Page 93 of The Journal of a Thousand Years
Huon introduced Petra as the woman he planned to marry, which caused Petra to blush fiercely and stumble over her words. Huon couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was utterly besotted as she chatted to his uncle about his travels.
Later, when Daisy and I got Petra alone, I asked her how she felt about Huon now. “Has your opinion of him changed?”
“It has changed quite dramatically,” she said, watching him from beneath her lashes. “He is cleverer than he seems at first, and funny, brave, and kind. He’s quite perfect. I don’t even mind that he’s an ink magician.”
“And your mother?” Daisy asked. “Does she mind?”
“She said she will accept him because he makes me happy. That’s good enough for me.”
Daisy, Petra and I sat on the sofa in the first-floor reading nook. Alex, Gabe, Willie, Cyclops, Catherine and their eldest daughter stood at the desk, listening to Oscar repeat a story that I’d heard him tell the professor earlier. Professor Nash was making tea with the two younger Bailey girls. It was a comforting scene of long-lost friends getting to know one another again, but I sensed all wasn’t well with Alex.
He'd barely looked at Daisy since her arrival, and merely nodded a greeting. Catherine had spoken to him, but from what I’d seen of the exchange he’d disagreed with whatever she’d said. It was clear to everyone that he was miserable.
As was Daisy.
I was about to urge her to talk to him, again, but it turned out I didn’t need to. After Petra declared that her mother would accept a rival into the family, Daisy got to her feet.
“You’re very fortunate to have such a wonderful mother,” she said.
Before Petra could answer, Daisy marched off. She strode up to Alex, grasped his face in both her hands and pulled him down to her level so she could kiss him thoroughly.
Willie and Ella both let out awhoopof delight. “It’s about time,” Willie declared.
Alex broke the kiss and stepped back. He ran a hand over his hair. “Daisy…no. We can’t… Your parents… That’s not what I want for you.”
“That’s unfortunate, because it’s what I want for myself. You can argue all you want, Alex, but it’s an argument I’m going to win.” She stepped forward, but he stepped back again. “I love you, Alexander Bailey. I love you, and nothing will change that. Not my parents’ attitudes, nor the world’s. It’s time you accepted that I’m not giving up. You’re the man for me, and you always will be. Only you.”
She once more stepped toward him, but he moved away again. He butted up against a shelf, trapped. He swallowed.
“So, either you accept that we’re going to be together, Alex, or you leave me no choice.”
“I don’t?” he choked out.
“If we can’t be together, I declare here and now, in front of witnesses, that I will never be with another man but you. If you don’t agree, then you condemn me to live the life of a spinster with no family of my own.”
“But—”
“No buts.” She inched closer. “I won’t have a family because my parents are no longer a part of it, with or without you. So it might as well be with.” She took another step until she was toe to toe with him. “So you see, Alex, either we create a family of our own with two loving grandparents and three sweet aunts, or I’ll be a lonely old maid.”
Alex peered down at her. His jaw firmed. Then he threw his arms around her. His words were lost in her hair, but I suspected she heard them. I suspected no one else was meant to.
Catherine snuggled into Cyclops’s side, smiling. “She has his measure. I like her.”
He circled his arm around his wife’s waist. “I’d like it known that I predicted this from the moment I met her.”
Willie snorted. “You did not. I did. Tell ‘em, Gabe.”
Gabe sat on the arm of the sofa beside me and twirled a loose strand of my hair around his finger. “I don’t remember that conversation.”
“Traitor,” Willie muttered. “If your father were here, he’d take my side over Cyclops’s.”
“Would I?”
We all turned toward the deep, droll voice to see Gabe’s parents climbing the stairs. Even if I hadn’t seen photographs of Matt and India, I would have known who they were. Matt was an older version of Gabe, except for the eyes. Gabe’s green eyes were a match for India’s.
He embraced his parents, albeitafterWillie, who’d thrown herself at her cousin and his wife. When Gabe drew back, his mother continued to watch him, as if she’d been starved of the sight of him for too long and needed to get her fill.
While Cyclops, Catherine, Alex and Ella greeted them heartily and welcomed them home, Gabe took my hand. “Don’t be nervous,” he said, his voice as warm as his smile.
