Chapter 92

Pippin lay, head propped on hand, and watched his wife sleep. They had been at Crickhollow four days already and he still couldn't stop looking at her or touching her as much as possible. He marvelled again at how lucky he was. He had given up all hope of ever being happy and now he couldn't imagine how he could be any happier. He sighed and brushed a finger over her lips. Ivy was the exact opposite of Diamond. She was loving and passionate and fun and he didn't think he'd ever get enough of her.

His finger continued the exploration of her face, moving from her slightly parted lips to trace the line of her jaw. She stirred, sighing slightly, and he smiled at her. He loved that sigh. Especially when she did it in his ear just after he'd made love to her.

His finger travelled down her neck to her shoulder, then ventured further, pushing away the blanket to expose her breast. She was a beautiful woman. Perfect, in his eyes. He tried to remember that first moment when he realized she was no longer the little girl he had adored, but the woman he fell in love with. Not on his first sight of her. He'd been too shocked, then, to even consider such things. No, it was after that... His fingers brushed lightly over her breast and she stirred again, her sigh almost a moan this time, and his body responded.

Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled at him, glanced down at his hand, then looked back. "What are you doing?" she asked sleepily.

He slid his hand from her breast back up to her face. "I was trying to figure out the exact moment that I fell in love with you."

She rolled over onto her side, propping herself up on her arm to face him. "So when was it?" she asked. She traced a finger over his chest, her light touch making his erection twitch.

"I think it was when we were sitting at the fire the night you came back from Gondor." He smiled. "You were singing in Elvish, drawing something in the dirt, and you looked up and smiled at me."

She grinned. "I had only gotten back a few hours before. That was fast."

He chuckled. "You certainly took me by surprise. I was expecting a little girl to come home and instead we get a beautiful young woman." He kissed her, lightly brushing her lips with his own. "So when did you fall in love with me?"

She laughed, her cheeks turning pink. "In Gondor. When I was fifteen. There's this painting of you and Dad and Sam and Frodo in the King's House. I hadn't seen it for over a year. I took my friends there, to show them Dad..." She paused. "I saw you, and..." She shrugged. "I wasn't really sure what it was, what I was feeling. But I knew something had changed." She blushed again, lowering her eyes. "My friends knew. They could tell by looking at me that I was in love with you. But it took me a while to figure it out."

He chuckled. "You fell in love with a painting that's older than you are?" He remembered posing for the artist in Minas Tirith, so the Man could do a reference sketch of them before they left for home. He'd been so young, then, a boy in the uniform of a man. He patted his stomach, starting to get round with age. "I must be a disappointment now."

She shook her head. "Never," she whispered. She rolled on top of him, sitting up to straddle him, and kissed him deeply. "I love you more than I ever loved that painting."

"Even with my middle-aged belly?"

She smiled and patted it. "Even that. I love every part of you." She moved slightly, pressing into his erection.

Pippin grinned and grasped her hips. "So what's your favorite part of me?" He thrust his hips slightly. He had a pretty good idea of what part of him she liked best.

Ivy smiled at him, a seductive smile that made his stomach flutter. She moved her hips again, grinding into him this time, and he gasped. She bent forward, slowly, until her mouth was next to his ear. "Your sense of humor, of course," she whispered. She sat up, patted his chest, and slid off him and out of the bed.

Pippin lay there a moment, trying to figure out what happened. His wife had been on top of him, grinding against him, and now she was suddenly pulling on her robe? "Erm..."

"Do you want some breakfast?" she asked innocently. "I know how much you Hobbit lads love breakfast."

He huffed and glared at her. "Sometimes we like other things even more, but we're saddled with wives who tease us cruelly."

She pouted. "Don't you want some strawberry jam?"

Pippin shook his head, more than a bit...frustrated. Uncomfortably frustrated. How could she just suddenly stop and think of breakfast? He crossed his arms and stared at the ceililng. "That will be difficult, because we're out of bread."

"Who said anything about bread?"

Pippin looked at her. She winked and left the room. He grinned and rolled out of bed. All right, maybe breakfast did sound good...

-o-O-o-

"I don't want to go back," Ivy sighed.

Pippin looked up at her, from where his head was resting in her lap. They'd packed a basket and walked out to the back of the orchard for a picnic to enjoy their last day of solitude. He reached up and touched her cheek. "We'll have time alone," he said. "We've got a whole wing of the Smials to ourselves. Just us and Fari."

"I know. That's not it." She looked away from him and sighed, but it wasn't the sigh he had grown to love. This one was definitely unhappy. She wiped at her eyes, like she was trying to stop tears.

He sat up and knelt in front of her. "What's wrong?"

She shrugged, still looking away from him. "I'm scared. That I won't be a good Mistress. That I won't fit in. That I'll mess up." She sniffled.

"Ivy," he pleaded. He sat next to her and pulled her into an embrace. "You'll do fine. I told you my sisters will help you."

"I'm not a very good Mistress if I need help," she mumbled into his chest.

He clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to admonish her for worrying over something they'd already discussed. But he remembered what his sisters had reminded him of when he'd first discussed this with them: Ivy was young. She was going to worry more about things that may not appear to be such a big deal to him. Pippin sighed and rested his cheek on her head. "Then I'm not a very good Thain, am I? Because Reg covered for me more times than I can count. As did my sisters. And Ev and Ferdy. And your Dad and Sam."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." She sniffled again and buried her face in his chest.

"Oh, love, don't." He kissed her head, keeping his nose pressed into her hair, berating himself. He hadn't meant to make her feel guilty. He just wanted her to know she had nothing to worry about. He'd messed up far more than she ever could. "Would it upset you if I told you Éowyn had a talk with me?"

She sniffed and looked up at him with teary eyes. "What did she tell you?"

"She told me what you had told her, what you were afraid of." He brushed away the hair stuck to her teary cheeks. "Do you mind?"

She shook her head. "No. You're my husband. You have every right to know."

He pressed his lips together. He wanted to tell her that, no, he didn't have a right to know everything about her, just because he was her husband. But they'd broach that subject another day.

"The Smials isn't as bad as you think," he said. "You're just so used to seeing it under Diamond." He frowned. "She was awful to the servants and would yell at them about everything, that everything had to be spotless and perfect and formal. And maybe there's a few of the more snobbish Tooks who thought that was a good idea." He thought of prissy Aunt Flora. "But when my mum was Mistress, it wasn't so different from Brandy Hall." He smiled. "It's not so bad now, with Pearl running things, right?"

"I suppose not," she mumbled.

He kissed her cheek. "You just do what Estella taught you, and you'll do fine."

She nodded and wiped at her eyes.

"And I'll tell you a secret," he said. "Marigold--she's our head maid--she pretty much runs the place. You just have to make it look like you're giving the orders." He winked at her and got her to smile at least.

He lay back down on the blanket and pulled her down to lay down next to him. "Besides," he said, running his hand along her body from her shoulder to her hip. "Maybe you'll have other things to worry about besides dust on the candlesticks." He brought his hand to rest on her belly and looked in her eyes. "Fari asked me if he could have a brother."

She smiled and lay her hand over his, pressing slightly into her belly. Then she smiled wider and moved her hand lower, to the front of his trousers. "Well," she said, tugging at the top button, "we mustn't disappoint Fari."