pinkninjaPJ

Evidently he was not, for as they hung their hats up in the hall Jane could clearly hear sounds of argument coming from what she presumed was the kitchen. "Jeez, Q, how many did you make?"

"Uh...three hundred and forty seven."

"Beloved husband and love of my life, why did you make 347 tea biscuits?"

"Because we have company?"

"So what, we're gonna eat a hundred apiece?"

"A hundred and sixte- .......ah. I'll lay out eighteen why don't I."

"Eighteen sounds lovely."

Beside her Miss Reed was smirking fondly. Spinster aunt to one of them, Jane guessed. "Lu, we're here," she called.

The prospective client met them in the sitting room. Young, but not excessively so, self-assured, very modern, and about seven months by the look of her. She put out her hand to shake. "Mrs. Underhill, thank you so much for coming out all this way."

It was indeed a very long way from Tilbury, and Miss Reed had told her practically nothing on the drive out, besides the very generous fee offering and some pointed remarks about discretion. The whole affair was decidedly queer, but it wouldn't be the first time.

"What is it you wish to know of me, ma'am?"

"Kate - Miss Reed that is - tells me you're a certified midwife," Mrs. Harker began, but Jane cut her off.

"No ma'am. Bona fide, not certified. I'm a working woman, and don't fancy letting some Doctor act like he knows my job better than I do. 956 babes I've brought into this world alive, and that should be enough to satisfy anyone."

"And how many dead?"

Jane met her gaze straight on. "Eight, in 37 year."

The young woman nodded, and made a note. "Can you tell me anything about your experience with children who might be...somewhat...atypical?"

Definitely queer. But the mother seemed mortal enough...

"No ma'am." Mrs. Harker shot the older woman a puzzled look. Jane allowed herself to puff up slightly. "Once the babe is in its mother's arms, never a word more do I say of it. To anyone."

Mrs. Harker opened her mouth and shut it again. Jane smiled at her. "Perhaps we should speak privately."

"It's alright Kate."

Miss Reed nodded and stood up. "I won't be far if you need me."

When she had gone Jane looked at the client sternly but, she hoped, kindly.

"Alright dear, tell me what happened."

Mrs. Harker reddened. "I don't think - does... does that make a difference? Are you asking which of us was... uh..."

"I am asking who the father was."

Her expression turned icy. "Mr. Harker is the father."

Jane sighed. "I can't help you if you won't be honest with me. Do you think you're the first girl who went out walking by herself under the full moon, or fell asleep in an orchard on midsummer's eve, or danced too late with a masked stranger, or followed a particularly beautiful horse out into a lake at dusk? These things happen, and you need not fear your husband hearing of it from me, but I do need to know."

The girl in question was on her feet now, quivering in rage. "Get out of my house."

Jane stood and sniffed. "Ah, I see I was mistaken about the situation. Seeing as you're just as happy to be delivered at hospital with doctors and newspapermen crawling all over you, I'll be on my way then." She made no move toward the door. If that child was fully human she'd eat her hat - the only question was how steadfast the mother would be in putting her own pride over the well-being of her babe.

Mrs. Harker glared daggers at her, clearly grappling with the same question. That was a positive sign. If she couldn't bend, well, maybe it would be for the best if the father's Folk came to claim the changeling...

"Knock knock, I don't mean to intrude, but tea's up."

Jane sat back down, maintaining eye contact with the incandescent woman as a very fairfaced young man came in with the tea tray, laden with a judicious number of biscuits. She took one. "Thank you dearie." This must be the husband - best not to let him see them arguing.

"No. No! You don't get to sit there eating my biscuits." Mr. Harker straightened in alarm. His wife was practically spitting. "Kate get this woman out of my house!"

Miss Reed appeared in the doorway, eyebrows raised. Jane put down the biscuit.

"Lu, Lu, you're upset. Come on, sit back down." His face was a mask of anguished concern that he clearly thought he was hiding well, and he was deathly pale. Ah. That kind of husband. "What happened? Tell me, please."

"Damn right I'm upset," she snapped, but let her husband arrange her back in her seat. "She's accusing me of carrying on like some kind of dollymop!"

He looked between the two of them, brow furrowed. "Oh...well... if that's the concern we- we haven't been. No one's really been in the mood for that sort of thing and we didn't know if it would hurt the -"

"Q," his wife cut him off. "That is not what she meant."

"Oh? What did she mean?"

The last thing she wanted to do was cause problems with the girl's husband - especially an interfering husband. "Just a silly old woman speaking out of turn," she said, lowering her eyes deferentially. "Pay it no mind - I shouldn't like to bother you with my foolishness." If she could get rid of him maybe she could earn back the wife's trust.

"Bull hockey! She -"

"Lu, wait." He was peering at her strangely, and his eyes had a queer ruddy sheen. "Mrs. Underhill is frightened - of me. Does she know -"

"She doesn't know a goddamned thing."

"Well...maybe if we explained things to her, we could patch things up and start over on better terms." He had knelt now and taken his wife's hands in his. "Please, Lu. You know how important this is."

"I do! That's why I don't want to entrust our baby to someone who takes me for a liar!"

From the doorway Miss Reed gave a curt nod. "I'll see who else we can turn up." Then, turning to her, "We're sorry for taking up so much of your time, Mrs. Underhill."

Jane stood up. That was that then. "I'm sorry I couldn't be of more assistance," she told her. To Mr. Harker she said "thank you for the biscuits," then met Mrs. Harker's still furious gaze with every ounce of sympathy she could put into her own. "When you change your mind, dear, you know where to find me."

"Wait." Surprisingly, it was the husband who spoke. "I still want to know why she's so afraid of me, if not for the obvious reason, when you're the one who's been shouting at her."

"In my profession I've been shouted at many a time by young ladies in the heat of things," she said, smiling, and praying that it looked genuine, "but rarely been called out to a grand old house like this in the big city. I'm just a poor working woman, so I'll beg your pardon if I'm easily took aback by such things." Yes it was very much time to leave. She knew better than to speculate on what 'the obvious reason' might be.

"See? She's talking to me like I'm Father!"

"Quincey, it's nothing like that. She just -" Mrs. Harker had put a placating hand on her husband but now rolled her eyes. "She's convinced I tupped a kelpie or some other poppycock codswallop."

He thought about that. "But surely we'd be able to tell if there were hooves in there, wouldn't we?" A stifled snort of laughter from Miss Reed. "Anyway what has that got to do with me?"

"Well some fellas would be understandably upset by that sort of thing!"

"Why, what do kelpies eat?"

"Beloved husband and love of my life, that is so not the point here." She sighed. "But yes, they eat people, and no, we are not having one. God knows we do not need to invent new things to worry about."

He got very quiet. Then, softly: "Mrs. Underhill please sit back down. I have a few questions I'd like to ask you."

Jane didn't like this at all. No good ever came of men interfering feminine issues. Nevertheless she sat. "Begging your pardon, Sir, I had understood that the interview was over."

He drew up a chair next to his wife and looked at her seriously. Those eyes...

"The final decision is of course Mrs. Harker's, but I want to know about the kelpie."

"Goddammit Q, what did I just -"

"I know what you said. I want to hear what she is going to say. Mrs. Underhill, when you delivered the kelpie, what did you do with it?"

"As I have already told your lady wife," she said coldly, "once a babe is in its mother's arms, I have no more to say about it."

His eyes blazed with fiery intensity. "But before that? If before the mother sees, you find yourself holding a monster, what then? A born killer, the enemy of human life? If you were called in to deliver the antichrist himself...would you let that child live long enough to cry out, or destroy it before it could bring ruin on the world?"

And this was why you didn't involve the husbands! She met his gaze with equal fury. "I deal in babes, not monsters. And I am a midwife, bona fide, not a butcher. My job is to bring them into the world, no more - and certainly no less! The antichrist baptized grew to be Merlin the Magician."

"So he did." He glanced at his stricken wife. "It's up to you, but that's a pretty encouraging answer I think."

"Quincey what the hell."

He shrugged. "Lying to me to protect you was very admirable of her, but it wasn't exactly getting us anywhere. I think we all understand each other a bit better now, is it not so?" He looked expectantly at the three of them.

Jane kept her lips pressed firmly together and returned his gaze in steadfast fury. Miss Reed stirred sugar into her tea and said nothing. Mrs. Harker slumped into her chair in frustration. "I guess!"

"Oh, also, I just had a really good ide-"

"We are not naming the baby Merlin!"

"But it's also a kind of bird -"

Miss Reed broke in. "Quincey, could you be a darling and pack up some of these biscuits for the boys? They're just lovely."

"Are they good? I used a lavender infusion and just a pinch of -" Miss Reed's look became more pointed. "Ah. Yes. I'll let you ladies figure things out from here why don't I?"

"Quincey, beloved, I appreciate what you're trying to do," his wife told him tiredly, "but I can't work with someone who won't believe me. That's just as important as all the rest."

"No that's so. We'll just have to give her a reason to believe us. Whoever proves trustworthy with big things can be trusted with little ones after all."

The wife's face had become as pained as her husband's, and Miss Reed had stopped even pretending to drink the tea. "Love, you don't have to do this."

Mr. Harker met her gaze again and Jane couldn't have looked away if she'd wanted to. "Mrs. Underhill, we invited you here because you have a reputation of being the woman to call for non-human births. They say you can see what most people can't."

"Just with the one eye, Sir," she answered cautiously. "That's why I keep it covered."

"Could you take it off now, please?" His wife was now gripping his hand tightly.

Jane didn't like this, but she'd gotten as far as she had by doing as she was told...mostly. She lifted the eyepatch.

Where Mr. Harker had been sitting was a formless shadow, an emptiness the light disdained to touch. "We don't what the baby will be," it said, "but I'm a vampire. Welcome to my home - enter freely, go safely."

Jane swallowed hard. "I see, Sir." Well this was certainly something new.

"And now I'll get out of your hair and see about tinning up those biscuits!" the doubled image of devouring void and nervous young man announced with jarring cheerfulness. Jane hastily re-covered her Touched eye.

"So," Miss Reed said softly, when it had gone, "are we staying or going?"

"That was the babe's father?" Jane asked.

"As I have already told you," Mrs. Harker said tiredly. "I promise you, he really is a sweetheart. Most of the time."

Queer didn't begin to cover it, but it wouldn't be the first time. "I'd best stay then, if you'll still have me." Though not, by any means, under this roof. "Sweetheart" or no, she hadn't gotten where she was by being stupid.

"Have you, in fact, delivered a vampire baby before?" She held up her hand, forstalling any objection. "I'm not asking about your clients, just about you."

"No ma'am," she answered promptly. "Nor, I'd warrant, has anybody else. What's dead don't typically produce life."

"So you can't tell us what to expect either. Capital."

"I can tell you you should expect to be in childbed by Martinmas. And I can tell you if the babe is breach, and help it out all the same if it is. And I can tell you which of the pangs ought to be marked and which must simply be endured." She shrugged. "No birth is ever quite the same as another. I'll not impose where I'm not wanted, but you'll not find better in hospital."

"You will be my guest," he said at last—and he didn't seem too glad about saying it. No doubt he'd have preferred a pretty young girl as a houseguest to a weathered old sailor. But he gave me run of the place—I could help myself to anything, go anywhere I pleased. I didn't understand it. He'd been ready to kill me for a rose, and now he was giving me everything in the house?

I wasn't about to complain, though, so I set about to enjoy the place. The Beast encouraged me to enjoy the luxuries of the palace, but I've always been a working man—I didn't fancy living the life of an idle aristocrat. Before the week was out, I was working in the gardens—the place was overgrown like you wouldn't believe. When I wanted a rest, I'd explore the castle, and boy, was there plenty to see. He had rooms upon rooms of treasures—paintings, silks, wines, musical instruments, even an entire room full of exotic birds! I'd made my living selling such things, and my head swam at the sight of it—a tenth of it would have been worth more than all the riches I could have transported in ten lifetimes.

I didn't make my fortune by having dull wits, and I didn't lose it for lack of courage, so it wasn't long before I began to piece together the truth of this place and confronted the Beast with it.

"How long have you been cursed, your highness?" I asked him one evening at supper.

That great big cat was so shocked he knocked a wine bottle off the table. "Who says I am cursed?"

"Blazes, man, I'm not blind! This palace is worth more than most of the kingdoms of the world put together. If there was a king out there this rich, you can bet every merchant in the world would know of him. He'd have destroyed the world's economy. Fairy magic's the only way you get a horde like this, but you, sir, are no fairy."

Now the Beast seemed intrigued. "How do you know that?"

"A fairy would never have let me live—if he promised to kill me, he'd have killed me. No mercy among their kind. Only a human could have changed his mind like that—for which I'm very grateful, by the way."

"You're welcome," he said, seeming dazed.

I went on, "You're definitely more than a dumb beast; you walk and talk and dress like a man, so it stands to reason you were a man once—that furry coat of yours is just some fairy shell. Same way all these riches are probably just dirt and ashes once you take away the magic. Which means you must have run afoul of a fairy sometime in your past, who decided to curse you with an animal body and then trap you in a palace full of false riches."

I looked at the furnishings, the food, the Beast's clothes—everything spoke of royalty. "Fairies always meddle with royals, so you must have been a prince. The seventh son of the king of Gher went missing just before I went on my last voyage, so I'd wager that he is you. Am I right?"

The Beast goggled. "I…can't say."

"Which means I'm right. No fairy worth his salt would let you say you were cursed. Which means all I have to do is figure out how to break it. Those fairies always give you a way out—the more improbable the better."

I came around to his side of the table so I could walk around him and examine him from all angles. "You were disappointed when I came—you wanted one of my daughters, not me. When I did come, you didn't seem too keen on killling me—which makes me think it was an empty threat, trying to convince me to send my daughter instead. Which means she must be the way to break the curse. What can she do that I can't? Easy—true love. No fairy would think a girl could love a hulking monster like you, so that would be their impossible way to break the curse. You needed, what—true love? Marriage?"

"I can't say," the Beast said, but I knew by his face that I'd hit upon the right answer.

"That makes things simple. You let me out once before. Let me go home again and fetch one of my girls, tell her there's a prince waiting for her, and bring her back to join you in wedded bliss."

He seemed genuinely horrified by that. "I…can't say."

"Oh, of course. It won't count if she knows you're a prince. Well, I'll leave that part out. Tell her that the Beast who spared my life is in need of more company. With a bit of time and a bit of encouragement from her old dad, we'll have you back in human form by Christmas."

He thought it was worth a try, and something he could arrange with the conditions of his curse. So I went home to my children, convinced my sons not to follow me to slay the Beast, and made the castle sound intriguing enough that all three of my girls agreed to join me. I thought that maybe Hope would be the one to break the curse—she's always been the boldest of my girls—but it turned out that my quiet, gentle Beauty brought out the soft side of the Beast. It was the cutest thing you ever saw, the way they'd sit together reading in the rose gardens, that great big cat as shy as a schoolboy with her.

It wasn't three weeks before the Beast worked up the courage to propose—and my Beauty accepted without hesitation. Then there was blinding light and earthquakes, and when the dust cleared, the palace was gone. We were standing in a clearing in the woods—and a black-haired prince stood where the black-haired Beast had once been.

He's an excellent boy—I'll be proud to call him a son. He doesn't mind at all that his bride's the daughter of a failed merchant or that she once worked on a farm. We'll all be moving to his palace across the sea to live as honored members of the family.

Which is why we're moving out on such short notice—his highness doesn't want to be away from his kingdom any longer than he has to. I'm sure you'll find someone else to take the old place off your hands.