Chapter 15
A lifetime later…
“Well I,for one, don’t see anything at all wrong with the situation.”
Annette, their eldest daughter, turned to look at Eloise, her mouth slightly open in shock. “Mother, don’t encourage her. No daughter of mine shall be found in a flat so she can engage in employment as a secretary.”
“Annette, darling, if you sneer every word, they will lose all emphasis.” Eloise cocked an eyebrow that only caused her daughter to gain her feet and march away in a huff, which was rather thwarted by the crowd that had jammed itself into the ballroom that evening.
Eloise watched her go even as her granddaughter, Annette’s daughter, Gwendolyn, slid over to take her mother’s vacated seat and gathered Eloise’s hand into her own.
“Do you really feel that way, Grandmama?” Gwendolyn asked.
Eloise smiled as the light struck young Gwendolyn’s eyes. They were the same color as her namesake, and looking into her granddaughter’s gaze always reminded Eloise of her older sister, no matter how much distance now stood between them.
This Gwen had informed her family she intended to leave home and live on her own in a flat as she’d taken a position as a secretary in some industrialist company.
“I do believe it, Gwennie,” she said, squeezing her granddaughter’s hand. “Your grandfather and I lived in what you might call a flat when we were first wed.”
Gwennie blinked, a smile lifting one side of her face. “You did? Was that before you left for Amsterdam?”
Eloise laughed, shaking her head. “Oh no, child. This was long before Amsterdam. Why your Uncle Harrison was already five by the time we left for Amsterdam. No, this was a great deal before that.”
Gwennie sidled closer. “And did you love it? Living in a flat?”
Eloise laughed harder, whether at the memory or the eagerness in her granddaughter’s gaze. “You must remember it was a different time then, and your grandfather and I had just been wed in scandal.” She lowered her voice on the last word and wiggled her eyebrows for dramatic effect.
“Scandal?” Gwennie’s eyes widened. She had her father’s coloring, dark and earthy, and her wide eyes made her almost look like a specter.
“Of course, didn’t your mother tell you?” Gwennie only shook her head, and Eloise made a tsking sound before saying, “That doesn’t surprise me. Your mother always was a stickler for propriety. I’m sorry to say, young Gwennie, but Grandpapa and I were wed after we were discovered in a broom cupboard.”
“What?”
This exclamation of astonishment came from the young man who had been in conversation at Eloise’s elbow. He turned so swiftly a flop of light brown hair fell over his brow, and he looked so much like his grandfather just then it gave Eloise an actual pain in her chest.
“Oh Randall, surely you’ve heard this story.”
Randall was Emma’s son, their youngest daughter, and was studying chemistry in order to work with something called plastic. Eloise wasn’t sure what was so interesting about it, but Tuck was always keen to catch up with Randall about his research when the boy had a break from his studies.
“I assure you I have not,” he said, taking the seat beside her. “Why don’t you enlighten both of us, Grandmama?”
“But you’re missing the party,” she said with a wave of her hand at the gathered guests. “You know parties aren’t like they used to be. Back when I was your age, ballrooms were grand affairs.” She flung a hand about her. “This is just two drawing rooms with a connecting door. As if no one would notice.”
“How grand were they?” Gwennie prodded, but Eloise knew what she was really getting at.
“Well,” she began. “You see, I wasn’t supposed to marry your father. I was intended to marry a duke.”
Randall’s grin was more of a smirk, as if he were amusing his dear old grandmother. “Is that so, Grandmama? And who was this duke?”
Eloise waved him off. “Oh, it turns out he’s not very central to our story. Let me explain.”
She was nearly to the bit about Annie marrying Grimsby when a pair of shined and polished shoes stepped into her vision as she was attempting to recall what month it was when Annie married again. She looked up and into the face she’d been seeing every morning for more than sixty years.
“Darling, I was just telling the children how it was we met.”
Both of Tuck’s eyebrows, thoroughly gray now, rose up. “Surely you’re not.” He gestured behind him. “There’s a party going on. With dancing and champagne and revelry. Why are you all sitting in this corner?”
Gwennie stood first and kissed her grandfather’s cheek. “Grandmama was just telling us this wild story about how she was once promised to a duke.” Gwennie shook her head. “Doesn’t she tell the best stories?”
Tuck’s smile was familiar and knowing, and it had Eloise smiling in return.
“Yes, she does tell the best stories, poppet.”
Gwennie kissed his cheek again before pulling Randall up to go join a group of their friends by the bar.
Eloise was slower in getting to her feet. Her right knee had pained her ever since she’d slipped climbing that Alp, and it had never been quite right since. She wasn’t sure which was more annoying, the fact that she’d done it or that if she’d done it at thirty-five instead of seventy-two it probably wouldn’t still be paining her now. It was some kind of twisted blessing to grow so old as they had.
She wound her arm through her husband’s and nodded at the crowd around them.
“Can you believe it, Mr. Ryan? We did all of this, you know.”
Tuck laid his hand on hers and squeezed as they gazed over the room together, her head resting on his shoulder.
It was their granddaughter Ellen’s engagement party. After Harrison and Annette had come Timothy and Sarah and finally Emma. Harrison had learned to read in a hut on Spitsbergen, and Annette had learned to tie her shoes when Tuck was on a lecture circuit through America. Timothy and Sarah had learned to ride horseback across the plains of Africa, and Emma had learned three languages before she was five years old just so she could communicate with her nannies.
That had only been the beginning. Their children had grown and married and given them grandchildren to coddle and adore, and now here one of their grandbabies was to be wed.
“Tuck?” Eloise asked now, straightening. “Do you suppose we’ll be great-grandparents soon?”
Tuck turned to her. “With the way that young man looks at our Ellen? We’ll be great-grandparents before the year is out,” he said triumphantly, and Eloise laughed.
She laughed for the wonder of it, this thing they had made together when they were never meant to be together at all. Love really did have a way of conquering everything.
But Tuck turned serious then, his brow furrowing. “Eloise, dear, you didn’t tell the grandchildren the whole story of how we met. Did you?” he added questioningly.
She patted his arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry, darling. I left out the details, just as we discussed.”
She smiled right before he kissed her, this man she had loved for the whole of her life and then some.