by
Aimee
(aimeed@earthlink.net)
CC moaned, sighed, and rolled over, encountering a hard, hairy arm that had ensconced itself around her shoulders while she slept. She shifted experimentally, and the soreness she felt in her muscles assured her that she was better off asleep. She finally found a comfortable position face down on a muscular chest, with a light dusting of blond chest hair tickling her cheek pleasantly.
Niles smiled down at her. A thin red strap dangled off her pale shoulder, a slight red line on her upper arm marking where it had been pulled tight while she slept. Her closed eyes were smudged with the makeup she had forgotten to remove, and her hair was a wild tornado of neglected curls.
All in all, it had been a most satisfactory honeymoon night.
A mild storm had assaulted the coast just before dawn, drawing them from their private revelry to turn their faces into the wind and rain. CC peeled her gown from her body. Niles shed his pajama pants and seated her on the railing, and there was nothing between them but the warm, wet rain . . .
There was a knock at the door. Niles slid out from underneath CC, who gave a protesting moan and then went back to sleep. He walked into the sitting room still tying his robe around him.
A maid nodded to him, and, blushing slightly at his dishabille, pushed a silver serving cart into the room. After checking to see that breakfast was well-cooked and still hot, Niles paid her a tip that was slightly more than expected, a trick he'd picked up from CC that should ensure top-notch service. Too much of a tip and you would look too easy to please, too little and you would look ungracious. Either way encouraged poor service. But pay just a little more than expected and make your needs clear, and you set yourself up as someone who expects the best and is willing to pay for it.
The butler had been indignant at his wife's noblesse oblige attitude until he really thought about it and realized it was true. And not at all unreasonable, except to someone who was still getting used to being waited on himself.
CC was still face down on the bed. Niles pushed breakfast to the side for the moment and went into the bathroom. Rummaging through her bag, he came up with a bottle of rose-scented cream. He turned the water on as hot as it would go and thrust the bottle under the water to warm the cream. He tested a little on his hand. Not quite warm enough. He ran more hot water on it and tested it again. He smiled wickedly.
Niles gently eased the sheet from around his wife's body. Her gown had ridden up around her hips, her long legs splayed out. Niles tipped some of the warm cream into his palm, rubbed his hands together, and slid them slowly along her thighs down to her calves.
As CC mumbled something pleasurable and drowsily lifted her head to investigate, he pushed her back down and concentrated his attention on her left thigh. He kneaded the cream into her legs, manipulating her sore muscles expertly. CC sighed in delight. "Hate you," she murmured.
"Hate you, too," he agreed placidly, working his way down her calf. He lifted her foot into his lap and began to rub cream into each small toe, bestowing a kiss on each little pink tip and a long, warm stroke of his tongue into the arch. CC shuddered and wiggled, fully awake and overcome with laughter.
Niles finished with her foot and switched his attention to the other leg. CC waited impatiently for him to finish. Being a bottom-line kind of girl, she occasionally lacked appreciation for time-consuming subtleties, but Niles was an excellent teacher. Being a detail-oriented kind of person, he was also learning the delights of immediate gratification, which CC was always eager to demonstrate.
As soon as he released her, she immediately perched herself in his lap and began kissing him enthusiastically.
"Breakfast time," he protested, unwinding her arms from his neck. "My eggs are getting cold."
"And mine are getting old," she answered with a grin.
"Oh, well in that case," Niles eased her back into the tumble of blankets and was just moving on top of her when a tremendous scream from the room next door grabbed their attention.
When no further sound was evident, Niles shrugged and grinned. "So we're not the only honeymooners here," he said. He was just about to return to the business at hand when a loud crash that sounded like falling metal interrupted them again.
"Somebody dumped over the silver service," he assessed. "Sounds like the maid tipped the cart."
"Yeah, yeah. Life goes on. C'mere."
Suddenly their outer door seemed about to burst open with the force of furious knocking. "Stay here," Niles commanded tersely, grabbing for his robe. Needless to say, CC stayed right behind him. Niles gave her an exasperated look right before he opened the door.
The maid who had brought their breakfast promptly fell into his arms, sobbing.
"What is it?" Niles asked impatiently.
"A dead body," she whimpered. "Right next door."
Niles and CC surveyed the scene with fascination. They had been told at least five times to move aside and allow the coroner and the police to finish their work, but nosy yentas that they were, they were having none of that.
Not after they "accidentally" overheard a police sergeant murmuring "murder two" to a colleague.
During one of the brief periods when the cops had managed to redirect the couple back to their own room, Niles found CC rummaging through a suitcase. "Come on," she muttered. "I've got to have brought something I could wear in public."
"What for?" was Niles' insouciant response.
"To sneak in and pretend to be the police photographer. Go make sure the camera's loaded."
"Hon," he said, as she began to button herself into one of his shirts, "I don't think they're going to buy a police photographer using a 24-exposure disposable camera."
"I'll tell them my budget got cut."
"Great. Our pictorial record of our honeymoon is going to consist of naked bodies and dead bodies. Could we take at least a couple of pictures I could actually show my mother? What are you doing with my pants?"
"You want me showing up at a crime scene in my nightgown?"
Niles gave up.
CC was back 30 seconds after she left.
"Didn't buy the disposable camera story?"
"Nope."
Niles laughed. "Gimme here." He took the camera away.
He strode out to the terrace and nimbly hopped over the balcony railing . He stepped cautiously over to the next balcony and climbed over. Since all the cops were out in the hall, he got several good shots of the crime scene and returned to his seething, defeated spouse.
"Satisfied?" he asked.
"Sure!" CC ripped her handkerchief to pieces in rage.
Eventually, the yellow barricade tape was up and the cops were gone. Niles and CC finally paid some attention to their breakfast, now several hours old.
"Since we were in here when it happened, they're going to be back this afternoon to question us," Niles reported as he wiped his mouth and set his napkin aside. "They asked that we be in our rooms at two o'clock."
"Okay. That leaves us a couple of hours. How do you feel about a swim?"
"Works for me."
Within a few minutes, they were enjoying the rough texture of the sand under their feet as they sauntered down to the beach swinging their joined hands. Niles was in plain blue trunks, having stubbornly refused the Speedo CC tried to coax him into. He had the towels and sunscreen in his other hand. CC walked beside him in a red maillot. She was convinced she was starting to show, and had discarded all more revealing suits.
Niles loved the serenity in her smile and the slight round to her stomach, not yet perceptible unless you knew to look for it. He loved everything about his temperamental other half, including the endearing scowls that preceded a tantrum and the stubborn set of her chin when she accused him of being too overprotective. He adored her bold, take-no-prisoners approach to life and the rarely-spoken-of insecurity that caused her to cling like a child if she sensed any threat to their union. She was a fearless modern-day pirate queen, his beloved CC, with a little girl in her heart, sightings of whom were as rare as a ghost.
CC smiled as she watched her husband out of the corner of her eye. She remembered the half-hysterical conversation with her therapist that had capped off her first night with Niles. It was a conversation of which Niles knew nothing, because at the time she had felt their relationship was too fragile to withstand another scene.
Dr. Bort immediately noticed the joy that CC radiated the day after she and Niles first got together. It was the day Max and Fran had discovered Yetta's letters and Fran came up with the idea to make them into a musical. CC, slipping away from the house for her session, had plagued her therapist with the need for explanations.
Why was it Niles? Why not someone more predictable? Why did she love him, and he her? Why, why, why?
And yet, her questions were not tortured by a need to resist anymore. Rather, CC had flung herself down an unfamiliar path and needed light to find her way. "I'm so afraid I'll lose him," she'd confessed. "I think that's why I tried not to want him in the first place. I'll lose him."
"You're still haunted by fears that you aren't good enough. You weren't good enough for Max, Colin, Chandler. You've spent your whole life trying to be good enough," Dr. Bort finished. CC nodded. "CC, how can I get rid of this notion that love is something you're good enough for? It's just something that happens because the two of you have mutually compatible needs and personalities. You needed something Niles could give you, and he needed something you could give him."
CC wrinkled her nose in confusion. "Like a business deal? Like an investor gives me money to do a show and I give him back that plus extra for his investment?"
"A little, except it's given from the heart. Let me see if I can give you a picture. I once heard love compared to a treasure box. Your treasure box was empty. Stop grinning, CC, and get your mind out of the gutter." Dr. Bort smiled wholeheartedly. "The reason you didn't work with Max, I think, is because his treasure box was empty, too. He spent his on Sarah, and when she died, he had nothing left to give to his children, to you, to anyone. You had spent your treasure box of love on your family, on other relationships, on people who gave you nothing for what you gave them. You and Max had nothing to give each other.
"Niles and Fran are another story. Fran came in, overflowing with love and no place to spend it, and refilled Mr. Sheffield's treasure box of love. Because she gave back to him, when he had enough he gave back to her. It started becoming a mutual flow, and that's when two people fall in love. They're giving the best of themselves to each other."
"What about me and Niles?" CC asked impatiently. "He insulted me. He kept taking out of my treasure box."
"That's a little more complicated, but I see Niles being a lot like Fran. He had a full treasure box, and no one to spend it on. You didn't have any more left to give, and he had too much to carry on alone any more."
"But if that's true, and most people have either too much or too little, why aren't people falling in love all over the place? Surely I've met men with too much before, and I know there are loads of women going around with no more to give."
Dr. Bort smiled. "Ah, now that is one of the great mysteries of life, and any therapist who tells you she has the answer is bluffing. Maybe if you look back into your past and Niles', you'll understand what buttons got pushed."
On her way out, CC stopped and grinned at her doctor. "Oh, I know exactly what buttons got pushed. All the right ones!"
CC, splashing about in the waves while Niles lay on the beach working on his tan, remembered that conversation with a swell of gratitude. It had been months since she'd seen her New York therapist; maybe next time she was back on business, she'd make an appointment just to catch the doctor up on recent events.
There was no time to give further consideration to this thought. Niles came into the water to get her. It was one forty-five, and a police sergeant would be there to question them at two.
Sergeant Davis was a handsome older man somewhat reminiscent of a bulldog, with his stocky build and neatly trimmed white hair. Hazel eyes searched the couple for any unspoken information, telling him that these two were not suspects, just curious tourists.
"The victim was a woman, twenty-seven, blond hair, green eyes. Thin build, maybe 5'7". Do you remember seeing her around?"
"No," Niles replied. "We arrived last night around eight and didn't leave the room until we heard the maid screaming this morning."
"Around what time was that?"
"I'm not sure," Niles answered. "Maybe around nine thirty."
"What were you two doing at around four o'clock in the morning?"
Two red faces and embarrassed silence answered his question.
"Mrs. Niles?"
CC looked around, then realized he was talking to her. "We were, uh, you know, doing honeymoon things."
The sergeant coughed and turned red himself. "I won't ask you to dwell on that, then, but you were here in the room?"
"Yes," she replied calmly.
"And out on the terrace," Niles reminded her.
"Remind me to cite you two for indecent exposure later. For now, is there a remote chance you heard anything?
"No, that was during the storm," explained Niles. "We could barely hear ourselves."
"Who was she?" CC asked. "Why was she killed?"
"It appears to be a crime of passion. Jealous lover, stalker, something like that. There wasn't a lot of noise because she was strangled." Niles' hand crept over to cover CC's.
Her face had gone white. "Then you mean, she was being killed while we were a few yards away on the terrace having . . . " CC fell silent.
"Yeah," the cop said, seeming to relax as he sensed once again that these were not suspects. "Worst part is, she's a local. Separated, with two kids left to be parceled out to relatives."
"What about the husband?"
"In Europe on business, no interest in the kids."
CC gazed at Niles, her shock turning to sickness.
Sergeant Davis rose. "If you remember anything else, call me. Happy honeymoon."
Niles wrapped CC in his arms. "Those poor kids," she said. "No mother anymore."
"Sound like she wasn't too interested when she was alive, if she was off meeting people in hotel rooms."
"I'll be a better mother than that."
"Of course you will."
CC snuggled down into his arms. "Will you help me? I mean, you've got such great maternal instincts."
Niles laughed and pinched her bum. "I might give you a hand. If you're lucky, I might give you a few other parts to go with it."
"I want to figure it out," she said.
"You will. I'll help you."
"Really?"
"Of course."
"You're not going to try and stop me?"
"Why on earth would I -- wait a second, you are talking about figuring out how to be a mother, right?"
"No," said CC. "I'm talking about figuring out who murdered that woman."
"No," said Niles. "Nonononononono. Absolutely not. Not while my child is inside you, are you going to go running off hunting for murderers. And come to think of it, even if you weren't pregnant, I still wouldn't let you."
"Who said you get to let me or not let me?"
"CC, be reasonable."
"I love you."
"Stop that."
"Very, very much."
"That isn't fair!"
"Of course, you'll have to come with me to protect me."
"I am not, because you're not going anywhere."
"Oh, fine!" CC said impatiently.
An hour later, as Niles lay napping from their latest bout of lovemaking, CC replicated his trick of hopping over the terrace, and found herself pushing open the terrace door and entering the room where the murder took place.
It was a smaller room than hers and Niles', since it wasn't on a corner. There was no sitting room. CC was careful not to touch anything, lest her fingerprints be found at a crime scene. The body was gone, and an outline had been chalked on the floor.
She looked around the room, cursing herself for not having brought gloves. She took off her red cover-up and wrapped it around her hand so she could sort through the woman's belongings without leaving fingerprints.
The woman's suitcase contained an assortment of decent-quality, practical clothes. There were a couple pairs of pants, one floral dress that CC categorized as a "church dress," and some sweaters and cotton blouses Her nightgown was missing, as it had been taken away with the body, and her undergarments were large, polyester items in fruity colors. CC looked at them again. No, they weren't large in size, just thoroughly covering and not very attractive. Odd for a woman supposedly meeting a lover. There were also sheer-to-waist pantyhose, and inexpensive but good-quality costume-jewelry.
Her makeup and toiletries were like her clothes, cheap but quality.
A hand clapped to her shoulder, and a deep voice boomed in her ear, "Freeze!"
CC shrieked and whirled around. Niles chuckled. "You scared the hell outta me!" she accused.
"You scared the crap outta me when I realized you were in here! Did it ever occur to you that, first of all, the murderer could come back, and second of all, the cops already took all the important evidence?"
"No, they didn’t," CC said proudly. "I already discovered something."
"What?"
"Her underwear."
"CC, honey, you got a fetish I don't know about yet?"
CC scowled. "It's ugly, Niles."
"Yes, I'd say dead people's underwear is a pretty ugly fetish, my love."
"I do not have a fetish! It's her underwear that's ugly."
"So?"
"So, the cops were wrong. It wasn't a crime of passion, because she obviously wasn't planning for passion!"
"Are you trying to tell me her underwear told you why she was killed?"
"Precisely. She could have been expecting someone, but it wasn't a lover like the cops think. None of her clothes are suitable for a romantic liaison. What did her nightgown look like when you took the pictures."
"Bloody. Very bloody. Now would you please get out of here?"
"After you tell me what her gown looked like."
"Long dress, long sleeves, soft flowery stuff."
"Sexy?"
"Not that I could tell."
"See? Her murderer arrived at four in the morning, and she wasn't dressed to greet him. Therefore, it wasn't a lover. Come to think of it, if it wasn't a lover, she should have been dressed respectably for a guest, which she wasn't. Therefore, she wasn't expecting anyone. Therefore, chances are the charge of second-degree murder won't hold up, because it was obviously premeditated. Murder one!" CC drew herself up, flushed and triumphant.
Niles clapped his hands. "Very good, Jessica Fletcher. Now can we please go?"
CC fell into step beside him as they returned to their room via the terrace. "Minor detail -- how was she killed?"
"Strangled, remember?"
"Then why the blood?"
"I don't know. Wait a second." Niles hopped over the terrace and, from their side, extended his hand. CC climbed up, then reached for him. He grasped her waist firmly and swung her down to the ground. The fear he'd felt when he realized she scaled the terrace to return to the scene of a bloody murder overcame him and he held her close and kissed her ardently, making her stomach dip and her legs go weak. His mouth was hot and almost brutal, punishing her deliciously for disobeying him and endangering herself. And so turned on by the fact that she had the guts to do so, even if it half-killed him with worry.
"That's why I've been trying to stay out of it," he breathed against her cheek. "I'm going crazy wanting to snoop around, but I need you and the baby to stay safe."
"But Niles," she coaxed, but he cut off her words with another soul-stealing kiss. She stroked his bare chest, her nails scratching his skin. He shuddered.
Niles lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. With their mouths still teasing each other, he carried her inside and trapped her on her back between him and the bed, her legs dangling off the edge.
"Do I need to pin you to the bed from now on to keep you out of trouble?" he demanded.
CC smiled wickedly up at him and murmured, "It's not a terrible idea. Depends on what you plan to pin me with."
"I've got something that should work," he grunted.
Niles shoved his hands in his pockets and scowled, staring out toward the beach. "CC, not to act married or anything, but you do realize our reservations are in fifteen minutes?"
Her voice floated back from the bathroom. "I know, I know! I'll be right there."
He heard a slight rustle behind him and turned. "Ye gods," he murmured.
CC smiled at him. She was wearing a sleeveless turquoise shantung silk gown with a plunging V collar, the skirt draping over her hips and wrapping around, fastened at one hip with an antique turquoise pin set in gold. Niles raised her hand to his lips and kissed her palm.
"You look great," she said. "I love the way you look in a tux."
"I love the way you look in anything, or nothing. But that dress . . . well, I'm going to keep a close eye on you tonight. I don't want you to find yourself a new man to sacrifice at the full moon."
"Mmm-mmm. Wouldn't dream of it."
As they passed through the bedroom, CC frowned and stopped to examine herself. She smoothed her hands over the front of the dress.
Niles staggered back, clapping his hand to his heart. "Stop doing that, woman, or we'll never got to dinner."
"I'm sorry, am I taking too long primping?"
"No, you're turning me on running your hands all over yourself like that."
She giggled. "What doesn't turn you on? Seriously, Niles, I'm worried about how being pregnant is going to change my body."
"Yeah, you might get as fat as you were a couple of years ago, and then I'll have to -- "
She whacked him in the stomach. "Niles, are my breasts getting bigger yet?"
"Absolutely. Another few months, and you'll have gone from Nancy Drew to Nancy Droop."
"Oh, shut up!" she said petulantly, threading her arm through his. Niles chuckled all the way to the door.
As they passed through the lobby, they heard the desk clerk and the owner talking. "And the police think," the desk clerk whispered, "that the murderer came back today!"
Niles grabbed CC's arm and dragged her into a telephone alcove within hearing distance of the desk.
The owner, a hip, sixtyish spinster named Bette, sucked in her breath. "What makes them think so?"
"When the cops came to remove the barricade tape, they found the room contained a large number of red fibers that hadn't been there before. Someone had been searching the bathroom and the suitcase."
Niles looked accusingly at CC. She blushed becomingly and tried to look innocent. "Wait here," he murmured. He slipped away and came back in a few minutes with CC's red swimsuit coverup stuffed in a shoulder bag.
"Ooh! Good! We can throw it away somewhere far from the hotel, we can -- " Niles clapped a hand over her mouth as Bette and her clerk noticed them. He swiftly kissed her, wedging her against the wall of the alcove. Their audience chuckled tolerantly. Bette called, "I can't even tell you to get a room, because I'm already renting you one!"
"Sorry," Niles said with a dashing grin. "She makes me feel just like a teenager again."
Bette shook her head. "Enjoy it while you can, folks. The cops say that lady in there was just reconciled with her husband when somebody got her. You never know when it'll all end."
CC's nails dug sharply into Niles' arm. "Thanks," she called casually. "By the way, how did they get her?"
"Looks like he tried it with a knife, but she fought him off so he strangled her."
"Any idea who he was?"
"Discarded lover? Who knows?"
Outside, she jumped up and down. "That proves it! I was right! It wasn't a crime of passion. She was reconciled with her husband. Her love life was fine."
Niles shook his head. "He's got a knife, and he still screws it up. Who killed her, Mr. Sheffield?" Niles' body tensed. "Wait a sec. A man with a knife, against a woman, and he has to resort to strangling her? Highly unlikely!"
"Chauvinist. You think I couldn't take you?"
Niles grabbed her. "CC, think about it. You were right, she wasn't killed by her lover, and she wasn't expecting the person who killed her. Add to that, the fact that she just reconciled with her husband, and that her attacker wasn't quite as strong as a full-grown man would probably be."
"It was a woman!" CC cried. "She was killed by a woman."
There was a slow clapping. "Very good, you two. But didn't I just tell you two to stay out of it this morning?" Sergeant Davis grinned at them, stepping out from behind a dumpster.
"What are you doing here?" CC asked.
"Serving you with this ticket for interfering with the scene of a crime. Those red fibers in her room looked a lot like the cover-up you were wearing when I interviewed you, Mrs. Niles. But thank you for your input, it explains a lot. And we found traces of fingernail polish in the victim's wounds, so we had come to the same conclusion -- the murderer was a woman. What are your thoughts on the matter?"
CC explained her "underwear theory," and Sergeant Davis shared a tolerant look with Niles. The couple also explained about Bette's sharing information about the woman making up with her husband.
"Well, listen. Next time you two get the urge to play Bobbsey Twins, maybe this ticket will remind you to control yourselves. From now on, stay out of it. Have a nice day." Sergeant Davis exited.
"After all we did to help him," grumbled CC as Niles handed her into the car. "He cites us!"
"You know, I'm thinking butler to private detective might be a natural career transition," Niles commented.
"This has really put me in a foul mood. After dinner, let's park somewhere and make out."
"Trying for indecent exposure this time?"
CC quieted. Suddenly she said, "Niles, I want to go home."
Niles looked at her in surprise. "Beverly Hills?"
"New York. There are some things of mine at Daddy's that I want for the baby."
"I can't believe we 're finally here!" Niles collapsed in a chair in her father's library in New York.
"I can't believe we had to wait a week to clear up those bloody tickets. I suppose I deserved the $1000.00 for messing with a crime scene, although I think our contributions to the case should have been a mitigating circumstance."
"At least we got to stay around long enough to find out who did it," Niles pointed out. "How horribly ordinary. We help solve a major crime and it's nothing more interesting than her getting whacked by her hubby's ex-mistress."
CC wagged a finger at him. "Remember that if you ever get the urge to mess around."
"I'd never let you get killed by my jealous ex-mistress. Although Aunt Frieda sending us a packet of flaming dog doo for a wedding gift was rather unexpected."
A Baccarat vase went flying by his head and landed, unharmed, on the thick pine-green carpet. "I wasn't talking about her killing me, I was talking about me killing you."
Niles cringed. "Honey-love, would you at least wait until I've done something?"
"I wanted to kill that damn cop! What did he do, put a homing device up my bum?" Niles chuckled. "Don't you laugh at me, Niles! If you weren't bellowing so loud, Davis wouldn't have caught us in the parking lot and nailed us on that $500.00 public indecency charge. I just about had the judge charmed when you had to say, 'If you think that's indecent, you should hear what we did on the terrace a few days ago, in full view of anyone on the beach!' Hmph!" CC folded her arms and scowled. Niles was bent double laughing.
"My love," he sighed, "You are adorable when you're angry."
"I don't want to be adora -- I am?" A little bit of sunshine seemed about to peek through CC's clouded expression.
"Indubitably. Too bad you're such a crone the rest of the time."
CC leapt at him, claws out, and they began to wrestle. The chair tipped, they went spilling out with CC on top, and her father walked in.
"Good evening CC, Niles. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
The next morning, Niles took himself on a tour of the house while CC slept in. Not to say that he was a yenta or anything, but he was curious about this huge, cavernous museum of a house his bride had grown up in.
The front foyer was enormous and dark, with wine-colored carpet and mahogany railings on the grand, curving staircase. A crystal chandelier, once lit with candles but long since wired for electricity, was needed to light the place even in daytime.
To the left of the grand staircase was a sitting room that was rarely used. Here, Niles found something he'd always wanted: childhood pictures of CC.
Niles fingered one picture of the three Babcock children. Noel was in the center grinning amiably, the most relaxed of the three. He appeared to be about sixteen. DD, who gave a Lolita-like impression of being a very well-developed twelve, stood slightly closer to the camera than her two siblings, and beamed boldly into the lens as if to say, "Look at me!" CC, who must have been about eight, stood in the crook of Noel's right arm holding the hand that lay across her shoulders protectively. She and DD were both formally dressed in pastel party dresses. DD was toying with her sash coquettishly, but CC seemed happy with the attention of her brother and only half-aware of the camera.
Each child had a frame containing a collage of pictures. Noel, often pictured reading, gave the impression of being a good-natured, scholarly boy. He was rarely pictured with others, except for one formal picture of him and Stuart and a charming candid shot of a teenage Noel arm-wrestling a very small CC, her face scrunched into a determined scowl that Niles knew well.
DD was obviously not camera shy. Her collage could have served as a model's guide to posing and posturing. Her smile was bright and disarming, her features bearing a slight resemblance to CC's but smaller and more delicate. CC's small, straight nose appeared on DD as a perky little ski-slope nose, and CC's defined, delicate jaw and full, lush lips were, on DD, a pointed chin that gave her an elfin look, and a small, expressive cupid's bow mouth. Despite his partiality to his wife, Niles could well see how boys must have flocked to DD.
CC's picture collage was a treasure trove. There was a picture of Noel lifting her arm in a victory salute; evidently she'd won their arm-wrestling match. Her grin was triumphant. There was a picture of her when she was about six, her long blonde hair caught up in a wet ponytail as she played on a beach, contentedly absorbed, the small chin set in determination over a tilting sand castle. Those were the only two pictures where she was smiling.
In her younger pictures she did appear chubby, but not so much that it disguised her beauty. There was a picture of CC atop a horse when she was around twelve. She sat her mount with an easy grace and held the reins with a light, confident touch. There was a picture of CC in the ubiquitous private school uniform of a blazer and starched blouse. There was one of her in her nightgown when she couldn't have been more than four, staring curiously into the camera clutching a doll. And there was one that took Niles' breath away with its magnificence. She must have been around eighteen, and gowned formally in white, a bouquet of roses resting on her gloved arm, her intricately curled hair rising above a small tiara. She smiled serenely, regal and reserved. Niles shook his head and bit his lip, staring from the young six-year-old amazon with her arm raised triumphantly in the air, grinning with glee, to the eighteen-year-old queen in what must have been her debutante portrait. The change seemed sad. Had he not known that the little fighter's spirit still lay in that too-calm breast, he would have grieved for her. Smiling to himself, he left the sitting room.
Behind it was the most welcoming room in the house: the library, filled with books and soft green leather chairs and sofas, with floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the morning light. In the evening, authentic Tiffany lamps lit the room with a multicolored glow. It was there that the newlyweds got busted (again) by her father the night before. To the rear of the house was a formal morning room with chintz furniture, where Stuart told him that breakfast was often served when company was visiting. There were floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over a pruned and manicured rose garden.
On the other side of the staircase was the dining room, large enough to seat twenty. Last night, three places were set close together at one end and the rest of the table blocked off by a large bouquet of chrysanthemums to create a more intimate atmosphere. Niles, re-exploring the room, ran his fingers over the cherrywood chairs and tapestried fabric, then idly picked a chrysanthemum from the bouquet and twirled it in his fingers.
Still carrying the flower, he proceeded down the hall and found that behind the dining room was the kitchen. It was a little bit faulty in the design, he thought, because rather than having a connecting door, one had to exit the kitchen carrying trays or pushing a cart into the hallway in order to access the dining room, leaving time for food to get cold or vegetables to grow limp. At midmorning, the kitchen was spotless and deserted. Very likely the maids were cleaning and the cook was out shopping.
Niles returned to the foyer and started up the stairs. At the landing the stairway split, two flights heading in opposite directions. Knowing CC was asleep there, he chose the right.
There were two floors in this wing. On the second floor was Stuart's suite, complete with master bedroom, full bath with jacuzzi, and a private sitting room. On the third floor was a two-bedroom suite connected by a sitting room. It, too, had a full-size bath. This was where CC and Niles were staying. CC, never a neat freak, had obliterated the sense of formality with her careless scattering of her belongings around the bedroom, bath, and sitting room.
CC, unexpectedly, was not in their bed. Niles lay his flower on her pillow for her to find later. She was not in the pale blue sitting room, either, or the rose-and-gold bathroom, although her robe and gown were hung on a hook behind the door and her wet footprints still marked the rug outside the shower.
Niles hurried down two flights of steps to the landing, then back up to the second floor in the left wing.
Now this was spooky. The whole house looked like a set from Dracula, but this part of it was just creepier than hell. This wing hadn't been cleaned in heaven knew how long. He could swear he saw cobwebs clinging to the corners of the twelve-foot ceilings, and all the draperies had been pulled tight to keep the sunlight from fading the furniture and the silk wallpaper that peeled slightly around the edges.
The first bedroom was masculine, in a boyish way, and had probably been Noel's. An array of trophies sat on a bookcase. Some were from equestrian shows, some from debates and other academic competitions. Only a few books remained. Most had probably gone with Noel when he left. It appeared to have been refitted to function as an extra guest room, but evidently hadn't been used in a long time. Even the dark blue coverlet had dust settled on it. Niles grimaced. No house of his, however rarely the room was used, would ever be in this condition.
Gooseflesh was rising on his arms, and he felt like he'd walked into another world. To top it off, he could swear he heard voices. The phantoms of Babcock children long past, their spectral nannies combing their hair and bandaging their ghostly boo-boos?
No, there was definitely a voice. Niles prayed it existed somewhere outside his head, and then the music started. A faint, delicate tinkling sound. "Oh, lord, and I call Babcock crazy," he moaned to himself as he stepped out into the hall. The thought of CC growing up in this mausoleum was enough to give him "the wiggins," as Maggie and Brighton called it. Gracie had a more clinical name, some psycho-physio-blah-blah-blah he couldn't remember.
In the hall, the music was louder, although the voice had stopped. Niles moved on to the next room. It was a vast, sunny nursery, and CC stood in a corner, her back to him.
"Hey." Niles moved forward.
"Hi." CC turned to face him, and he saw that the nameless tune was coming from a small music box she held in the palm of her hand. It was a wooden box with a unicorn on it.
Seeing the nursery, Niles was heartened. The wide, sunny windows, bright colors, now faded, and the vast assortment of toys were much more to his taste for raising a child. There were small desks with a chalkboard and a bookcase in one corner. There was a box of alphabet blocks, a dollhouse with the furniture removed, probably packed away in the wooden box beside it, a number of toy kitchen utensils, musical instruments (had CC tapped out the songs from Broadway musicals on a xylophone with her small fingers?), a few more pictures of the children, and, to Niles' astonishment, possibly a couple of hundred dolls and stuffed animals lining shelves built into the walls. There were lady dolls, bride dolls, fashion dolls, Barbie dolls, a baby doll in its own carriage, and even small trunks which he assumed must contain clothes for the dolls.
There were stuffed animals of every exotic description, from camels to zebras to more prosaic dogs and cats. There was a proliferation of horses; obviously all things equine were popular in this small, strange family he'd married into. CC still kept two horses at a stable back in California, and they rode often.
Nonetheless, the stillness and sense of abandonment pervaded even here. Everything was shut up and put away, and the dustiness was evident here, too. Niles wondered if Stuart would permit them to ship some, or even all, of these toys back to Cally so they could be played with by real, laughing children and not left here for the ghosts.
"Were you talking to yourself?" he asked.
"No, to my dolls. Wipe that expression off your face, Niles, when I was a little girl they were real to me. They had real thoughts, and feelings, and voices. And they missed their mother."
Niles nodded sagely, remembering Gracie and her imaginary friend Imogen. Most little girls had their imaginary friends. If anything, it was a sign of normalcy.
He slipped an arm around CC. "This place is spooking me out. How about heading back to civilization and grabbing some breakfast?
"Civilization?"
"You know, downstairs. Someplace that's been cleaned since the Kennedy administration."
CC laughed. "Sure. Just a moment. There's something I want to bring with me for the baby."
"Was all this stuff yours?"
"And Noels, and DD's, but mostly mine, to keep me entertained after they went away to school." CC reached up on a shelf, stretching to her toes to reach one of the dolls.
Niles sucked in his breath when he saw the porcelain child she held. "Was she made to look like you, or was it a coincidence?"
"No, she was made from a picture of me. I think I got her for my birthday." CC took his arm and they started back toward the staircase. Niles reached for the doll, and CC handed her over. The artist had done a superb job of capturing CC's face as a child, with large blue eyes set in a delicate, inquisitive face. The doll had long, loose blonde curls and a blue velvet dress trimmed in white fur. The eyelashes were individually set in, and the small lips and nails were painted pink. The doll wore knitted lace stockings and leather laced-up boots.
"Is she called CC?"
"No, I named her Morgan. I don't remember naming her, but my nanny told me she was reading me some King Arthur stories and I took a fancy to the character of Morgan le Fay, the sorceress."
"What happened to her face?" Niles pointed to a crack that circled across Morgan's forehead, under her jaw, and back up her cheek. It looked as though at one time, Morgan's entire face had broken off. Yet another charmingly normal touch to this Addams Family honeymoon.
"I smashed her once." CC spoke with a breezy carelessness that told him he'd hit a nerve.
"Didn't she eat her vegetables?"
CC grinned at him and slipped her arm around his waist as she took the doll back in her other hand. They were in the foyer now, on their way to raid the kitchen. "I got mad at my mother for not having time for me one night. My nanny tried to cheer me up by pretending Morgan was talking to me, you know, normal kid games, but I got angry, told Morgan that mommy didn't have time for her, and smashed her -- are you still sure you want me to have your baby?"
"Yes, please, love, but try not to smash her, will you? It really hurts parent-child relations." Niles' heart wrenched for his bride.
CC nestled into his arm. "I'm glad they could fix her," she said softly. "I broke, too, but you have no idea how you've fixed me."
Niles gave her a kiss. "Pack up everything you want for the baby. I think we should leave this place as soon as we can. It's making us maudlin."
CC thought of last week when they were in California chasing each other along the beach and tumbling into each other's arms at night. "I agree, let's blow this joint. But first, make me some breakfast. My kid and I are starving."
"Morgan?"
"No, the real one."
"I'll make some sausage. I know how you need to be given the meat on a regular basis."
CC mashed her sausage and eggs together, sprinkled parmesan cheese and hot sauce on it, and shoveled this bizarre mixture into her mouth with all the enthusiasm of a farm laborer after a ten-hour shift in the corn fields. "So, I'm far enough along that when we get back to California I can go to my doctor and have the ultrasound. Do we want to know whether it's a boy or a girl, or shall we just be surprised?"
"Surprised? Me?" Niles gaped at her.
"Right. James Bond couldn't keep a secret around you, much less my doctor. Have you thought about names?"
"Haven't a clue."
"Any family members we should honor, just to make sure our kid inherits the family feather duster?"
"No, but I think we should honor your family by naming it after whoever invented Prozac."
"Just be glad I got pregnant when I did. If you'd gotten any older, we'd have had to name the kid Viagra."
If there were ghosts inhabiting the Babcock mansion, they did not make themselves known. Perhaps they sensed that the couple was happy enough alone, or perhaps not even a ghost could be heard over Niles and CC and their "zingers." Perhaps that was the magic of Niles and CC.
The End
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