§ § § – September 27, 2008

Leslie called for the triplets, and within a few minutes they were back in Roarke's study, with the children having gone out with Brianna for an excursion in the little wading pool near the regular adult swimming pool. They had been gone less than five minutes when Roarke set aside the checkbook he and Leslie had been working with earlier that morning and focused on his daughter. "Since we are finally alone here and Christian is well and truly out of earshot," he said, completely serious, "I think it's safe to talk."

"About what?" Leslie asked, setting aside the letter she had been about to slit open.

"My true purpose in taking Rogan to Italy," he said. She sat up in surprise, and he smiled privately; she had been absentmindedly massaging her stomach ever since they'd returned to the main house, but seemed to forget all about it now. "I wanted to wait till Christian in particular could not overhear, because I'm afraid his reaction would be far too violent. His journey to Boston was extremely fortuitous." Leslie eyed him with some suspicion, and he gave her a mildly reproving look. "No, that was not my doing."

She snorted softly, but relented. "Okay, okay. But just why do you want Christian kept in the dark?"

In the next few minutes Roarke filled her in on what he and Rogan had been doing in Italy, while her eyes got bigger and bigger. "As you're aware now, we returned last night, very late, and brought with us all the equipment we will need to continue the research." He waited a beat, then added, "We also brought back Marina and her young son."

Leslie's spine snapped even straighter in the chair and she blew out a breath, her eyes all but round by now. "Whoo. Then it is a good thing Christian's not here." Roarke nodded, and she considered what she had heard. "So...Marina thought she had found the antidote, but in the end it didn't work after all."

"That's not quite true, my child," Roarke corrected her. "It did work, at least for a few days. Since it does seem to have had some effect, even only a temporary one, I feel that avenue is worth pursuit. However, it's clear that this is not the full answer; besides, we aren't sure precisely what property of the spice is affected by this particular plant."

"What plant was it?" she asked.

Roarke frowned. "Jimsonweed."

"I thought that was a narcotic," said Leslie, astonished. "Oh boy! Rogan must've really blown his top when she told you what she was taking."

"Indeed. In any case, since he has such extensive botanical knowledge, he will continue to test various plants in the hope of discovering others that may have some effect; and I will research the history and traditional uses of the spice among the clans, so that perhaps we will find additional clues in the texts."

"What's Marina going to do? For that matter, why did she insist on coming to the island in the first place?" Leslie asked. "Because, speaking of blown tops, Christian's will go sky-high if he finds out she's here. Well, not if, more like when."

"You had better hope that Christian spends the maximum time in Boston and that it takes us the minimum time to find a proper counter-agent," Roarke said with a touch of humor, "or else if I am to believe your words, all hell will break loose around here." She grinned reluctantly; he noticed her hand had strayed back to her stomach and was massaging again, probably without her knowing it. "To answer your question, Marina insists on being the test subject for each substance...the guinea pig, if you will."

"But that could be fatal," Leslie said. This merely got an oh really? look from her father, and she smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I'm stating the obvious. I think all three of us—Michiko and Lauren and I—have been sort of channeling Tattoo lately. Isn't there some other way to test possible cures, or antidotes, or whatever you want to call them?"

"If there were any other way, we would try it," Roarke said. "Unfortunately, as I have managed to ascertain, no other living creature on earth is susceptible in any way to the effects of amakarna—only human beings. Since it is necessary for Marina to have a daily dose of the spice anyhow, she insisted on being our living proving ground. She felt it unwise in the extreme to remain in Italy after her husband's return, for fear that he would discover what she was trying to do and perhaps retaliate in some fashion."

"Well, why on earth would he do that?" Leslie asked.

Roarke relaxed back in his chair. "I think Marina can best explain that to you," he said. "Suffice it for me to say for the moment that she brought her son, Lucan, with her for the child's own safety, as I understand it."

Leslie, whose hand had once more been moving restlessly over her abdomen, stilled again; Roarke nodded, knowing she had read between the lines. After a moment she asked, "Why would she fear for Lucan's safety? I thought she adored her husband—Christian told me once that she mentioned to Arnulf, the day he annulled their marriage, that she'd been in love with Giancarlo since she was nine years old and couldn't wait to be his wife."

"That was then, Leslie," said Roarke gently. "I've been given to understand that he is a much changed man, thanks to the trade in black lightning, for which he is solely responsible. It is he who produces the drug, distributes it to his dealers in various parts of the world, and collects the payment for it each month. After his many failures at all manner of other jobs, I suspect at first Marina's father, the count, was relieved to find that Giancarlo had at last stumbled upon something he could succeed at. But the acquisition of wealth seems to have altered his personality—whether irrevocably or not, I don't know. It's Marina's hope that if we are able to eradicate black lightning and its addictive properties, Giancarlo will be forced to find some other vocation, and perhaps as a result he will revert to the man she once knew. Her words, her hopes." His eyes had gone unfocused and distant. "Love may be all-conquering, my dear daughter, but sometimes it needs a little help."

"Well, then, I suppose you should get started," Leslie suggested with a little smile.

Roarke came back to the moment and chuckled. "Not immediately. We were all quite tired from the long flights, and there is jet lag to consider; so I'll concentrate on the fantasies for the remainder of the weekend, and allow Rogan, Marina and Lucan the chance to recuperate and adjust to the local time zone. Lucan is only a year younger than the triplets, so perhaps they will become playmates. Brianna may find herself earning a great deal of extra babysitting money, between watching Lauren's son and now Marina's."

"Noelle too, I think," Leslie agreed, "once she gets over whatever she has." As if the words were a signal of some sort, she suddenly hiccuped and wrapped both arms around her stomach. "Be right back," she croaked before leaping from the chair and racing upstairs as though there were wings on her feet. Roarke watched her go, shaking his head, smiling ruefully. It appeared he'd come home just in time!

§ § § - September 29, 2008

There was no word from Christian till after Leslie had taken the children home on Monday morning, nursing a stomach that refused to give her a second's respite. Ingrid noted her mistress' condition and insisted she go to bed, that she would take care of the triplets and handle everything else. Once Leslie had changed into her most comfortable sleepwear and had been lying quietly in bed for an hour or so, her stomach had at last consented to calm down enough that she was dozing lightly, on her way to a deeper sleep.

Then the phone in the library jolted her awake and her stomach began doing a long series of somersaults. Cursing silently to herself, Leslie squeezed her eyes shut, opening them only when Ingrid poked her head around the wall partition that split the stairway off from the master bedroom and said in jordiska, "Princess Leslie, it's Prince Christian."

"Oh, thank goodness," Leslie blurted in English, before managing to dredge her somewhat shaky jordiska out of her memory. "Bring me the phone from the library, Ingrid, would you please?" The servant complied, and Leslie smiled her thanks and lifted it to her ear, relieved to switch back to English. "Hi, my love, what took you so long to call?"

Christian grunted. "I'm sorry, my Rose, I should have called earlier, but when I landed at Logan Airport, I discovered my phone had died and needed recharging. By the time there was enough power to make a call, it was too late in your part of the world, so I left it till I knew it would be less intrusive. I changed my watch to Boston time just for the sake of expediency, but my phone still shows Fantasy Island time, so I knew you would most likely be home by now. How do you feel?"

"Like crap," said Leslie bluntly, and he laughed. "I threw up half a dozen times yesterday, but I wasn't about to desert Father, what with Lauren and Noelle still out and Michiko in that fantasy. Which is a whole separate story in itself, actually, but first—tell me what's going on. Have you found out anything new?"

"No, I really haven't. For one thing, it's still Sunday here, and for another, it wasn't Keller who met me at the airport: it was Janine Polidari. There was something odd about her; she seemed a little skittish, as if she were afraid of something."

"Probably you," Leslie said humorously, "considering she'll likely never forget that one humiliating afternoon when she threw herself at you..."

"It's not that," Christian interrupted her, and her amusement died at his tone. "I could see something was bothering her and asked her if anything was wrong, but she said only that it was better if I got to a hotel as soon as possible and she would talk to me tomorrow. Today for you. Ach, this time-zone business is such a pile of fishtails."

She laughed at his translated jordisk slang. "Nothing we can do about it. Did she give you any hint at all as to what might be bugging her?"

"Nothing. I did ask her where Keller is, and she said he had called her, along with all the other employees here, to tell them that I was on my way and that they should appear at the office tomorrow so that I could talk to them. She said then that she asked him if he would be there as well, and he told her he was feeling quite ill and would have to skip it. It sounds like nothing, and I was inclined to dismiss it as such, but Janine insists this is the first time Keller has ever been too sick to work."

"That still doesn't mean anything, necessarily," Leslie observed. "Sooner or later we all get laid low by something. It was just his turn, that's all."

"Mmm, that's my thought as well. But Janine seems to be of another mind entirely, so I suppose I'll have to draw her out. In the meantime, she handed me a small stack of paper applications that have been on file for the last year or so, and an ad will be appearing in the newspapers here starting tomorrow; so at least I have something to do."

"Well, good, then you won't be bored and have to resort to watching trashy reality crap on TV. Have you had a chance to go through them yet?"

"A few, but mostly I've taken it easy. My sense of time is completely skewed, and I need to try to nap a little. Not too much, so that when local night falls tomorrow, I'll be tired enough to sleep properly and that will complete my readjustment. So...as to you...it seems you've officially caught whatever Lauren and Noelle have."

"Yup. Father sent me home this morning right after we got back from the plane dock. It was just us, because when Michiko came out of the Reardon fantasy, she was so upset and unhappy that she couldn't talk about whatever had happened. She asked Father if she could be excused and go back to her mother's place, and he agreed, but he told her not to hold it in for too long and to talk to someone about it. I'm not a hundred percent certain of this, but I got a clue about it this morning."

"Oh? Now what fantasy was this, my Rose?"

"Mitchell Reardon—the guy from North Dakota who wanted to take part in a big Hollywood movie musical, circa 1948 or so. Michiko was supposed to be one of the background dancers in the movie he was making. But back then you never saw anything other than Caucasian dancers in these things, so Father left a potion for Michiko to use to turn her into a statuesque platinum blonde."

"Well enough, I follow you so far. What do you think may have happened?"

"Something might've developed between Michiko and Reardon, because when we said goodbye at the plane dock, he looked a little depressed. He mentioned a beautiful blonde chorus girl with an amazing voice and wished he could see her again. Like I said, I'm not sure it was Michiko, but what with her reaction and her refusal to come to the plane dock today, and the way he described her in her disguise, my gut says they must have had a fling and it affected Michiko more than she thought."

"Problems, problems everywhere," Christian mused through a sigh. His voice was light, though, and Leslie had to smile. "We'll get to the bottom of them, never fear, my Rose. It just takes some time."

"I know. We have our share of that, for sure..." She gasped as her stomach pitched, and cried, "Stay on the line, please, I'll be right back!" Dropping the cordless phone, she rolled off the bed and fled to the bathroom, where she threw up whatever she had tried to drink that morning at breakfast and then endured a couple of rounds of dry heaves before her stomach stopped spasming. She rinsed out her mouth, wiped her face and picked her way back to the bed. She could hear Christian's voice from the phone and lifted it to her ear. "Calm down, my love, it's okay now...I just threw up again."

"Heilige hjusande ödet," he swore, and she grinned weakly at the oath, which had been one of his late father's favorites. "I wasn't sure that's what it was. All I could hear were horrible gagging noises in the distance. Are you really all right?"

"As all right as I can be under the circumstances. Ingrid's handling the housework and watching out for the kids, so—" She caught herself when a small face peered around the partition at the stairway; it belonged to Susanna. "Hold on a second, my love. What's the matter, sweetie?"

"Ingrid said you're sick," Susanna said, padding into the room, eyes wide.

"I am, sweetie, and I just threw up again. What is it? I'm on the phone."

"Who is it?" Susanna asked, and when Leslie told her, she lit up. "Can I talk to Daddy, please, Mommy? I wanna tell him what we did yesterday."

"Hang on," Leslie said and relayed their daughter's request to Christian, who laughed and told her to put Susanna on the line. While the child was talking, Leslie resettled herself into the bed, moving gingerly in an attempt to keep her stomach from inciting another violent rebellion, and listened with half an ear to Susanna's chatter, thinking about Michiko all the while and wondering if she should give her friend a call at some point. Michiko was still dealing with Cat's chilly aloofness, so she hardly needed whatever was bothering her in the wake of this past weekend.

"Okay, Daddy," Susanna said suddenly. "Bye." She handed Leslie the phone. "Daddy wants to talk to you again."

Leslie took the phone and smiled a little. "I guess you're all updated now."

"Seems so...apparently the children were busy little bees yesterday. Don't let her hang around you too much, my Rose, you don't need the burden of nursemaiding any of the children as long as you yourself are ill." His voice gentled. "For that matter, I should let you rest. Shoo her out, my darling, and then try to take a nap; it might help you feel better."

"I hate to hang up, but I guess you're right. Well, give me a call when you have something worth telling me about, will you?"

"I will, I promise you that. Give my love to Tobias and Karina, and remember, I love you very much. Get well."

"You stay well, my love. Talk to you later," she murmured, and they disconnected.

"Is Daddy coming home soon?" Susanna asked.

"Honey, he only just got there. It's going to be a while. I need to try to rest, so why don't you go find your brother and sister and play with them. I don't want you to catch what I have, or you'll be throwing up all over the place too."

Susanna sighed. "Okay." With a hangdog look that made her mother grin, she plodded off to the stairs and disappeared, and Leslie finally succeeded in falling asleep this time, still mulling over Michiko.