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Cordelia paused a moment to make sure everything was in place. She knew she looked good. She always looked good. But Wesley was not some high school kid. For older men it was important to not only present a perfect appearance, but to do so without looking as though one had worked at it. Or so Vogue said (July 1997 issue, Cordelia had learned the importance of good research from Giles.) She tapped on the door.At Wesley’s invitation she sailed in. "Hey Wesley, do you think you could help me with an assignment? I have to do this paper on Edith Wharton and I'm just stumped as to where to start. Oh, Hi, Willow." Cordelia added as an afterthought.
She smiled sweetly at Wesley, which managed to throw the man into a dither. He nervously pushed his glasses into place. "Edith Wharton? Great favorite of mine, actually. Happy to help." Then he remembered."Aw but I have a project of my own going I'm afraid. When is your paper due? Perhaps I could help you with it, aw... tomorrow evening?"
Wesley tried to look as thought the timing was purely coincidental. He certainly was not asking a student out on a date. Heavens no. This was strictly a tutoring session. Nothing improper about that.
Willow who had been listening to this exchange wide eyed, suddenly jumped in with, "That paper isn't due for ages, Cordelia. Maybe you could help us with this first? Cordelia is really good at research, Wesley. She helps Giles all the time."
"Does she?" Wesley did not like the sound of that and it showed in his voice.
"Oh, yes. Giles is such an old dear," Cordelia managed to make it sound like Giles was her grandfather's age. A little jealousy was a good thing but would be distracting right now. "Sometimes he needs young eyes to help him. Not like you."
"That's very considerate, Cordelia." And sounded fairly... innocent. Besides Mr. Giles was old enough to be her father. For that matter he was practically old enough to be Wesley's father, Wesley reminded himself.
"Great," Willow bounced up. "You guys work in here. I'll go out and... check out the net."
As she scuttled away, Cordelia leaned against the desk and smiled warmly down at Wesley.
****** Giles pushed his glasses up and asked their hostess, "But what has Joyce been chosen for Mrs. Fergusson? Surely you must have some idea?"
"It's a bit unclear." Morag pondered a moment. "There have been sighs of late. Besides your appearances in the mirror that is. Odd occurrences. There was an owl that hooted at the stroke of midnight two days ago and the dogs have taken to barking in the night when there is nothing there. And a ghostly white horse has been seen on the moor, ridden by a masked man in a cape."
Giles frowned. "That's, ahem, not terribly helpful in establishing a... context, Mrs. Fergusson. Can you give us any more... concrete information?"
"No, but I am certain all will soon be revealed." Morag folded her hands decorously.
Giles had come to hate cryptic pronouncements. And they were no easier to take coming from a charming, pseudo Victorian lady than they were from Angel. Maybe he was becoming Americanized. Somehow Joyce's blunt straight forwardness seemed far more attractive than this woman's demure facade. On the other hand demure never had held a lot of attraction for him.
Unaware of Giles's mental comparison, Joyce felt obliged to draw Morag out. "Where exactly are we, by the way?"
"Forgive me? Did you not know? This is Mort Grange. Our lands boarder Lord Creighton's."
"And where is that?"
"Near the village of Middlethwait."
Which told Joyce absolutely nothing. She looked to Giles. Who shrugged. "In Scotland?" Joyce decided to pin that down at least.
"Aye. The Highlands." Morag seemed to think this an adequate explanation.
Maybe it was. Joyce had never been to Scotland. Still she had a vague idea that 'the Highlands' covered a fair amount of territory. At least by British standards.
Giles cleared his throat, "And the nearest large city is?"
Their hostess blinked at them. "Well, Edinburgh is five days journey."
Presumably not by car. Joyce knew enough to know that the entire island wasn't more than a day's drive from end to end. She looked around. The lamps were kerosene. The fire was wood and there was not even a battery operated appliance in sight. Nor were there any phone or electrical wires cutting across the scenery out the window.
Most curious, sir, most curious.
"If you can't tell us why we're here, could we at least hear your history? How did you come to be here?" Joyce asked.
"A not unusual tale, I fear. I came here as governess to my Lord Creighton's ward." Morag explained. "Although of gentle birth, I was forced by a series of unfortunate circumstances to earn my own way in the world." Joyce's eyebrows went up as Morag continued. "But it was my good fortune to earn the affection of Mr. Fergusson, and after some trials due to Lord Creighton's half brother, he did me the honor of making me his wife, impoverished though I was. We have been happily wed these last ten years."
"I see." Joyce was beginning to suspect that she did. "May I ask what happened to Lord Creighton's half brother?"
Morag looked down at her hands. "A dreadful affair. He was lost at night on the moor. His body was never found."
"They never are." Joyce sat back in her chair. "Well, isn't this something."
****** Willow shut the door to the office behind her. "Quick," she hissed. "We need to move that thing now. While Cordelia's got Wesley's attention."
"Already on it." Buffy and Xander were wrapping the mirror in a blanket from the cage, normally used to provide Oz with some privacy on nights when the moon is full. "Oz is bringing the van round."
Wesley was gazing up into Cordelia's smile. Then a thump from the library caught his attention. "What was that?" He asked half rising.
Cursing Xander's (it had to be Xander, the klutz) ineptitude, Cordelia took Wesley's arm and drew him back to the chair. "Probably just Xander tripping over something. He's such a dolt. What are you working on? Your work is so much more interesting than a silly old English paper."
It was adorable the way she tried to appear more mature by mimicking old movies, Wesley thought. Although just how old did she think he was? She had to be borrowing that phrasing from the 30s. "Well, it's quite interesting actually. Did you notice the mirror in the main room?"
"Yeah, it's gorgeous. Although it's kinda RoCo crazy. Be real tough to fit it into a decorating scheme." Cordelia pulled herself up to be sitting on the desk. A process that hitched her skirt well up her thighs.
Wesley, trying hard not to look at those creamy smooth thighs, continued. "Uhm, yes. Aw, that is it's the Looking Glass. According to legend it allows one to see into the future."
"Cool," Cordelia put her hands back and leaned on them, arching her back and lifting her bosom as she did so. "How does it work?"
Wesley's tie was becoming much too tight. He slipped a finger under his collar to try to loosen it. "T-that's what I'm trying to determine. Mr. Giles located it, but has not yet been able to make it work."
"Well, I'm sure you won't have any trouble figuring it out." Cordelia leaned over to examine the book he had open. "How can I help?"
Oz was back with the van. The two boys with Buffy's assistance had just managed to lift the mirror and were moving toward the door. "It was really light before." Buffy commented.
"Well, it isn't now." Xander huffed. "Things got to weigh over three hundred pounds."
"Oooh!" Squeaked Willow, who had gone to hold the door. "Wait. Stop."
The two boys stopped. Forcing Buffy, who was trying to pull them forward to stop as well.
"Buffy how much does your Mom weigh?" Willow asked excitedly.
"Geez, Will, what a question." Buffy huffed. "Would you like me to announce to the guys how much you weigh?"
"No it's important. What about 120 or so?" Willow was bouncing on her feet.
"Little less." Buffy acknowledged.
"And Giles how much would he weigh?"
The teens exchanged glances. "I haven't the faintest, Will." Buffy supplied.
Xander was starting to catch on to where Willow was going. "Well, I'm 167 and the G-Man's got a couple of inches and a bunch of pounds on me. So what do you think? 190 or so?"
Buffy considered. "Yeah, he's pretty solid. For an old guy."
"So the mirror's increased in weight about the amount of Giles and Buffy's Mom?" Oz pondered that. "We talking magic or the Law of Conservation of Mass here?"
"I'm not sure." Willow ran over to the table and grabbed a pad to make notes on, "But I'm sure it's important."
"Did you hear that?" Wesley was standing again.
"What?" Cordelia was not happy. If those losers expected a girl to keep a man's attention, in the Librarian's office of all places, it wasn't like she had any kind of romantic atmosphere to work with here, they should at least co-operate to the point of not distracting him with noise every other minute. "I'm sure it's just the guys. Tell me more. I'd love to help. How does it trap people? Do you know?"
"Well, actually...Trap people?" Wesley suddenly looked at Cordelia more critically. "What do you mean trap people? The spell is suppose to grant one a view of the future."
"Then how did Giles and Mrs. Summers get caught in it?" Cordelia asked.
"Mr. Giles and Buffy's mother?" Wesley did not like the sound of this. Then a decided crunch could be heard in the other room.
"Don't drop it." Buffy hissed at the boys. "If you break it, we'll never get them back."
"Sorry," Oz said. "But this sucker doesn't want to move, Buffy."
The door to the office swung open and Wesley emerged, took in the scene and immediately jumped on his high horse. "What do you think you're doing?" He demanded.
Moving to face him, Buffy hands on hips stared at him. "Don't try to stop us."
"Put that back where it belongs, young lady." He moved toward her, his own hands on hips.
Aching for something to hit, Buffy sauntered toward him. She'd been dying to teach this little twerp a lesson ever since he showed up. And she'd had a really rotten day!
****** Suddenly the doors to the Library burst open and a man entered. "Morag, my love, the footman alerted me. There are intruders in the house?"
The man was tall, dark, broodingly handsome, not even the slight scar on his left cheek could mar his elegant good looks. His suit, a mid nineteenth century black broadcloth was perfectly cut. His cravat tied to perfection. He carried a sword cane, unsheathed. The sword in his left hand. The casing in his right.
Joyce had to giggle. He was so obviously cast to type. Giles glanced at her in surprise. "He's the hero. Can't you tell?" She whispered.Taking in the scene, the man apparently found it not to his liking. He gracefully moved over to confront Giles. "Sir, I demand to know what you are doing here." The man's sword centered on Giles's chest. "And what connection you have with my wife?"
Giles did not particularly like the way this fellow was waving that sword about. He shifted slightly, moving farther from Joyce and so that there was less furniture between himself and the swordsman if he had to rush the man.
"None whatsoever except that she appears to have cast a spell to bring Mrs. Summers to your, uhm, home."
"Is this true, love?" The man kept his eyes on Giles while addressing his wife.
Morag rose and stepped over to take the man's left arm. An act Giles heartily approved of. With her hanging on the fellow's sword arm like that, Giles had every chance of being able to overpower him before he could use that sword. "My dear husband, don't. This is the woman I have observed all these years in the mirror. The glass has finally called her."
As he lowered his sword, Morag turned him to face Joyce. "Mrs. Joyce Margaret McAlister Summers, may I present my husband, Carruthers Fergusson. Gussie, this is Mrs. Summers."
"How do you do, Mr. Fergusson." Joyce was trying to keep her grin in check. Carruthers, huh? How perfect.
"Mrs. Summers," he bowed over her hand. Nodding at Giles he added. "Mr. Summers."
"He’s not my husband," Joyce said hurriedly.
Fergusson frowned. "You are traveling with a man not your husband?"
"Well, we didn’t plan it that way." Joyce explained. "We were just checking to see how the spell worked. We didn’t know we were going to get spirited away to Northhanger Abby here."
The name clearly meant nothing to their hosts. Although Giles looked up with a frown.
"Still it seems not quite respectable." Fergusson said hesitantly.
"Now, Gussie, I’m sure there is a perfectly proper explanation." Morag put in quickly. "Mr. Giles, is there?"
She looked to Giles for this proper explanation. He pushed his glasses up thinking fast to come up with one that would be acceptable to what appeared to be mid Victorian sensibilities.
"Giles is my daughter’s..." Joyce was thinking fast as well. She could hardly say Watcher.
"...Tutor," Giles supplied. "We were in the library with the children, when I discovered what we assumed would be the trigger for the spell. But you say that you actually triggered our passage through the mirror, Mrs. Fergusson?"
"I put the steps in motion, yes. But the mirror itself was calling you." She laid a hand on her bosom. "I could feel it."
Mr. Fergusson put an arm around his wife's shoulders. "My beloved wife is very sensitive to the other world you know."
"Is she?" Giles remarked dryly.
"Well, she would be, wouldn't she." Joyce commented. "I mean it's that kind of a story."
All three of the others looked at Joyce in surprise.
"Story?" Mr. Fergusson asked.
"Yeah, I mean this whole thing," Joyce waved at the room, "well, it's clearly the setting for a Victorian novel. Somehow by passing through the mirror we've landed in the realm of 19th Century fiction. I'm just glad it's not Lovecraft or Stoker, given the sort of thing Mr. Giles and Buffy are usually involved with, it could have gotten pretty ugly."
The Fergussons seemed not to understand this, but Giles, with a sudden insight realized that she might well be right. Where Alice had stepped through the looking glass into a child's fantasy, they had been pulled into the adult version.
Well, presumably Joyce's version at least.
Giles's own fantasies of late had either been about peaceful vacations in the Cotswolds, in which demons existed only in someone's imagination, or something considerably more adult than a Victorian country house. That the former came up more often than the latter lately was causing Giles to wonder if he really was starting to get old.
Except since last November, the adult fantasies had almost exclusively involved various adventures with the same slender blonde American woman, with a quick smile, whom Giles had tried consistently to tell himself, without success, was not Joyce Summers. It was, after all, extremely improper to be having those sorts of thoughts about his Slayer's mother.
Even if he was not officially Buffy's Watcher any longer? That thought had been coming up rather often in the last month or so. He quickly put it aside, yet again, to concentrate on the problem at hand. "You may very well be right, Joy... uh Mrs. Summers. But it might be better to save this discussion for a later time." He nodded at the Fergussons, trying to convey they should wait until they were alone.
A point their hostess picked up on. "It has been a somewhat fraught experience for all of us. I will have Malcomb bring you some tea and have rooms prepared for you. My dear you no doubt wish to change?" She took her husband's arm and led him from the room.
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