Is Your Man Secret?

"And one man in his time plays many parts."

January 21, 1520

"Shouldn't you be looking after that husband of yours?"

Her grandfather's gruff tone and winter coat both pleased Hermia. For all the physicians had said about his restored health, Hermia knew her grandfather was not always well. Pride and dignity kept him inside the well-protected walls of Capulet Manor more often than not. Hermia understood this; she wouldn't want to be seen as weak or ill either. Still, she liked to see him act himself and mix with the world when he could - a result of her soft spot for him. Consort would not be remembered as a warm or loving man, but he had tried to do right by Hermia and her siblings. For that, she was grateful. "The twins can keep an eye on him for a few minutes."

"How is he?"

"A bit better," she replied, "since Oberon came by with fresh tonics this morning. I just don't want to chance him fainting again with no-one nearby to notice." Hermia was relatively sure that Puck's headaches and dizziness came directly from the inordinate amount of time he had spent working recently. Pirate incursions had Verona and the Fae Kingdom scrambling to find joint solutions, putting Titania's diplomatic mission right in the midst of it all.

Consort nodded and said, "He is fortunate to have you. Do your brother and sister know you two won't be present?"

The gathering at Darcy House, originally a family celebration of the dowager Lady Fitzwilliam's return to good health, had recently gained a second meaning and a horde of additional guests. Hermia would have been happy, even relieved, to toast her brother's betrothal, but she reasoned there would be plenty of other opportunities to do so. "They do. Juliette wrote back to say she would eat our portion of the sweets for us, and Tybalt has a note from us to give to Georgiana - if he remembers he has it." 

Nearly smiling, Consort fondly patted Hermia's shoulder. "You're a good girl, Hermia. Your grandmother, God rest her, and your parents would be so proud to see you three trying harder with each other." There was more to be said, more he would have liked to say, but affection rode on Consort's tongue like lead. He settled for another half-smile and a nod. "Your brother and I will come home tomorrow afternoon. Good night, child."

"Good night." Hermia motioned to Gower, the captain of Capulet Manor's guards, who she had summoned specifically to see her grandfather safely to the carriage. It was a precaution she insisted on, to her grandfather's chagrin, when he demanded the carriage not be brought any closer than it normally was to the door. Gower walked a pace behind a grumbling Consort down the gravel path. Hermia watched them intently until they melted into the twilight. When she could no longer see them, she turned away and went directly to where she had left her husband and children. 

Hermia's little ones weren't quite so little anymore. They had started out smaller, particularly Elna, as a routine consequence of sharing a womb and leaving it early. Eighteen months on, Lysander and Elna were as stout as most children, toddling about and babbling in a language quickly filling up with real words. Hermia had a strong suspicion than Elna had inherited much more of Puck than coppery hair. She was twice as boisterous as her older brother, who Hermia believed would take after her own mother in hair as well as personality. The twins had so far not exhibited any of the insular behavior that Hermia had been warned about. Lysander and Elna were sweet, loving children who were always delighted to share their play with everyone - their father especially.

After doling out a kiss and a cuddle to her son and daughter, Hermia considered sitting down to join the three. If Puck didn't still look a bit pale to her, she would have. Instead, she took Puck's hand and pulled gently. They repaired to the couch without a protest from the twins, who were deeply concerned with their blocks anyway. 

"How are you feeling?" 

Puck sighed contentedly and leaned into Hermia. "Better. My father brought over enough provisions to cure an army this morning."

Oberon was a talented herbalist and produced, by far, the best Fae remedies to be found outside their kingdom. His offerings didn't quite replace a Veronese apothecary, but Hermia knew no better cure for headaches or insomnia than Oberon's. The potions he had provided Hermia since the twins were born had also proved successful. "Good. Did he bring mine?"

"Next week," he said. "Are you out?"

Affectionately, Hermia brushed Puck's hair with her fingertips. "On the contrary, I have a surplus."

"That's good," Puck replied sleepily.

Confident the idea had been planted, Hermia said no more about it. She watched the twins play with their blocks while Puck dozed on her shoulder. The playing had no structure that Hermia could see. Lysander liked to pick up two blocks, bash them together, and then put them back into the pile. He usually picked up the same pair the next time. Occasionally, he tried to put a block in his mouth, but the blocks were too big to go past his lips. Elna had to show every block she picked up to her brother, that he might share in her admiration of it. When she lost interest in the one she was holding, Elna dropped it carelessly and picked up her new favorite. The twins approximated talking in a baby's language while they played. Hermia tried to make sense of it for a while and then mentally removed herself from it. The twins would tell her their secrets when they were ready.

"Sprite? Did you stop taking your tonic?"

Hermia laughed at his very delayed realization. "Yes!"

"But-"

"Don't you dare pretend you don't want at least one more," she teased. "I saw your face when Juliette showed us her nursery. If you played cards with the same command of your expressions, you would be broke, you know."

Weakly, he protested, "It's a nice room for a baby. I didn't mean anything else."

"Don't you want another baby?"

"Well, yes, but didn't the midwife say to wait?"

"For at least year, which we have exceeded. Your father told me the tonic would linger a while after I stopped taking it. We'll likely be closer to two years than one even if it happens quickly, and then another nine months on top of that."

With all the sighing of a man still under the weather, Puck pulled his wife up into his lap. A light scent of cloves brightened his dulled senses. He didn't feel quite up to doing too much about it, but he could enjoy her nearness for what it was. There was nothing and no-one in the world he more wanted to be near. "Maybe we shouldn't take any chances."

Hermia laughed again. "Maybe you should listen to yourself. If I said that about you, you would laugh and tell me you could just as easily be run down by a horse any day."

"Which isn't the same as standing in front of the horse."

"Your father's work isn't infallible, you know, and you've taken enough chances to put that hideous crack in our headboard."

"Hideous?" Puck wrinkled his nose. "It reminds me of you every time I see it."

"I don't think you can be reminded of someone when you're already in bodily contact with them."

He pulled her in a little closer, certain she would stop him from exceeding his current energy. "Do you want me to prove it?"

"Not until I think it won't kill you."

"Oh, who is being a nervous spoilsport now?"

A knock not heard by either Puck or Hermia preceded the appearance of a quickly abashed servant. "M-m'lady," he stammered, "you have a visitor."

Despite Puck's grumbling, Hermia slid off of his lap and righted her skewed dress. She raised her brow at the servant's mortification. It was hardly the first time she and Puck been interrupted by this man himself, much less the rest of the household. "Who is it?"

"The Lady Miranda, m'lady."

Hermia asked the servant to show Miranda in. She remarked to Puck, "I wonder why she came here. I did tell her we wouldn't be there tonight, but she never sent a reply."

"Auntie!" Elna nearly knocked over her twin, who had smiled at Miranda and then promptly become engrossed by his own hand, as she scampered over to demand a hug. None of the adults could account for Elna's attachment to Miranda, who usually stopped short of being affectionate with the twins. 

Miranda scooped up her little cousin and held her close. Over her shoulder, she smiled at Puck and Hermia. "I hope you don't mind, but I wanted to talk to you, since you won't be there for the great usurpation."

"Usurpation?" Puck asked. Suspicion, though not of Miranda, tinged his words. "What do you mean?"

"I mean my mother can't wait to tell everyone there is an heir brewing inside of me." Miranda's smug smile told Hermia and Puck that this was no true heir at all.

"Before Elna's next word is something we regret," Puck whispered as he collected a twin in each arm.

Uneasy, Hermia bit her lip. "Maybe I ought to. Maybe you ought to sit."

"I'll take care. You take care here." Puck kissed Hermia's cheek and left the room with the children.

Miranda looked at her cousin expectantly, self-satisfaction still glowing in her expression. "Well? Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

"Aren't you going to tell me who the father is?"

"I'm not absolutely sure." Miranda anxiously wove her fingers together. "I did have to occasionally bed the snake. If only enjoyment really had anything to do with conception," she sighed bitterly, "I would be dead certain. But, I did all I could, and as my body hasn't expelled the child in disgust, I feel unusually optimistic."

"Miranda!"

"I, uh... Well, do you recall swearing to do anything to help me endure this marriage?" She tucked Hermia's steadfast reply away into her memory. Miranda feared she would not see another such answer for a long while. "Mother is already smothering me. I am only at liberty if I take the carriage, which limits me. If I say I am coming here, I cannot go anywhere else. I need an excuse to see someone that I can never invite to my mother's house. You see, Pan is... well, he is the sort of person who my mother would never agree to know and my father might recognize him from his... well."

"Out with it."

Miranda looked to the side and spoke as quickly as she could. "From Pan's brothel."

Whether she wanted to strike or comfort Miranda, Hermia couldn't say. Bile and sympathy were competing for her attention. Hermia hadn't pushed when Miranda asked if she could say she was coming to visit as a cover for some 'necessary business'. Miranda had so few supporters in the world that Hermia didn't dare deprive her of herself and Puck by judgment. Yet, with all but an admission of the most stupid of escapades hanging between them, Hermia had never been so angry at Miranda. "From his... his... oh! Good God, what have you done?"

"Hermia, you can tell me how stupid I've been if you like, but isn't it worth something that I am alive and unharmed still?" Miranda's anxious words spilled out quickly. 

"What would even possess you to think of such a... oh, never mind." Hermia buried her face in her hand and rubbed her skin. "Tell me the truth before I think better of wanting to know."

Miranda began slowly and gently. After she admitted that she had sought Pan out almost a year earlier to relieve her of her virginity and that she had been meeting him in various places since, Miranda paused for the reaction she expected. Hermia, rather than explode over Miranda's secrecy and recklessness, only looked back at her with an empty, distant gaze. It startled Miranda. She had not seen that look since their grandmother's death. Further words were harder to come by still. When Puck rejoined them, the story was not too far gone to indulge his question of what was so upsetting. With a less anguished presence to cut the tension in the room, Miranda found her footing and began the story anew. She spoke ever more quickly. The truth sounded utterly mad to her own ears when she said it aloud, and Miranda wanted to finish and retreat into her personal justifications as quickly as possible. "I needed control over my own life, and Pan was perfect. He never would have known who I was. He was disposable if things got out of hand. He's not the sort of person the Guards would look too hard for, of course. But he's really not what you would expect, not at all. In his way, he's a good person."

Puck still felt a bit warm and careless from the tonics he had taken earlier. "I just don't... a brothel?  That was where your mind went? There wasn't more than one step between your husband and a man who rents girls to men like your father?"

"It isn't like that. Pan would have banned my father ages ago, but the girl wants my father's money, so Pan leaves it up to her."

"Oh, so the flesh-peddler has a heart of gold. Our problems are solved." Hermia sniped.

Miranda blinked and looked down at her lap. Her shoulders rose and fell while she tried to push words past her tight, quivering lips. "If you don't want to help me, I understand. I should be going anyway."

"Miranda, wait." Hermia reached for her cousin's hand. She paused for a moment to gather her wits and cool her temper. "Can you not see why I'm upset? I love you like a sister, even when I can barely understand you, and I would do anything for you. We both would. Our family owes you everything." Trying to calm Miranda's sudden anxiety, Hermia took her other hand and held it firmly. "We do, coz. I understand wanting revenge and some power over your own life, and I can even understand not wanting that creature to have the satisfaction... but do you understand that I want you, need you, to be safe? Perhaps this Pan is a good man, but you can be assured that not everyone around him is. All it takes is one person to bring this down upon your head. And yes, you are safe and sound now, but you had absolutely no way of knowing that when you first went. Any number of horrible things could have happened to you, and nobody would have dared dream to look for you in such a place. Can you not imagine that something could have befallen you and nobody would have known where you were? That you could have been lost forever?" Tears welled up in Hermia's eyes. "I'll do anything if you promise not to keep secrets like this again." Behind her, Puck nodded his agreement. "So, let me help you."

"I need to see him again, to tell him about the child, and I can't get away to do it."

"Best you do it here. Puck can find him and bring him here the first time." For that alone, Miranda, this Pan better be a paragon. "I want to meet him, and we can all together concoct some pretense for future meetings, if you so choose." Thinking to herself that the Capulet ancestors would rise from their graves to protest a whore bedding a Capulet lady in the Manor itself, Hermia was alarmed to hear increasing footsteps. She was half convinced it would be her grandmother's corpse that opened the door. 

"Are you finished gossiping? You said you would be five minutes." When Stephen stopped scowling, he was startled by his surroundings. He had only ever been shown to the formal rooms at the Manor. "God, no wonder the servant didn't want me to see this wreck of a place. I hope we don't find the rest of the family rooms are this shabby when we move in."

Hermia, who had suffered her hate of redecorating to make the room more comfortable for her family, scowled. The day I let you live under this roof is the day I die. "If you don't like it, you know where the door is."

"Of course I do. I did just come through it, didn't I?" He rolled his eyes at the stupidity on display. "Miranda, say goodbye. We're going to be late."

"And Heaven forbid we miss Mother's rude announcement of my pregnancy at someone else's party." Miranda waved her hand at her husband. "Go back to the carriage. I'll come when I'm ready."

Stephen stepped closer to Miranda and spoke in a low voice edged with fake civility. "You promised it wouldn't be more than five minutes, dear."

"Don't call me 'dear'!"

"God knows I don't mean it!" he snapped.

"Oh, you and your delicate manners really are too good for this room," Puck mocked him, his voice hazy.

Stephen narrowed his eyes. "Aren't you the sick one? Oh, for God's sake, woman!" He scowled at Miranda. "Lingering around sick people? Are you trying to kill my son or are you really that stupid?"

Puck rose out of his seat, but he was beaten to the intimidation by Hermia, whose raw will appeared to give her an extra foot of height. She stared into Stephen's eyes, Capulet steel against violet. "Leave my house - now."

Unnerved, Stephen stepped slowly back from Hermia. He looked away from her to escape the intensity, only to catch sight of Puck smiling. Stephen's eyes jumped again and fell on Miranda, who was smirking from ear to ear. Although he desperately wanted to make a smart remark, he was wordless. Hermia and Puck had no fear of him or anything he could bring about. Miranda was bolstering her confidence with theirs. She could never be said to be afraid of him, but she grudgingly did what she was told at home to avoid her mother's wrath. In the moment, that wrath meant nothing. Stephen felt exposed.

Taking advantage of her husband's stupor, Miranda also ordered him to leave. "Or else I will have such pains on this spot that we will have to live here until the baby is born."

With nothing more than an indignant nod, Stephen retreated in disgrace.

"You could have those baby pains, if you like," Hermia offered. "We can give your husband a room in the cells." She nodded in agreement when Puck suggested the crypt instead.

"Unfortunately, that would only work too well. I don't want to spend half a year in bed. Mother nearly had me carried out of the house for fear of ice. And I really should go, much as I don't want to. Mother won't hesitate to come looking for me if the troll and I are any later to arrive than we already will be." Forcing a half-smile, Miranda asked, "But you will help me?"

Hermia had no choice. Miranda had been a steadfast friend for years, a sister to her when Hermia felt she had none. Her darkest hour had been turned to the best of days because Miranda brought Puck to her. Even if she put all that aside, she loved Miranda. Miranda would do as she pleased, and so Hermia had to sign onto the scheme or be shut out. And in way, the scheme was almost sensible. Whatever Pan might be, he had to be a better choice of a father than Stephen. "Of course we will, coz." Hermia paused while Puck echoed her words. "Come back as soon as you can, and we'll plan the party." With raised eyebrows, she gestured toward the door and the small possibility that Stephen or another unfriendly soul was behind it. 

After a flurry of emotional words, gratitude, and goodbyes, Miranda took her leave. Hermia immediately leaned into her husband. "Is it too much to hope that this Pan is actually a decent and trustworthy person?"

"Maybe not. Miranda isn't a fool. Well, usually not."

"But she is impulsive, and who wouldn't seem decent compared to Stephen?" Hermia shuddered. "She helped us put our family together, Puck. We have each other and the twins, and she has that... creature."

"And us, sprite." 

"Then why didn't she come to us? Why do I feel like I hardly know her right now? I never would have thought she could..." A small pang of hypocrisy stalled Hermia's tongue. There was an objective difference between her own indiscretions and Miranda's, certainly, but she didn't want to moralize over what was already done. What good would come to Miranda from more judgment? "But if she was so desperate, so lost to her own senses that she would do this, then why not ask us first?" 

"I don't know. She's made a mess of things, yes, but at least we know now. Maybe we can't pull Miranda out clean, but we will be with her. We'll keep her safe and maybe even happy."

"I hope you're right."

Puck kissed her head. "Of course I am."

"I just - I feel like there are no right choices, no right feelings. That baby is immeasurably better off if it isn't her husband's, but I can't believe just how she did it. If we don't help her, no-one will. She deserves our help, and she will need it. Good luck won't last forever. But God, Puck, what would that look like, our branch of the family helping Goneril's heir to defile her blood line? My sister taking power is the best hope any of us have, especially Miranda. Juliette could maybe even end Miranda's marriage, but only if she wins. This won't help." Her shoulders slumped. "I don't know what to do, Puck."

He drew her in closer, as tightly has he had strength for. "You will in the morning. Come on. We'll have a good night's rest, courtesy of my father's garden. Things won't look so bleak in the sunlight, I promise."

Next Post: "Admired Miranda!"