Treasure Box by Orson Scott Card

was more open about wanting power than most people, what of that? It was honesty, of a sort. Integrity.
    Or else it was cynical manipulation, so deeply evil that few politicians could bring themselves to conceive of it.
    He shook off that dark thought. This sweet, naïve, childlike woman beside him simply had a childlike, naïve view of the romance of political power. It was an outsider's vision, that's all. Just as he had found with money, she would soon find with power—that it got boring once you had enough of it, and then you had to rethink everything in order to find something worth doing with it.
    Evil indeed. What dark thing dwelt in his heart, to make him think of such a word in relation to his Mad? He would say nothing to her to imply criticism. Better to treat it lightly, as a game, and then help her gain a wiser view later, as she gained more experience in the political world.
    He leaned over and kissed her. "When you rule the world, Mad, do I get to be prince consort?"
    She laughed. "Why do you think I married you?"
    He laughed with her. He was relieved to see that she could mock herself. As long as she could see the humor in her own desires, they would never get the better of her.
    The Beatles sang about how they wanted money. The other stuff, you can give it to the birds and bees. You really got a hold on me. Roll over, Beethoven. And the CD ended.
    Silence filled the car for a while. Except that he could hear his own heartbeat, pounding like Ringo's relentless drum. With her head on his shoulder, could she hear it, too? His heart? Now that it belonged to her, did she hear it?
     
    They never would have noticed the entrance to the estate if she hadn't been there to point it out. Even as it was, with her saying, "Right here, turn here, right now!" the driver overshot it and had to back up.
    "Sorry," he said. "I couldn't see it till we passed it."
    "No sweat," said Quentin.
    "I can see how it's easy to miss in the darkness," said Madeleine.
    The lane they drove up was so overgrown that branches scraped both sides of the car, and sometimes limbs hung so low that it seemed the lane ended entirely.
    "Tearing up the side of the car," the driver murmured.
    "I paid for the insurance coverage, didn't I?" asked Quentin.
    "Oh, yes sir, no problem, sir, just talking to myself."
    "I suppose they've been forgetting to have the gardener come out to the lane," said Madeleine. "Or maybe it's just Grandmother's idea of privacy."
    At last the lane opened up onto a large field of snow. Not a tiretrack or footprint disturbed it, even though it had been days since the last snowfall. Only a slight depression in the snow showed where the lane went.
    The house emerged from the great ancient trees that surrounded it, but could never have hidden it in the daylight, for it rose five rambling stories above a sweeping front porch with a stairway surely as wide and high as a Greek temple.
    "How many hundreds of people live here?" asked Quentin in awe.
    "In its heyday, there were probably half a dozen families. Nobody moved away. We were such a tightknit clan back then." She laughed. "Money requires a big house, anyway, Tin. No matter how many people actually live there. You're the only one who doesn't understand that."
    A silent servant stood waiting for them, a tall thin man, the cliché of a butler. He wore only a lightweight jacket but didn't seem bothered by the cold.
    "How did he know we were coming?" asked Quentin.
    "I'm sure someone noticed the lights coming up the lane."
    Quentin wasn't quite sure what the servant was there for, since he didn't open their car doors or help them get their luggage out of the car—the driver did all that. Quentin tipped the driver and sent him off. The tires crackled in the gravel and the engine sounded like a windstorm as the car swept away, its taillights streaking the snow with red.
    "Much more Christmasy than anything in California," said Quentin.
    "It doesn't feel Christmasy to me," said Madeleine.