Chapter 10 Leave It Up to Love Elizabeth
Leave It Up to Love
Elizabeth
My heart was racing as I got to the end.
Sometimes you have to let go, Mrs. Percy thought. Sometimes, in this life, you have to trust in God, throw away your plans, and leave it up to love. Just leave it up to love.
I stood up in my chair, triumphant, and thrust my hands in the air.
I looked down at the clock. Had I really been sitting here for almost five hours with little more than a bathroom break?
I needed water. Food. But I had done it!
And there was nothing better in all the world than that moment as a writer where you get so lost in the story that everything else falls away.
Nothing else matters but you and the words and the characters on the page. I had faced my fear. I had done it.
Thank goodness Lila had totally dropped the ball. I still wasn’t sure what that was about. Had she needed my guidance so fully that she couldn’t even write the ending by herself?
“Mom!” rang out in the entryway.
I couldn’t wait to tell Grady I had finished the book. When I walked into the room, Lila was there too. Had they just jumped away from each other? Huh. So maybe they had been seeing each other.
“I finished the book!” I shouted, victoriously.
“You finished the book!” Lila exclaimed, throwing her arms around me.
And that was when I knew. “Those last chapters, young lady . . .” I raised my eyebrow. “You tricked me. You got me so worked up that the only choice was to rewrite them myself.”
She shrugged. “I can neither confirm nor deny that that is true.”
I was so grateful for her, so lit up with the fact that I had overcome this horrible thing. Maybe it was a rash decision, but I knew it was the right one. “No more ghostwriting,” I said. “This book will be by Elizabeth Lancaster and Lila Everwood.”
“Well, technically, alphabetically, wouldn’t Lila be first?” Grady asked.
I cut my eyes at him. “My name will be first. And bigger. I’m being gracious. Let’s not lose our minds.”
Lila hugged me again. “That is so generous and so unnecessary. But I will always mark this as one of the most impactful, meaningful, amazing chapters of my life. I have learned so much from you, and I will never forget—”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted, my heart racing uncomfortably. “I’m not releasing you. I think we should do it again.”
Lila’s eyes widened. “You do?”
I nodded. “Of course. The training wheels are off, but I’m not proficiently going it alone again yet. I’m not ready.” I paused. “Plus, Mrs. Percy’s stable boy is gone. What’s to become of her?”
“Have you seen Lord Richardson’s new valet?” Lila asked.
We both giggled.
“Okay,” Grady said. “I might be uncomfortable with the two of you teaming up to take on the world.” Then he turned to Lila and whispered, “Let’s get you an agent before you negotiate this one.”
“Speaking of teaming up,” I said, “Lila, when you are ready, I’d very much like to give you notes—and maybe a cover blurb—on the new contemporary romance you’re working on for Apprentice.”
She gasped. “Really, Lizzy?”
“As long as you put Elizabeth Lancaster on the cover, not Lizzy.” I winked at her.
Grady put his arm around Lila, and she smiled up at him. I nearly clapped. There was something brewing between them. I knew it!
I was surprised by the little jolt of joy that rushed through me.
My boy had had a hard few years too. I wasn’t the only one who had lost a great love.
I wanted happiness for Grady; I wanted what I had had with his father for him.
If this was how it found him, then it had all been worth it.
All the hard days, all the sleepless nights, wondering if I had lost not only my great love but also the single thing that brought me the most joy.
I thought about Mrs. Percy and her petticoats and the love story that Lila and I had been writing while she had been writing one of her own, and I had to wonder if someone or something had conspired to bring us all together, to put us all on this path so that we could become a new sort of family, soothe the hurts together.
I smiled, seeing the sparkle in my son’s eyes, a glimmer that hadn’t been there in quite a while.
It made me wonder about my own future—if, somehow, someday, maybe there would be someone else out there for me.
But I knew I didn’t have to worry about all that now.
Because what I had written? It was timeless, it was true, and I believed it with all my heart: Sometimes, you just have to leave it up to love.