Subj: Quentin II and Daphne -- 3
Date: 6/3/00 5:49:21 AM Central Daylight Time
From: DSRules

NOTE: The character of Sophie Collins has generously been loaned to me by Mark.

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A year later, Edward's new wife gave birth to a son. Edward resisted Laura's pleas to name him Jamison, preferring instead his father's name, Geoffrey, to no avail. Laura Murdoch Collins was a woman accustomed to getting what she wanted.

So, the name Jamison Geoffrey Collins went on his birth certificate. He had a difficult birth, and the midwife wasn't sure that Jamison would survive, so they hurriedly baptized him immediately after his birth, but postponed his formal christening for the first few months of his life. When he was a slightly less sickly six month old baby, his family scheduled the christening.

Laura, meanwhile, had decided that she didn't want to take a chance having another ill child like Jamison, so she decided to have another baby, and decided that Quentin should be that baby's father.

He dodged her every attempt at seduction, for example, she 'accidentally' bumped into him in the hallway wearing nothing but her nightgown, but he seemed oblivious to her.

Every trick she had failed miserably. Even things that had once aroused the interest, as well as other things, of stodgy old Jeremiah Collins failed on Quentin. She wondered what his secret was -- until the day that Jamison's great-grandmother, Daphne, arrived for the christening.

Daphne swept into the foyer of Collinwood as if she owned the house, which in truth she did, since the house was merely in the care of her two eldest grandchildren, Judith and Edward. Memories of her years there with her late husband, Quentin, his son, Tad, and their children, Geoffrey, Sophie and Nathaniel, beset her as she crossed the threshold, reminding her why she moved to Boston in the first place -- to escape those very memories.

"Can you tell Mr. Edward Collins that his grandmother is here to see him?" Daphne asked a maid as she passed through the foyer.

The maid had only just disappeared down the hallway when Edward walked into the foyer. "Grandmother!" he exclaimed when he saw her.

"Edward!" Daphne took Edward's hands in hers, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek with genuine affection. "And where's your lovely wife?" At least, she assumed that Edward's wife would be lovely. As the heir apparent to the Collins fortune, Edward would have had his pick of available women.

"Oh, she's around here somewhere. In her room, I expect." Edward seemed strangely dismissive of the woman who should have been the love of his life.

"I'm right here, darling."

Daphne turned in the direction of the throaty female voice to see a woman even more beautiful than she expected. And somehow strangely familiar, as well. {Where *have* I seen her before?} Daphne wondered.

"Ah! Grandmother, I'd like you to meet my wife, Laura. Laura, this is my grandmother, Daphne Harridge Collins."

"Pleased to meet you," Laura began.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, too." Daphne grasped Laura's hands the same way she'd held Edward's hands before, but Laura was unresponsive as Daphne gave her the same familial kiss on the cheek. "And where is my beautiful new great-grandson?"

"Oh, he's up in the nursery."

Laura's unconcerned tone made Daphne fume. Daphne had been plagued by fertility problems during her marriage to Quentin, and it was only because fate had seen its way to place three beautiful children in their paths that they had any children at all. First came Sophie, whom Quentin had rescued from a slave trader in exchange for a gold watch, then came Geoffrey, who was Tad's baby by . . . "Laura," Daphne took the presumption of calling her granddaughter-in-law by her first name, "do you have any family here?"

"In Collinsport?" Laura asked. "No. Why?"

"No reason," Daphne said, looking intently at the other woman, "no reason at all." {I am right. She does look exactly like the young woman who gave birth to Geoffrey and then disappeared. And *her* name was Laura, too. How odd . . .}

She was interrupted in her musing when the main doors of the house opened once again, and Quentin stepped through them. "Daphne!" He exclaimed in a whisper that only Laura and Daphne heard. Edward was nearly always too puffed full of self-importance to listen to what anyone else said.

As soon as she heard Quentin's whispered voice, Daphne whirled to face him. "Quentin!" Her eyes locked onto his in an intimate gaze that was almost an embrace. "It's so good to see you again!" She kept the tone light, but the way their gazes connected carried a subtext that was anything but.

{Serapis!}* Laura thought. {That's why he's been so hard to seduce! He's in love with his own grandmother! Well, we'll see what we can do about that!}

Quentin became unaccountably nervous as he watched Daphne watching him. Then, the rumble of thunder from the nearly-constant Collinsport rain brought along with it a flashback of a rainy Boston afternoon and the remembered taste of Daphne's mouth under his. He could see from the look in her eyes that Daphne remembered that afternoon, too, only he couldn't see how she felt about the memory. "Grandmother," he said in a warm yet casual tone similar to the one she had used.

Edward's voice broke the tension between them. "Where are your things, Grandmother?" He asked.

With difficulty, Daphne turned to look at Edward. "In my hotel room. I'm staying at the Collinsport Inn," she answered.

"Oh, we cannot have that. Please, let me send Wilkins for your things."

"No. I refuse to put you out. The Inn will be sufficient for me."

"Did you say that you were going to stay at the Inn, Grandmother?"

Although she hadn't heard it in nearly 10 years, Daphne would have recognized that voice anywhere. "Judith!" She turned to face her granddaughter, greeting her as she had Edward, with clasped hands and a kiss on the cheek.

Judith had been 19 when their parents had died, leaving her to raise her then 16 year old brother Edward, the 12 year old Quentin and 9 year old Carl herself. It was a pity, but no wonder, that Judith had never married and raised a family of her own. A pity, of course, because if Judith had a child to inherit from her, Daphne would have favored the level-headed Judith over Edward as heir to the Collins fortune.

"You must stay with us," Judith told her grandmother.

"No, I insist," Laura caught Daphne glancing quickly at Quentin, "I don't want to put you out any more than I need to, and with preparations for Jamison's, his name is Jamison, isn't it?" At Judith's nod, she continued, "what an unusual name. Anyway, with preparations for his christening, and everything else you're going through, I'm certain that the Inn will be sufficient."

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* I know, I know, Laura's god is supposed to have been Ra, but the god that was really in charge in ancient Alexandria (Laura's home, if you'll recall) was Serapis, so I took the liberty of changing it. http://www.egyptianmyths.com/serapis.htm