Subj: Quentin & Jenny -- 6
Date: 1/8/99 1:38:07 PM Central Standard Time
From: DSRules

Laura walked along the shore, chanting the name in her head, over and over, {Pedro Chavez. Pedro Chavez. Where have I heard that name before?}

As she neared the dock from which the boats in the Collins fishing fleet traditionally left, she heard her husband's foreman, Cyrus Malloy, call out, "Pedro! The boss is looking for you!"

A small man, nearly as fair as his wife, called out in response, "Momentito, Senor Malloy!"

{So,} thought Laura, {that's Pedro Chavez.}

* * * * *

"What did you want to talk to me about, Quentin?"

"What would you say to getting a maid?"

"A maid? Why would I want a maid?"

"Well . . . she could be a big help. When you go shopping for new clothes, for example, you could get your maid to take your measurements and just give them to the seamstress, rather than having to go to all of that bother in the shop."

Her face broke out in the smile that he loved so much. "Oh! I'd love that! You're so good to me, Quentin!" She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you!"

* * * * *

All of her thousands of years had taught Laura to be patient. Very, very patient. She stayed there, in the shadows, watching Pedro Chavez for hours, looking for the right moment to strike. Eventually, the moment came. Pedro was alone on the edge of the dock, and as the setting sun glinted into his
eyes, Laura gave it a simple boost.

"AAARRRRGGGHHH!!!" Pedro screamed, trying, and failing to shield his eyes from the glare, as he tipped forward, falling into the harbor. He drowned instantly.

* * * * *

As soon as Laura returned home, Jenny cornered her in the drawing room. "Laura! I have the most wonderful news!"

"Really?" She said, knowing what she was going to say.

"Yes! Quentin says that I can get a maid! Like you have!"

"That's so nice, Jenny. Eudora has been such a help to me, that I'm sure your maid will be just as much of a help to you. Do you have any prospects yet?"

Jenny shook her head. "Edward hasn't come home yet, so Quentin hasn't had a chance to speak to him about it."

"Well, don't worry. I'll help you and make sure that you hire the right woman for the job."

"You've been such a good friend, Laura."

"Yes I have been, haven't I?" Her sister-in-law responded with a touch of irony in her voice.

Moments later, Edward shuffled in the door, looking downcast. Laura followed him as he walked down the hallway and into his study.

When she entered the room, he was sitting in his chair, leaning back, a pained expression on his face. She walked around behind him, massaging his shoulders. "Oh, you're so tense, Edward! Did you have a bad day?"

Edward tensed up more. "What are you up to, Laura?"

"Nothing, darling. I just thought that you looked like you could use a shoulder to cry on."

"Well, since you asked, yes, I had a very difficult day. One of my fishermen was killed today."

"Oh! How horrible! Who was it? How did it happen?"

"It was the new man, Pedro Chavez. He drowned. No one is sure what happened. The only thing we know is that when Cyrus came around to pay him, he found the poor man floating in the water, face down, completely dead."

"Chavez . . ." Laura made a great show of thinking about the name. "Didn't he have a wife? I can't remember her name . . ."

Edward nodded. "Elizabeth," he supplied. "They'd only been married for a few months when it happened."

"Would you like to do something for his widow?"

"Like what?" Edward looked at his wife suspiciously, out of the corner of his eye.

"Like give her a job. Jenny really needs a maid to help her with her wardrobe and such, and it would be such a nice thing to do for the young widow, to at least offer her the position."

Edward sighed. "I'll send Cyrus around to speak to her about the idea tomorrow morning."

It turned out that Beth had worked as a lady's maid prior to her marriage, and she accepted the proposition gratefully. She favorably impressed Edward with her calm, ladylike demeanor, and she won Jenny's approval through her quiet friendliness.

A week after Pedro Chavez was buried in the municipal cemetery, Beth came to work at Collinwood.

* * * * *

One night, as Quentin and Jenny lay in her bed, Quentin rolled over to look at his sleeping wife -- at her dark hair, her thick eyelashes, her beloved features. He placed a hand on her naked abdomen and kissed her awake.

"What are you doing still awake?"

"I couldn't sleep." Quentin had been fishing with Jamison, and was still feeling the euphoria of spending the day with his nephew.

"After that," her tone of voice made it clear she was speaking of the passion they had just shared, "you couldn't sleep?"

"Jenny . . . "

"What?"

"Have you ever thought . . . about having a baby?"

"A baby? Of course I've thought about it, but you've never said anything about it, so I just figured . . ."

"Well, would you want one?"

"Your baby? Of course I'd want your baby!"

His face broke out into a radiant smile. "You would? Could we?"

"You really want one?"

"Yes. I really think so." He pulled her to him for a kiss, and for a time, the world faded away.

And this time, she didn't drink her Queen Anne's Lace seeds and water afterwards.

* * * * *

Several days later, while Jenny was tending to Daphne, Quentin stumbled across Beth in the winter garden.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know that anyone was in here," he said. When she turned to face him, he could see that her eyelashes were wet with tears, and his heart went out to her.

"May I?" He indicated the seat next to her.

When she nodded her assent, he sat and said. "You still miss your husband, don't you?"

She nodded, still too choked up for words.

"You loved him very much."

She nodded again, the tears beginning to flow.

"I know how you feel." When she looked at him, he continued. "I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to Jenny. She's the whole world to me."

Beth looked at him, and they shared a long moment of understanding.

Laura, who overheard this exchange, cursed this turn of events. {Damn it! Bringing Beth into this house has brought Quentin and Jenny closer than ever. Looks like I'm going to have to stop waiting for things to happen and start making them happen.}

* * * * *

Several nights later, while Quentin was dressing for dinner, Laura used her powers on him. He grew increasingly tired until he couldn't keep his eyelids open. {I'll just lie down for a few minutes,} clad in his undergarments, he crossed to the bed and lay down. {I'm sure that I'll be awake in time for . . . .}

And with that, he was asleep.

Downstairs, in the dining room, the family waited dinner for Quentin for nearly half an hour. Eventually, Jenny offered to go upstairs to check on him. She knocked lightly on his door. When he didn't respond, she cracked the door open a little, peeking around it. There was her husband, stretched out on the bed in his underwear.

She smiled at the sight of him. How she loved to watch him sleep! She loved to watch him at any time, but most of all when he was asleep, when he looked so peaceful. She crossed the room, unfolding the afghan that rested on the foot of his bed, and placing it over him.

Turning down the lights, she returned to the dining room.

"He's asleep in his room," she reported to the assembled Collinses.

"Asleep! What's he doing asleep at dinnertime!" Edward exclaimed indignantly.

"Well, Edward, he hasn't gotten much sleep lately," Jenny didn't think it would be appropriate to tell them what he and she had been doing instead of sleeping -- she wasn't sure if she was expecting yet, but she suspected that she might be, and she wanted Quentin to be the first to know.

Edward's response to this was, "Humph."

Then he sighed. "Well, we might as well get started, then." And with this, he signaled for the servants to begin serving their dinner.

After dinner, Jenny had retired to her room, fully expecting Quentin to join her in the night. She was very surprised the next morning when she awoke as alone as she had been when she went to sleep.

Laura watched her as she walked down the hallway towards Quentin's bedroom. As Jenny opened the door, Laura invoked another of her abilities -- the ability to cause hallucinations.

Jenny walked into her husband's bedroom, where he evidently had awakened, taken off his underwear, and gotten under the covers. She slipped off her robe and nightgown, preparing to join him in his bed.

However, as soon as she pulled back the covers, she let out a blood-curdling shriek, startling Quentin awake.

"What! What is it, Jenny?" He asked his stark naked, hysterical wife, bolting from bed.

"That!" Jenny pointed at the empty bed. "How *could* you, Quentin!?!"

"How could I what?" he asked, thoroughly perplexed.

"Don't play innocent with me. It certainly isn't mine! I've never seen that before!"

"What isn't yours?" He continued examining the undersheet, looking for some clue what she was screaming about.

"This!" She leaned forward and reached out for something that Quentin couldn't see. She held her empty hand out towards him. "Don't try to deny it, Quentin! Who was in here with you last night?"

"What do you see there, Jenny?" He asked, his heart breaking, for he feared that his beloved wife had gone insane.

"You know as well as I do that it's a comb, Quentin! A tortoiseshell comb! And what's this?" She looked at it more closely. "A blonde hair?" The betrayal he saw in her eyes tore at Quentin's heart.

Then, suddenly, Beth was in there, wrapping Jenny's robe around her, speaking to her calmly. "Come now, Mrs. Collins. Everything's all right."

Jenny began to calm down, but then she reached up and violently ripped out a comb that Beth had used to hold back a few stray strands of hair. She held out both hands, the empty one and the one which held the comb, and looked at Quentin, desperation in her eyes. "Can you deny it now, Quentin? You've been
with her, haven't you!?"

"Jenny, of course I haven't. I haven't been with anyone but you since our first time together. You remember our first time don't you?"

The openness in his expression got through to his crazed wife. "Yes. It was on the train to Chicago. You had just proposed to me."

"And when we got married, what did I promise you?"

She looked at him, unsure what to say.

"I promised to be faithful to you until the day we die. And I haven't broken that promise, Jenny."

Jenny looked down at her hands, then up at him, tears in her eyes. "Then how do you explain this?"

"I don't know how to explain it, Jenny. You just have to trust me. I haven't been with anyone else."

She lost control then, weeping openly as she ran into Quentin's arms. "Of course I trust you. Oh, Quentin!" She backed away from him, looking at her hands. She saw that she was only holding one comb -- the one she had torn from Beth's hair. "It's gone! What's happening to me?" She asked plaintively.

"I don't know, Jenny. But I promise you that we'll find out."

They clung to each other desperately for a while, and then, eventually, Beth wrapped Jenny's robe around her again, leading her gently from the room.