I WILL FEAR NO EVIL by Robert A. Heinlein

“Hrrmph.”

“Did I goof again?”

“My dear, I have an announcement. Dr. and Mrs. Roberto Carlos Garcia y Ibanez are on their honeymoon.”

“What? Why, the dirty little rat! Didn’t wait for big sister to hold her hand. Good for them! Jake, that’s wonderful—I think I’ll cry.”

“Go ahead, you cry while I shower.”

“Hell, no, I’ll cry when Winnie is back. I’ll take that shower with you and you can scrub me. My back, where I can’t see the paint; not my front, I’m tired, too. When was it and do you know when they will be home? And, goodness, I must pick out a suite for them; Roberto won’t want to be next to mine with a connecting door. And I need to think of a wedding present. I may give them the painting you don’t pick; Roberto won’t let me give them anything expensive, he’s a stubborn man.” (Boss, is there another sort?)

“I can’t see why Bob wouldn’t want to have a connecting door into your bedroom.”

“I think that was meant to be an insult. Perhaps he would like it, dear—I would like it. But it would not look right to the servants.” (Frimp the servants!) (All of them, Eunice? I’m kept busy as it is.)

“Eunice, I took the liberty of telling Cunningham to have the Gold Suite set up for the Garcias—”

“Perfect! I’ll have a door cut from my lounge into theirs and there already is a lock-off that we can unlock between its foyer and the upstairs library we joined to your suite—and then we can quit this unseemly ducking back and forth through the hall.”

“The newlyweds might prefer to be left alone.”

“Hadn’t thought of- that. Oh, well, ‘I have some friends of my own,’ as the old gal said.”

“In any case they’ll be back too soon for carpentry. I have it from a usually dependable source that a reliably dishonest member of your staff agreed to phone Mrs. Garcia the instant you returned. I assume that the call was made. I assume that they will be back by, oh, nightfall.”

“I wonder whom I should fire? That’s a hell of a way to run a honeymoon.”

“I understand the good Doctor was in on it—the idea being to keep you safe from harm, since between them they constitute your medical staff.”

“What nonsense. I’m the Pioneer-Mother type. Rugged. If I had crossed with the prairie- schooners, they would have yoked me in with the oxen. But I’m glad they’re coming home. I want to kiss them and cry on them.”

“Johann, sometimes I can’t make up my mind whether you are a silly young girl—or senile.”

“The last time you called me ‘Johann’ you acquired some scar tissue. Dear, has it occurred to you that I might be both? A senile silly young girl?”

“Interesting. A possible working hypothesis.”

“If so, I’m a well-adjusted one—Jake, I’m as happy as a cat left alone with the Christmas turkey. With Joe squared away and the Supreme Court being sensible for a change my last fret is gone. Life is one long giddy delight. I’m not even morning sick.”

“Can’t see why you should be—huh?” (Boss, I thought you weren’t going to tell him?) (Eunice, he was bound to know soon . . . and I couldn’t just let him find out, can’t do that to Jake. This is the perfect time—he’s officially ‘first to know.’)

“I said I wasn’t bothered by morning sickness, Jake. I’m healthy as a horse and the only change I’ve noticed is that I’m hungry as a horse, too.”

“You wish me to believe that you are pregnant?”

“Don’t give me that stern-father look, Jake. I’m knocked up and happier than Happy Hooligan. I could have kept it to myself a while longer but I wanted to tell you before anyone else could notice. But be a dear and treat it as privileged—because the instant Winnie finds out she’ll start mothering me and worrying. Which is not what a bride should be doing. With luck I can keep it from Winnie until she’s pregnant, too.” (Boss, what makes you think Winnie intends to get pregnant’?) (Use your head, Eunice—five to one she’s got a Band-aid over the spot where that implant used to be this very minute.) (I don’t have a head, Boss—just yours and it doesn’t work too well.) (Complaints, huh? Talk that way and I won’t marry you, either.) (We are married, Boss.) (I know it, beloved. Now be quiet; I’ve got to juggle eggs.)

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