Chapter Forty-Two

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A/N Alas, we near the end.

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Edinburgh was a bustling, lively, vibrant city. Despite the threatening grey clouds that reached above shrouding the city in mist, everyone we passed was jolly and happy and spirits were high.

It was early afternoon when we pulled into The Balmoral Hotel. Elise had driven in boots, but after handing the car to the valet, she insisted we duck into a bathroom before checking in, in order to change into her heels.

"You're ridiculous, you know that?"

"Fail to prepare, prepare to fail," Elise responded with a smirk, reapplying her lipstick in the mirror.

We headed back out into the lobby and my eyes digested the scene. It was a lot brighter than I had expected, clambering walls reaching upwards past balconies overlooking the foyer. Elise's heels clicked momentarily on the white tile floor before they were suddenly muffled by a garish carpet. Lush, green plants stood proudly on either side of a grand, oak desk, the dark wood an ode to its Scottish heritage. A man with a flat nose and piercing, round eyes regarded us carefully, his suit, much like his hair, a dark grey. There was a slight change in his expression as we approached, and he seemed to sweat as we reached the desk.

"Lady Elderflower," he simpered, his cheeks flushing a light pink, recognising her immediately, "Welcome to The Balmoral, it's a pleasure to have you stay with us."

"Yes," Elise looked down at him through dark sunglasses, "It is."

"Here is the key to your suite," he handed over a small card, "I am sure your... assistant," he glanced at me momentarily, but it was a careless glance, and it felt like he had looked right through me, "Will find your room to her satisfaction. Any problems, have her call us immediately. I don't remember booking a separate suite for your workers, would you like me to arrange that?"

"I'm not actually -" I began.

"No," Elise placed a hand on my back and I shivered, my mouth falling shut, "She has made her own arrangements," Elise began to guide me away and I looked up at her indignantly.

"Assistant!" I seethed, "How dare you?"

"Perhaps if you hadn't been so quick to jump on the menopause jokes, I might have corrected him."

"Whatever, I don't care about a stupid concierge."

We stepped into a lift, and Elise pressed a button, "It seems like you do."

Rolling my eyes, I watched the door close, "Not a chance, darling."

Elise frowned, noting the husking tone of my voice. She turned to me, and her mouth fell into an 'o' shape as I prowled towards her and pressed her flat against the wall of the elevator, "Tell me, would an assistant do this, Elise?" I questioned, dragging a hand up her inner thigh as she threw her head back and bit down on her bottom lip, "Or this?" My fingernails lightly scraped against her scalp as I pressed butterfly kisses against her neck, my teeth grazing her jawline.

"No," Elise was trembling now, "They wouldn't," and our lips caught in a searing, passionate embrace.

A bell rang out, and I drew back instantly, Elise's mouth following me as she pouted in disappointment.

When we finally made it to the room, I realised I was in for more than I had expected.

"I thought we were just getting a room," I blinked, dumbfounded, staring around in awe. I stood in a brightly lit living room with light blue walls run through with undulating lines of gold. Floor-to-ceiling windows revealing an unbeatable view of the sprawling city. A glittering chandelier hung impassively above gilt, Victorian loveseats and a glass table boasted a bucket of champagne and a small box of chocolates. A handwritten note awaited us, but Elise ignored it, choosing to slide off her coat and hang it carefully on the back of a sofa.

"Darling, this is a room, is it not?"

"Yes, one of many! This is like a whole bloody apartment!"

Elise turned, swaying her hips hypnotically as she walked back towards me, "Your powers of observation are unparalleled, Em."

I opened my mouth to deliver a witty response, but the way the nickname curled softly around her rosy lips was utterly divine and I was caught, unable to look away, trapped in her web. Helpless. Cleared up in a wave of adoration.

"Uh... Yeah," I blinked dumbly.

"Close your mouth, you'll catch flies," Elise swept away then, a tinkling laugh bubbling into the air as she dove deeper into the hotel suite. For a moment, I let it all sink in. Even now, I struggled to feel comfortable amidst the wealth and opulence that surrounded Elise, and I needed a second to steady myself. It was such an impossibly far cry from my childhood - from a dingy old house, a dirty, screaming father, an unloving mother and the inevitable loneliness when they eventually left.

My eyes fell on Elise. She was changing into a light brown dress, and the pale glow of her back shone in the early evening light as the dress slipped over her slim figure. I realised then that all of my dreams had come true. I had everything I could have ever wished for; I was happy, I was safe, and I was in love. I almost felt that I didn't deserve it.

After Elise and I called Isla for the fourteenth time that day to check on her, the call ending with Rita threatening to block our numbers, we escaped into the bitterly cold, city air. It was a far cry from the sleepy passiveness of Braemore, and the change of scenery was as refreshing as it was intimidating.

The Duchess was out in full force tonight; stockinged legs marched on red-bottomed heels casting scathing looks on any unsuspecting tourist that dared to come near her. The crowds seemed to part like they were under a spell to obey her, and they did so with glassy eyes and lips shaped like surprise. It was the subtle intensity that fell from her like waves. It was magnetic. I was enthralled.

We stopped off in a crowded pub, a matter of desperate compromise. Elise was dying for a glass of wine, and I was craving stimulation. This resulted in the Horse's Head, a teaming, bustling world of merry Scotsmen drinking themselves into a stupor amongst flashing televisions and oak-panelled walls. Some sort of football game seemed to be in full swing inside the pub, and a ferocious roar sent the room into a scene that resembled the peak of an earthquake as thunderous bellowing destroyed my eardrums.

Football to the Scottish was water to a fish. However, when Elise entered the room, a moment of silence created a glass bowl of sound. Everyone looked at her in awe, like they couldn't quite believe a creature so ethereal was standing right before them. Keeping her head up, she strutted to the bar as if she hadn't noticed a thing, although it wasn't exactly something you could ignore. The shouting resumed. People returned to their drinks, but we were not forgotten. An elderly man slobbered into his pint as he watched my girlfriend slide into the seat beside him. His wife hit him with her purse.

My girlfriend. God, it felt so good to say that.

The bartender, a stocky man of at least forty with a conventionally attractive face and smart, grey, gelled hair eyed Elise with a look of both surprise and intrigue. Gritting my teeth, I watched him lean over with a charming smile, taking her order.

Marching over, I slid a hand onto her waist and she looked up with eyes of surprise as I landed a gentle kiss on her lips, reeling her in with light teasing motions before drawing away instantaneously as if I had never been there in the first place. Elise opened her eyes again as I sat down and looked at me, dazed. Her eyes burned with a passion that lit my core on fire. She bit her lip. The bartender looked utterly baffled.

"Feeling rather predatorial tonight, my darling?" She purred.

"Only as much as you normally do," I nodded up at the red-faced man, "Whiskey double, please."

Wordlessly, he turned away.

We had dinner in a small Chinese restaurant around the corner. It had taken some convincing on my part for Elise to cancel our afternoon tea. I had never been one for pretty scones and macaroons, and a small part of me thought Elise knew that - that she booked it simply to irk me. The thought made me smile softly. Everything about Elise made me smile softly.

"Hows the Mandarin these days?"

I watched Elise smirk over her second glass of wine, the half-wing of her light eyebrow igniting in the flame of the orange bulbs above. A gentle hum of conversation ensconced us in a bubble of familiarity as if we were both alone and surrounded all at once. It slipped over us like a blanket, and I relaxed in the warm ambience. It felt like I was sat in the living room of my own home.

"Gosh, don't start," I giggled, "I haven't spoken it since A-Level. I doubt it's even recognisable anymore."

"I'm sure it's better than your English," Elise teased, sending a wink that made my insides flutter.

"You love my English."

"Not as much as you love me."

"Very true," I smirked, but my voice ran through with whispers of tenderness, "Inconceivably so."

"Oh, don't," Elise fanned herself with her hand as she began to blush, and I watched the tremendous sight with wide eyes.

"I can't imagine my life without you," I suddenly admitted, blurting out the words with the ferocity of a drunken vomit. Watching the syllables escape my mouth, I clenched a hand around my fork, wishing then to swallow them back up instantly as if it had never happened for fear of coming across as too desperate, too awkward, too loving.

Elise regarded me then. Carefully, slowly, and with an intensity that made me feel as if I had flown too close to the sun. "Emma, I wish you would stop saying things like that as if I don't feel exactly the same way."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," she let out a gentle laugh, soft so as not to come across as mocking, "I can't imagine my life without you either. You don't need to look as if you want the ground to swallow you up any time you admit it. It's almost insulting. Would living with me really be that bad? I know I'm not a morning person but I do have a castle."

I watched her laugh, but a lump had lodged itself firmly in my throat, "Oh, that wasn't me asking to move in with you!" I insisted, and her face fell as I dug myself a deeper grave, "No, no, of course not!"

"Of course not?" Elise frowned, straightening her back.

"Yes, yes," I nodded my head fiercely. The last thing I wanted was to come across like I was demanding she let me stay with her - I would never want to impose, "I wasn't suggesting that at all."

"Oh," Elise looked away, crestfallen, and the misunderstanding hit me in the face like a wet dishrag.

"Shit, wait," I slapped my forehead unceremoniously, grating my teeth, "I - I'm really putting my foot in my mouth here. What I'm trying to say is that wasn't what I was insinuating immediately -"

"I'm aware."

"However," I continued, ignoring the embarrassed glare she directed at me across the table, "I suppose seeing as we've never really spoken about this, were the conversation to arise..." I trailed off, fiddling with the white tablecloth, "Well, I would find myself really rather chuffed that you would choose to live with me, wherever that be."

"As I said, I'm sure your Mandarin is better than your English," she retorted, but her words held little menace, and there was a small smile in the corner of her lips as she swallowed a large quantity of wine.

"One thing," I began, looking down at my food, twirling noodles in my fork, "I never really asked, but I thought I might ask now, seeing as we're on difficult topics, is, well..."

"Go on."

"If you don't want to talk about it, of course, I wouldn't mind, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest really -"

"Slater," Elise raised a single, pencilled eyebrow of warning, her pearl earrings glinting dangerously in the light.

"Just... who is Isla's father?" I rushed the question out in a single breath and looked up just as Elise stilled, glass halfway to her lips. She placed it down on the table again, her features smooth and perfectly still like water on a fine summer's day. But there was a storm brewing in her eyes and I had known her long enough to pick up on the slight flaring of her nostrils and the light inhale of breath as she prepared herself to answer the question.

"I don't know," was the simple response. In reality, it was far more complicated than that, and I said nothing as Elise straightened her back ever so slightly. I felt as if even taking a simple breath might scare her, and I might never get the answer I craved, so I stayed impossibly still, hardly even blinking, "I never..." Elise took a deep breath, fiddling with her necklace just after the realisation flashed in her eyes that she needn't be so guarded around me, "I didn't entertain anyone for... a long time. Everyone felt wrong. Nobody seemed to compare," she admitted, and the unspoken words hung in the air, 'Nobody seemed to compare to you.' It was a feeling I knew all too well, something that had festered inside of me every day leading up to the moment when we saw each other again, "I met him in the bar of a hotel. It must have been eight years ago now. Something about him was electric; he was charming and carefree and dangerous. Admittedly, Emma, he reminded me of you. It wasn't the same, of course it wasn't. But he had that eternally wicked quality about him, and I was drawn in like the tide, and it was better than nothing. I would be lying if I said it was even remotely enjoyable," Elise let out a bitter laugh then, "I just thought he might fill that void. He didn't. Of course he didn't. It ate away at me. Or perhaps, in some ways, he did. Perhaps he did fill the void. He gave me Isla, and for that, I can only thank him."

We left the restaurant and an air of sorrow enveloped us. It was almost unavoidable, but in speaking about the past we opened ourselves up to to the world of misery we had spent so long trying to escape, and for once, we let it consume us. Elise lay her head on my shoulder and cried as we stood in the dark streets of Edinburgh. The vicious air turned her tears to ice as I allowed myself for, just a moment, to feel. To truly feel. To lean my head back and look up at the skies and understand that all I had experienced had led me to this moment, and I was powerless to change any of it. Within that, lay acceptance.

"Shall we go back?" I whispered, my gloved hands cupping her cheeks.

In the fog of her breath, a mist surrounded me and I thought at once that it was foolish of Elise to run away all those years ago.

Perhaps if she hadn't things would be different. We may not have ended up together, Isla may not have been born, we may have crashed and burned and fell into deep and bitter self-hatred.

But the idea that Elise could just pack this up and run away, the idea that she could leave this behind? It was a silly, childish notion. This, whatever this was, this love, this feeling, it would chase us to the end of the earth. It would claw, and scrabble, and groan, and rip at us until we were mere ghosts of our past selves. This was not something we could run from. This was not something we could escape, and it was magnificent.

The hotel suite was lit with candles when we arrived. It cast a hazy glow across the ornate mirrors and mahogany writing-desks. Cascades of rose petals littered the floor, and on the central glass table was a delicate bouquet of daffodils.

"Elise," I whispered, the clicking of the lock behind us the only sound as we entered. It was beautiful.

"I know," Elise was smug, "I hope they got the right wine."

"Stuff the wine!" I laughed, running to the window. Edinburgh presented herself as a bustling city of jutting spires and sharp-edged concrete and glass and dazzling lights. In the streets below, merry women danced with their partners in the streets. Red buses trundled, taxis roared. But the suite was utterly silent, and the stars above glittered with reckless abandon.

The silence reached a deafening point as I turned around. Elise was watching me with a dreamy look. Soft, uninhabited and free. I froze. The ability of speech left me as blue eyes reflected the night sky, darkening them to the point they were almost black and swallowed me whole. Light, blonde hair, sharp features, a lithe and supple body, it was her and it was everything and I was consumed.

The ring caught the light.

"Emma," Elise whispered, stepping closer, her presence filling the room so that there was almost no space left, "Will you do me the honour of being my wife?"

"Erm, no," I glared at her, and she opened her mouth, taken aback, "There is no way I'm accepting your proposal unless you get down on one knee."

Elise shot me a deadly glare, "How did I know you were going to say that?"

"Get on with it, then."

"Emma," she whined uncharacteristically, "I can't. This dress is Givenchy."

"We're in the Balmoral, Elise, I think they clean the carpets."

"Fine," Elise hissed, awkwardly clambering down onto one knee. I let out a stifled laugh, and she looked close to storming out, "Happy now?"

"Oh, ever so happy, Elise."

"Anyway," Elise bit sarcastically, her voice softening slightly as she continued, "Emma Slater, will you marry me?"

"Yes," I murmured, and then I was pulling her up and kissing her and she was slipping the ring on my finger and I was crying, we were both crying, and I couldn't quite believe it and I thanked whatever fucking god out there that after all this time, I hadn't given up.

Elegant and simple, the ring held a dainty emerald gem encompassed by a silver band.

"It reminded me of your dress," Elise said breathlessly, cupping my jaw with slender hands, "Do you remember? The one from the Winter Ball."

"Yes, yes," I nodded vigorously, "I remember, of course I do."

And we were shaking then, trembling with the force of our love beating from our chests to draw us closer and closer.

Then, the lights came on. A stifled groan filled the silent room, and I looked up in shock.

"Jesus, I thought I'd be stuck behind that bloody couch for years!"

"Rita!?" I exclaimed in surprise, and then a multitude of things happened at once. Rita dragged herself up, a mess of raven curls. Isla appeared, seemingly from thin air, sprinting towards us at the speed of light. Nafula and Timmy burst in from an adjoining room and Elise didn't even bat an eyelid at Rita's language as she pulled me into a gentle embrace and whispered into my curls.

"I love you, Emma Slater. Always have, always will," she pulled back and I resisted the urge to bawl as my family surrounded me, taking turns to give gentle hugs and words of kindness and the occasional, humorous remark. I lifted Isla up so that she rested on my hip; she was far too big to be lifted now, but I couldn't resist those beautiful blue eyes.

We settled into the suite, sat around the central room together. Elise was nestled into my slide, Isla lounging sleepily across both of our laps. Elise hadn't spent more than a second from my side since slipping the ring on my finger. If this was to be the rest of our lives, I was doomed to eternal happiness.

It turned out Elise had taken us up a day early. Relying solely on my lack of organisation skills, she knew I would blindly follow her without checking the dates on the invitations so made the plans accordingly. It meant that we had an extra night in Edinburgh, and tomorrow, we had an

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