SUDDENLY YOU
FINAL CHAPTER: In Which the Author Cries
Dedicated to my friends and inspiration…
My Sophies, Lauren, Maddy, Adelly-love, Stella, Jenny, Kacee and everyone else…
…For your time and support.
The Evencorts wouldn't be the same without you.
I wouldn't be the same without you.
To all my readers, who have made writing this story such joy and pulled me through when I was weary and didn't want to know anything about it – like with friends, sometimes authors and stories fight and we do get sick of each other.
So, thank you all for everything.
And now… Onto the chapter!
Chapter Fourteen: In which everyone tells it all
Nikki
Papa was very strict with me about Julian. Very more so than Grandpa Luke was with Maddy and Will, but in the end, he let me go on with our relationship, and it just got so much better once we had his approval.
I remember the first time I took Julian to the family dinner.
He was outwardly so calm and confident, though he kept squeezing my hand under the table. He talked business with Uncle Derek, discussed Plato with Dear Uncle James and Aunt Eddie; and made himself agreeable to my little cousins. I think Little Lily was halfway in love with him by the time the night was through (with all her ten-year old heart could love), which my dad didn't find amusing at all.
Julian became a regular at our family dinners –same as Will – and once I finished my studies and settled into the job he offered me at one of his magazines, we began to make plans to get married.
Julian absolutely refused the dowry my father offered.
He said he was perfectly capable to provide for me without it and wouldn't change his mind. I must say Papa respected him more after that, I guess that was a proof he wasn't after the family's money, though Papa still insisted on settling an account for me with money that would be mine alone; Julian said that was fine, he couldn't fault a father for doing that.
He also made one more allowance when it came to decide were we were going to live.
I would have been happy to live with him in the same house he lived with Mr. Fretwell, but then Julian reasonably argued that the house was too small and would be even smaller when we began to have babies. He wanted to buy a new, bigger house and with a large nursery. He told me to look for a house that I would like; instead I took him to the town house that had belonged to the Rochester family for ages.
"It was my Grandfather's." I said. "Not Grandpa Luke… I mean my birth-father father's, Lord Rochester, he willed it to me."
"It's a great house."
"I know… my Grandfather wanted me to have a place of my own, one place where I could feel some sort of connection with his son and himself. I though that perhaps we could live here."
"Nikki… I can buy you a house, just as big as this one." Julian said as if I had implied he couldn't.
"I know…" I said hugging him. "But I already have this one and I want to bring something into our marriage. And this is the only piece of my life linked to the Rochesters that I have."
He hugged me back, resting his chin on my head. "Living here would make you happy, wouldn't it?"
"I think so." I admitted, snuggling into his chest. "I remember that I always wondered if my birth father loved me when I was a kid. When my parents adopted me, I got to the conclusion that he must have, because he made sure I had Michael and Jenny when he was gone. But I want more. They –the Rochesters – were so unhappy here, I want to change that."
"Fine then, if this house pleases you we'll live here." He said.
And that was that. We made a renovation of the house of course, and re decorated, and as soon as it was ready to be lived in, we married and moving in.
Life was pure bliss after that.
Julian was always so encouraging of everything I wanted to do, even after our first daughter – whom he insisted on calling Adel-without-the-e-at-the-end – and then after our son, named Thomas after Mr. Fretwell. Once I stopped breastfeeding them, he encouraged me to go back to work on the magazine.
He had relocated Ledger Publishing's Head Quarters to a modern building and set aside a whole room in the ground level to act as a nursery so I could have the babies at work – though true be told, everyone knew that when he wasn't at his office and he wasn't at mine he was sure to be in the nursery giving Adel piggyback rides or cuddling to Thomas.
Julian was a wonderful father, fiercely protective of both of them.
And I finally got my family; I could finally look at someone and see something of myself: Adel had my eyes and her father's hair, and I could see something of myself in the shape of Thomas brows… it's hard to explain but looking at them, my children, gave me the kind of roots that my parents and other relatives, for all their love, had never been able to give.
Julian and I settled into our boring life with much enthusiasm, having babies, running a business and being ridiculously besotted with each other.
We have been married for years, and he still makes me blush, and love him every day a little more.
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Maddy
What followed Will's confession was a confession of my very own, and then a courtship. We didn't make a secret out of it. Nurse Wells was full with rightful indignation, she was absolutely furious; I mean, she had given us that speech about not condoning any relationship other than professional among the hospital staff very early one. Before we even really liked each other, even. But Will didn't care.
Nurse Wells was impossible for a while but eventually a new bash of nursing school students came to the hospital and she turned on them the full force of her disapproval, leaving Will and me well enough alone.
Surprisingly, Papa was the most difficult to convince to allow the relationship. He demanded to speak privately with Will –and neither of them ever told me what they talked about, by the way – and then insisted he began to show up at our family diners.
I had been getting angry at Papa for it, he had always said that he would let me do whatever made me happy, and being with Will did just that, but then Sophie explained it all to me.
"It's hard for Papa, Maddy."
"But he has been so supportive of Nikki against Michael!"
"I know, but you're different, you're his baby whereas Nikki is Michael's baby." Sophie said. "You have to understand, I'm not saying that Papa loves me or Lita or Michael or James any less than you, but you're his baby girl, his little miracle."
"I'm not sure I follow."
Sophie looked away, "I was too big." She said quietly. "When I was born, I was too big, and I put Mama's health in danger. Though Mama and Papa wanted more children, they had given up on it because of the risks for Mama's health. But then you came to be inside Mama's belly… and you have to understand, the odds were not so good. But Mama told Papa to have faith, and he did, and then you happened, without any fuss actually, Mama says you were her easiest birth for all the worries during the pregnancy. You were always Papa's little miracle, his last baby girl, its understandable that he's reticent to you hand you over to some man he has never met."
"I never knew."
"Yeah, well, it's not the kind of thing one goes around saying. I was very upset when I found out, I was only about six, so I guess Papa didn't want to upset you too. So just try to understand Papa and his overprotective heart."
I sighed. "I guess that's what it comes from having a loving close-knit family."
Sophie laughed. "Some bad side it had to had, didn't it?"
"I guess," I sighed and leaned into my sister. "I hope they get along."
"They will, don't worry, don't all our husbands get along with Papa? We Evencort ladies got a good eye for men, after all."
After that I tried to be patient with Papa and he didn't let me down, he said he approved of my relationship with Will, and he wasn't even as strict as Michael demanding a long courtship; he said that he had faith in my decisions and that I was free to marry any time I liked as long as it was what I wanted to do.
I kept working with him at St. George's, even after we married, only a year after we met – six months after we got together, more or less – Mr. Destler had found out he was irrevocably sick of his liver, and wanted to see Will happy and settled before worst came to worst, so we hastened the wedding a little … which turned out to be fine when I found out I was pregnant just two weeks into our marriage.
Mr. Destler did live to see our first baby – Jake, who looks just like Will – and I'm happy to say he and Will made peace, and when Mr. Destler did die, they were on good terms even if they relationship was never as close as mine with my own family.
Will said he didn't mind that at all, that he wasn't jealous of my family, he said that was actually the one thing I taught him: that families didn't have to be wretched. That some were actually happy, families not only by blood but by the true enjoyment the family's members took on each other.
He said my family gave him enough hope to form ours.
Will was thrilled when he found out I was pregnant. He always is. And the best part of it is that he doesn't get to escape the whole birthing part as most fathers do, because he's the one helping on the delivery not only the begetting, and I do find some sort of perverse enjoyment on that.
Life is good.
Calm – I wouldn't say quiet as 'quiet' is a word I seem to get less acquainted with as Will and I have more children – and simple. It's not a grand way of living, but I am very happy.
And that's all one really can hope for, happiness, and since I got that, what else is there to want?
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End of Suddenly You
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Luke and Caitlyn Evencort – Duke and Duchess of Ayeleborough - were getting ready for bed, following the same routine they had for most of their forty-something years of marriage.
"Sometimes I still half expect Lita or Maddy or Sophie to come running to me so I would braid their hair." Caitlyn commented.
All of their children were finally married and making their own lives. Lita had pursued her passion for painting and was actually good enough to have made it into an exhibition or two, her portraits of the Cornish state where she lived had gotten great reviews just the year before.
Michael was Michael, always responsible, always working, always spoiling his wife and children. He had seemed to double his efforts on spoiling Luke and Lily after Nikki had married. Jenny smiled and let him get on with it.
James had always suffered from a bit of wanderlust, but now he had Eddie and their two children to accompany him, so when he wasn't working for Michael, he simply packed up his family and went to live many great adventures through Europe and America and even the south of Asia, he said that real experience would be more useful to his children than a formal education at whatever English school he could find. He was already planning an African safari for when his daughter Eve turned seventeen – not that they would actually shoot at something, but how many people got to see a lion face to face in their lifetimes?
Sophie was the very picture of domestic bliss with her four children – yes, Ethan had managed to convince her to engage another nine months of her time for another baby, Sara – she spent most of her time in Yorkshire, happily rusticating away in the country.
And Maddy… she was happy being a doctor's wife, without great titles or great states to her name but she was more than happy about that, I mean, she sure loved her creature comforts, but when it came down to it, she knew she would have never been able to establish with either a) a idle rich man, or b) a workaholic rich man. Will loved his work, but loved her more, and that was all there was to it. She still had Nikki – who was becoming a renowned writer on her own right – because them, being the ever feared Maddy-and-Nikki duet (spreading havoc and destruction since 1896), and being the best of friends, could have done nothing less than marry two men who were best friend with each other as well.
"I know, love," Luke said. "I still half expect to hear Michael complain about a prank James pulled on him and vice versa."
"They grew up so fast," Caitlyn said a little wistfully.
"But they are happy where they are." Luke pointed out.
"I know."
"And you still have me," Luke said, drawing Caitlyn into his arms as they settled in bed. "And this big comfortable bed."
"Big and comfortable," Caitlyn agreed, looking to Luke like the young girl he had married, all those years ago after her brother –his best friend – died.
"And don't forget the carriage rides. All. Those. Wonderful. Carriage. Rides." He said, punctuating each world with a kiss.
"I'll never forget those!" Caitlyn said with a giggle that was smothered under Luke's kiss…
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The End of the Evencort Series.
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The Evencorts have been a very important part of my life for the last two years or so, right from the moment Luke and Caitlyn came to me with their story. Then there was Lita, and Michael, wanting to be included. James was something of a guilty pleasure of mine, 'cause he was so quiet growing up, I just had to say what he had to say. Sophie was very special to me because she was always such a darling and reminded me of three people I love dearly.
And Maddy being Maddy wasn't about to be left out.
And Nikki was another guilty pleasure of mine because her story with Julian was just sweet.
And now it's time to say goodbye or perhaps not. Right now I don't have much else to say about them but never say never, one day I might be interested on knowing what happened to them, where are they now, a century later, if I do so, you'll know what I do.
For now is Farewell…
Love,
Clavie.
Ps. For more on carriage rides read With You or Everything and the Moon, where Caitlyn explains it all. And there is a new Evencort Family three –updated – on my website, there is a link to it on my profile.
Thanks.