Out of Time (The Immortal Descendants Book 6) by April White

Author:April White [White, April]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Corazon Entertainment
Published: 2022-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

I found Lady Valerie in the private sitting room attached to her bedroom suite. She sat by the window, the embroidery hoop forgotten in her lap as she looked out at the view. She hadn’t heard me come in and only realized I was there when I came over to see what so fascinated her.

“Oh, Charlotte. You startled me. I was just woolgathering.” She gestured vaguely at her embroidery as I stepped closer to the window.

“Christian is very accomplished with the bow,” I said, looking down at the young man who had set up his own target practice in the hedge maze and was currently running through it, shooting at each silk-tied branch he encountered.

She sighed softly. “My Henry was much the same. Always making a game of every task and challenging himself to be faster, stronger, better. He, too, was quite adept at the bow.”

She finally met my eyes. “You may have wondered at a shift in my mood this morning when I came upon the two of you in the woods.”

“I admit I did notice,” I said softly.

“When I invited Christian to accompany us from London, I thought that perhaps the tentative friendship you’d struck with him could, with time and proximity, become something more.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up a hand. “Let me finish, please, my dear. I do know how you feel about your Ringo – or at least how you felt about him when I brought you here.”

I ignored every bit of my training and interrupted Lady Valerie before she could say more. “I love Ringo and will go back to him if he’ll have me. I am here with you now, and there’s no place I’d rather be, but I want to be very clear that he is my future. I choose him and always will.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she inhaled sharply. “I hoped that perhaps you’d find a reason to stay here and allow me the smallest taste of what it was to be a mother again.” She seemed to grope for the words she still had left to say. “Motherhood died for me with my son, and it was unfair of me to pin such hopes on you. When I saw you today, in virtually your underclothes, I realized just how reckless I’d been to think Christian could tempt you.”

I knelt beside her chair and took her hands in mine. “First, Christian and I are friends. I trust him, and you should know he’d never betray you. And second,” I said, pausing to catch her gaze with mine, “you will never stop being a mother to a dead son.” Tears welled in her eyes, but I continued to hold her hands. “And I will never stop being the daughter and sister of dead women. But even as their deaths shaped us, they need not define us. You are not only mother to Henry, you mother me, and even Christian. And I can be daughter to you

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