Author's Note: Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry for the wait. This was actually 99% done for a long while but I didn't realize that ^^;

Chapter 8: The Garden Party, Part 2

The house was calmer with mostly everyone out on the hunt. Gwen went to Isolde's room and knocked.

"Come in," Isolde's voice came from the other side.

Isolde and Annis were having tea, and Eira stood nearby until Annis dismissed her. The two Caerleon women smiled at Gwen and waved her over. Eira passed her wearing a sour face and closed the door behind her.

"That girl doesn't appreciate how good she has it," Annis commented and sipped her tea.

Gwen thanked Isolde who poured a cup for her. "Is she giving you trouble?"

"Mainly attitude," Isolde said taking a bite out of her biscuit.

"You can see the resentment in her movements," Annis added. "You should fire her, really. But we all know the trouble a girl like her would get into. And you, my child, couldn't live with that on your conscious." Gwen lowered her head and nodded. "You are a brilliant governess, and you're doing well as a temporary housekeeper, but there's a reason why the job is for older, stern women."

Isolde agreed with her mother, and then tapped a finger to her chin. "Why do they always go by Mrs. even when they're not married? And when we go on visits and take Mrs. Jones with us, she goes by Mrs. Caerleon so the other staff knows who she works for. Imagine Gwen going by Mrs. Pendragon. Though, you could be Mrs. Pendragon in another way."

"Isolde!" Gwen sputtered, and Isolde winked at her mother.

"Subtle, my daughter is not," Annis smiled. "She is right, though. I wouldn't have let you go if I didn't think there was chance."

"I don't think I follow," Gwen said nervously.

"Or you do not want to follow?" Annis countered.

Isolde leaned forward and placed a hand on Gwen's shoulder. "I'm sure you would have all kinds of fun in America with Morgana. Knowing her, you'd probably end up at a party with handsome men, maybe some actors. But would you rather marry an actor or Arthur?"

Gwen's face contorted in displeasure. "I don't want to marry an actor or a cowboy or—"

"Cowboy?" Isolde interrupted, amused.

Gwen blushed. "Arthur told me to go with Morgana and marry a cowboy."

Annis crossed her legs and folded her hands on her knees. "So you're going because he told you to. Is that what you want?"

"Yes and…" Gwen paused. "Yes."

Isolde snickered.

"We can't be together," Gwen stated firmly.

"Why?" Annis challenged.

"Your ladyship, I—"

"Because he's upstairs and you're downstairs, and it's improper for a man like him to be with a woman like you? Oh—and let's not forget that he's already engaged," Annis riddled off.

"Exactly," Gwen said.

"I once told Tristan I wanted to run away with him," Isolde recalled. "He wouldn't have it. He tried to dissuade me and told me to marry someone else, but I wouldn't let him push me away."

"He wasn't a servant and you weren't already engaged," Gwen muttered.

"But by money's standpoint, I was out of his league," Isolde said.

"If Arthur told you to stay, would you?" Annis asked.

Gwen couldn't help but feel she was being ganged up on. "Yes," she yielded.

"And if you told him not to marry Mithian, do you think he would listen to you?" Isolde added.

Gwen snorted, propriety long gone when in private with the two Caerleon women who took her in. "He'd be a fool to."

Isolde brought the teacup to her lips. "But he would." She punctuated her claim with a dignified sip.

Annis agreed with her daughter again. "His father may have drilled the importance of tradition into his head, but more importantly, he has Ygraine's heart."

Arthur couldn't concentrate on the pheasants. All he could think of was Gwen and Lance. He should've been the one making her laugh and winning her prizes, not Lance. Arthur clenched his teeth and let off a shot, missing the bird by a mile. He heard Christopher's cackle behind him and was ready turn around to shoot him in the face, but he wisely passed the rifle to Merlin instead.

"You have a house to feed, Pendragon. Or do you want everyone to starve?" Christopher jeered.

The whistle blew and the hunt was over. Elena was the surprise winner with Mithian in a close second.

Morgana clapped Arthur on the back. "Don't worry, brother. I think Elena's shot enough to feed all of London." She left him to congratulate the girls.

Merlin slung the gun over his shoulder. "Where was your head at?"

Arthur grumbled and looked ahead at Lance handling Christopher's things, his mind once again flashing back to the footman and Gwen at the fair. "I made a mistake."

Now he really had Merlin's attention. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" he asked, turning his head to the side and cuffing his hand around his ear. "Did Arthur Pendragon admit to making a mistake?"

Arthur glared at his enthusiastic valet. "Shut up, Merlin."

Back at the house, everyone was getting cleaned up. The haul was impressive, so Gwen entered the kitchen to see if Cook needed any assistance. Instead, she found a pale and shaking George trying to get things in order.

"Oh dear. George, you need to rest," Gwen insisted.

George tried to brush her off but failed miserably. "Cook is sick. So much to...to…cook."

"It'll get taken care of. Go," Gwen urged. She waved one of the staff over to help George up to bed.

Suddenly an arm wrapped around her shoulders and she was being leaned on. "So," she heard Gwaine's smooth voice before she looked up at him. "What's this about Cookie being sick?"

Cook and George were ill, and dinner wasn't even planned other than it involving pheasant. So Gwaine did it, and surprisingly well. His dinner received many complements.

"And that apple pie was superb!" Godwyn praised.

A look passed between Merlin and Percival that Leon didn't miss. "What was that?" he asked them. All eyes turned to the two servants. They both hesitated.

"Out with it, Merlin," Arthur ordered.

"Well," Merlin began. "Cook is ill, and someone needed to make dinner, so Gwaine prepared dinner—" He was momentarily interrupted by several of the table's occupants exclaiming, "The driver?" And Catrina and Vivian pushed their plates away suddenly put off by it. Merlin resisted the urge to roll his eyes and continued, his usual sunny disposition returning. "It was quite impressive watching him make the pie from scratch. His mother's recipe, he said."

Very rarely did Uther look impressed. "Complements to the chef." He raised his glass and realized it was empty. "You know what would go good with this, that vintage from 1855. Merlin, go fetch that."

When Merlin went downstairs, he heard giggling and the back door closing. He couldn't find the wine Uther asked for after checking several times before grabbing another bottle close to the year he asked for. When he went back upstairs he whispered it in Uther's ear, telling him that the bottle was gone.

"Oh," Uther said. "Must have had it last New Year's."

Sefa dragged her feet as she made her way to her room. Work was piling up with the staff dropping like flies. She paused when she heard laughter coming from Eira and Kara's room, both who were supposedly ill. Their door opened and Kara peeked out with a wine bottle in her hand. She giggled, then paused when she saw Sefa and quickly closed the door.

The next morning, Sefa pulled Merlin to the side and whispered to him what he saw. She was still being discrete even though Eira and Kara were still "ill" and remained in their room.

"I knew something shifty was going on down here last night. Thieving will not be tolerated," Merlin said.

As he moved, Sefa bolted forward, grabbing his arm to stop him. "What are you doing? You can't tell. They'll know it was me!"

"They can't do anything to you if they're fired, Sefa," Merlin reasoned.

"No, don't say anything," the young maid pleaded. "Please."

"Okay," he agreed. "But if they do anything else…"

It didn't take long because that afternoon, Eira and Kara had miraculously recovered from their illness and confronted Sefa on the steps up to the servant's dorms. Eira came from the top and Kara came from behind.

Eira sneered down at Sefa. "Just so we're clear, you saw nothing last night."

Sefa took a step back onto the lower step only to be pushed by Kara. She stumbled forward and caught her fall on the upper steps. Eira stepped on her fingers and Sefa choked back a sob. "I didn't say anything, I swear!"

Eira mocked Sefa by repeating her words in a whiney higher pitch. "Do you know what we do to girls like you?"

Sefa looked up at Eira, ready to apologize when a figure behind the vile maid caught her attention.

Eira was about to press her foot harder on Sefa's hand, but the look of fear on Kara's face caught her attention. "What's the matter with you?"

The cold, authoritative, voice of Arthur crushed Eira. "I think the question is what's the matter with you, Eira?"

When Eira whipped around, Sefa stumbled past her up the stairs and behind Arthur. What he was doing in the servant's stairwell was beyond them, but Sefa was relieved.

Arthur stood firmly. "I want you both out of this house by the morning." Both girls tried to speak but no coherent words could be formed. "Stop your sniveling! I suggest you start packing!" Arthur barked.

Eira and Kara ran past them and into the dorm hall to their room. They didn't need to be told twice.

Arthur turned to Sefa and put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

Sefa cradled her hand. "I am. Thank you, my lord."

But Arthur didn't let her go so easily. "Let's get you something for your hand."

Gwen paced in front of Arthur. He had just told her what happened, and she felt immense guilt. "This is my fault. If I fired them earlier, this wouldn't have happened."

"Guinevere, it's not your fault."

"It is!" she nearly shouted. "In my first week back, Merlin even said I'd be doing you all a favor if I fired them, but I didn't have the heart to put those girls out on the street." She didn't say that she knew they'd only end up selling themselves, but Arthur knew.

"Well I did it, so there's no need for their sacking to be on your conscious," Arthur said. "You're welcome, by the way," he smiled.

Gwen plopped into the chair, weary. She'd been running around yelling at Eira and Kara, doting on Sefa, and rearranging duties. They were down two maids now, and half the staff was sick or getting sick. "I'm not cut out to be a housekeeper."

Arthur chuckled. "When I told you to stay, that didn't mean you had to remain housekeeper. Hire a new one." He made it sound so simple.

Gwen squinted at him. "I'll be sure to do so before I leave with Morgana and marry a cowboy." Then she leaned forward. "Hypothetically speaking, if I stayed, what would I do then? I can't just take Freya's newly acquired lady's maid position, and I'm not that anxious to be scrubbing floors all the time again, and there are no children around for me to teach. So what good am I here?"

All the humor fell from Arthur's face. "I told you I'd make you a Lady."

Gwen shook her head. "And I believe I told you that I won't let you." She sighed, sinking back in the chair. "What are we even doing?"

Arthur ran a hand through his hair. "I have no idea."

"I know what will happen," Gwen said cryptically.

"Do you?" Arthur raised an eyebrow.

"I'm going to go along with Morgana and whatever adventure she has planned for us. Maybe I'll meet some interesting man—not a cowboy—and we'll have something for a while, but it'll never last. And three…four years later, I'll come back here, and be governess to your child. I'd treat them as if they were my own—wish they were my own. And against our better judgment, we'll have an affair, never be able to look Mithian in the eye, and we'll both be riddled with guilt…"

Arthur bit the inside of his cheek. "And how does it end?"

Gwen shrugged. "In misery, of course."

"How did we get into this mess?" Arthur sighed.

"You kissed me," Gwen said simply.

"You," Arthur said pointing at her. "kissed me back."

They were fourteen, and awkward, and hormonal. Morgana had teased Arthur for never kissing a girl, and that night while everyone was at the fair, Arthur snuck up to the dorms to talk to Gwen. Being Morgana's maid, she knew what happened, and confided in Arthur that she too has never been kissed. So Arthur kissed her, and she kissed him back. They did it as friends doing each other a favor, not expecting anything more.

Oh, how they were wrong.

"I'm going to go and check on Sefa again," Gwen said standing. "And look into hiring new maids. Morgana plans to sleep in tomorrow, so I'll help Annis in the morning. Oh! Someone has to take care of—"

Arthur groaned, waving his hand to dismiss her. "Take a break, Guinevere."

"Thank you, Arthur. For getting there in time," she said. "What were you doing in that stairwell, anyway?"

"It's not important."

Gwen crossed her arms. "Were you looking for me?"

"Yes," he confessed. "But I don't even remember what for. I don't think I had a real reason."

Gwen's smile was small. "You never needed one," she said softly. She dropped her arms and looked back at the door. "We should stop doing this."

Arthur leaned back in the chair. "We should," he said not sounding committed to his answer.

She knew him too well. "But?"

"But," he repeated. "It would be too hard to stop."

Gwen bowed her head and let out an airy laugh. "You were never one to give up."

"So, what do we do?"

Gwen made an attempt to fix her hair. "Like I said, I'm going to check on Sefa again, and then I'll take that break." She gave up when her hair wouldn't cooperate. "I do like these talk though…these moments together."

Arthur got up to stand in front of her. "As do I." He brushed a curl behind her ear. He pulled away before following through with his natural instinct to brush her cheek.

Gwen looked down at his hand handing at his side. She had been expecting the routine brush of his fingers on her cheek. There was no way she would get over him when she pined for such a little moment. She scratched her cheek at the invisible itch. "My lord," she bid him farewell.

A/N: Coming not so soon (but less than 5 months I promise) will be part 3 of the garden party, some dancing, some more jealousy, and whatever else pops into my head. :D

Thanks for reading and reviewing!