For a Servant and a Master

Part 2: Chapter 1

"You've been staring at that letter for over an hour now."

He lifted his head, unaware that so much time had passed. It'd felt like no time at all. His sister stood beside him, her eyes wandering over the letter. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder.

"Alexander, do you usually ponder your correspondence so intently?"

"No," he said, tucking the letter back inside the envelope it had arrived in.

"So who is that from?"

"Mother," Alexander said, folding the front of his writing desk up. He rose, and Isabelle's hand fell away. "When did you become so nosy?"

"When people decided to start keeping secrets from me."

"How much longer til Jace arrives?"

"Not soon enough, I'm afraid. It's funny," Isabelle started, lazily pacing around the library. "I didn't realize how much I would miss him until he was no longer around to annoy me."

She fell back against the couch, propping her feet up.

Alexander watched with mild annoyance. The red velvet cushions were nearly impossible clean as it was, and he wasn't in the habit of making more work for the serving staff.

"What suitor will be with us tonight?"

"None," Isabella said, with apparent joy at the notion. "However, I do believe I've settled on one. I'll invite him for Christmas."

"You've settled?" Alexander said. "Goodness, I never thought I'd hear you say that, Isabelle. I thought you were having too much fun teasing bachelors."

"One must settle down eventually."

Isabella was hardly the settling type. Alexander was afraid she'd never leave the Lightwood estate, destined to spend the rest of her life teasing young men with her fabulous inheritance and wit.

"Do you love him?" he asked after a moment.

"What does love have to do with anything?" she said, twisting at a diamond earring.

"Everything for you, I thought."

"Love is for stories. You of all people should know that."

"I'm different--"

"You're cold and bitter, you mean," Isabelle interjected. "You cannot drag your past around and toss it in everyone's face every time you don't feel like doing something, Alexander."

"You sound like Mother."

Isabelle made a noise of disgust.

"What did she want anyways? More money for her Scottish retreat?"

"No-- well, yes-- but she had other concerns," Alexander said, pacing in front of the fireplace. He considered tossing the letter into the burning fire.

"Such as?"

"Marriage."

"Well, tell her I've found a perfectly decent man--"

"Not for you," Alexander said. "For me."

"But you can't," Isabelle said, sitting up suddenly.

"She's forcing my hand. And like you so eloquently said, I can't keep using the same excuses."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Delay for as long as I can. But she's given me a year to set a wedding date."

"So you have to be married."

"Isabelle--"

She glanced back at Alexander, and saw a broken man who knew her words to be true.