wounded to think that his own daughter had hinted any personal news to Ambrosia first, rather than to him. He propped himself up into more of a sitting position and searched her face to see whether she meant it, or was idly throwing around speculation. “Oh?” He reined in his expression, careful not to let on too much. “You think – or she told you?”

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   Adrienne Lestrange, Marlena Scamander

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It was a predictably measured response but Ambrosia was not to be disheartened. She would drag a reaction from her husband if it killed them both and he could play cool until the end of time – she could wait until then, and beyond. He seemed to have grossly misunderstood the amount of her time she was willing to sacrifice to the cause of ruffling his feathers.

“She doesn’t know, dearest,” Ambrosia replied with a chuckle, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. She stretched out on the bed for a moment, resting her arms above her head and gazing at her own naked stomach, pleased of the reminder that her children had not wrecked her entirely. “She will, I expect. Though I am rather shocked it happened so soon,” she arched an eyebrow at her husband. “I didn’t think Cassius had it in him.”

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   Trystan Selwyn

She doesn’t know. He half-considered leaning over and finding some way or another to wipe that smugness off her face – no one wore self-righteous smugness like Ambrosia – but he was too distracted by the thought of her taking too much of an interest in Adrienne, paying her calls and – corrupting her, perhaps. Not that he ever wished the antagonistic relationship Liliana had with her to be the twins’ lot too, but he was still wary of Ambrosia having any marked influence on his children.

He doesn’t have the Selwyn touch, obviously, Trystan almost said, of the young Lestrange – but that was a cheap shot, so he vanquished the inward smirk and said instead, with affected idleness, “It was bound to happen eventually. I’m sure they were in no rush,” ...but it did hit him, now, the news that Adrienne was expecting. (He had accepted it as truth: Ambrosia was invariably obnoxious but she was not usually wrong). “But she’s still so young.”

This was enormously hypocritical to say, of course, from him; Anthea’s mother had been even younger. And Ambrosia hadn’t been any older when they’d married, had she?

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“That’s how they like them though, is it not?” She replied, taking a moment to readjust herself onto her side, propped up on one arm, revelling in the momentary pause a little longer than anyone could have plausibly called casually, but naturally it did not stir her husband to action – nor had she imagined such a small trifle would.

“All those men making decisions on which girl will be the next chattel for their family name,” she spoke lightly, resting a hand lightly on her husband’s chest as she spoke, tracing a pattern with her fingernails. “You all prefer youth over anything for that purpose. It happened to me. It will happen to your daughter,” she trailed off, stalactite eyes under her shuttered lashes.

  

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Ambrosia's got 99 problems but this hot af set from MJ ain't 1 of them

They was a sly choice of words, but Trystan did not rush to correct her. He felt protective of his daughters, in a way he didn’t about other people’s daughters. And, anyway – the truth was it was simply easier to love someone who had a joy and a zest for life. Her beauty and brains might have lingered to do battle with him every day, but it was not his fault Ambrosia had not only gotten more sour and jaded with age; she had been a bitter taste to begin with, even when she was young. It could never have been helped.

She was distracting him, with her hand caressing patterns on his chest; Trystan could feel himself being rhythmically lulled into relaxation by it, felt himself yawn; he blinked at her remark about will happen. “Hortense, you mean?” he asked, brow furrowing: because Liliana had found her own match and although the Lestrange’s offer had been put to him, he had already had to accept it on Adrienne’s behalf. Will happen; he had already endured giving up his daughters. Wasn’t that what they were talking about, Adrienne growing up and into motherhood so soon?

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Ambrosia stilled. Surely to god Trystan couldn’t imagine she was talking about Liliana? She had barely acknowledged the girl existing when she lived in her house, she was unlikely to do so now that she was no longer a physical presence, and she was even less likely to show any interest in the things that happened to her, good or bad.

“Who else would I mean?” She asked slowly, raising her gaze to Trystan’s.

  

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Ambrosia's got 99 problems but this hot af set from MJ ain't 1 of them

“No one,” Trystan said swiftly, in order to reassure her that there were no other (female) illegitimate children lurking around for her to loathe. But he couldn’t admit that he forgot about Hortense sometimes in comparison, could he? Ambrosia wouldn’t take that well. “Liliana and Adrienne are the only others, and –” he shrugged in surrender to say, they’ve both already been lost to marriage. So. No other daughters.

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And there is was, after all the years. The confirmation she had wanted since the notion had first come to her, craved in her worst moments to prove she couldn't be fooled: Adrienne and Aristide were his children. There was no other reason to associate them with Liliana. The bastard cuckoo that had simpered and smiled in her fortified nest was gone but the bitter tang of her very existence had lingered on her tongue and now Ambrosia knew why. There were more. There were always more.

She had been right all along. He was a feckless shit.

It was a bitter victory at best. Had Trystan even realised she didn’t know? Did he care?

The lump in her throat turned to bile and much to her consternation all the words of loathing that usually flowed so easily had vanished. She hated him. He had played her for a fool, again, and didn't even have the courtesy to hide it better. The brothers would know, of course they would, and they would have told their wives, and Tanwen would know because she always knew first and Anthea knew everything eventually, and they had all been laughing at her.

The worst of it was that she didn't mind the twins. Even now. But Trystan?

"Of course they are," she replied with a vague smile, voice steady, body unmoving but chiller than it had been moments before. She felt sick - she couldn't stay here. Slipping out of the bed she slid her dressing gown around her shoulders, not looking at Trystan once as she cinched it at her waist till it dug in. "Do you need me for anything more tonight?"

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Trystan Selwyn Elias Grimstone I'm sorry this died!

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   Cassius Lestrange

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Ambrosia's got 99 problems but this hot af set from MJ ain't 1 of them

He had expected something snide in answer, and was shocked when nothing came. She never surrendered, she never let him have the last word – and now she was not even going to lay here any longer, to indulge themselves in an infrequent truce and fall asleep together?

“Where are you going?” Trystan asked, with a furrowed brow. He had felt exceedingly languid, halfway to sleep already in the afterglow, but her averted gaze awoke something in him again. She thought she would just let slip the news about Adrienne’s pregnancy and then slip away? Or – no, it couldn’t possibly be so.

“Wait,” he said, pulling himself upright and swinging his legs off the bed, on his way to getting up lest she did not stop. An odd smile had taken up residence on his mouth as he peered at her, a dawning, bewildering thought. He ran through the conversation they had just had, and what might have turned her mood so fast. “Ambrosia, don’t,” he echoed, incredulous. “Don’t you pretend you didn’t know.” He was so disbelieving he was trying not to laugh.

She had never had any faith in him – and although she had tolerated the twins more than most, Trystan had always supposed that was because at least the public pretence spared her a little dignity. But she had not been so naive to think...? It was an old, stale betrayal: she could not keep holding his past mistakes against him, that was hardly fair. Merlin, the twins even looked like him.

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   Emilia Moony

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He was laughing at her.

She could kill him, Ambrosia thought for a mad moment. She could kill him and claim it had been an accident. Her wand had gone off and, alas, her husband had been blasted out of a second floor window onto the shiny, black railing below. Not her fault at all.

Or, better still, she could make him disappear, a concealment so powerful that Trystan would be proud of her, and she would let the children spend the rest of their lives thinking their father had deliberately abandoned them for some foreign whore: it would hardly be a stretch.

“You utter,” she began slowly, “Absolute,” she learned on the dressing table, eyes scanning the artefacts with the speed of a hummingbird after a fix of nectar. “Bastard!” She screamed, hurling the pitcher from his washbowl directly at her husband.

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   Trystan Selwyn

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Ambrosia's got 99 problems but this hot af set from MJ ain't 1 of them

Ambrosia had turned away from him. If Trystan had been less flabbergasted and more alert, he would have known to be watching her with all the intentness of his Auror days, waiting for the coming strike.

He had expected the scream, and the fury in her gaze when she looked back at him, gorgon-like, but the pitcher flying at him caught him off-guard. He was still sitting on the side of the bed; he was still fully nude; he didn’t have his wand in hand in time to stop it coming. He managed to duck away from it, just about – the ceramic pitcher hit his shoulder, hard, and rolled onto the floor where it cracked to pieces.

Trystan sprang up – and as he glanced around, he was looking for the discarded clothes he’d left his wand in, to have a shield charm ready next time – but any sense apparently fled him as he stood. Because, rather than try and talk his wife down, or restrain her before she attempted his murder with the washbowl next, he gave her an odd look. “No, love,” he said, almost callous or triumphant in his amusement, shaking his head, “I’m not the bastard.” They are. Don’t you see? Is it so hard to grasp?

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   Cassius Lestrange

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A lesser woman might have felt her eyes fill with tears at his flippancy in the face of her distress but Ambrosia was no such creature. It sharpened her, in fact, and the burst of anger that had overcome her only moments before was tampered down again where she would leave it to fester with the other ugly emotions twenty years of marriage had given her. Perhaps one day it would explode and kill them both? She could live in hope.

Until then she would have to live with him, live with this because that was what she had always done. She could not look away from him for a moment, transfixed by his beauty and splendour, and she felt sick with how much she loved him still.

Goddamn him for making her love him.

“No, you’re just a cunt,” she spat, forcing herself to look away from him less her emotions overtake her again. His affection for her was as insubstantial as filigree and that knowledge pained her heart. “This will never happen again.”

Trystan Selwyn | Elias Grimstone

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   Trystan Selwyn

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Ambrosia's got 99 problems but this hot af set from MJ ain't 1 of them

Alright, he was a bastard, he was a cunt – but maybe if she hadn’t needled at him so constantly over the years, they could have still been happy in spite of him? But Ambrosia could never just fuck him without trying to fuck him at the same time – never in her life had she ever been content to let things lie. She liked her vendettas too much to ever settle for peace: she wanted to make them both bitter for the rest of their lives, if only she could, and so she would hold his youthful mistakes against him for all time.

But she couldn’t leave, not in the aftermath of that rage, with that revelation – she should not even leave the room like this – because he certainly couldn’t have someone else in the household asking what did they argue about this time. So the smug expression slid from his face as he reached out for her shoulders with both hands, swiftly changing tack. (What would never happen again? What else was she going to do?) “Come on,” Trystan said, beseeching, please. “Come back to bed, Ambrosia, and we can talk.” She had thought better of him, somehow, if she hadn’t believed it before – he was almost touched by it, surprisingly indebted to her and some nub of hope she had never shown. “Didn’t I try to spare you, all these years?”

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It was the hollowest excuse he could have offered her and she pulled herself away from his grasp before he could touch her. It was almost impossible for her to forget that only a short time ago his touch had given her great pleasure, but the thought of it now was abhorrent.

Which made little sense, she conceded to herself, for hadn’t she always known and yet she had still taken him to her bed? Perhaps ignorance had always been the bedrock of their marriage? Perhaps he had spared her, after all?

“Hardly a ringing endorsement of your affection,” she said bitterly, glancing at the bed where, for a moment at least, she did consider taking a seat, discussing this with him as he suggested and maybe, maybe reaching an accord. But the humiliation overrode her better judgement – she could not stand to look at him and hear his excuses again, knowing, as she unfortunately did, that she would probably forgive him.

“No, I won’t come back,” she added as an afterthought, voice weaker than she would have liked it, and with that she walked out of the room.

wrap?

  

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Ambrosia's got 99 problems but this hot af set from MJ ain't 1 of them