Mercedes Lackey: The Gates of Sleep

“And meanwhile, I am living here—convalescing—until they are far away from my estate,” Marina said firmly. “I do not intend to set foot there until they are gone.” She smiled, charmingly, a smile that made him melt. “Besides, it’s perfectly proper. My guardians are here, and you’re not only my physician, you’re my fiance.”

He blinked. Not that he minded, but—when had that happened? “Now wait a bit—” he said.

“Are you saying you don’t want to be my fiance?” she asked, her serene smile wavering not at all.

Of course he wanted to! He couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life with anyone else! But she was so young—it wasn’t fair to her—”No, but—dammit, Marina, you’re only seventeen!”

“Almost eighteen,” she interrupted.

“You’ve never been anywhere but Blackbird Cottage and Oakhurst!” he continued stubbornly. “You’re wealthy, you’re beautiful, you’ll be pursued by dozens of suitors—”

“—none of whom are worthy to polish your scalpels,” she said impishly.

“And I don’t want you to miss that!” he cried, voice cracking, as he gave words to what he was really afraid of. “I don’t want you to look at me across the room one day, and wish that you hadn’t gone so fast, that you’d had your London season, that you’d had a chance to be petted and courted, seen at the opera and Ascot—had all those things that you should have—”

“Very nicely put, Doctor,” Lady Elizabeth said, patting his hand complacently. “And she’ll have all those things. A little thing like an engagement to a country doctor is not going to put off those hordes of suitors. I intend to see she gets that London season myself. And when she’s had her fill of it, she’ll come back here, and marry you, and between all of Madam’s money and her own, I do believe you’ll be able to turn Briareley into a first-class establishment.”

He blinked as the three women laughed together, exchanging a glance that excluded all the mere males in the room. “Ah—” he managed, and dredged up the only thing he hadn’t exactly understood. “Madam’s money?”

“I’m the only heir—I’ll have all her property and Reggie’s too in a few months,” Marina said—with just enough malicious pleasure that he felt a rush of relief to see that she was human after all. “I doubt that they’ll live longer than that. I’ll be cleaning up the potteries, of course—which will mean they won’t be quite so profitable—but there will still be enough coming in, I believe, to make all of the improvements here that you could wish.” She made a face. “And in addition to having that delightful London season, I’m afraid I’m going to have to learn how to run a business—”

Oh, my love! I won’t let your season be spoiled! “You’ll have help,” he assured her. “Surely there must be someone we can trust to guide you through it. Or even take over for you.”

“My man of business, to begin with,” Lady Elizabeth said airily. “And after that—I think I can find a business-minded Earth or Water Master to become your manager. Someone who, needless to say, will be as careful of the land, the water, and the workers as he is of the pounds and pence.”

“Needless to say,” he repeated, and suddenly felt as if he was being swept up again in something beyond his control.

But this time, it was something very, very pleasant. And it was all in the hands of these utterly charming women, one of whom he had loved almost from the moment she had walked into Briareley to help a little factory-girl she didn’t even know.

“I think I’d like to sleep now,” he said meekly. “Unless—”

Then he remembered his duties, and tried to sit up, frantically. “My patients!” he exclaimed.

“Are fine. They have my personal physician, and the village doctor to attend their needs. And two Earth Masters, a Water Master, and a Fire Master.” Lady Elizabeth pushed him down again. “And if that isn’t enough, my physician is bringing in several fine nurses he can recommend who would very much like to relocate to this lovely slice of Devon.”

“And I am hiring them, so you needn’t worry where the money is coming from,” Marina concluded. “Now, if you won’t sleep, I can’t sleep. So must I prescribe for the physician or will you be sensible?”

“I’ll be sensible,” he replied, giving in with a sigh. “So long as you are, too—”

And he whispered the last two words. “—my love.”

“I will be,” she replied, smiling. “My love.”

One thing was very certain, he thought, as he drifted into real slumber. He was never going to get tired of those two delightful words.

Never.

Epilogue

MARINA’S bridal gown was by Worth, and it satisfied every possible craving that a young woman could have with regard to a frock. It should have—Worth had had more than two years to create it, and the most difficult part of the work had been making certain it stayed up to the minute in mode. Silk satin, netting embroidered with seed pearls, heavy swaths of Venice lace, the fashionable S-shape silhouette, a train just short of royal in length—no woman could ask for more.

The gardens at Oakhurst, cleansed and scoured of all of the blood-magic Arachne and Reggie had done there—with every vestige of Cold Iron removed and hauled off as scrap—and with a section carefully set aside as a “wild garden” where no gardener was allowed to trespass—made the perfect setting for a wedding. And it was going to be a very, very large wedding. Every room at Oakhurst was full, not only with fellow Masters, but with some of the many friends that Marina had made in her two successful London seasons. Most of those were girl friends—a young lady who was safely engaged to a sober and undesirable young working man was no rival, and thus safe to become friends with. Besides, it soon proved that Andrew Pike knew an amazing number of other, quite personable young men, who, even if they weren’t all precisely what a marriage-minded mama would have preferred, made very good escorts. And generally were good dancers into the bargain.

The rooms in all the inns for miles around were full. All of the stately homes and some of the not-so-stately had guests. There were even guests at Briareley, in the special, private rooms. This was a wedding long-anticipated, long in the planning, and long in the consummation.

Andrew had insisted—and had gotten his way—that they not actually get married until Marina was twenty-one. He wanted not a shadow of doubt that she was making a free choice among all the possible suitors. He had almost relented, when his head nurse Eleanor had wed Thomas Buford—finally meeting the mate she deserved over Andrew’s sickbed. Thomas had moved his workshop to Briareley when Andrew burst in on the two and demanded to know just what he was going to do without the best nurse he had.

All in fun, of course, but the workshop was proving to be very useful in providing some of the poorer children with an opportunity to learn a skill. That left the Tarrants alone in Blackbird Cottage for the first time in their lives, a state which seemed to agree perfectly with them. Marina had never seen them so happy.

Margherita was Marina’s matron-of-honor, and Ellen, who was now a nurse herself, her chief maid-of-honor, and Sebastian was giving the bride away. Thomas was standing up for Andrew, who, if Sebastian was to be believed, was as nervous as a cat and white as a sheet.

She didn’t believe it. After all he’d been through, what could possibly make him nervous about a little thing like a wedding?

With Ellen, Margherita, and her society friends hovering around her like a flock of twittering birds, she took a last, long look in the mirror, and was pleased with what she saw. If she was no beauty—despite what Andrew said—she thought she cut a rather handsome figure.