The Time To Dine (1)

"Welcome!" Lady Sutherton stood from the dining table and hurried over to Ezra.

"I trust you made it to the dining hall with ease, Mister Ezra?" She clasped her hands, smiling and beaming with sparkling luminescence at him. 

"Yes." He surveyed the sweeping sublime scapes of the dining area and the sprawling golden table where hot and steaming foods crowded the surface, and Lord Sutherton was already eating his fill. "Luckily, I found my way, but I did have a little trouble." He swiped a glance at Erin.

"Trouble?" Lady Sutherton winced, rapidly fixing her sight onto her daughter. "What kind of trouble, Erin?"

Erin pressed her tongue against the side of her mouth, a scowl easily cementing. "What?" She met her mother's concern with distaste.

"By trouble," Ezra said, "I meant I got a bit lost on my way here. You have such a magnificently large estate, Lady Sutherton, so it was easy to lose my way. It seems I was a bit too cocky with my directional skills."

Lady Sutherton reluctantly pulled her stare away from her daughter and glued it onto him. "I see you meant trouble like that." She sighed in large exponential relief.

"What?" Erin narrowed her eyes. "Did you think I pulled him aside and physically attacked him?" she emphasized, hatred burning in her tongue.

"Well, darling, there are some days you forget your manners."

For a time of unbreakable tension and animosity, they held stifling stares.

"If I might be so kind as to add, Lady Sutherton?" Ezra spoke up amidst their contest. "Lady Erina actually helped me find my way to the dining hall."

"Really?" Her disbelief was prominent. 

"Yes." He smiled at Erin. "If it wasn't for her suggestions and compulsions, I wouldn't have found my way out of the room I was lost in, nor would I have stumbled upon the dining hall."

She turned a brief glare at Ezra. "Right. My… compulsions." 

She looked back to her mother. "I'm not a monster, mother, I'm a young lady, and not to be political but as the law of our land dictates, we are all equal. I quote, 'No man shall be slave and no woman shall be property. Men shall be free to work of their choice and women shall be free to marry of their choice.' You know of this, do you not?"

Lady Sutherton grimaced. 

"Heaven, mother, do I need to give you a history lesson?"

Lady Sutherton took a steady inhale, brushing away loose hairs. "Well, dinner will get cold at this rate. Please come, have a seat anywhere you'd like, Mister Ezra." She gestured him forward but the moment he took one step forward, Erin placed her arm in front of him and pushed him back with her forearm.

"Sit anywhere he'd like?" she bemused sardonically. "Mother, I know how much you love to blur the lines, but there are rules to proper social etiquette. He's a butler, before he's a guest. You should consult with the head of your household first, shouldn't you?"

Lady Sutherton's smile grew flaccid. "I-Erin-Your-Your father was the one who invited him, and his heritage is suitable to dine with us. I-and-we would not socialize ourselves with some, some common farmer."

"Suitable? What ever do you mean by that? Are suggesting that a man who comes from a line of dairy farmers is not just as suitable as a man from a line of educated law men? The great law of our united lands says that--."

"--Erina I am not---do not---." 

"Ahh, you're right!" She easily cut her off. "I'm sorry, mother. How wrong of me to argue with you. I know the law is law but a mother is a mother as a daughter should be a daughter.Tut. Tut. Tut." She tutted herself a pat of her forehead. "I really do forget my manners. Now, Edmund?" She peaked at Ezra. "We should both part to the table before we neglect the sustenance my kindhearted mother had prepared for guest and family." She strode forward, nearly knocking her mother over.

With not any comment, Lady Sutherton made movements with her mouth at Ezra before simply turning away to take her seat next to her husband. Rigidly stiff, she left her daughter with a worrisome glance.

Erin settled into her seat with a cross of her legs, and the moment Ezra neared her way, she took him with her eyes.

"Edmund, you are intelligent, are you not?"

Ezra raised a brow as he pulled a chair out. 

"A little word?" Her voice lowered as he focused on her.

"If you are educated and intelligent, then you should know, my mother is unfaithful, weak willed, damp rag of a woman who in the past, has had relations with one of the workers here, hence why she's always so friendlier than most. She could be looking for her next relation, who knows?" She shrugged, continuing on with a cold tongue.

"And my father is a calculatingly indifferent prideful man who spends his days amassing wealth for the crown, a relationship built on mutual hate, but is tolerated because his sister, and my aunt, is married to our 1st prince. Oh and love at first they say and dare not to say otherwise lest your head end up on sharp, pointed pike---something I think my father might like for me and my mother. But there's too much blood on his family crest. So he indulges us with his short temper, that's slow to violence but quick to berate. He doesn't like many things---not the crown's favor that this estate stands on or even these comforts within in these walls and...yet? If there's anything that he could ever enjoy, it's the small hunting dagger gifted from his father to him, sitting in my dress pocket right now."

She paused her long dialogue only she tug at her dress fabric. "I got it from the same place you attempted to steal from and by tomorrow morning, he will think that you've stolen it. Which we both know cannot be difficult considering you are a thief and the law is the law that keeps everyone in their place."

Finally finished, she looked him in the eye with a beaming smile, awaiting his response.

And he did reply, with a smile of his own. "My lady, your plate is empty. Allow me to be useful and of assistance." He raised his hand, gesturing to one of the kitchen staff.

Within moments, two kitchen maids disappeared into a side door and returned with a service cart and silver platters.

"Thank you." He nodded to the kitchen maids, taking a hold of some cutlery and a glass goblet. "Anything special to drink?" He asked, placing the glass goblet in front of her.

She wanted to be shocked, but rather a quiet sense of amusement arose in her.

She didn't look at him before she snatched the goblet and shoved it towards his face. "White wine." She wagged the glass around his face. "Fill it to the brim."