Wedded to the Highlanders by Katie Douglas

Part 16: Epilogue

Epilogue:

Nine months later

It was pouring with rain on a gloomy March afternoon. Lucy waddled through the puddles, because she was far too pregnant to jump over them like she used to. She was supposed to be resting, but she wasn't about to start lazing around in bed now, not when there was work to be done.

She took her purse out and was about to go into the village shop when a carriage arrived. It looked like one of the hire ones from Fort William. A young woman got out, dressed from head to toe in black, clearly in mourning. Her corset looked uncomfortable. The carriage driver got her trunk down and followed her.

Intrigued, Lucy watched them walk to Trina's house, where the woman knocked on the door. When Trina answered, she wrapped the younger woman in a big embrace, and suddenly they were both crying.

Not wanting to intrude on what was clearly a private moment, Lucy turned away again, and went into the shop, where Dughlass the shopkeeper greeted her warmly. She would find out who the young woman was, by and by.

"Hallo, Lucy, I thought you were supposed to be on bedrest?"

"Aye, well it's no' a cold enough day in hell," Lucy replied with a wink. "Anyway, my husbands have both managed tae get colds, and ye ken that's the end of the world for men's delicate bodies. D'ye have any camphor?"

"Indeed, but if ye walk back oot in the rain in your condition, ye might get sick."

"I ken. It's just this once. Anyway, I'll no' be doing much walking for a wee while so where's the harm, aye? It's no' like I'll be attending the Circle Dance, this year, with a bairn in my arms."

"How much longer can it be? You're as big as a house!"

She smiled with amusement. "Five more weeks."

"Does the midwife ken it's so soon?"

Lucy chuckled. The men of the village were so adorably clueless when it came to pregnancy and confinement.

"Aye, she's been checking on me regularly for the past half a year," she replied with a wink. She paid the shopkeeper and headed home to take on the lurgy that had felled her two brave husbands with a full heart. She was ready for their family to grow, and it was nice to be able to look after the men for a change and show them how much she loved them.

"Thank you, spirits, for bringing us together and making us so happy. And God," she whispered.

The rain pelted down against the window panes, rattling the glass, and she could have sworn she heard an ethereal voice whisper, "You're welcome."

The End

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this book, please be a hero and leave a review in your favourite online store! And keep reading for a quick preview of book two!

Lots of love, Katie xxxx

Glenash Village, Scotland, 1875:

Fiona Magellan opened her eyes and had to rub them before they would focus on anything other than green. Everything was green in Scotland. It was something she'd learned in the three months since she arrived in Glenash, an out-of-the-way fishing village on the west coast of the Highlands, barely a month after she had turned twenty-one.

She must have fallen asleep in the field. Looking to either side of where she lay, she realized she was surrounded by two enormous men. The pain in her head was making it difficult to think. That, and the chilly early morning draft that... wait. She was naked. Naked, in a field, flanked by enormous highlanders. And her ears were ringing.

It took her reluctant brain a few moments to piece together what had happened, then all the memories of the Circle Dance overwhelmed her. Fiona groaned, rolled onto her front, and buried her face in the dewy grass. This was about the worst predicament she'd ever gotten into in her entire life.

She had accidentallymarried two men, right after writing to a third one in the hope