It was late by the time they returned to their grandfather's estate. After the maid took their coats and the men's hats, Alice paused downstairs only long enough to return the jewelry to her grandfather before heading upstairs to her bedroom. It had been a long night.

Liza was already waiting in her room with a long white nightgown with lace on the collar and sleeves already laid out for her. The maid, seeming to sense her fatigue, wasted no time in getting her out of her dress and into the nightgown with her hair down and brushed out. Liza left, and Alice gratefully climbed under her blankets.

Instead of dropping immediately off to sleep, she found herself staring up at the canopy of her bed, wondering why she felt more awake now. Felling warm, she kicked off her covers only to discover that she still felt warm. And she felt like she had to do something, so she sat up, put on her slippers, and got out of bed.

She paced around the room one time before finding herself in front of the door that led into her husband's room. Now that she was alone, she felt lonely and…for some strange reason, her thoughts were starting to get foggy. And she could feel the blood rushing through her veins. Alice realized that what she wanted was to be in her husband's arms, skin on skin. There was some reason she could not have that yet but…what was it? Something wasn't…wasn't…. She opened the door and walked into her husband's room without knocking.

...

Hieronymous sat, still in his trousers and shirtsleeves, staring into the lit fireplace watching the flames. A lot had happened tonight. It had been the first time in ten years that he had seen his father, and he was not sure what to think of it yet. His father had behaved in a manner that had been personable enough, but he trusted him no further than he had the last time he had seen him. The man was Machiavellian, to be believed only when he gave his word of honor as a wizard. Ever since Alice had told him of his father's arrival, worry of what twisted plot he might attempt ran through Hieronymous' mind. Perhaps his rival's presence had restrained his actions.

Startled by the sound of a latch, he turned around to see Alice standing in his room in a nightgown, her hand on the door handle. Her face was screwed up as if she was having trouble putting something together. "I…something…not…."

Something was clearly wrong. It was not like her to trip over her words. Her hand fell off the handle as she started to move towards him. He held up a hand and she stopped in her tracks, and he wove a diagnostic spell. His first attempt found nothing, so he tried again, much more carefully and more slowly this time. There. He found subtle webs of Green, Black, and White magic. The web of White magic extended a couple yards from her, ready to ensnare a second target if he got too near. And he knew what had happened, and he mentally cursed his father again while figuring out what to do.

"Alice, you have been given a type of love/fertility potion. If you get to close to me before the first phase wears off, I will be caught too and you will be with child before sunrise. Do you understand?" he asked.

She blinked, and shook her head as if trying to clear it. "Potion," she repeated, taking another step toward him.

He reminded himself that she was showing a large amount of mental resistance to the magic by merely realizing that something was wrong, and they had both had a large amount of luck that she had not snuck up on him ensnaring them both.

Hieronymous slowly got off of his chair, and backed up towards the wall. "Now Alice, I want you to lie down on the couch and make yourself comfortable." He waited while she complied, and then wove bonds to keep her there and a ward to keep her from Teleporting out or undoing his work. "I'm going to have to keep you there for a few hours until this wears off."

She nodded, but soon started to squirm against the bonds that held her, and began testing his wards with her own magic. Knowing he had to distract her to keep her as comfortable as he possibly could under the circumstances, he picked up a book and began to read out loud to her. She appeared to stop squirming and started to concentrate on his voice. It seemed to calm her. Unfortunately, it was a book he had picked to put him to sleep—why else would one keep a book on eighteenth century tax law?—but the subject appeared to be irrelevant to her.

It was nearly two hours later that she finally appeared to completely relax, and his examination showed that the White magic web had dissipated making it safe for him to approach her. "How are you feeling Alice? Are you ready for me to let you up now?"

"Is it gone?" she asked as he released the bonds. "I…what happened to me?" she asked, evidently once again in control of her mental facilities.

"In spite of us watching," Hieronymous admitted, "my father must have found a chance to slip you a potion." He shook his head, wondering why he had not anticipated the move. Honestly, the premise of the opera they had seen tonight should have brought the possibility to mind.

She groaned and sat up, leaning against the back of the couch. "Is it over, or will it do anything else to me?"

He grimaced as he reclaimed the chair by the couch he had been in before she had entered. "Such potions usually work in phases. There is usually a portion controlling fertility, the sex of the child if one is born, and the phase that you just went through where you would seek out the intended father of such a child. Such potions usually come into effect once the one dosed realizes both access to the other intended parent, and a reasonable expectation of privacy. I would have to do further research to find which potion was used to determine the length of the other effects."

"Your father really wants an heir, doesn't he?" Alice said dryly. "And he doesn't appear to be a patient man either."

"He always thought that the end would justify the means," he replied, "especially if it was someone other than himself that ended up paying the cost."

They sat in silence for a few moments before Alice spoke up again. "Thank you Hieronymous. I'm not ready for a baby yet. Someday I'll want them, but not now. And…I wouldn't want my first time to be in a drugged frenzy."

"Me neither," he admitted. Alice looked at him quizzically. "You never…?" She was blushing.

Hieronymous shook his head. "No. The school Violet and I went to had instructors that were much less…permissive…than Petunia. On top of that, once my father found that I was seeing a Wildseed he threw a fit and wanted to move me to another school. He only relented once I made a binding promise that he would have no bastard grandchildren." After all, his father would consider a bastard a liability as they were difficult to legitimize. A legitimate heir had to be either conceived within a marriage, even if it was only a single year contract marriage that ended before the birth, or an official adoption had to take place. Worse yet, in his father's mind anyway, would be that he would be seen as being unable to control his own son. Still, they could have used magical birth-control measures, but like normal measures, they were effective ninety-nine percent of the time and Violet did not want to take even that chance.

Alice smiled at him. "I'm glad though," she said, leaning forward to take his hands in hers. "I'll get a part of you that I don't have to share with anyone else."

Something she did not have to share with Violet. He guessed that had their positions been reversed, he would have been a bit jealous of the first man in her life if he had known that Alice had loved him as deeply as he had loved Violet. He could not impugn her feelings on the matter. Hieronymous squeezed her hands. "When the time is right; you seem to grow more into a woman each day."

"And we'll have to wait until that potion wears off, or can it be reversed?" she asked.

Hieronymous sighed. "My father pays for quality for such things. It would be safer to let it wear off naturally."

Alice sighed. "So, what would have happened if I had gotten pregnant tonight? Potsdam never mentions what the penalty would be, just that students can't carry children. And you've said that I can't be expelled normally, and supposedly both parents of a child get punished."

He had to think for a moment. "Normally the students involved have to leave the school, at least for the duration of the pregnancy, but as 'suspended' rather than expelled. Typically, their parents or some other sponsor would finish their education and they have a test to pass…much like getting a GED in the normal world would be. I don't believe that Iris has faced a situation where the parents were a married student and a teacher, so I am not exactly sure what Petunia would do in that situation."

"Grandfather said that if I were pregnant, and your father abdicated his position on the Council and you didn't want to do the job, I would be forced into it," Alice noted, and Hieronymous blinked in surprise not having thought of that before. "So, I might be forced out of school and onto the Council if I got pregnant. That sounds like fun," she finished sarcastically.

"Unfortunately, that situation would be believable," he said, thinking. "Everyone would think that this was something my father and your grandfather decided upon. House Grabiner would get an heir, and your grandfather would get a puppet on the Council. As his seventeen year old granddaughter, you would be thought of in no other way. You would be seen as having a right to be there, but no experience to draw upon to make intelligent decisions.

"What makes that scenario good for my father and damaging for you grandfather," he continued, "is that a large part of his argument over extending the Velvet curtain relies on 'family values.' If he is seen using his granddaughter in such a fashion, it would discredit him and make passage of his reforms less likely."

Alice shook her head slowly, disbelieving. "I never thought that whether we slept together or not could have political ramifications on the wizard world."

Hieronymous raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever heard of Helen of Troy?" That affair had started a war that had had wizards on both sides. Alice laughed.

"I guess you have a point there," she admitted, and then she frowned. "Do you think your father really intended to have all of that happen? I mean, unless you have explained more to him than I know about, he has no idea how old I am. Grandfather told me that he let slip to him early this year that we only had a one-year contract marriage. He might have been simply trying to squeeze an heir out of me before it was too late."

"I…suppose that is possible," Hieronymous admitted. He had not known that his father knew of the single-year contract. Otherwise, he would have mentioned that they were extending it to avoid this kind of thing from happening. He should have communicated it as soon as Alice had asked it of him. Something in him was quite glad that she was not the type to perseverate on 'I told you so.'

"You have to talk to him about this," Alice continued. "You can't just ignore your father trying to get me pregnant!" Her mouth clicked shut. "That sounds even worse than it actually was," she admitted somewhat sheepishly.

Hieronymous sighed. There was no way around it. "I'll call on him tomorrow morning," he agreed. It was best to address this as soon as possible.

Alice smiled. "Just remember that you have a wedding to get to," she teased.

He leaned forward and kissed her, thinking that the best response. Getting a closer look at her, Alice appeared exhausted. She did not object when he picked her up and carried her back to her own bed.

"Hieronymous?" she asked tiredly as he was about to exit the room.

"Yes wife?" he asked. "Thank you for protecting me," she started, and then a yawn interrupted. "You did much better this time."

"I did…better?" he asked, faintly puzzled as he was feeling exhausted himself now. It had been a long evening.

"I needed you, and you protected me instead of yelling at me," she said, starting to doze off. "I think that I also liked being pinned to a couch better than being pinned to a wall."

Hieronymous felt as if he had just been stabbed, remembering what had happened…what he had done the day their marriage had become public. He let go of the door handle to return to her side and sat down on the bed. "I am sorry Alice, I am so sorry about that," he said, sounding like he was pleading. "I should have trusted you, given you a proper chance to explain…. I was so much more afraid that I was willing to admit to, so I was willing to believe the worst." He had been attracted to her before their marriage, and he had recognized this as improper. And then he had to marry her, certain that he had to protect her from himself. He had tried to rationalize his attraction away, telling himself that what was too good to be true never was. She had to have serious faults he was not aware of. So, he had believed the worst of her when they had been exposed.

To him, the words sounded insufficient, but his wife gave him a sleepy smile. "You know me better now," Alice told him. "And you did already apologize several times for that. I don't hold it against you. And I know that you will protect me, even if costs you to do it. I don't think anything else could get you to talk to your father."

He had no words for that, so he leaned forward to kiss her on her cheek before pulling the blankets up to her chin and leaving the room, pulling the door softly shut behind him.

Hieronymous leaned up against the wall for a long moment, pulling himself together once more. She was not angry at him about what had happened when their marriage had become public, and she had every right to be. He had not dwelt on the subject much, as it had not come up lately, but he had thought the topic buried to rise again at an inconvenient moment rather than pardoned. It appeared that his actions had been forgiven, if not forgotten.

She had said that she had trusted him for protection the very day before he had broken that trust. As he was a man slow to trust others himself, he had a difficult time relearning how to do so once trust had been broken. It amazed him that she had the grace to do so. She was truly a magnificent woman.

He shook his head, wondering what divine entity he had pleased in order to have such a wife.

Sighing, he set his alarm and went to bed. He had to battle with a dragon in the morning.