Disclaimer: All hail the mighty goddess Naoko-sama. ^.^

Email Addy: SailrPhnx@aol.com or UtenaStar@aol.com

Rated: PG
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by Sailor Phoenix

Part Seven

    When the new idea bobbed to the top of Serenity's head like a light going on, it startled her so much that she dropped her soup spoon with a clatter and let out a small gasp.

    "Excuse me, please," she blurted out, shoving back her chair and bolting to her feet.

    The other two women looked surprised at her behavior.

    "Serenity, are you alright?" Raye inquired.

    She merely nodded hastily and dashed into the main part of the mansion. In a massive and very masculine study off the main entrance, she found what she was looking for: a desk, paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen.

    Sinking into a cushioned chair of the finest Moroccan leather, Serenity pulled several sheets of expensively made vellum paper from the desk drawer. After arranging the paper on the mirror-bright surface, she opened the bottle of ink... dipped her pen... and began to write.

    Excitment mounted within her as she penned one nonsensical sentence after another. Only when her hand became too tired to continue did Serenity finally wipe the pen's nib clean and put the lid back on the ink.

    Without waiting for the ink to dry, she compared them to the flamboyant script in the journal. The letters on the loose paper was neater and smaller.

    She had retained something more of the other life than a tangle of memories. She had managed to keep her own handwriting. Within a moment Serenity was so breathless that she dared not rise from her chair, lest her trembling knees refuse to hold her.

    She laid her head down on the desk and tried to gather her composure. The other Serenity was almost surely lying in that hospital bed in the Tokyo of a hundred years hence, or perhaps she had gotten her wish to die.

    Serenity had sympathy for Endymion's bride, but she also wanted this body... this man... and this life, even though the last tenant botched things up royally.

    She began to shiver, feeling chilled even though the room was warm. Maybe the whole process would reverse itself. Maybe she would be wrenched away from Selenity and Endy and the elegantly antique world she had come to love....

    Finally Serenity drew a deep breath and made herself sit up. She would take things one day at a time and deal with whatever was thrown at her when the time came. In the meantime, somehow, someway to win Endymion back.

    During her first week at Rose Myst, Serenity read and reread all the diaries and letters, and she must have studied the tintypes and sepia phoetographs a million times. She tried on all the summer dresses that had arrived with her and studied herself in the mirror.

    The second week brought a letter from Endymion. Serenity was diappointed if not surprised that it was addressed to Raye. While the message carried warm wishes for his sister and inquiries about Selenity's progress, Serenity might as well not existed.

    By the time twenty-one days had gone, Serenity was riding all over the island on horseback. While she enjoyed her adventures, she also knew she was trying to outdistance her own doubts and injured feelings.

    After a month, Raye announced plans for a garden party. Everyone in the Alessandros social circle, both on the island and in San Fransciso, would be invited.

    Serenity went through the wardrobe, garment by garment, and prayed that Endymion would attend.

    In early July, five weeks after Raye Luna, Serenity, and Selenity had moved to the island for the summer, the party was held. Endymion sent word from San Fransciso that he was too busy to join in the festivities.

    Serenity attended the social event, smiling the whole time, barely able to breathe because her heart was in her throat. She spoke with warmth and graciousness to all the guests and was careful not to behave inappropriately, for she was trying to undo the damage the other Serenity had done.

    After her last guest had retired, Serenity locked herself in her room and wept because Endymion had stayed away.

    On a hot day at the end of July, when Luna went to visit friends on the far side of the island, taking Selenity with her, Raye journeyed to San Fransciso to attend a wedding. Serenity looked at the rolling charcoal clouds on the horizon and felt a sweet, dangerous anticipation.

    There was a storm coming, and Serenity loved storms.

    As night fell, the very earth seemed to rock with the force of the thunder. The wind howled around the house, and Serenity knew the water in the sound would be churning, the waves white-capped. Lightning outlined the old lighthouse Serenity had sketched so many times, and the housekeeper and caretaker hurried from room to room, securing the windows.

    Serenity's fascination with natural panorama seemed to confound them, but they offered no comment. Despite her best efforts earlier to let the old couple know that she saw them as equals, they still saw themselves as servants.

    "Would you like me to bring you some brandy, Mistress Alessandros?" the housekeeper asked anxiously. She was a sturdy but compact woman with large grey eyes and white hair wound into a coronet on top of her head. "I know you always get nervous when the weather gets like this."

    "Nervous?" Serenity laughed. "Heavens, no---I'm not afraid of a little thunder and lightning."

    But she had been, Serenity realized. That was why Mrs. Stevens was looking at her as though she had grown another head before her eyes.

    Before the housekeeper could reply, the front door slammed and a voice as domineering as the thunder echoed through the house. "Raye! Luna!"

    Endymion.

    It wounded Serenity that he hadn't called her name as well, but of course she shouldn't have been surprised. From the start, Endymion had allowed her not even the skimpiest illusion that he cared for her.

    At least he was consistent.

    Mr Stevens was busy building a blaze in the parlor fireplace, so his wife went to greet her grumpy master. When Endymion entered the room, he looked through Serenity, as if she hadn't been there and went to stand on the hearth, warming his hands.

    The housekeeper and caretaker left immediately, and Serenity was edging toward the towering double doors when Endymion stopped her with a brisque "Where is my daughter?"

    The very roof of the house shook with the force of two fronts colliding in the sky, no more elemental than Endymion's formidable will meeting her own.

    "Our daughter is with Luna," Serenity answered evenly, wondering how she could love Dr Alessandros so much when he made her yearn to strangle him. "They went visiting this afternoon, and I'm sure they are perfectly safe."

    Endymion assessed his wife with eyes as cold as a frozen lake. "You've been well?"

    Serenity was secretly thinking how fitting it would be if snarled and bared his vampire fangs at her, but Endymion was as stunningly gorgeous as ever. The reflexive pitch and roll in her stomach was proof of that. "Very well."

    A blast of thunder rattled the windows, and his gaze narrowed as he stared at her. "I rather expected to find you hiding either in the closet or under the bed in fear, my dear," he said. "You have always had a fear of storms."

    "You don't know me as well as you think," she replied crisply. For all her light words, she had a dizzying fancy that some dangerous enchantment had settled over the house with Endymion's arrival.

    "I know you too well," Endymion corrected her, shedding his long coat and tossing it aside, then crossing to a tea-wood cabinet near the doors and poured himself a glass of brandy.

    Serenity decided to ignore the comment he made. "What brings you here, Dr Alessandros?" she asked, moving close to the spot Endymion had abandoned in favor of brandy. "Did someone tell you I was deliciously happy? That would account for your sudden appearance and intractable mood." I'm getting the Victorian vernacular down pretty well, she congratulated herself.

    Endymion was frowning as he regarded her in the flickering glow of the lamps, his brandy like glowing amber in the firelight. "Since when do you use words like 'intractable'?"

    "You won't believe me if I told you," Serenity answered. Invisible St Elmo's fire danced and crackled in the room, and she sensed that Endymion was as aware of the dynamic charisma between them as she was.

    He took another sip of his brandy. "You'll be sorry to hear that your Seiya Lights has left for greener pastures." The challenge was a quiet one, but nevertheless deadly.

    "Good," she said with light assurance. "I won't miss him." She swallowed hard, gathering up the courage. "But I have missed you, Endy. Very much."

    His frigid gaze moved over her---she was wearing a cotton gown, a white background with small red roses scattered over it---and her silvery blond hair was gathered up in a soft Gibson-girl style. When his Adam's apple, Serenity felt a certain tenderness toward him, as well as a captivation so powerful that she feared to think to what lengths it might drive her.

    "Do not insult me with the inference that you cherish any wifely sentiments towards me," he warned. For all his words, for all that she was standing half a room away, Serenity was woefully conscious of the hardness and heat of his body.

    She sighed. She'd never seduced a man before, or been seduced by one, for that matter, and she had no idea how to proceed. She only knew that she had been thrusted into this century, and the company of this particular man, because his soul was mate to hers.

    "You want me, Endy," she said simply. Quietly.

    He turned away and tossed his brandy, glass and all, onto the fire. The glass shattered and the blaze roared up the chimney, but Endymion paid no mind to it. He stood with his back to her, his hands braced against the mantelpiece.

    He hadn't given an inch of ground, and yet somehow Serenity knew she had the upper hand. "I'll bring you some supper, if you like," she said in a normal tone. She'd been hoping and praying that Endymion would come to the island all these weeks, and now he was here and she was more certain of her love for him even more than ever.

    He was silent for a long, long time, but Serenity was just as stubborn as he was, and she waited.

    "Bring the tray to my room," he said.

    Her heart rushed into her throat. She was both terrified and joyous as she rushed to the kitchen. By the time she climbed the back staircase and entered the master bedroom half an hour later, after she had laboriously reheated the leftovers from supper, she was trembling.

    It wasn't fear of sharing her body with Endymion that scared her, although she had never been with a man in her life, despite the fact of having gone through childbirth. No, it was the idea that he meant to reject her, to humiliate her that scared her so much.

    Balancing the tray with one hand, she opened the door and stepped into the bedroom that had once been hers for these past weeks.

    Endymion had built up the fire and was sitting in a wing chair, gazing solemnly at the flames. He's taken off his coat and his collar, and his shirt gaped open to the middle of his chest.

    Serenity wished she could believe he was looking so rakishly handsome for her benefit, but it was more likely that he was unaware of the picture he created.

    She set the tray on the small round table beside his chair, and he didn't raise his eyes to her or acknowledge her in any way.

    She decided she read him wrong earlier and moved to the bureau, feeling both dejection and relief. "I'll sleep in one of the guest rooms," she said in a voice barely loud enough to compete with the storm outside and the crackling babble of the fire.

    "You're my wife," Endymion said gruffly, still without looking in her direction. "You will sleep in my bed."
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Coming Soon
Part 8