Epilogue
The wedding celebration was in its fourth hour and Fable’s head was still spinning.
Her marriage to Ben in the church while they were in the future was legitimate.
But his mother wanted something huge to send her son off to wedded bliss.
Everyone in Colchester House ate, laughed and danced together.
Fable tried to remember every detail of her wedding day, but much was lost in the whirlwind.
She’d remained agreeable to everything her husband was doing for her, but she wouldn’t wear a wig.
That was where she had to say no. Nope. No thanks. It didn’t help that the wigs were ridiculously high. She laughed looking at it in Edith’s hands.
With the duke’s approval, sought and given via a quick-footed messenger, Edith sent for four more of the best hairdressers in the house.
Everything Fable needed or wanted was supplied.
Except one thing.
“Dad, I’m waiting for you,”
she’d whispered.
She didn’t mention to her father her private empty void where her family should be.
“I think you owe me a dance.”
Fable looked up to see husband’s welcoming smile.
She held out her gloved hand and he took it.
When they began their dance and their eyes locked in a loving gaze, the air turned blurry.
Fable saw it and stopped dancing.
“Someone is coming.”
They all watched a man appear in the middle of the dance hall, and then a few moments after him, another figure appeared.
“Father!”
Fable cried out.
“Magnolia!”
She moved to run to them, but her husband held back.
“We do not know what they want,”
her husband explained his action.
He was right.
What if they came to take her away? “What brings you here?”
she asked.
Her eyes moved over her sister’s pretty face while she waited for his answer.
The first time Fable had seen her was in a spiritual realm of some kind.
Her sister’s features weren’t clear.
Fable could see perfectly well now.
They weren’t identical.
They had the same color hair but that was it. Magnolia must look like their mother.
“I learned how to transport,”
her father explained.
“I found Maggie–”
he stopped and turned to offer his other daughter his most radiant smile.
“We practiced moving through time and all to visit you.”
His cerulean gaze swept over the wedding celebration.
“It seems we chose the right day to visit.”
“Yes, you did,”
Fable answered, going to him and slipping her arm through his, unhindered now by her husband.
“You’ve already met His Grace Duke of Colchester, Captain of the king’s army Benjamin West.”
“Of course,”
her father smiled amiably.
“The man who saved my life.”
The men got along well, so Fable took the opportunity to pull her sister away.
They shared stories of growing up and wept in each other’s arms for a bit.
Maggie told her what she had been doing in the fifteenth century.
It was where the man she had recently fallen in love with.
Fable liked her sister very much and they promised to visit each other once they grew more settled in their new lives.
Before she left, Maggie agreed to their father spending the next two weeks with her and Ben at Colchester House.
Ben was happy about the news, as was the Lt.
Colonel–and a gaggle of various ladies attending the celebration.
“He’s charming,”
Ben remarked to her while even his own mother seemed unable to stop staring at their guest.
“Like you he doesn’t seem to be aware of it.”
“You think I’m charming?”
she asked, grinning up at him.
“And beautiful,”
he answered, smiling back at her.
Fable didn’t know any fairy tales but she felt as if she were living in one.
Every day with Ben was the most perfect one whether they were in the eighteenth century or the twenty-first.
She couldn’t wait for the celebration to be over so they could be alone.
She wanted to kiss him.
To kiss him for all time.
The End