Grayson Manor – 1554

 

The manor house was draped in mistletoe, fir, and yew for Christmas, and lovely decorations of dried oranges and holly wreaths filled the rooms. Archer and I were given a guest room usually reserved for visiting royalty, which, according to Valerie Grayson, we were.

I joined Valerie and my mom in Charlie’s bedroom, where a maid was lifting a stunning gold dress over Charlie’s linen shift. Valerie dismissed the maid and fastened the dress up herself.

“Oh Charlie, you look so beautiful,” my mom exclaimed. She had tears in her eyes when she looked up at me, and I was so glad she had come with us to this wedding, especially since she had missed mine.

Charlie caught my eyes. “I seriously considered searching the Elian Manor closets for something to wear from the 1950s, but it takes a certain degree of fortitude to wear these gowns, and I felt that perhaps I was finally strong enough.”

I took her hands in mine, and the diamond band Ringo had made for her sparkled like stars on her finger. “Charlie, you were strong enough the day I met you. The only difference now is that you actually believe it.”

Valerie had finished fastening the exquisitely embroidered gown. She studied the young woman she had helped shape, and her gaze filled with tenderness. “My dear, the time you gave me has been the most precious gift I’ve ever received. Thank you for allowing me to dote on you, and to love you as my own daughter.”

She kissed both of Charlie’s cheeks, and there were definitely tears in her eyes when she looked away.

“Why is it that weddings make people cry?” Charlie whispered to me as my mom and Valerie sorted through Valerie’s jewelry cases for sparkly things to drape on the bride.

I shrugged. “I have theories, but it’s more fun to make something up.”

She grinned. “Oh do!”

“I think people don’t fall in love, but instead, love starts as a tiny butterfly, usually in the belly, because that’s where we feel it first. And that butterfly multiplies and multiplies, until our whole being is filled with the butterflies of being in love. Then, at a wedding when two people declare and promise that love out loud, the room fills with their butterflies, and people cry with the beauty of it.”

“Oh, I like that story! Today, if I feel nervous, I’ll imagine the whole room full of butterflies.”

I smiled at my beautiful friend who was in love with the brother of my heart. “It will be.”

 

Ringo and Charlie’s wedding was intimate and lavish. He and Archer both wore gentlemen’s suits from 1889, and mom and I were in Tudor gowns, borrowed from Valerie and quickly altered by her dressmaker. Millicent and mom had thrown them a wonderful engagement party at Elian Manor before we left, but Millicent had declined to Clock with us. We didn’t press the issue.

Ringo’s eyes shone as he promised to love, honor, and cherish Charlie all the days of their lives, and when Charlie’s eyes filled with tears, she looked at me and we both looked up at all the imaginary butterflies that filled the hall.

When I hugged Ringo after the ceremony, I whispered to him, “I’m glad you finally asked her that first question.”

He looked at me with the eyes of a man. “I’m glad I loved you first – it gave me a foundation to build on. I just never imagined how high it could go until I saw her again.”

“She’s a very lucky girl,” I said with my whole heart, and then I replayed his words in my head with surprise. “You’ve lost your accent.”

An impish grin lit up his face. “It let me blend in on the streets, but now I have a fine wife, and she deserves a proper gentleman.”

The feast afterwards in the candlelit dining hall was fit for a king, but because it was just us, we moved a small table near the fireplace and sat together like a family, telling stories and laughing until late in the night.

Valerie gave the couple her wedding present first. “I’ve bought a property near Marylebone Park in London. I intend to build a townhouse there, and I will set up a trust that names you, Charlotte, as my heir. As I fear things may become tangled during the next three hundred years, I would like to name Lord Archer Devereux as the executor for the title of the property until such time as Charlotte and her husband can claim it. I’m sure the solicitors in the nineteenth century will be able to find you, Archer.”

Charlie jumped up and hugged Valerie, which was no mean feat in all the heavy fabric of her dress, Ringo kissed the back of Valerie’s hand, and Archer bowed. “It would be my pleasure, madam.”

They had a home, and the excitement that shone on Charlie’s face was palpable. My mom stood up and brought a small wrapped package to Charlie, who was clearly in on whatever was inside that box, because she turned and gave it to Valerie.

“My wedding gift to Charlotte is not one that she has the ability to use. You do, however, and I trust that my daughter can teach you the finer points.”

Valerie looked confused until she opened the box. Inside, on a bed of dark blue velvet, lay the Clocker necklace. Valerie gasped and looked up at her foster daughter with shining eyes. “I’ll be able to visit you?” she asked.

“I can teach you how to focus your travel so that you clock to their house on a certain date. It means you’re probably going to have to build a walled garden at the house so we can put a spiral in it.” I said.

“Oh!” Valerie’s voice was choked with tears and she clapped her hands together in delight. “I might one day see my grandchildren!” She flung her arms around Charlie and Ringo first, and then my mom and me. “It will of course be handed back to the Elian line after I’m gone.” And then, just for good measure, she kissed Archer on the cheek. There was happy crying all the way around the table, and it took several handkerchiefs and some manly throat-clearing to get ourselves under control.

“And now, from Saira and myself …” Archer pulled two envelopes out of the inside pocket of his dinner jacket and handed them to Ringo, who held Archer’s gaze a long time before he finally opened the first one. His hand shook very slightly as he passed the letter to Charlie, whose gasp at the first line caused Valerie to slide her chair next to Charlie to read over her shoulder. Ringo stood up and came to our side of the table.

He held a hand out to help me up from my chair. “My lady …” His voice choked. “Thank you,” he finally managed to whisper. I held his face and kissed him on both cheeks.

“You’re welcome.”

Ringo embraced Archer in the kind of hug I’d only seen them do one other time – the first time they met again after Archer’s infection. It was the grip of brothers, and their eyes were shiny when they parted.

Valerie’s voice rose in confusion. “Please excuse my ignorance of modern banking. There is an account set up for Mr. and Mrs. Ringo Devereux at Rothschild & Sons? But that is your name, is it not, Archer?”

“It is my brother’s name too,” he said with a grin at Ringo. “Open the other one.”

“I’m not sure I can,” Ringo said, wiping away the tears.

I laughed. “Charlie, Ringo has butterflies in his eyes. Could you do it, please?”

She giggled and slit open the second envelope. This time her gasp was even louder. “Oh, Ringo! It’s an admission from King’s College London for Ringo Devereux, to study the discipline of his choice, and for Charlotte Devereux to the Ladies Department of King’s College for the same.”

Ringo stared at Archer open-mouthed. “But King’s is for the upper classes.”

Archer smirked. “You carry a Lord’s name and bank statement. I think you qualify.”

There was another round of embraces and some more tears before we all returned to our seats.

“By the way, we’ve arranged with the modern Rothschild bank to call us any time a letter appears in a certain safety deposit box. You’ll have to give us a day or two notice – at least long enough for them to do their daily box-check – but the system should work okay for arranging visits.” I had been so happy when Archer told me what he had in mind, based on the way Tom had left us a message. I had actually gone back to 1945 to test it with the Rothschild banker I knew, and it had worked perfectly.

It was the only thing that was going to make saying goodbye tolerable. Our days with Ringo and Charlie had been too brief, and although they did consider staying in our time permanently, they realized they actually did want to experience getting older day by day, instead of all at once with a visit back.

So they were our constant companions during the two months after the Monger battle. They sat in on Council meetings that were open to all Descendants, and experienced the shaping of Descendant politics first-hand. They divided their time between Elian Manor and rooms in the newly opened wings at St. Brigid’s, where mixed-blood Descendants were now eligible to send their children to school. Charlie studied botany with Mr. Shaw, and managed to teach him some of the old plant lore she had learned during her time at Grayson Manor. And when he wasn’t with us, Ringo spent every minute with Connor, either in the laboratory or playing video games and tinkering with electronic gadgets.

We took Ringo and Charlie with us the first time we visited the house in Galway that Millicent gave us. That had been a working trip spent cleaning and repairing the beautiful old place on the Cliffs of Moher. Ringo was the one who pointed out that a scene from The Princess Bride had been filmed at those cliffs, and our running joke of the weekend became answering “as you wish” to any request.

Ringo’s friendship with Tom had also deepened. Ringo understood Tom in ways even Adam didn’t, and it was Ringo who was able to convince Tom to accept the position as Monger Head on the Descendants’ Council. There were full-blooded Mongers from the Rothchild/Walters regime who objected, but when Raven and the soldiers who had fought in the Monger battle stood up for Tom, the dissention quieted to a low murmur.

Probably the most karmic ending of all belonged to Seth Walters, who died from blood poisoning. He had believed until the end that Archer was a Vampire, and had injected Archer’s Seer blood into his Monger veins. He was dead for three days before anyone found him.

The engagement party that Millicent and my mom threw for Ringo and Charlie had also been a going away party, and I’d never felt so much love and friendship in one room. My mom confided in me that night that Mr. Shaw had asked her to marry him. He was the new Shifter Head, and I had returned the Shifter bone into his safekeeping. They felt they needed to bring the matter before the Council, but they weren’t asking for permission or forgiveness, just acceptance.

After we left Grayson Manor, I took Archer back to modern St. Brigid’s before Clocking Ringo and Charlie to 1889. Archer couldn’t return to Victorian London because he was already there – and already a Vampire. Except things had changed now, and Archer from 1889 found us at the Baker Street townhouse that Valerie had built for Charlie and Ringo. My mom had gone to Elian Manor to see her sister, so it was just the four of us.

“How much do you want to know, Archer?” I asked him, when we were seated in the drawing room across from Ringo and Charlie.

He smiled at me, and it was my Archer exactly. They all were – every version of him, from every age – he was my Archer. “All of it has changed already, hasn’t it? This life that I will live is already different than the one I did live because you have changed it.”

“It’s not a time stream split though, because the only person really affected is you.” I said. “I think it’s more of a time stream overlay. Whatever happens to you as you move forward in time won’t change the fact of what did happen. It all just lays over the top, so that as you experience things now, you’ll remember them in my time as well.”

“There are differences though,” he said quietly as he looked down at the crowned heart ring on my left hand.

I smiled and held the hand out to him. “There are, but we can work around them.”