Page 47 of Forever My Lass

“I don’t know. I know it sounds crazy, but before she died, my grandmother told me not to be afraid to let go. He’ll be there, she said. I always thought it was simply her believing in past lives and such.”

Madeline closed her eyes as she remembered hearing her grandmother’s voice in the dark pocket of air when she’d been in the icy sea. She dragged in a deep breath.

“But when I found myself in that pocket of air after the boat flipped over, I heard my grandmother telling me to let go, that he’d be there to catch me.”

“Heard her?” Curiosity lit up Anna’s expression.

“Yes. It was as if she were right next to me in the water. She just kept saying, don’t be afraid, Maddie. Let go. He’ll be there.” Madeline shrugged slightly as a small smile touched her lips. “So I listened to her.”

“And here you are,” Anna said with a gentle smile. “I’m terribly glad you listened to your grandmother.”

“I’m still not sure I actually heard her or if it was—”

“Never doubt what you heard, Madeline.” The viscountess reached out to squeeze Madeline’s hand. “There are things in this universe that no one completely understands—things that cannot be explained. Your grandmother reached out to you because you were meant to live.”

“Well, it would have been a lot less terrifying if she’d just told me not to get on the Destiny’s Dream.” She smiled ironically at Lady Starling. “But I’m still alive, and that’s a positive outcome, even if I’m more than a hundred years in the past.”

“Of course, it is,” Anna exclaimed before an odd expression of assessment crossed her face. “Personally, I think you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.”

“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Madeline snorted her disagreement. “I’m a nurse, working as a governess. Correction, I’m pretending to be a governess, and if this book is anything to go by, the forecast is pretty bleak when it comes to my nursing career.”

Madeline held up the book Iain had given her before she dropped it back into her lap. Anna uttered a soft exclamation of dissension.

“Don’t be a chowderhead. Things could always be worse.” Anna pressed her hand against her chest. “What if you’d not come out of that catatonic state you were in a moment ago? Poseidon’s balls, I would have needed to call for help, and Sebastian would have been much more than just unhappy with me. It would have been a fucking mess.”

Madeline’s eyes widened, while her brain replayed the woman’s words. She shook her head slightly thinking she must have heard wrong. She was willing to bet money she didn’t have, that women in 1896 didn’t use the kind of foul language Anna just had. A grimace flitted across the other woman’s face as her cheeks flamed bright red.

“Christ, Sebastian is right I don’t know how to control my bloody tongue.” The self-recrimination in Anna’s words made Madeline snort with laughter.

“I’m the last one you need to apologize to. Fuck happens to be one of my favorite words. People who find it offensive, use words I find offensive.”

Anna blinked in astonishment, and Madeline laughed again. Wide-eyed and mouth parted in mute shock, the viscountess shook her head in amazement. Another laugh passed Madeline’s lips. Immediately, Anna’s dazed look of surprise vanished as laughter sparkled in her brown eyes. In the next breath, the viscountess burst out laughing as well.

Every time their laughter subsided, the two only had to look at each other and start laughing again. They must have been laughing for five minutes straight when the sound of male voices echoed behind them. Their laughter slowly dying, Madeline and Anna looked over their shoulders to see Iain and Lord Starling headed in their direction. Madeline leaned toward her new friend.

“Poseidon’s balls, what are we supposed to tell them we’re laughing about?” The moment she whispered the question, Anna burst out into laughter.

“I don’t…think we…can.”

Holding her side as if in pain from laughing so hard, Anna shook her head. They were still laughing as Iain and the viscount came to a halt in front of them. As their laughter subsided, Madeline and Anna drew in deep breaths of air as Iain cleared his throat.

“Might Sebastian and I ask what the two of you find so amusing?”

The curiosity and amusement in Iain’s voice matched the other man’s expression as the viscount studied his wife. Anna and Madeline stared up at the men for a moment, before turning back to each other, which set off another round of laughter.

“It’s obvious we will not be privy to whatever has thrown them into such a state of hysteria.” At Lord Starling’s dry reply, Anna narrowed her gaze at her husband.

“Are you suggesting your wife is hysterical, my lord?” His wife’s pique caused the viscount to solemnly offer her an almost imperceptible bow.

“Forgive me, my lady. I believe I should have used the word passionate as I’m well-acquainted with how much you relish a healthy dose of laughter, among other things.”

There was barely the hint of a pause before his last three words, but Madeline saw the man’s mouth twitch slightly as if struggling not to laugh. Anna narrowed her gaze at her husband before she smiled lovingly at him.

“You are forgiven, my lord. Although, how I manage to put up with a fuh—” Anna stumbled slightly at the disapproval wrinkling her husband’s forehead, before she smiled mischievously. “See, that frown of yours is exactly why I was about to call you a fuddy-duddy. You know good and well I possess all the patience and devotion every proper wife should have for her husband. A fact, I’ve proven repeatedly, and without complaint I might add.”

The instant the viscount stiffened, Madeline knew Anna’s circumspect reply referenced something only the two of them understood. The viscountess’s arched eyebrow emphasized her amused satisfaction, and Madeline was certain her newfound friend had turned the tables on her husband.

Despite his obvious annoyance, something in his gaze said he adored his wife, and the sudden softening in Anna’s eyes said the man’s love was reciprocated. Envy sped through Madeline as she watched the silent exchange between the couple. How could she ever expect to find a love such as theirs in a time that wasn’t her own?