14. The Family Plumbing

"I'm curious, Miss Babcock," said Niles. "Would you say there's a double standard in today's society when it comes to men and women? Miss Fine has some very interesting observations on that subject, don't you, Miss Fine?"

Fran, sitting opposite Niles at the kitchen table, waved a chocolate chip cookie at him in emphatic agreement. The two employees looked very comfortable together, like old friends, even though they had been working together less than a year. CC paused in the doorway for a moment, then shook her head and marched right in.

"What makes you think I'd be interested in what Nanny Fine has to say?" she muttered, pouncing on the coffeepot like a lioness who has discovered a water hole.

"Oy, did you ever get up on the wrong side of the bed!" Fran took a bite out of her cookie, crunched it cheerfully, and continued with her mouth full. "Look, all I'm sayin' is, it's time for you fellas to get used to bein' looked at the way you look at us. You're not ashamed of checkin' out those showgirls the other day, are ya, Niles?"

"Indeed not."

Niles leaned back in his chair, smug as a cat in cream. CC, remembering those skinny young dancers in their leotards and the glazed looks in Niles' and Maxwell's eyes, scowled into her cup.

"So I don't see why Mr. Sheffield's got his boxers in a twist just because I – "

"Ah, ah, ah, Miss Fine. You promised to let me be the one to tell her, remember?"

CC's stomach lurched. Anything that made Niles sound like this had to be bad news for her. She really ought to leave the room right now – but curiosity held her fast.

"Tell whom?" she snapped. "What? What is it?"

"Oh, nothing," Niles chirped. "Just a little contretemps Miss Fine had with Mr. Sheffield in the shower."

CC choked on a mouthful of hot coffee and leaned against the counter to steady herself. The burning in her lungs matched a similar sensation in her heart.

"Niles!" Fran reached out to swat the butler's shoulder with one red-nail-polished hand, then jumped to her feet. "Take it easy, Miss Babcock. Here, I'll help - "

"NO!" CC snarled, forcing her voice through the roughness of her throat. She backed away from Fran's hands all the way around the table. "Don't - don't touch me! I'm fine!"

"Okay, okay!" Fran held up both hands in surrender. "Calm down. It was just an accident, anyway. I thought it was Brighton and Tiffany again, kissing in the shower like last time, so I went in to stop them and, wouldn't ya know it, there was Mr. Sheffield." She giggled. "I didn't even see anything. Well, not much. It was only like a few seconds. Except for that soap-on-a-rope I gave him for Christmas. Which is kinda nice, actually. I mean, I'm glad he's still using it."

The contented, almost wifely smile which suddenly lit up Fran's face was not encouraging to CC's peace of mind.

"I agree with Miss Fine," added Niles. "I don't see why he's so embarrassed. According to her, he has nothing whatsoever to be embarrassed about."

CC snatched up a cookie and bit into it savagely, too angry even to appreciate Niles' excellent baking, in orer to buy time to think of an appropriate zinger.

"Poor little butler boy," she sneered. "Still jealous of your master. Admit it, you'd do anything to take his place."

"I would," he admitted serenely. "Just as you would do anything to take Miss Fine's."

Such are the vagaries of the human mind that, for a moment, CC's imagination presented her with a mortifying flash of herself walking in on Niles in the shower, wearing soap-on-a-rope – and nothing else.

Cursing him under her breath, she found it necessary to hide her burning face in one of the kitchen cupboards.