Four years, Ruth thought to herself giddily. It had been four years since she'd last set eyes on the sturdy castle that now rose up out of the green countryside as though it was waiting for her. It had been raining off and on for the entire week she'd been traveling and the plants had responded, though it had been no good for her boots or the hem of her dress, both of which were now coated in viscous mud. The horse under her was covered in mud, too, and she had a sneaking suspicion some of it had worked its way up into the rest of her clothing, and onto her face and hands. It hardly mattered - in no time at all now she could immerse herself in a tub of hot boiling water. If that should be what she chose to do first.
The castle had seemed larger to her, once. She hadn't gotten any bigger - she'd reached her full height long before sixteen - but she'd seen something more of the world now.
Ruth smiled at the thought; her parents would have said living in Sydney would have shown her more of the world than studying to be a sorceress in a dusty library, something she'd been working on, really, ever since she was a small girl. But this world was no smaller than the one she'd come from, after all, and there was plenty to explore.
The groom looked startled when she nearly leapt off her horse. "I wouldn't ordinarily leave her here for you to deal with," she told him apologetically. "It's just that I've been gone so long... I want to..."
"L-lady Ruth," he stuttered in shock. "Of course." And she ran past him into the castle.
The first person she encountered, and subsequently greeted with an uncontrollable sob, was Aunt Nora.
"Ruth!" she exclaimed, and hugged her tight. "You're back from college?" It had started as a joke, but now they could refer to her four years away as "college" nearly in earnest.
"Graduated," Ruth expelled in a breathless gasp. Her aunt stood back to study her. "Where's Randolph?" she blurted, and winced. She had not meant to make it sound as though her only concern was her... husband (it would take some getting used to, having a husband), but she couldn't hold back her curiosity any longer.
"Finding tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, and sermons in stones," Aunt Nora quipped. Seeing Ruth's expression, she backpedaled hastily. "He went out for a ride this morning. He couldn't have known you were returning today..." She trailed off doubtfully.
"No," Ruth agreed, but her heart constricted nonetheless. "In this weather?"
"The weather hasn't given up in two weeks," Aunt Nora observed drily. "Those who wish to see the outdoors must acknowledge nature's ownership over them. Ted and Laura were in Fence's study, the last time I asked after them, though Fence himself is somewhere absent."
"I will see you at supper," Ruth promised, and dashed off to see her cousins.
Her dash failed her about halfway up the 208 stairs to Fence's study. The library in Fence's Country - ironically - had not demanded nearly so much physical exertion, and she'd let herself get lazy. No more of that, Ruth told herself firmly. You will go riding every day and visit Fence twice a day, if that's what it takes to conquer these stairs. By the time she reached the top and pushed open the heavy wooden door, she was wheezing.
Ted and Laura glanced up, idly curious, and went back to their conversation; then, after a pause, they turned back to her almost in unison.
"Ruth!" Laura exclaimed, sounding nearly exactly like her mother. She looked like her now, too, Ruth had to admit, having reached teenagerhood and grown into her new height. She threw away dignity and embraced Ruth much like her mother. Ted stood apart, as a good king should, but the grin on his face could only be described as "shit-eating."
"How have these four years treated you, Your Majesty?" Ruth asked, still holding Laura close to her side. He looked as Ted always had, but more adult, somehow. It startled Ruth to realize that Ted was now older than she'd been when they'd first come to the Secret Country, when they'd inadvertently pretended to be the royal murdered children and defeated their enemies. When she'd married Randolph and gone away again, because she was still too young. Neither she nor Ted was young anymore.
"My crown is called content," Ted quoted in that way of his that made it an inside joke without sounding like he was making fun. The adults - the older generation, Ruth corrected herself - had never quite gotten the hang of it, but Ted gave it a kind of gravity. "And you, Lady Ruth?"
"Glad to be home at last," Ruth said with feeling. It was odd how attached she felt to this peculiar little place, given that she had spent less time here than away over the last four years, and less time here even than their cozy house in Australia, of which she never thought.
"You should bathe and dress before Randolph returns," Laura said suddenly, separating herself from Ruth. Ruth laughed.
"Do I smell so bad?"
"No, but you look as though you've been traveling, and you'll want to be clean for him." Laura looked at Ruth speculatively but shyly, the way Ruth herself at that age had regarded anyone who brought to mind the nearly-forbidden and newly-interesting topic of sex. Ruth opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it and merely said, "You're right."
Ruth emerged from her old chamber - still poorly heated and sparsely furnished, since she'd used it only once or twice a year, at holidays - clean and properly gowned but shivering slightly. The warmth of the dining room was welcome, and she rubbed her hands in front of the great fire, wishing absently as she sometimes did for the comforts of the old world - in this case, a hair dryer.
A sound from the other end of the room caught her attention and Ruth turned around, fire and cold hands forgotten. She saw Fence and her Uncle Thomas absorbed in conversation, but behind them was the figure she'd been searching for ever since she arrived: Randolph. He must have just come in from his ride; in contrast to her own preparations, which she was now glad of, he was covered to the knees in mud, his hair matted down against his forehead. He looked as handsome as she'd ever seen him, and her heart gave a little leap.
Ruth could not move, so it was as well Randolph came straight to her with the singular purpose of a hunting hound. He took her hands in his and she burst into laughter.
"I've just finished warming my hands and now you've made them cold again," she said, ridiculously. Then, better: "I missed you." This came out more quietly, but she saw in his expression that he was not hurt.
"I should get cleaned and changed," he said, just as quietly.
"Go, go," Ruth insisted, though she did not let go of his hands. "I did not mean to distract you."
"I welcomed the distraction," Randolph replied, but he let her go and turned to leave the room. Then he hesitated, turned back, and pressed a kiss to her forehead before disappearing through the big double door.
They gathered together in Fence's study, again, after the meal, all of those who had once known the secret: Ruth, Ted, and Laura, the trespassers from another world; Fence and Randolph, who had trusted them even when they had no reason to; and Aunt Nora and Uncle Thomas, who refused to be left behind. Ruth's heart ached a bit for the ones they had left: the erstwhile Prince Patrick and Princess Ellen had returned to their ordinary world of school and music lessons and walking Shan, their mischievous dog. And Ruth's own parents, who had no interest in either Shakespeare or magic, for whom the Secret Country held no appeal at all. It had been four years since she'd seen any of them. They'd all worked on the project of figuring out how to harmlessly travel between the two worlds - it was part of what she'd studied in her four years away - but so far no one was confident enough to risk awakening the Outside Powers.
"Well," said Fence, having poured them all glasses of cordial and raised his own, "here were are, all together again."
"And not likely to leave again anytime soon." Ruth signed with relief and raised her cordial. Her eyes insisted on seeking out Randolph, and she retaliated by closing them. "Fence, I want to talk to you about some of the things I've learned, especially about the Green sorcerers. If only I still had access -"
"Far too late to go down that road again," Fence opined. "Even had we not angered Meredith before the revelation of your true identity, she's not likely to let you back in now that she knows who you are."
"There's time for business tomorrow," Uncle Thomas said, refilling Ted's glass, which he'd already managed to empty. "For now let's just enjoy being together."
They shared stories from the last four years - the last year in particular, since Ruth had last been here at the castle. Letters moved slowly in the Secret Country, so while they all stayed in regular touch there were things that simply couldn't be conveyed. Ted and Laura were in the middle of telling some story they clearly found riotously funny, but Ruth could barely follow, when she looked up and found Randolph steadily regarding her. She flushed and looked down at her hands in her lap, feeling suddenly dizzy.
At last it was too late to pretend otherwise, and they all stood up more or less at the same time. "Ruth, do you -" Laura started, and then closed her mouth. Ruth flushed again. Uncle Thomas cleared his throat.
Thank goodness for Ted, who jumped in as soon as he realized. "Ruth and Randolph, there's something I'd like to talk to you about. Would you walk with me?"
"Of course," Ruth said. Aunt Nora and Uncle Thomas said their quiet good-nights to Fence, who had settled down at his desk as though he intended to stay there all night, and Laura followed them out.
"Good save," Ruth told Ted in an undertone.
He laughed, and looked rueful. "It would have been better thirty seconds earlier."
It was a good thing no one had kept behind to check on their alibi. She and Randolph followed Ted silently until he parted from them at the hallway that led to the king's suite, with an absent wave. He didn't look at Ruth, who discerned, with some amusement, that he was just as embarrassed as her but didn't want to admit it.
Ruth realized that she had never known where Randolph's room was. They had always met in the Lady Ruth's - still hard to think of it as her own - or in Fence's study. After a measured pause he started walking again, and she fell in beside him.
"Four years is a long time," he said slowly, not looking at her. She slipped a hand into his by way of assurance, as they passed by one of the huge windows that looked out onto her beloved Secret Country.