Subj: Quentin & Jenny -- 7
Date: 1/11/99 5:21:44 PM Central Standard Time
From: DSRules

Jenny compliantly returned to her room with Beth. Beth got more undergarments and another dress out of Jenny's wardrobe, and returned to her side, dressing the other woman in silence.

"Why are you so quiet, Beth?" Jenny asked in a little-girl voice as Beth buttoned her shoes.

Beth turned her face up to Jenny's, her eyes swollen with unshed tears. "Because there's really nothing to say."

Jenny crouched down on the floor next to Beth. "I'm sorry for accusing you of having an affair with Quentin, Beth. I know that you'd never do anything like that."

Beth nodded then stood up, directing Jenny to sit in a chair, where she proceeded to do Jenny's hair. "You have such beautiful hair, Jenny," Beth said admiringly as she brushed it out.

"It's not nearly as beautiful as yours, Beth. I've always wanted to be a blonde." Jenny gave her maid a tentative smile, which Beth returned.

By the time her hair was done, Jenny's old vivacious self had returned. "Beth?"

"Yes, Mrs. Collins?"

"Can't I ever convince you to call me by my first name?"

"All right. Jenny." The two women shared a warm smile.

"Do you want to go somewhere today? Into town, maybe?"

"With you? It's hardly proper. . ."

"Oh, come on, Beth. It'll be fun." Jenny looked at her with pleading in her eyes.

"All right. It does sound like fun. Just let me get my reticule and I'll be right with you."

* * * * *

Quentin had returned to the same place where he had stood the first night he met Jenny, when he went walking on the shore.

As the surf crashed against the rocks nearby, Quentin decided that he had to go home and check on Jenny, or perhaps see how Beth was faring after the stress of that morning.

Then he saw her -- her blonde hair glinting in the sunlight as it peeked out from beneath her bonnet. {Beth!} he thought, walking towards her.

When he got closer, however, he saw that he was mistaken. "Hello, Laura."

Laura positively preened. "Good morning, Quentin! It's a lovely day, isn't it?"

"Yes. Lovely." He didn't try to hide the disdain in his tone.

She smirked at him, and he wondered why she looked so smug -- until he noticed where they were. They were standing in front of the cave that had been their 'place' ten years ago -- when he had needed her like he needed air to breathe. He began to feel the arousal creep up on him again, and he was again tempted to take her in his arms, drag her into the cave, and lose himself in that old passion. However, when he realized that it was her intention to awaken those feelings, it was like a slap in the face. {Oh, no you don't, you bitch,} he thought, forcibly shutting out the old feelings. {Think about Jenny. Your wife. The woman you love more than anything.} Gradually, he was able to shake himself loose of her spell and then he turned and walked away, ignoring his former mistress calling his name esperately behind him.

* * * * *

Quentin returned home, but he couldn't find Beth or Jenny anywhere. He was just beginning to worry that something had happened to them when he ran into Judith.

"If you're looking for your wife, she went into town with Beth," his elder sister said in her most disdainful tones.

Quentin breathed a sigh of relief at this, because he felt certain that Jenny and Beth wouldn't have gone into town together if Jenny hadn't been feeling better.

His feeling of well-being was short-lived, however. It ended when his sister said, "I'm not going to ask you what all of that caterwauling was about this morning, Quentin. But I do ask that you keep it down in the future." Judith then strutted out of the drawing room, leaving Quentin alone with his thoughts.

* * * * *

Jenny tried her very best to keep cheerful during her trip into town with Beth, but she was continually seized by fits of unreasoning jealousy brought on by the memory of seeing that comb in Quentin's bed. She knew that her eyes had been playing tricks on her, but it didn't seem to help.

In order to fight the impulses down, she kept her hands clenched into tight fists. If she hadn't been wearing gloves, her palms would have been bleeding from the pressure of her nails into her palms before lunchtime.

Then, when they were on their way home, Jenny saw it. A small brownish red mark high on Beth's neck just behind her right ear -- one of Quentin's favorite places to kiss his wife. He was so fond of that particular spot that he had occasionally left marks just like the one Beth now sported.

"Harlot!" Jenny screamed, reaching her hands out to grab Beth roughly.

Beth didn't even manage to utter Jenny's name before found her hands around her throat. Fortunately, even in Jenny's deranged state, Beth was still the stronger of the two women, and she grabbed Jenny's hands, pulling them from around her neck.

Beth held Jenny's hands in a merciless grip. "Jenny. What are you going on about?"

"That!" Jenny spat looking contemptuously at Beth's neck.

"What?" Beth was still confused.

"On your neck. That *mark*." Jenny's tone was level in a way that indicated that she was getting angrier, rather than calmer.

Beth suspected that she knew what kind of 'mark' Jenny meant. "Jenny. I don't have a mark on my neck. Look again."

Jenny examined Beth's neck again. When she didn't see the mark, Beth felt her relax and released her wrists.

Jenny reached one trembling hand forward and hesitantly touched Beth behind the right ear. "It was right here," she whispered. "Beth? What's happening to me?" The confusion she felt was nearly palpable.

"I don't know." Beth reached out and put her arms around Jenny, holding her to her breast, protectively.

* * * * *

Laura sat in the drawing room window, watching for Jenny and Beth to come home. She was certain that they must have sprung the little trap she'd set for them on the way home. Oh! How she wished she'd been there to see the look on Beth's face when Jenny attacked her! Perhaps Jenny even killed her! That *would* be delightful! It would get rid of the only other two women in the house that Quentin had ever found attractive -- well, all of them except for one, but Laura had taken of *her* more than a decade earlier.

"My, don't you look like a cat who's gotten into the cream."

Laura didn't have to turn around to identify the owner of that dour, humorless voice. "Edward." She spun to face him. "What brings you here? Shouldn't you be at your office counting your shekels or something?"

"Is there something wrong with wanting to spend some time with my wife and children?"

Laura laughed at the thought that Edward would ever want to spend time with her. "You're just here out of morbid curiosity, Edward. You're here to find out what's happening with Jenny today, after her little screaming fit this
morning, aren't you?"

Edward's ears turned red when she said this -- a sign that she knew meant that she had hit the truth squarely.

"Well, I'll tell you. Nothing has happened. It was completely calm today. Obviously it was just one of those things."

Edward and Laura continued talking, completely missing Beth and Jenny's return home. Quentin came down the stairs, finding an obviously distraught Beth and an even more upset Jenny walking in through the front door.

"I have to go up to my room," Jenny choked out, shoving Quentin to one side and darting up the stairs.

"What happened?" Quentin asked Beth once Jenny had gone upstairs.

"I don't think we should talk about it here," Beth looked pointedly at Laura and Edward in the drawing room.

They walked down the hallway to the room at the base of the stairs to the 'tower room.' Quentin unlocked the door and they stepped inside.

Quentin took Beth's cold hands in his warm ones. "Now, what happened?"

"She had another one of her spells. She said that there was a mark on my neck."

"A mark? What kind of . . . ? Oh, *that* kind of mark. And she thought that I gave it to you?"

Beth nodded. "Oh, Mr. Collins. I wish that there was something I could do for her."

"So do I, Beth."

He pulled Beth to him, seeking to use her strength as a shield from his own desolation.

They gazed into each others' eyes for a long moment, and then he lowered his mouth to hers for a crushing, desperate kiss.

"We can't!" she whispered, pulling away from him.

"We can't help it," his response was barely audible, coming as it did between gasps.

His hands went to the buttons on the back of her dress, and hers went to the buttons on the front of his shirt. They were both surprised that they had been able to contain their desperation enough that they didn't rip any of their clothes. Finally, they were there, in the darkened, locked room, together, naked.

He kissed her again, lowering her gently to the floor, where he made love to her as slowly as he could stand to. At first, he comforted himself with the idea that it was only their mutual wretchedness that made them reach out to each other, but in the heat of their passion, the truth came out.

"I love you, Beth."

Tears brimmed in her eyes as she returned his sentiment, "I love you, too, Quentin."

* * * * *

Afterwards, once they'd recuperated from their lovemaking, they stood up and began to get dressed in silence, not daring to look at each other.

"Beth?"

"Yes, Mr. Collins?"

"I meant what I said before, about loving you."

"I know."

"I love Jenny, too."

"I know that, too."

"I've been thinking that maybe if I weren't here, Jenny would get better. Since she seems to think that we're . . . ." His voice faded, as the realization sank in that he and Beth really *were* having an affair.

"Yes," she nodded, although he didn't see it. "That makes sense."

"Take care of her for me."

"I will."

With that, Quentin opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. He went up to his bedroom, where he quickly packed the necessities in his suitcase. He returned downstairs, opened the front door, and stepped out into the night.

* * * * *

Laura, watching through the front windows, saw him leaving. {You're not going anywhere without me, Quentin,} she thought as she hastened upstairs to pack her own bag.

* * * * *

Beth returned to Jenny's room, where Jenny had a towel wrapped around her hair. "Oh, Beth! You're right on time! What do you think?"

Beth was struck dumb by what she saw when Jenny removed the towel. Her hair had turned red!

She looked in the mirror and gave Beth a deranged smile. "I told you I've always wanted to be a blonde, so I bought this while I was in town," she indicated a bottle that was sitting on her nightstand. "Didn't it do a wonderful job?"