15. Displeasure

Stiles was at his writing desk, sealing and addressing yet another letter to Derek, when he heard a commotion in the lane.  He had only recently been given leave by Melissa to come downstairs and walk for short periods of time, and remained under her watchful eye, and so Stiles took care to proceed slowly and carefully to the window to determine what was causing such a fuss.

It was a team of horses, and a carriage larger than any that Stiles had ever seen in Beacon.  He had but a moment to place the coat of arms on the door of it before Sir Peter Hale himself was stepping down.

Stiles barely had time to give Melissa a shrug before he sat down at his desk again, cultivating an air of unconcern, as Sir Peter was announced by a humbled and breathless housemaid.

“Sir Peter,” Stiles said, rising as smoothly as his still-weakened ankle would allow.  “To what do we owe this honor?”

“Stiles,” Sir Peter greeted coldly, favoring him with barely a nod of acknowledgment.  “And that lady, I suppose, is your mother?”

Stiles confirmed this supposition, sending a grimace of sympathy to Melissa, who seemed as though she was a hair’s breadth away from striking Sir Peter over the head with the fireplace tongs for his insulting tone.

“I understand you are...still injured,” Sir Peter sniffed, his eye traveling from the fading green-and-yellow bruises on Stiles’ face to where the bulk of bandages was evident under the fabric of his jacket at his shoulder.  “How fragile human bodies are, and how slow to heal!  I do not know how you can stand it.  But, I suppose, you are well enough for a turn in the garden?”

Melissa looked as though she might object, but Stiles squeezed her hand in a silent plea.  Much as he detested Sir Peter’s company, he did in part owe his life — or at least Kate’s death — to his intervention.  Even more importantly, Stiles felt a lively curiosity as to what the man could possibly want.

Melissa’s sharp gaze sent an unspoken warning to Sir Peter, but she let Stiles go with only an admonishment to take a walking cane.

They were several paces away from the house when Sir Peter turned to Stiles, his pale blue eyes cold.  

“I suppose you must know why I am here,” he began.  “Your own heart — your own conscience — must tell you why I have come.”

“On the contrary,” Stiles replied.  “I can think of nothing I have done to warrant such an honor.”

“Do not trifle with me, young man!” Sir Peter warned sharply.  “I have heard a scandalous falsehood — that you are shortly to be married to my nephew.  I know it must be false — it is impossible! — and yet I cannot rest easy until I hear the assurance from your own lips.”

Stiles looked down, tracing a design in the dirt with the tip of his walking stick to hide his surprise.  “If you believe such a thing to be impossible, Sir Peter, I wonder that you took the trouble of coming so far.”

“You impudent child!”  Sir Peter’s face was growing quite red in his fury, and Stiles suspected that he rarely had the experience of being disobliged in such a manner.  “I would never allow it!  The noble lineage of Hale rests upon my nephew’s shoulders.  Do you think I would sacrifice it to the upstart pretensions of a young man without family, connections, or fortune?  To a weak, spindly human when my nephew could choose from amongst the most distinguished wolves in the land?”

And truly, Sir Peter looked so horrified at the notion that Stiles hardly knew whether to be offended or entertained by the man’s prejudices, and he could not resist teasing him a bit more.

“Surely, if your nephew has in fact chosen a weak, spindly human above all the distinguished wolves in the land, you do not have much say in the matter?”

“Enough of this!” Sir Peter snarled.  “Answer me clearly.  Has my nephew made you an offer of marriage?”

Stiles carefully drew another shape in the dirt.  Obviously Derek had not told his uncle about the proposal he had made to Stiles at Rosings, and any attempt at denial would be betrayed by Stiles’ heartbeat.  “You yourself have just declared the impossibility of such an event, and so I’m surprised you think it worth the breath to inquire about it,” Stiles deflected.

“You insolent, headstrong boy!”  Sir Peter paced a few steps and then returned, aggravation in every line of his body.  “I have come here with the sole purpose of obtaining your promise never to marry my nephew, and I am not accustomed to disappointment.”

“That will make certainly make today’s events harder for you to bear, but it has little effect on me, Sir Peter.”

“Tell me once and for all!”  Sir Peter advanced on Stiles.  “Are you engaged to him?”

Stiles was tempted not to answer, simply out of unwillingness to oblige Sir Peter, but he was suddenly weary of this game.  It was too much to have his wildest hopes presented to him as actuality, and it gained him nothing to antagonize Sir Peter more.

“I am not,” he finally admitted truthfully.

He could see Sir Peter assessing his heartbeat, and the man nodded with satisfaction.  “And can you promise me that you will never become engaged to him?”

“I will make no promise of the kind,” Stiles answered, equally truthfully.

Sir Peter gritted his teeth.  “And now we get to the heart of the matter,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain.  “What is it you want for such a promise?  Name your price.”

Stiles felt his cheeks pinken with the heat of his indignance.  “I cannot, because I have none. You have widely mistaken my character, Sir Peter.  My affections, or lack thereof, cannot be bought at any price.”

Sir Peter’s surprise quickly gave way to an assessing scrutiny.  “So there’s something else you want, then?” he sneered.  “The Bite?”  

Before Stiles could react, Sir Peter had half-shifted.  He grasped Stiles’ left wrist, wrenching his injured shoulder as he pushed up his cuff almost to the elbow, his bared fangs hovering just above the skin of Stiles’ forearm.  “Derek isn’t the only alpha of the Hale pack who can offer you that, you know.”  

Stiles shuddered at the feel of Sir Peter’s breath against his skin.  He carefully pulled his arm free from Sir Peter’s clawed grasp.  “I have no wish to be a werewolf,” Stiles said as calmly as he could manage.  “And now that you have insulted me in every way possible, I must ask that you take your leave.”

Sir Peter’s gaze remained calculating, as if Stiles had surprised him once again.  “You are resolved to have him, then?” he asked.

“I am resolved to act in the manner most likely to result in my happiness — and even more importantly Derek’s happiness — with no reference to you or any other person uninvolved in the matter.”

Sir Peter took a step back.  “Very well,” he said.  “I now know how to act.”  

With nothing left to say to each other, they turned back toward the ostentatious carriage in silence, Sir Peter striding along angrily while Stiles tried his best to keep pace without showing too much of his injury.

“I take no leave of you, Mr. Stilinski,” Sir Peter haughtily said as he boarded his carriage.  “I send no compliments to your mother.  You deserve no such attention.  I am most seriously displeased.”

Stiles bowed.  “And I will try to valiantly endure the heartbreak of having caused you such displeasure.”

Sir Peter gestured the carriage on without another word, and Stiles hobbled back to the house, weary and confused, wondering what all that had been about.