Page 27 of The Story of his Highland Bride (Dancing Through Time #4)
Four Years Later…
Eloise sat at her writing desk, scribbling furiously as the sun dipped lower in the sky, heading toward the horizon. She was glad she didn’t have too many clocks to deal with anymore, always ticking down the hours to countless deadlines, but the sun could pile the pressure on when it wanted to and, right now, she had a chapter to finish before the Friday night storytelling began.
“They’re going to hate me for this,” she said, chuckling to herself as she rushed through the last few paragraphs.
It was a new story about a Selkie who came to land, after spying a handsome man on the shore. She’d dropped her seal skin on the sand, hiding it away at the bottom of a rockpool so no one would be able to steal it and stop her from going back to the sea, but she didn’t know that she was being watched. It was a satisfying beginning, if she did say so herself, but it was always risky to write about mythical creatures. She had experimented with vampires a couple of years ago, and it hadn’t gone down well.
A knock came at the door, and Lorraine and Kaitlyn entered without bothering to wait for permission. They both looked excited, jittering into the room.
“Is it finished?” Kaitlyn asked, sneaking over to the desk to try and peek at the chapters.
Eloise covered the writing protectively. “You’ll have to wait and see, like everyone else.”
“Can I nae just have a little tease of it?” Kaitlyn clasped her hands together, pleading.
“As yer grandmaither by law, ye really should offer a wee morsel,” Lorraine agreed. “In truth, I should be yer first audience, to see if it’s appropriate for the masses. If ye’d read that vampire one to me before the others… well, I’d have told ye I adored it, because I did. They’re nae very discernin’. Truth be told, I still read it when I need to feel young again—they daenae ken what they were missin’.”
Eloise laughed, folding up her pages to keep them secret. “So, that’s where that manuscript went? I’d been wondering.”
“Aye, well, I thought it deserved to be somewhere where it would be treasured,” Lorraine replied, flashing a mischievous wink. Even in the winter of her life, she was young at heart, never letting her age stop her from doing precisely what she wanted to.
Another knock came at the door, prompting Eloise to expel a weary sigh. “It’s like King’s Cross station in here,” she remarked, though it meant nothing to the others. Nevertheless, they’d grown used to her idiosyncrasies over the years. Some had even made it into the common tongue, which worried Eloise a little bit, in case she somehow changed the entire face of the English language and etymology.
“I thought I’d find ye in here, pesterin’ me wife.” Jackson paused to hug his grandmother, though it proved difficult to manage with two children in his arms, both of whom immediately began reaching for their great-grandma.
In the four years they had been married, Eloise and Jackson had been blessed with two sons: a three-year-old by the name of Stephan, and a one-year-old who everyone called “Mite,” though his real name was Michael. Meanwhile, Eloise’s swollen belly carried their third child, and with her self-estimated due date racing ever closer, each Friday night had become a nerve-racking occasion. The last thing she wanted was to go into labor in front of so many people, although she supposed it would make for a killer cliffhanger.
Lorraine took the smaller boy and spun him around. “Och, there’s my wee mite!”
“Grandma!” Stephan protested, opening and closing his little hands to gain his great-grandmother’s attention. “Spin me, Grandma!”
Lorraine passed Michael into his mother’s open arms, before settling Stephan on her hip. He was getting too big to be carried around by his great-grandmother, but she wouldn’t have complained, even if she wanted to. She adored the boys with all of her heart, and they, in turn, adored her, injecting her with youth whenever they were around her. And in the absence of their real grandmother, Lorraine had become that for them.
“You’ve got muck on your face.” Eloise beamed down at her youngest boy, as she licked her thumb and rubbed the dirt from his cheek. “What have you been doing, hmm? Did your dad take you digging in the garden again?”
Michael chuckled and wiggled in his mother’s arms. “Catchin’ worms!”
“You were catching worms?” Eloise cast a pointed look at Jackson, who shrugged and grinned.
“Ye needed time to write,” he said, feigning innocence. “They wanted to go into the gardens, and I just couldn’ae tell them nay. They dinnae eat any worms this time, though.”
Eloise couldn’t help but laugh. “I think it’s my blessing and my curse in life to be surrounded by the most beautiful, messiest boys in the world.” She tilted her head up as Jackson came to her, closing her eyes in bliss as he pressed a kiss to her lips. “But that’s not a bad apology.”
“I’ll apologize properly later,” Jackson told her, with a knowing smile.
“I’m the size of a whale!”
He kissed her again. “Nay, ye’re beautiful, and I willnae hear ye say anythin’ to the contrary.”
“Och, ye’d think that the pair of ye would’ve lost a little of yer longin’ for one another, after four years!” Lorraine declared, rolling her eyes. “I daenae ken how ye manage it. I mean, I loved me husband, but there were whole weeks where I couldn’ae stand the sight of him, especially when I was with child. The two of ye—it’s like ye were only married yesterday.”
Eloise and Jackson exchanged a loving glance. “It feels like that sometimes,” she said, “though not when I’m the size of a house, and everything is swollen.”
In four years, she had expected something to change. In her life, she’d learned that nothing ever stayed the same, and with the starlings still visiting her from time to time, she’d wondered if a day would come when she did want to follow them back through to her time. But with each year that went by, her love for Jackson, and the family they shared, had only burned stronger, until she’d begun to forget that she’d ever come from anywhere else.
In fact, the only time when she missed the 21st century was at Christmas. They didn’t do the trees and the presents and the fairy lights and the carols in the 18th century, and she didn’t think it wise to try and introduce something that wouldn’t become a staple until much, much later. Still, the secret Yule gatherings warmed her heart, and she had a feeling that, much like everything else, she’d soon forget she ever knew anything different.
“Ye’re goin’ to be late,” Jackson said, drawing her out of her thoughts. “The field is already stuffed with people, and we daenae want them gettin’ restless.”
Gathering her pages to her chest, Eloise nodded. “Do you think there’ll ever come a Friday when there aren’t so many people?”
“Would ye want that?”
She shook her head. “You know I wouldn’t, but sometimes it’s therapeutic to complain about it.”
“Och, it is,” Lorraine agreed.
Handing Michael back to his father, Eloise heaved herself to her feet and, with her pages clasped tightly to avoid another slapstick mishap, like the one that had almost halted Friday night storytelling a month ago, she made her way out of her study.
Her friends and family were her proud escort, as she headed for the large field that stretched away from the rear of the castle walls. It had been a necessary arrangement, after the Great Hall had become a safety hazard, and the courtyard had eventually suffered the same fate. And every time Eloise stepped out onto that field, ascending to the torchlit platform that had been erected in the shadow of the castle walls, the sheer scale of the audience never ceased to amaze her.
“Good luck,” Jackson whispered, kissing her on the neck as she lumbered up the steps to the dais.
Stephan nodded eagerly. “Good luck, Mama. Willnae be better than the stories ye tell me and Mite, though.”
“I always save my best for you,” she confirmed, flashing her son a wink before greeting her audience.
The sea of people fell silent as she took to the stage and sat down in the chair that had been placed there for her. “Good evening!” she called, projecting her voice as loudly as she could. Although, they’d implemented other storytellers throughout the audience who passed on the story for those who couldn’t hear.
“Good evenin’!” the crowd cheered back.
Eloise smiled, her heart swelling with happiness as she unfurled her pages and began to read. “In the frost of a bleak midwinter, by the shore of a frozen lake, a splinter cracked the ice… and that splinter widened and widened until it became a black hole, spraying water. From the depths, a head emerged, glistening in the moonlight. A seal, or so you might think—”
Pleased sounds rippled through the crowd, drifting back to her in “oohs” and “aahs.” And as she glanced at her beloved family—the husband she should, by rights, never have met; the sons she loved above all others; the grandmother who had become like her own; and the friend who adored her stories more than anyone—Eloise knew she was precisely where she was supposed to be.
She wasn’t the bestselling writer she’d thought she’d always be, but she was a storyteller nonetheless, and the ocean of eager, waiting faces that stretched out in front of her was a far greater gift than seeing her book on a shelf.
Indeed, in this world, she had the two things that she’d lost in hers: happiness and family. And that was a price worth paying anything for, even the lack of hot showers.
The End