As the car pulled up into the drive, Thomas saw a large red bricked house. Outside it, a modest, but fair, amount of staff were lined up. Although a huge drop in comparison to Downton Abbey, it would still be considered one of the larger stately homes, in comparison to other middle class households.

Standing by the door were his parents, who Thomas saw quickly exchange an uncomfortable look, before smoothing it out to look at the car which had now stopped parallel to the house.

As the door was opened by a near by servant, Edward wobbly, yet confidently, hopped out of the car. The smile which became fixated on his mothers face looked forced and ridged, as her eyes once again glanced over to her husband, a stern, but expressionless man, looking the spitting image of a rich Carson, before setting them back on her son who was now only a few meters away from where she was standing. The look she was most likely trying to achieve was sincere love, but it was all to clear that it really conveyed extreme discomfort.

Thomas walked over to the back of the car, lifting the boot to retrieve the one small suitcase of possessions Edward owned, before going to stand beside him, trying to look as calm, confident, and collected as he could, even though inside he felt like he might just puke from nerves, in the most gentlemanly fashion of course.

"Edward" his mother called, as his father stood still next to her, emotionless, sporting the look of a statue.

More like a gargoyle.

Hm. Maybe they could be a pair of gargoyles? Their already standing in position by the door, a few minor adjustments and they'd be the mirror imagine...

"Edward." she said again, this time appearing with less of a discomfort, but more of a fiery rage, boiling deep below the surface, ready to erupt in an explosion of words, as soon as they were out of the way of prying eyes.

Edward winced as his name was called.

Well this is going to be fun.

"Shall we go inside, dear? Gregson, bring us some tea, we're all going retire to the drawing room to discus current situations and affairs." She spoke in a seemingly neutral voice, but inside it held the unwelcoming undertones of bitter love and forced politeness.

This bitch may think she's fooling us all with her false love, but she isn't fooling me, nor Edward for that matter, Thomas thought, peering over his shoulder to look at his lover whose face was the image of pain and distress.

Christ, Edward wasn't lying when he said his mothers was a 'two-faced-delusional-bitch-princess'; (its funny 'cause when Edward first said this to me, apart from being surprised that he had learnt to drop his middle class dialogue so quickly and join the real world of conversation techniques; I told him he must be over reacting and asked him if his mother was O'Brien or the Devil. To this he gave no reply, only to tell me she's the type who would 'give you hell just for clashing your socks with your tie'. To this I asked if she was Carson).

God, I can confirm his statement true and I haven't even said 'hello' yet. If this woman is to be my employer, then I'll need to play it safe, but if she even dares to think she can win one over on me, she has another thing coming, because she's met her downfall. After all, regardless of whether she thinks she's a princess, I still outrank her being a 'snark queen' (I never thought that awful [and completely untrue] nickname would come in handy. Yes I speak my mind but i'm hardly snarky.)

And to think I thought teaching Edward to let go of some of his social etiquette and encouraging him to speak his mind more was a GOOD idea. He sure showed me.

Note to self: must make Edward give me a new, more bearable nickname, as I cannot spend the rest of my days here being called: queen, princess, Tommy, or tomtum.

Once inside the drawing room, the awkward atmosphere hanging in the air became so heavy you could nearly feel it pressing down on you, threatening to crush you to bits if you even dared to breathe, net alone speak.

Not to anyone's surprise, his mother was the first to talk, somehow making it clear to him before they'd even been introduced that she called the shots, and no one would speak unless spoken to. In any other situation it would be amusing how this not only seemed to apply to him, but to everyone else in the room.

"Edward."
She eventually spoke in a harsh, but cold tone, pointedly looking at him, not that it made any difference.

"I think you should tell me who this man is..." she said with a brief, but sour, glare towards Thomas.

"and why he's with you, when I specifically said that I was hiring a man to look after you. Did the army instate you with this...carer to attend to you? Because if they did, you shouldn't have accepted because you know full well that we have the money to pay for such things, and we don't need...charity."

Edward let out an involuntary sigh, earning him a scolding look from his mother.

"No, I was not issued him as 'charity'. He was my previous doctor, I brought him here to act as a valet-come-doctor to me; working on the principle that I highly doubt any manservant you hire is going to have medical training to act as multi-functional support for me."

His response came out fluently and calm, almost like he had been preparing it for when the question arose.

The conversation continued like this for some time, with his mother repeatedly asking stupid questions, and demanding to know if anyone were insinuating that they weren't good enough, and Edward sighing with a 'no' every time.

Although no one was speaking in raised voices, yet, the tension between Edward and his family was all to clear, as Thomas felt himself being squeezed away from Edward and the conversation at hand, as the friction of the heated atmosphere grew larger and larger, pushing Thomas to the side lines, to feel merely as a spectator, or a witness of the turn of events.

Thomas had a suspicion that this was what the family was like when they were getting on, and the adventure, was in fact, was yet to begin.