Veiled in Stars and Silver: A Peter Pan Fairy Tale Romance

Chapter 29

I shut the door to my room on the second floor of the boy’s home. I’d finished helping Ivy put the children to sleep. I shook my head, but a small smile lifted my lips as I thought about John and Michael, some of the worst culprits, keeping the others up with their wild, supposedly “made up,” stories of their adventures in Neverland. It had been a year since I’d brought my brothers and the Lost Boys back. Despite a reluctance to return to the strictures of school, my brothers were otherwise adjusting surprisingly well.

Slowly their memory of their time in London, of their family and me, had returned.

I walked to the large window and unlatched it, pushing it open. An icy breeze blew in, and a few delicate snowflakes landed in my hair. Stepping away from the source of the cold, I settled into a soft chair next to my desk and looked around my living space.

It was modest, with a warm bed and enough room for me to feel comfortable. My desk was the one that I had spilled my inkwell over the night my brothers had played cricket in the house so long ago.

I’d discovered that Uncle Reuben had perished in his fall out the window that evening that Ezra had pushed him. I wasn’t overwrought about this. I was glad Ezra was free. When I’d returned from Neverland, he had gladly turned my childhood home over to me, wanting nothing more to do with it, and had sold his father’s small estate on the outskirts of town to enroll in the college he had always desired to attend.

Hook’s jewels had been enough money for me to convert my home into an orphanage. John and Michael didn’t mind the additions since many of those I took in happened to be the Lost Boys. I’d even been able to hire a couple of women to help me run things, so I didn’t have to be present all the time.

A small smile curved my lips. Ivy had met a nice man and they had started courting. She seemed rather smitten with him. I hoped it worked out for her.

Sitting at my desk, I rested my fingers on the keys of my typewriter. I’d had to learn to type with a missing finger, but after some practice, I hardly noticed the tiny adjustments necessary to make up for it. The London children I’d added to our home enjoyed the stories about Neverland so much that they had demanded I write them down, especially my, John, and Michael’s earlier adventures. I’d even found a publishing house who seemed interested, though they didn’t like my proposed ending. Writing Hook as the actual savior of Neverland. They insisted that wasn’t believable and that I should leave him as the villain.

I sighed. Children would always see him as the dangerous Captain Hook, but I and all of Neverland knew the truth. James Hook was Neverland’s savior.

When my fingers tired, I gathered the papers with the title page on top. The publishing house insisted I use a pen name. For who would ever want to read a story from a woman author?

But I was so much more than a writer.

I glanced at my throwing knives, hanging on my wall in their cases. I didn’t practice with them as often as I used to. My life had become very busy. During the day, my brothers and the orphanage required my attention.

And at night…

“Good evening, Wendy Darling.”

My heart leapt at the sound of his voice. It did every time, like I was some young, smitten schoolgirl. I rose from my chair and turned, a smile on my face. He stood there waiting, his steady gaze on me, his black hair falling in attractive waves across his forehead. His hook curled out from beneath his deep blue captain’s jacket.

“How are you this evening, James Hook?” I’d learned that Hook wasn’t actually his last name. Not his given name, at least, but James insisted that so much time had passed that everyone should continue calling him by what they were used to.

“Very well, love,” he responded. “And yourself?”

I stepped up to him and wrapped my arms around him, nuzzling into his neck. “Wonderful, now that you are here.”

He didn’t come every night, but damn near every other night. We’d managed to find other descendants of Stardust. Thanks to copious family heritage records on my father’s side, I’d discovered others of Stardust’s lineage. It turned out that he possessed many descendants. In fact, we were still tracking them all down. There were more than enough to keep Neverland going. Peter escorted them to the magical land for an evening of fun and excitement. And Hook played the dread captain of the Jolly Roger. But not always. Having other pirates who could pretend to play the part helped.

His arms came around me, holding me close. “You spoil me. I wish everyone were as happy to see me.”

I pulled back to look into his face, eyebrows raised. “Do you?”

He laughed, then kissed me, hard. “No,” he growled in my ear. “I suppose not.”

There was a beauty in change. I hadn’t always thought that, but now I did. It is what gave Hook the chance to become a better man, and for me to realize I was wrong about him. Of throwing off the old parts and becoming someone new. Gratitude filled my chest for my childhood and where it led me to—the adventures in Neverland—no matter how deceived I was at the time. Because it had led me to this point. It had brought me to James.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” I murmured, kissing his jawline and slipping my hands under his shirt.

He chuckled. “I thought we had discussed going to the opera this evening.”

My hand brushed against the brace covering his shoulder. “I think I want to do something else.”

James Hook had an endless number of places he knew of to make love. Already we’d done it on empty beaches and in abandoned coves. We’d even done it once in a rum cellar—although that one hadn’t been planned. But I wasn’t complaining. The nice thing about a land where time stopped was that we could make love however many times we desired without becoming with child.

Maybe in time we’d want a baby or two, but not yet. Between John, Michael, and the orphanage, my hands were full. Once my brothers were grown and off to the boy’s school my parents always wanted them to attend, I’d shutter the orphanage and join Hook in the world where time stood still. And then we could make decisions about whether or not to start a family.

A mischievous smile came to my face as I looked into his forget-me-not eyes. “To Neverland?”

He took my hand and led me to the window. “Second star to the right, Wendy, love.”

“And straight on till morning.”