by Bree Verity
The maid sniffed, unimpressed. "Well, I certainly won't be courtin' the mistress' wrath by wakin' her guests up at this hour of the mornin'. Be off with you and come back at a decent hour." And with that, she shut the door in Fenella's face.
Fenella took a surprised step back, not even given time to argue. There was no help for it. She would have to appear in the room and then immediately hide herself, hoping that if there were other room occupants, they didn't see her.
She winked into the room, which turned out to be a bedroom. Diana slept soundly in the bed, apparently unaware of the consternation she had caused everyone overnight. Happily, the room was empty apart from her, so Fenella didn't need to try to hide herself immediately, which relieved her. She admitted, even if she would never tell Lachlan, that she was not very good at the invisibility spell. It was an air spell, and her magic seemed to favor fire and earth spells.
She shook Diana by the shoulder. "Wake up, Diana," she said, far less gently than she had awoken Lachlan.
At the rough hand on her shoulder shaking her, Diana sat up wildly, blinking like an owl. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and to register that Fenella was standing before her.
"You," she said, in a similarly loathing tone to Simon's. "Where have you been? Do you know what happened because you disappeared?"
"Yes," said Fenella shortly. "But we're not concerned with that right now. We need to get you home."
"Change me back first," insisted Diana. "I am so sick to death of being Annie."
"I can't,"
"Why ever not?" Diana was indignant.
"Because then there will be two Lady Diana's."
"I don't understand."
Fenella sighed. "I can't change you back until Lachlan has changed back to himself. If you have only stayed put, none of this would have happened."
"It was hardly my fault," replied Diana, still indignant. "If you had not disappeared to goodness knows wherever and left us all there not knowing what was going on..."
"I had good reason," Fenella interrupted.
"I cannot imagine any reason good enough," replied Diana with asperity.
"I was saving the life of a little girl with soul sickness."
Diana paused. In a mollified tone she said, "Very well, that is probably reason enough. So how do we get back? Are you going to conjure up a coach and horses?"
"I don't know where you get these strange ideas, Diana," complained Fenella. "I suppose you want me to conjure up a handsome prince as well? And some glass slippers."
"Do not be foolish, Fenella. Nobody could wear glass slippers. They would be uncomfortable, and fraught with danger."
"Tell that to Cinderella," Fenella muttered, but when Diana threw her a confused look, she shook her head and said, "Never mind. I can't conjure anything like that up. We will need to return the same way you came - on the mail."
Diana sighed. "It was dreadfully uncomfortable," she said. "Can we not at least hire a private coach?"
"Not unless you can pay for it."
Diana got out of bed and looked in a small purse that was stored on top of a set of drawers. "I am afraid my money will not stretch to that," she said ruefully. Then she had an idea. "Perhaps I can ask Chastity Maude for a loan."
"Chastity Maude?"
"The lady that owns this house. She took me under her wing yesterday evening and offered me accommodation in her home while I waited for you to arrive."
Fenella was suddenly suspicious. "You did not tell her about me, did you?"
"No. Only that I had some issues that would be shortly resolved."
"Good." Fenella seemed relieved. "Lachlan would kill me if more people knew about us. Where can we find this Chastity Maude?"
Diana seemed uncomfortable. "I am not certain she will be here. She told me she might be called out during the evening and that I was not to worry if she had not returned by breakfast."
"Just what type of work does she do that might require her nighttime attendance? Is she a nurse? An undertaker perhaps?"
"No, neither of those." Diana stared at Fenella. "Nurses are almost always nuns, and undertakers are always men."
"So, what then?"
Diana swallowed. "She is a... lady of the night."
"A prostitute?" Fenella did not seem particularly concerned.
"Yes. I met her on the mail coach."
"Huh." Fenella started to wander around the room, touching this thing and that. "How long do you think we shall have to wait for her."
"Let me find out." Diana reached for the bell pull and yanked on it. With a muttered curse, Fenella disappeared. Very shortly thereafter the came into the room.
"Good morning, Miss," the maid said. "Can I get you some chocolate? Help you with your dress?"
"No, I was just hoping you could tell me when Mistress Prudence will be home?"
"She came in early this morning, Miss. But she will be asleep for a good portion of the morning."
"Thank you. Perhaps you could bring two mugs of chocolate for me?"
"Two, Miss?"
"Yes." The maid's eyebrow raised and Diana continued, "I find I am quite famished this morning." Diana told the lie without even a blush.
"Certainly, Miss." The maid regarded her with a look of censure and left the room.
Fenella returned to sight, saying petulantly, "I hate those invisibility spells. Thank goodness she wasn't here for long."
Diana ignored her. "Mistress Prudence won't be available until a little later..."
"Yes, thank you," snapped Fenella. "I was only invisible, not deaf."
"Well, how should I know?" snapped Diana in return.
Fenella gave her a half-smile. "I am sorry," she said. "This whole situation has me a little on edge. Lachlan is angry with me. And I don't exactly know what I should do."
"What situation?" Diana hopped back into bed, encouraging Fenella to seat herself on the bed with a pat of her hand. Fenella sat and sighed.
"I've discovered something new about my magic that puts me at odds with the First Imperative of being a fairy godmother," she explained. "The First Imperative is that the happily ever after is the most important thing."
Diana nodded. "That seems reasonable, for a fairy godmother."
"Except now that I know I can heal, it seems more important to me to do that, rather than work toward someone's happily ever after."
"That also seems reasonable."
"Except that fae history suggests that bringing about the happily ever after of humans is necessary for the survival of our race."
"Oh." Diana's brow furrowed. "So, it seems to be a choice between the good of the one or the good of the many."
Fenella nodded slowly. "Except, there is some conjecture that the need for happily ever afters is the stuff of myth and legends."
Diana's brows rose. "Ah. You are not convinced it is necessary?"
"I don't know."
"Well, that certainly is a conundrum."
"Lachlan is totally certain that we need happily ever afters, so when I said I was not sure, he was devastated." Fenella heard the sadness in her own voice. "I never wanted to hurt him. But I have to be sure that what I'm doing is the best use of the magic I have."
Diana nodded her agreement, but also added, "And it needs to be your decision alone, which makes it even more difficult."
"Yes."
"Well." Diana exhaled heavily. "I do not begrudge you that."
Fenella laughed humorlessly. "No, I suppose you do not."
There was a rap on the door and Fenella disappeared just in time as the maid re-entered saying cheerfully, "Here we go. Two hot chocolates." She frowned a little at the deep divet in the bed where Fenella still sat, commenting, "That mattress looks a little bumpy, Miss. Shall I have the footmen beat it for you later?"
"Yes please," replied Diana.
The maid smiled and placed the two cups on a table beside the bed. "Is there anything else, Miss?"
"Not right at the moment, thank yo
u."
With a smile and a curtsey, the maid left, and Fenella reappeared, frowning.
"Doesn't anybody wait for an answer these days?" she said crossly, only to find Diana smiling at her frown. "What?"
"You truly do hate the invisibility spells."
"I really do." Her bad humor disappeared a little as the curl of chocolate-scented steam caught her nostril. "Mmmm, that smells delicious."
"So," said Diana, taking up her cup and blowing across the surface to cool the beverage. "What do we do now?"
Taking up her own steaming cup, Fenella replied, "We wait."
Chapter Twenty-Four.
When Simon knocked at the door of Madame Chastity Maude Prudence's house in Cheapside, he did not quite know what to expect. He had been riding for hours - he had thrown himself on a fast horse the moment Fenella disappeared before his eyes, and had been following his own plan, to chase down Diana's direction by tracking her movements from the mail coaching inns.
After three hours of fast riding - changing horses twice as he went - he took himself to the London offices of the mail coach first, only to discover a driver there who knew Diana - by dint of the fact that she had gone off with a lady of ill-repute, a matter that had been discussed loudly by several of the passengers of that coach, including one loud, obnoxious spinster woman who had insisted it was the driver's responsibility to watch for the moral tone of his passengers, that she had been horrified to discover she was traveling with a whore, and that the driver should have taken the obviously naive and innocent young woman under his wing, instead of allowing her to go with That Woman.
Simon's heart had flailed at the news, to be only slightly mollified by the news that the lady in question seemed to have no designs on Diana's innocence, and only offered her somewhere to stay. He asked the driver if he knew the address of the lady, only to be met with a frown.
"What makes you think I'd know the address of a lady like that?" the driver asked indignantly.
Simon realized his error too late. "I do apologize," he replied smoothly. "Of course, I did not mean you would specifically know..."
"What I can tell you is that the whore in question is a woman by the name of Madame Prudence. You should be able to find her direction in Harris' List of Covent Garden Ladies."
With that, the driver turned away.
Simon's lip quirked. He had to admit, Harris' List was, in fact, on his shelves, but not for the reason one would expect. Working the slums, he regularly came across the ladies, and he used his Harris' List to keep a record of their various ills and diseases. It made diagnosis of the men that came to see him following an encounter with such ladies much easier.
He set off for his own small office in London to gather up the volume, then, discovering Madame Prudence's published direction, he made his way to the bawdy house she operated out of.
Entering the house, he was immediately seized upon by two powdered and perfumed ladies, one a redhead and the other a startlingly white blonde. Both were underweight, and Simon winced as he noticed rampant mouth sores under the rouge on the lips of one, and an unhealthy jaundice around the eyes of the other. Both smelled of gin, despite the hour being just past the sun's zenith. But his manner never faltered.
"Good afternoon ladies. I am Doctor Moore and I am afraid that today, I am not here on the usual business."
The two ladies dropped his arms, disappointed. One of them said, "You could mix business with pleasure, duck?" but he smiled and said, "No, I am afraid that I cannot. I am seeking the whereabouts of Madame Prudence. Is she here?"
The redhead sniffed. "Got herself a fancy piece that one. 'Ardly see her round here anymore."
Simon's stomach dropped. "So, she is not here?"
"Nah, duck. She's prob'ly at her own place."
"Her own place?"
The blonde interrupted, with a voice like a cracked pipe. "Bought it with her own coin, she said, but I reckon as soon as her fancy piece is done, she'll be out on her arse and back here before you can say old and loose." The two women cackled, and Simon smiled politely.
"Do you know her direction?" he asked.
"Sure. It's Number 7 Broad Street. In Cheapside. One of them fancy new 'ouses that all look the same in a row."
Thanking the ladies profusely, Simon hurried back to the street, glad to breathe the clean air. It was cloying inside the house, heavy perfumes being used to cover the telltale scents of squalor and disease.
He quickly made his way to Broad Street, pleased to find it was a nice house in a clean neighborhood. He rang the bell, and a sour-faced maid popped her head out.
"Yes?"
"I was wondering if you have a young woman by the name of Annie staying here."
"Quite the popular one, isn't she?" the maid replied scathingly.
"So, she is here?"
"Yes."
"May I see her?"
"Simon!"
From inside the house, he heard Annie's voice call his name and as the maid opened the door wider, she crashed down the stairs and flung herself into his arms.
Simon took a step back to catch her weight, then crushed her in his embrace. "I will never abandon you again," he said, but the fierce quality of his voice and perhaps the force of his embrace saw Diana struggling from his arms and taking a step back.
"Well, that's very chivalrous of you, Simon," she said, her voice uncertain, but pinning him with her eyes.
"I do apologize," started Simon, his face reddening, but Diana stopped him.
"There is no need for apologies," she said.
They stared at each other for a long moment before Fenella said, "About time you showed up," and broke the moment. Simon scowled at her.
"I would have been here sooner if you had just given me the direction before you left. As it was, I have been scouting around the London Mail, and a bawdy house, just so I could find my way here."
"You did that for me?" Diana's face held a charmed smile and Simon took up her hand and said, "Of course."
Again, the smoldering look between them was interrupted by Fenella. "Well, now you're here, why don't you make yourself useful? We need a vehicle to get back to Edenburgh Manor."
"What?" Simon had only been listening with half an ear, but Fenella's words brought his attention fully back to her, "Why do we need to go there?"
"Because we need to do a quick switch between the two Diana's," Fenella said and Simon detected a note of impatience in her voice. "It would be most awkward if anyone noticed two Lady Diana's wandering around."
Simon nodded. "In that case, I shall procure a carriage forthwith," he declared. He noticed he was still holding Diana's hand, and he lay a kiss on it, saying to her, "I shall return in no time, and we can sort this mess out once and for all."
Before Diana could respond, Fenella snapped, "Yes, yes, hurry up, you can coo and pet all you like once you get the carriage."
Simon colored again and left the house in a hurry.
Diana colored too.
"What do you mean, coo and pet?" she asked Fenella, a little too airily.
Fenella threw her a withering look. "You two are as transparent as glass," she said. "It's obvious to everyone who looks at you that you should be together."
"Together? But we hardly know each other! I haven't seen Doctor Moore in seven years!"
"But before that, you were childhood sweethearts."
"No! Never sweethearts. We were friends. Wonderful friends." Diana sighed. "Then when Simon went to start his physician's training, I gave him an ultimatum. I was very young and foolish, and told him in no uncertain terms that I would not sit around at home waiting for him to come and get me. He left in a huff, and we haven't spoken since."
"Well, it's pretty obvious to me that he still holds a candle for you. And perhaps you should examine those feelings of yours again, because it is also clear as day that you have feelings for him."
"Of course I do. He's come riding to my rescue. Who wouldn't have warm feelings for someone l
ike that?" By now, Diana's face was suffused with blush. "It does not mean I have stronger feelings. Just those of a person who is grateful."
Fenella snorted. "Grateful. Right."
"I am grateful," insisted Diana.
"And a whole lot more than that," commented Fenella, at which Diana made a disconcerted noise and turned on her heel to return to the bed chamber.
Fenella chuckled. "Happily ever after, here we come."
Charity Maude entered the room wrapped in an elegant dressing gown; her eyes bleary. "What is going on?" she said irritably. She noticed Diana huffing off up the stairs, and then she saw Fenella. "Who are you?"
"I'm Fenella, here to see that Diana - oh, I'm sorry, I mean Annie - gets her happily ever after."
"Well, why didn't you say so?" Chastity Maude smiled widely. "Come with me - we can have a nice cup of coffee and you can tell me all about it."
* * *
It took Simon around about an hour to procure a good carriage and two fresh horses, in which time Fenella had spun Chastity Maude a fabricated story about how she was Diana's aunt and how Diana and Simon had fought and she, heroic aunt that she was, had manufactured a meeting between the two of them to clear the way to their romantic ending. Chastity Maude drank in every word and had come upstairs along with Fenella to Diana's bed chamber to encourage her to save her floundering romance.
Diana had rolled her eyes and continued to pack away her meager belongings.
"Surely he has done nothing that cannot be forgiven?" Chastity Maude had said. "Men will always be men - they are foolish and headstrong and give in to their desires without consideration."
"He has not done anything," replied Diana through gritted teeth, throwing an angry glare at Fenella.
"Then why on earth did you leave?" Chastity Maude seemed genuinely disturbed. "A woman does not leave the man she loves unless something dreadful has happened to force her into such action. Oh!" She had a sudden thought. Lowering her voice, Chastity Maude whispered, "Are you in the family way?"
"No!" Diana glanced again at Fenella, who was inspecting her nails. "We are old childhood friends, that is all."
"But if he is just an old childhood friend, why would a falling out make you want to leave? You would more likely have a shouting match, or a day or two of the silent treatment. Surely that is far too strong an action to take for a mere friendship? And then again, why would you be so anxious to return? In my experience, those are the actions of someone who wishes to heal the wound."
