Page 35 of Last Knight (Knights Through Time #7)

Two Years Later

Ashley couldn’t believe two years had passed.

Lucy’s son had another child, her eighth grandchild.

It was only a few weeks until Christmas, and they had traveled to Somerforth to celebrate the birth of Jennifer’s first baby.

She had a boy, and Edward had been strutting around before dragging his brothers, William, and James out in the cold to cross swords in the lists.

Which was better than them wrestling in the hall.

The last time they’d broken a chair and Jennifer had shouted at them.

She and Christian had taken Merrick in as their own.

He was now eight years old, and with his brother and sister they made a nice, happy family.

The year after they took in Merrick, they’d met a girl at a market where her father was beating her.

He’d offered to sell her for a paltry sum, and Ashley had been horrified.

Christian paid the man and they took the girl, Mary.

It was only a few months after that they came across Arthur, he had been in a shipwreck with no survivors.

While Ashley had never thought she wanted children, she had never been more fulfilled.

As much as she loved her life when she was single, she finally understood what her friends had been trying to tell her back in New York.

She had always thought she wasn’t meant to have children.

Some people were meant to be single. While she still believed that was true, she also knew the love she had for Christian had profoundly changed every cell, her DNA.

Maybe it took the right person to change.

Seeing how happy Christian was playing with his sons and his daughter, showing them how to swing a sword, to go riding and hunting, made her smile every day.

At first she had been appalled he wanted to teach his daughter to use a sword, but she’d quickly given in when she saw how much Mary enjoyed spending time outside with her brothers and her father.

The children, when they weren’t following Christian around, trailed after the guards, asking a million questions.

Ashley was happy they had not gotten into as much mischief as her sisters’ children.

She remembered the stories of how they had taken Elizabeth and Jennifer’s paints and painted the dogs.

Though Mary had come in last week with a basket full of kittens. She’d traded a basket of eggs for them. Ashley simply laughed and told her she was responsible for taking care of them. She guessed that at least when the black plague came, they’d have plenty of cats to keep the vermin away.

She and her new sisters had talked a great deal about what was to come and what they could do to prepare.

They had also talked more about Connor. They speculated on where he might have ended up. So much had changed. Her life before had been empty, and she’d floated through life existing but not living.

Christian had teased her the other day about the time. Ashley couldn’t fathom how she had been so obsessed with what time it was. What did it matter? The day dawned; life went on. She was so grateful to whatever power had brought her to the past and given her a chance at love.

Her husband had hired men from Italy to build them a conservatory, where she was growing tea and citrus.

The men had done the same for his brothers.

They had all decided they would not sell any, and only use what they grew for household purposes.

Together they had decided it was the least risky way to impact history.

She was in the conservatory, looking at the plants, when Lucy came in. Ashley wondered how it must be for Lucy to see her sisters, knowing they were twenty years younger than she. Though Lucy said she still woke feeling as if she were in her twenties.

Ashley wished she could capture time, put it in the box and lock it away.

To keep it from moving forward. For she wanted this time to go on forever.

To savor every moment of every day. But even she had learned it was impossible to hold time in her hand.

So she would live each day as though she might not wake to have another.

Never again would she take anything for granted.

Ashley had a home, she had family, and she had a love that would last until her dying breath and beyond. There was nothing else she needed.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed Last Knight. Next up is, My One and Only Knight , where you’ll meet Penelope and find out what happened before the Merriweather sisters came to live with Aunt Pittypat. I hope you love it.