§ § § -- July 7, 2004
"All right, then." Christian, Leslie and Ingrid lay on their stomachs on the floor, just like the triplets, who had quilts under them and were peering at one or another of the adults, usually whichever one was speaking at the moment. In this case it was Christian. "Here's where we're all going to have a language lesson of some sort. Leslie, my darling, yours will be in jordiska, and Ingrid…du börjer lära dej engelska." He grinned when Leslie and Ingrid looked at each other with some trepidation. "The triplets, of course, will be picking up both languages, so they have twice the job either of you has."
"Huh," said Leslie teasingly. "You said we're 'all' having a lesson. What're you going to learn today?"
"Patience, and hopefully how not to laugh at your efforts," he said, grinning at her, and she snorted playfully. "Well, let's see. Suppose you try to speak to each other a little, in the other's language. Ingrid has a few English words, and I know you gathered at least a little jordiska, Leslie."
She gave him a look and said, "Undoubtedly because you caught me cramming in that dictionary you brought over from Lilla Jordsö when we got married. Well, then, what'll we start with? Something simple, I hope."
At that point Tobias hiccuped and spit up for the second time post-feeding, and the adults blinked at him and then laughed. Tobias stared at his parents, whose faces were close together at the moment, and grunted, making them laugh again. "Well," Christian said, "we could begin with that. Spit-up—or småspy in jordiska. Let me lift him before he tires of holding his head up, so we can get that quilt clean."
About an hour later, with the triplets fast dropping off into slumber, Christian drew in a breath and said patiently, "Let's try this again. Ingrid, på engelska till fru Enstad, 'det är så skjön att få se dej igen. Jag tillbringer gärna en kvell med dej."
Ingrid turned quite red, but spoke in halting English anyhow. "It is so nice to see you again. I gladly spend an evening with you."
"Nej, du säger 'I will gladly spend an evening with you'," Christian corrected.
Leslie broke in then, smiling a little slyly and hoping the words she had just spent ten minutes stringing together would come out coherently. "Är det inte den tiden att trillingar sovar?" she asked Christian, grinning when both he and Ingrid stared at her in astonishment.
"What are you trying to do, outperform poor Ingrid here?" Christian teased, beginning to laugh. "A bit broken there, but essentially correct."
"Broken?" Leslie repeated. "What exactly did I say, then?"
"Directly translated, it would be 'Is it not the time that triplets sleep?' I suppose I'll have to teach you how articles are applied in jordiska. I'd ask, 'Är det inte dags for trillingarna att gå till sengs?' and you would say, 'Javissa'—or 'certainly'." She nodded, and he let out a yawn. "I had no idea that teaching is so exhausting. Since it actually is time for the triplets to go to bed, I think we can stop for now."
"Suits me," Leslie agreed, echoing his yawn. "I'm afraid I'll never gain the kind of ease in jordiska that I know the triplets will, but blast it, one way or another, I refuse to be the only totally monolingual member of this family." On Christian's chuckle, she arose and gathered up a sleepy Karina. "Come on, baby girl, Mommy's taking you to bed, and Daddy and Ingrid will bring your brother and sister."
"If I can stay awake that long myself," Christian mumbled, climbing to his feet and stretching long and hard before lifting Susanna. Drowsily he murmured to the baby in jordiska on his way to the stairs; Ingrid brought up the rear with Tobias, already asleep, and the three put the triplets down for the next several hours. Leslie waited till Ingrid had gone off to her own room before turning to Christian as he snapped on the nightlight under the window in the triplets' room.
"Christian, my love," she said softly, "do you think Ingrid will learn enough English fast enough to be able to talk to Jonathan soon?"
Christian straightened up, glanced indulgently at her and closed the slats of the window blinds. "It may take some time," he said. "If they hope to develop any sort of relationship, she'll need enough command of the language to be able to answer his questions and ask some of her own. Casual conversation in an unfamiliar language certainly doesn't come so easily, and you should know. Ingrid's been doing well, but she's been actively learning for only a week or so."
"I know," Leslie said, watching him close the curtains. "I just wish we dared tell Jonathan about it. Camille told me he seems miserable because he can't even ask Ingrid the most basic questions to get to know her."
"There might be another problem," Christian observed, joining her in the doorway while she turned out the lamp on the chest of drawers near the bedroom door, leaving the babies' room in the soft, dim glow of the nightlight. "Ingrid is entrenched in the mindset that she's just a servant working for royalty and therefore has no freedom to do anything beyond the job she's expected to do. She'd be mortified if we even hinted to her that we knew of this attraction between her and Jonathan. I don't know how we can encourage the relationship, to tell you the truth."
Leslie shook her head, slipping her hand into his on their way to their own room. "I don't know if I really want to play matchmaker to such an obvious extent. I may have granted Myeko's fantasy once to meet men, and wound up putting eight or nine couples together as a result, but I wasn't going through acrobatic contortions trying to match people up. I just made introductions and the rest fell into place by itself."
"That would be ideal," Christian said, "but I honestly don't see how that would happen in this case. The best we can do is try to shoehorn a little English into Ingrid's brain and let her carry it from that point. At the moment, the only relationship I have any interest in is ours. You mentioned not so long ago that you're ready to make love again, and I seem to recall that this is the eighth anniversary of the day we first met. Are you willing to celebrate it with me tonight, while we have a little time to ourselves?"
Leslie smiled and wrapped her arms around him. "Absolutely, my love," she said. "Let's make this a night to remember."
"Ah…not at all difficult, I think," Christian murmured, smiling back, and kissed her. It started out gentle, perhaps a little exploratory, as if they felt they needed to relearn each other. In a sense, they were. By late April Leslie had been so ungainly with her pregnancy that she and Christian had reluctantly agreed to call a halt to their lovemaking till some point after the babies arrived. To their mutual relief and anticipation, this was that point, and they began slowly, refreshing their memories, becoming familiar with each other all over again. As he so often did, Christian gathered some of Leslie's hair in a loose fist and slowly stroked down, several times over, as he kissed her. Leslie sifted her fingers through his glossy dark hair, delighting in its silky texture and absorbing the welcome warmth of his body against hers.
Eventually he lifted his mouth from hers and murmured, "Let's take it slow…let's make this last. I don't know how long I'll be able to hold myself in check, I'm already so impatient—but I promise you it will be as wonderful for you as for me."
"It's always wonderful with you, no matter what happens," Leslie whispered.
Christian smiled slowly, then maneuvered her back to the bed and laid her down before settling down beside her and beginning to undress her. Her eyes gleamed softly in the faint light from the ceiling skylight, and she gathered the hem of his T-shirt in her hands and drew it up. Quietly, reverently, they undressed each other, then regarded each other in the dim illumination before Christian reached out and tentatively touched her breasts with the tip of an index finger. "They seem different," he ventured.
"They are, silly," Leslie said with a smile.
He grinned. "I know, my Rose, but not just for the obvious reasons." After a second's hesitation, he added hopefully, "Will you let me…try a little?"
She understood what he meant, and her smile widened a little. "Go ahead, my love," she said softly, anticipating the feel of his mouth on her breasts for the first time in weeks. She watched him lower his head and close his mouth over one breast, then suckle as he had so often done in their childless days. Then he swallowed with a startled gulp, and she couldn't hold back a grin. "What's the verdict?"
Christian lifted his head and chuckled self-consciously. "It's sweet! That really surprised me. It's a bit thin for my taste, but I think I can see why the babies would love it. I suppose I'd better be careful in case I happen to steal Susanna's and Karina's next meal."
"Oh, don't worry, they'll have enough," Leslie assured him. "Don't stop, my love…it feels so good."
"Different from when the babies do it?" Christian asked.
Leslie smiled at him and murmured, "Enough so I know it's you, and enough that it makes me want you—so please, stop talking and make love to me."
"That's easy to do," Christian said, smiling back, and kissed her before beginning to devote his attention to other parts of her. Leslie stroked and caressed him in turn, and in a few minutes they both forgot anything but each other in the rush of sensations that were so familiar yet so suddenly fresh after all this time. When he pulled her into a sitting position and then into his lap, settling her on him so that he slid inside her, they both groaned at the same moment, their need for each other increasing threefold. It was their favorite way to make love, for it provided the most sensation for them both.
Just when he was certain he could no longer control himself, she stiffened against him and cried, "Chris…ti…aaaaaaaaan!" just as she always had. Leslie threw her head back, the last syllable of his name a throaty groan as she convulsed against him. The sight drove Christian over the edge, and he grunted her name in the midst of emptying himself into her, in a series of short sharp jerks that drove him deeper into her with each thrust.
Leslie wilted over his shoulder, and Christian felt himself pulse into her one last time before his own peak subsided and he relaxed almost completely. They held each other hard, their breathing loud and heavy for a few minutes; slowly Leslie began to stroke his back, and Christian held her close, twining his fingers in her hair, wanting never to let her go.
"Tell me what you felt," he murmured to her when his breathing had slowed enough that he could be coherent again.
"I felt like you sent me to heaven," Leslie told him, her lips near his ear. "Just the way you always send me to heaven. We didn't lose anything by waiting." She drew her head back and then kissed him, and he groaned into her mouth, startled to find himself needing her again already. Leslie felt his reaction and broke away for a moment. "Oh, Christian…"
"My Rose, you've done this to me before, but not so soon," he breathed, closing his eyes. "Perhaps it was the necessity of waiting for you while you were right there with me, available but not…I don't know. These last several months have served to remind me how very fortunate I am to have you in my life. You've given me so much…my darling…" His voice broke, and he pulled her head forward to kiss her again.
They took full advantage of their opportunity to make love, giving each other all they had and both gaining greatly from it. They even had the chance to sleep for a couple of hours before a high-pitched little cry reached their ears and they came awake with rueful grins.
"Back to real life," Leslie murmured.
"The happiest real life I've ever had," Christian assured her, and they kissed one more time before crawling out of bed and going to see to their children.
‡ ‡ ‡
Guiltily Ingrid shut the door to her room and climbed back into bed, where she once again clicked on a flashlight she had borrowed from what Princess Leslie called the "junk drawer" in the Enstads' kitchen and spread open the English/jordiska dictionary that Prince Christian had given her as a study aid. She was so determined to learn English as fast as she possibly could that—to her chagrin—she had been annoyed when the triplets' cries to be fed had interrupted her studying. What kind of rotten servant was she, anyway, to resent three helpless little babies? But it didn't stop her from going right back to her secret cramming as soon as Prince Christian had released her from further duty for the night.
It had been perhaps twenty minutes since she'd heard the prince and his wife return to their room when a strange clinking sound echoed faintly off the wall. Startled, she looked up, wide-eyed, fearful of being discovered. A moment later the same sound came again, and this time she realized something had hit the window. What in the world…? Terrified now that someone else would overhear, she leaped from the futon and ran on her toes to the window. Fortunately, since it was brand-new, it opened soundlessly.
The yard below was dark, but she could still make out a human figure standing below the window. Her first instinct was to call out in jordiska, but she restrained herself and instead put some of her newly-acquired, still-unsteady English to use. "Who is there?" she asked softly, hoping whoever it was would hear her.
"Ingrid? Is it you? It's Jonathan," came the reply.
"Jonathan!" Ingrid echoed, stunned. What on earth was he doing here? How did he know where Prince Christian lived? Maybe the prince would fire both of them if he knew… She gulped back her panic and wished her heart would slow down: in spite of her fear of their being discovered, she was delighted that Jonathan had gone this far just to see her.
"You speak some English now?" Jonathan called.
"Very little English," Ingrid said, annoyed with herself that she hadn't been able to absorb it even faster. How she wanted to be able to talk to this man. "So little I not speak good to you," she managed after some frantic thought, aware that she had cut him off as he'd tried to say something.
"Oh," Jonathan said, and for a moment there was a silence. Then she heard, "Can you come down here?"
"I…not know," Ingrid mumbled, wishing with all her heart that she could. But there was only one way to the first floor: the spiral stairway just near Prince Christian and Princess Leslie's room. The stairs didn't creak, but she didn't know whether either the prince or princess might be a light sleeper. And what about getting out the door without anyone hearing her? It was a bigger risk than she was willing to take. "No," she said at last, hoping he could hear the regret in her voice.
Jonathan mumbled something that Ingrid suspected was a curse, judging by its tone, and she smiled faintly, wondering if she'd ever gain enough fluency to learn the curses too. He was silent again, and she waited, wondering how on earth he'd figured out what room she was using. While she waited for him to speak again, she began picking out words in an attempt to formulate the question.
"Ingrid? You still there?" he called after some time.
"Yes," she told him.
"Good," came the reply, and she smiled again, fully this time. He'd almost thrown off her train of thought. She found the last words she needed, rehearsed the question once or twice, and then took a deep breath and plunged in. "Jonathan…how you know where I am?"
After a moment a laugh floated up to her. "I watched this house," he said. "I've been here for at least four hours. I was almost asleep, and then the light went on in the babies' room, and I saw you pass by the window once or twice with a baby, and then Boss Prince and Miss Leslie did the same thing. So I figured that was the triplets' room. When the light went out, I waited. And then I saw a light in your window, just a little one, flickering. So I just took a chance. I was prepared to hide if it wasn't you."
Ingrid missed half his explanation, since it not only consisted of a lot of words she didn't yet know, but was spoken fairly quickly. She tried to repeat the gist of what he'd told her. "You see light in baby room, you see me in…in window? And you see light go away, and you see light in my window?"
"Exactly," Jonathan said cheerfully. "Hey, your English is better than you think. Aw, Ingrid…" His tone became pleading. "I really wish you would come down here."
"Prince Christian not like," Ingrid said worriedly.
Jonathan sounded subdued. "Yeah, I guess not." His voice brightened. "Well, I could try to come up there."
"How you come here?" Ingrid exclaimed.
More silence, then a very loud sigh. "You're right, I couldn't. But don't leave. I don't want you to go."
"I not go," Ingrid promised, amazed at herself that she was actually conversing with this man, just as she'd dreamed of doing. She'd be a sleepless robot tomorrow, but it would be worth it just to have this chance. "Jonathan…say your other name."
"Other name?" he repeated blankly.
"Yes…" Ingrid hunted for the word she wanted but came up short, and settled for telling him, "All my name is Ingrid Roslund."
"Oh, my last name!" Jonathan said and laughed again. "Ichino. I'm Jonathan Ichino. I'm glad to know you, Ingrid Roslund. Now if you'd let me know you better…"
At that moment there was a tap on Ingrid's door and she froze, terror swamping her. "I go," she squeaked and ducked away from the window, scuttling on her toes to the futon and settling herself onto it as soundlessly as she could. She could hear Jonathan calling her name from below and willed him to be quiet.
"Ingrid?" a voice asked from outside her door. She swallowed hard; it was Prince Christian. She might as well get started packing to go home.
"Yes, Your Highness?" she responded in jordiska, trying to sound sleepy on the off chance that he still didn't realize someone was standing in his front yard.
"Something's going on in there," he said, sounding a little stern, and her heart sank. "May I come in?"
"Of course, Your Highness," Ingrid replied miserably. The door opened and Christian came into the room, striding right across to the window without even bothering to turn on a light. Ingrid squeezed her eyes closed and held her breath.
In English Christian called, "Who's down there? There's no point in hiding—I know you're there. So make your confession now and I might be lenient with you."
A defeated voice floated back up to them: "It's just me, Boss Prince, Jonathan…I only wanted to talk to Ingrid."
"You wanted to what?" Christian said, sounding stunned. "Talk to Ingrid? But she can barely speak English!"
"We were doing okay a few minutes ago," Jonathan replied miserably. "Man, Boss Prince, I'm really sorry about this. It's just…I didn't know any other way to contact her…oh, cripes, I guess I'm fired, huh?"
Ingrid had opened her eyes by now and thus saw Christian's silhouette rear back from the window. "Herregud!" he exclaimed and she raised her head a little. Suddenly he began to laugh. "Tell you what, suppose you go to the front door and I'll let you in, so you can tell me exactly how the situation came down to this absurd little scene."
"I don't mind a bit," Jonathan said, "but could you bring Ingrid with you?"
Christian tipped back at the waist and laughed again, clearly trying to keep the volume of his mirth low for the sake of the sleeping triplets. "Well enough, I'll do that," he chortled. "I'd hate to see you go to all this effort for nothing. We'll meet you there."
Five minutes later Christian had brought Ingrid down, along with Leslie, who had been awakened when he'd left the bed to investigate the faint voices he'd been hearing, and let Jonathan in. Now Leslie gave them all orange juice, and Christian waited for her to sit down before addressing Jonathan. "All right, tell me precisely what you meant to do here."
"Just to talk to Ingrid, that's it," Jonathan insisted and looked at Leslie as though in appeal. "It's really true, Miss Leslie."
Leslie grinned. "I don't doubt you, Jonathan, but it strikes us both that this is a pretty drastic way to try to further your relationship with Ingrid. If you'd just approached us and asked, we'd have had no problem at all. We were kind of wondering why you didn't, once we found out."
Jonathan stared at her, glanced at Christian, who grinned, and then stared at Leslie some more. Finally he croaked, "You mean you knew? But how?" Then he sat up straight and exclaimed, "Julianne! It had to be Julianne!"
"Well, it was, more or less," Leslie said, chuckling softly. "She told Camille, and Camille told me. But really, Jonathan, they were both sympathetic—at least, Camille said Julianne was. Camille herself thinks it's about time you met some nice girl."
"Geeeeeeeeez," Jonathan groaned and dropped his forehead into the palms of both hands. Ingrid watched him with a curious little smile. "Well, to go back to the beginning, I first saw Ingrid a few weeks ago. She was getting something or other at the All-Natural shop, and I was in there on my lunch hour looking for some soda. I kinda bumped into her by accident. We exchanged names, but that was all we could say to each other. The same night I ate supper over at my sister Andrea's house, and my niece Janine mentioned she'd started working for you guys, doing your food shopping twice a week. That's when I found out Ingrid was helping you take care of the triplets. I figured it was a lost cause after that. I mean, I have no real reason to come over here, I'm just your employee."
"Why didn't you say something when I brought the triplets in to work that one day?" asked Christian in perplexity.
Jonathan gawked at him in astonishment. "Man, you must be joking, Boss Prince…with everybody else right there? Julianne would've had a field day with it, and I'd have heard a lot of ribbing from Mateo and Beth and Anton too. I wasn't gonna risk that."
"But obviously Julianne noticed anyway," Leslie reminded him, "or she wouldn't have known to tell Camille about it. At any rate…" She smiled, glancing a little sheepishly at an amused Christian. "Once we got the word from Camille, Christian decided Ingrid might as well start learning English. Not that we hadn't intended her to learn at some point, since she's going to be with us at least through the triplets' first birthday and probably longer. But this was a good excuse to actually get started."
Ingrid suddenly said, "I learn little too. I try learn when you not know, Your…Your…Ers Höghet." She blushed and glanced fleetingly at Jonathan, who smiled.
Christian opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, "Forgive me, my Rose, and Jonathan as well. A moment." In jordiska he asked Ingrid, "Do you mean to say you've been studying English in secret?"
Relieved, Ingrid nodded and said, "Exactly so, Your Highness. I borrowed a flashlight and studied the dictionary you gave me whenever I wasn't working. Mostly I study at night. I want so badly to speak to Jonathan and get to know him well, and I don't want to waste a lot of time. I don't know how long I'll be here."
"Ah, don't worry about that. We'll need your help with those little imps well into their second year, so you should prepare to spend a goodly bit of time on this island. It'll give you plenty of time to gain some fluency in English, too. I certainly won't forbid you and Jonathan to see each other, but you'll both need patience while you're learning to speak good enough English to really talk to him."
Ingrid sighed wistfully and let her gaze stray to Jonathan, who had been watching her the whole time. "It's not easy, Your Highness," she admitted.
Christian laughed. "I understand perfectly, Ingrid, believe me." He switched back to English. "Well, Ingrid says she's been studying English in secret, trying to learn faster. I don't know how much success she'll have, but I can tell you this, Jonathan—I won't stop you from seeing her. It's only that there's no rushing her absorption of English, and you'll both need to be patient. You'll have to take it slowly out of sheer lack of means of communication. In view of that, are you still willing to try?"
"Absolutely, Boss Prince," Jonathan said immediately.
Leslie sat up and leaned forward. "You know…maybe I could help, if I have a chance to talk to Father…"
"Now, wait a minute, my Rose," Christian began.
"What could Mr. Roarke do?" Jonathan asked with interest.
Leslie saw Christian roll his eyes and patted her husband's arm. "Maybe Father would be willing to give Ingrid temporary fluency, enough so you two could have a real talk for a while and at least learn enough of the basics about each other to get your relationship rolling, and see if you feel compatible enough to keep going."
"Herregud," Christian muttered, and Ingrid giggled.
"Do you think he'd agree to it?" Jonathan asked hopefully.
Leslie shrugged and said, "I can find out tomorrow. Right now…" She smiled. "I have a feeling you two wouldn't mind a little time alone. Christian and I can give you about fifteen minutes while we go up and check on the babies. Come on, my love, let's give these two a little bit of privacy."
Christian gave her an incredulous look as she pushed back her chair and stood up. "What in the world is possessing you tonight, Leslie?"
"Oh, come on, spoilsport," Leslie teased, grabbing his hand and pulling at him. "I'd hate to see Jonathan come all the way over here and go to all that trouble, and not have his chance to spend a little time with Ingrid. Come on." Christian snorted, but he got up and let Leslie tug him out of the room. Ingrid giggled again behind her hand, and Jonathan watched them go, chuckling soundlessly and shaking his head. They looked at each other then, their amusement dissolving into a sort of shy fascination, and for the first time reached out to clasp hands. Neither spoke, but no words were necessary right now.
Christian and Leslie made a quick check on the soundly-sleeping triplets and then paused near the stairs. After a few minutes Christian muttered, "Do you intend to stand here and count off the next ten minutes, second by second?"
Leslie gave him a dirty look. "Where's your sense of romance, Enstad?"
He raised an eyebrow and retorted, "Slumbering peacefully in that bed, in exactly the place I wish I were right now. This really is a hell of a time for you to decide the lovebirds should have their chance to coo over each other. It's almost one in the morning!"
"When the clock says one, I'll chase Jonathan out and send Ingrid to bed, and then we'll go ourselves," Leslie promised. She turned to him and slipped her arms around him. "Come on, my darling, don't tell me that if it were you and me, you wouldn't have done the same thing."
Christian sighed deeply. "Mr. Roarke would have told me to rein in my impatience and wait till a civilized hour."
"Oh no, that's not the way I remember it," Leslie reminded him slyly. "What about when you first proposed to me, and I turned you down because I thought I'd jinx you? You were at the main house at somewhere around two a.m., trying to shoot down every roadblock I threw in your way. I'm sure the thought of a civilized hour never once crossed your mind in all that time. Am I right?"
"That was different," Christian protested.
"Why?" Leslie asked.
"Because…" he began, then stopped, frowning. "Well," he finally said, "because I was desperate to convince you."
Leslie grinned. "I'm sure Jonathan was no less desperate just to talk to Ingrid."
Christian groaned and let his head fall back for a moment in frustration. "But Mr. Roarke was never even awake in our case—and furthermore, we weren't bothering someone who had to face the demands of three one-month-olds every three hours or so, all night long. If I seem like a spoilsport to you, keep in mind that I'm sleep-deprived. If you tell me you're not, I won't believe a syllable."
"I am," Leslie said, glancing down the stairs, "but I think this is a special case. Just this once, my love, okay? You don't even have to go down with me—I'll lay down the law for Jonathan and have Ingrid go back to bed. Without studying, I might add."
Christian grinned then. "Oh? And how are you going to tell her that?"
Leslie rolled her eyes, and he laughed softly and kissed her. "I'll wait up here, and when you get back with Ingrid, I'll tell her myself," he suggested. "It's one o'clock, my Rose, go down and throw him out so we can all get some sleep." She laughed finally, shaking her head in resignation, and headed down the stairs. Maybe, Leslie thought as she went, even if Roarke advised against any sort of artificial language booster, she and Christian had done enough to get Jonathan and Ingrid a little closer. Love really defies logic sometimes, but that's what makes it so wonderful, she thought. The summer promised to be interesting, and she looked forward to it.
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Next: an extremely unexpected visitor arrives on the island, even while Christian and Leslie go on dealing with Janine Polidari's crush; and Maureen has her baby as well…
