A message to all my followers on Amazon. Lucie 2 has now been posted there so anyone who wishes to read the final chapters of the story, you know where to go. Lucie Of Greystone Cottage on Amazon US.

Thanks again for reading and enjoying what I do for fun!

Chapter Forty

No Time To Breathe

"Owen needs me?" Harriet questioned with breathless wonder in her tone. "He really said that?"

"He said it to Bradford only yesterday," Carolyn replied, as they sat together in the living room after the children had gone up to bed. "But he also said that he didn't want to be greedy."

"Oh, my…" Harriet's hand crept up to her cheek. "I never guessed. I mean, I never suspected…" She sighed. "He's such a good and honest man, so badly wronged by those he trusted to have his best interests at heart. He's really suffered, you know."

Carolyn exchanged a significant glance with her husband. "Yes, well, I'm sure that will all come out in court. That's why he needs you now. To be there for him as someone he can trust to have his best interests at heart."

Daniel poured three cups of coffee and handed them around. "We wouldn't wish to keep you from such an important task. It wouldn't be fair when he needs you more."

"Oh, my. Oh, dear…" Harriet sipped her coffee absently. "I really don't know what to do or say for the best. It can be such a burden at times, being so needed by my family and friends. But one I willingly bear with fortitude."

"We do have some wonderful news of our own," Carolyn confided as Daniel sat beside her, giving her his support. "We wanted you to know before you left in the morning to hurry back to Owen."

"You have?" Harriet's brows rose in distraction. "What news is that?"

Carolyn braced herself. "I'm going to have a baby in about six months' time."

"You are?" Harriet gasped. "Oh, Carolyn, that's such wonderful news! It must be so lovely to be married to such a good man."

She put aside her cup to hurry over to the couch to hug her cousin tightly. "I just knew something was different about you. Those who love you dearly can always tell. Oh, have you told Emily yet?"

"Yes, I telephoned her this afternoon while you were out with the children. I wanted her to be the first to know."

"Of course, of course…" Harriet sighed. "Oh, Carolyn, I'm so happy for you…" She took refuge in her handkerchief as she returned to her chair. "But surely you need me to be here with you now. Like I was with both Candy and Jonathan. I hardly left your side for those months because I just knew you needed me to be there for you."

"And you were such a great help to me," Carolyn replied quickly. "But Owen needs you more and I do have Daniel to look after me. And Martha is such a big help."

"Yes, well…" Harriet regarded Daniel doubtfully. "Martha is fine, but it has to be said, your husband's a man. They don't know anything about women and having babies."

"I can assure you I'm a fast learner," Daniel replied crisply. "My wife is safe in my care. You have a far more important task ahead of you. We must not detain you."

"I suppose so…" Harriet replied doubtfully. "It's just that I –"

"No, Harriet…" Carolyn held up a denying hand. "I must not be selfish. I must be willing to share you with Owen. After all, his is the greater need at this time."

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Harriet's gaze became dreamy. "He is being such a brave soul. I do think he's a wonderful man."

"Very brave…" Carolyn regarded her cousin's rapt expression over the rim of her coffee cup. "Surely there's not a moment for you to lose. You should leave in the morning while there's a good break in the weather."

"If you do think it's for the best," Harriet replied. "I'm sure I can be such a help to Owen. He seems all at sea and so lost. He does lean so heavily on me, you know. I do care for him. I always have."

"Then it's settled," Carolyn confirmed with a smile of relief. "We'll all help you to pack first thing in the morning."

"Thank you." Harriet nodded. "I suppose it's for the best." She finished her coffee and stood up. "Then I'd better get to bed. I want to be fresh in the morning for the trip back to Philadelphia."

Carolyn got up to hug her. "Thank you, Harriet, for everything. You really are very good-hearted."

Harriet sniffed. "I'm really going to miss being here. But I'll be back when the baby's born. I can promise you that. I wouldn't miss it for the world." She sighed as she tottered away to the doors and left the room.

Daniel frowned after her. "You do realise why Mitford was always so insistent upon marrying you after your husband died?" he remarked quietly, drawing his wife back down to sit within the circle of his arms.

Carolyn frowned. "I don't, but I'm afraid you're about to tell me."

"If he got married then everything he owned would be put into his spouse's name and couldn't be touched by the law. He would not have been best pleased with your constant refusal to consider his suit."

Carolyn sat up to frown at him. "He wasn't. He used my mother to begin pushing his offer of marriage not long after Bobby died. I thought it was because he loved me as much as he said he did."

She shook her head. "Are you implying that now I'm no longer available, Harriet will be his next choice?"

Her husband shrugged. "It could be a lot worse. If she's already half in love with him as you said then I doubt she'll object too strongly if he asks her to marry him. I'm sure that man has other assets that he's keen to hide from discovery. Harriet would be too in love with the idea of being married to ever dream of asking questions."

"So you're saying that Owen never truly loved me?" Carolyn adopted a tragic expression. "That it was all a tissue of lies?"

"Minx." Daniel caught her close, kissing her hair. "Owen Mitford loves nobody but himself."

"And Harriet." Carolyn laughed.

"If it finally comes down to matrimony then that pair deserve each other." Her husband kissed her soundly. "I don't think there have ever been two people more perfectly matched."

"Yes, and now we have my appointment with Dr Morgan to look forward to without Harriet wanting to tag along," Carolyn replied as she settled closer to him. "Are you prepared for that? You won't try and frighten the poor man half to death with your questions."

"I have no idea how I will go on," Daniel replied honestly. "But for you, I will do anything. You know that."

"Yes…" Carolyn kissed his cheek. "Walking together in public for the very first time will be a novel experience."

"For both of us," Daniel agreed, drawing her closer still. "First we must wave Harriet goodbye in the morning with relief and ensure she does leave us."

※※※※※

"Oh my dear Carolyn, you're really being very brave. But are you sure I can leave you at this very delicate time?" Harriet wondered, standing next to her luggage in the open front door the next morning. "I mean, you only have to say the word and I won't go." She sighed tragically.

"I'll be fine," Carolyn reassured her cousin, giving her a hug. "You have someone who needs you much more than I do. I wouldn't dream of keeping you away from Owen any longer."

"I do, don't I?" Harriet brightened a little. "It's all so unexpected and so wonderful. I'll telephone you the moment I have any news. I'm sure Owen would want me to."

She gave a small smile of triumph. "Oh, Hazel's going to be so jealous. She doesn't have a someone of her very own."

"I really do wonder why not…" Martha mused with a frown as she picked up two bags and left the house.

"You mustn't delay then, Harriet. You need to hurry back to Owen's side," Daniel encouraged, seizing the largest of Harriet's bags in both hands and carrying them out of the house. "He needs you to help him."

"Go on, now…" Carolyn encouraged, assisting the children with the last of the luggage. "And don't give any of us another thought."

"You will keep in touch," Harriet worried as she followed them down the front path to her car. "You will tell me everything."

"I will not leave you out of a single thing," Carolyn soothed, opening the driver's door for her cousin. "You can count on that."

"Oh, thank you, my sweet Carolyn…" Harriet hugged her once more before she got into the car and closed the door.

"Drop the portcullis and pull up the drawbridge," Daniel murmured quietly as he came up behind his wife.

"At least Harriet is running back to someone who truly deserves her," Carolyn countered as she watched the car drive away.

Daniel grinned as he drew her back against him and kissed her hair. "I could not have put it better myself. Now we can look forward to some peace and quiet and our visit to Bangor."

※※※※※

Two weeks later:

"Must we travel in your infernal, horseless machine again?" Daniel stood next to Carolyn's car, eyeing it with disfavour.

"You know it's the only way." Carolyn smiled. "I thought you would be used to it by now after we drove out to the camp and back."

"I'm used to ships and things I understand," Daniel complained. "Harnessing so many uncontrollable beasts is not something I favour."

Carolyn sighed. "Oh, please get in and stop complaining. We'll be late."

"You can do it, Captain," Jonathan encouraged. "You're not afraid of anything."

"Mum drives us all the time," Candy added. "I'm going to get my licence as soon as I'm old enough. And my own car."

"Children…" Martha said warningly. "Let's leave your parents to sort this out between them. Maybe we should go back inside."

But none of them moved from their position behind the stone wall. Daniel frowned at his deeply interested audience before he opened the passenger door and settled himself in the seat, closing the door behind him.

"There you go," Carolyn breathed with relief as she waved to her family before she got into the car.

She set the vehicle in motion before her husband could think of any new complaint, setting them on a course down the coast road toward distant Bangor and their appointment with Dr Morgan.

They joined the traffic flow into the city and Daniel looked all around with curiosity. Nothing of what he remembered about the city remained.

"A lot has changed in the last hundred years," he marvelled, looking at everything around him.

"You haven't been back here since you… died?" Carolyn asked gently as she navigated the traffic and the streets.

Daniel shrugged. "I had no need. There was nothing for me here. Gull Cottage required my entire focus to keep it from being pulled down."

"Here we are…" Carolyn brought the car to a halt outside an impressive office front on one of Bangor's main streets. "Remember you promised not to scare the man."

"I remember," Daniel replied as he opened his door and got out, glad to escape the close confines of the vehicle.

The bustling sounds of the city assaulted his senses brutally. The sidewalk was crowded with pedestrians who didn't pause to acknowledge him. Rather they appeared to be completely oblivious to his presence as they hurried by on some mysterious mission of their own.

"Is this what the twentieth century has done to people?" he complained, looking all around at the passing foot traffic. "In the nineteenth, we showed better manners and courtesy to our fellow travellers."

He scowled at a distracted man who was about to walk right into him. Daniel voiced a brusque warning which caused the startled pedestrian to jump aside without a word of apology and hurry on his way.

"And that's another thing," Carolyn replied as she stepped up to take his arm, drawing him aside out of the flow of foot traffic. "There can't be any talking about the past while we're here."

"I know…" Daniel sighed, drawing her hand through the crook of his left arm. "Let's get out of this mayhem before you're harmed."

They entered the doctor's offices, finding them modern and well-furnished. The receptionist behind the counter looked up with a beaming smile.

"Mr and Mrs Gregg?" she asked brightly.

"Yes," Carolyn replied. "We're here to see Dr Morgan."

"He won't be long." The receptionist looked Daniel over with feminine approval in her dark eyes as she advanced a clipboard and a pen. "If you'll just fill out this paperwork, I'll tell the doctor's nurse you're here."

"Thank you." Carolyn accepted the clipboard.

She walked to a row of chairs against the far wall and sat down. Daniel joined her, looking around at the expensive furnishings and framed artworks on the walls.

"I would say this Dr Morgan of yours does very well for himself."

"He has excellent references," Carolyn remarked as she completed the paperwork. "Dr Ferguson said he's the best in the city."

An inner office door opened and a tall, blond-haired man walked out. "Mrs Gregg?" he inquired, smiling at Carolyn.

"Yes…" Carolyn got to her feet with Daniel quickly following.

"Ah, we don't usually allow the husband in on our consultation." Dr Morgan shook his head firmly as they both walked forward. "I can recommend an excellent coffee shop just down the street where most men wait for their wives. It's better that way."

"I am not most men." Daniel frowned at him. In the distance, thunder began to rumble and there was a single flash of lightning.

"That's strange…" The doctor turned his head in the direction of the storm. "Where did that come from on such a sunny morning?"

"I'm sure it's nothing," Carolyn hurried to reassure him. "Daniel dear, why don't you wait out here? I'm sure I won't be long. Read a magazine or something."

"Very well," he replied, knowing it was useless to argue. The storm abated as quickly as it arose.

"This way, then please, Mrs Gregg…" Dr Morgan stood aside to indicate the office behind him, his puzzled gaze still fixed on Daniel as the doctor entered the office and closed the door behind him.

Daniel settled in to wait with ill-concealed impatience. He did his best to ignore the receptionist's frequent glances of female curiosity and her whispered conference with an equally interested nurse. He'd been well used to such deeply speculative feminine glances in his past life as a sea captain. But now, after more than one hundred years of self-imposed solitude, they made him feel uncomfortable.

He grimaced, picking up a nearby magazine and stared at the pages without reading them. The minutes on the wall clock ticked slowly by and it seemed like an age before the door to Dr Morgan's office opened again.

"Ah, Mr Gregg, you can come in now," the doctor called, beckoning him with one hand. "Your wife is asking for you."

Daniel shot to his feet, needing no further urging. He walked into the office to see Carolyn seated in a chair before the doctor's desk and she appeared to have been crying.

He was beside her in an instant, sinking to his haunches next to her chair. "What on earth's the matter?" he demanded in a deeply worried tone.

"Nothing's the matter," Carolyn sniffed, giving him a watery smile as she dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. "Nothing at all. I've never been better."

"Then why are you crying?" he asked helplessly, glaring up at the doctor. "Will someone tell me, please?"

Dr Morgan walked behind his desk and sat down. "Your wife has just received some news that she wished you to hear from her."

"Is it our baby? Is there a problem? Please, tell me," Daniel begged, putting his arm around his wife's shoulders. "Whatever it is we can make it right again."

Carolyn's ragged breathing hitched. "There isn't a problem, Daniel." She cupped his bearded cheek in her open palm, smiling tremulously into his beautiful blue eyes that held a wealth of loving concern. "But there is more than one baby."

Daniel froze, caught up in the moment of intense confusion and worry. "More than one baby…" he echoed blankly. "I don't understand. How many more?"

Carolyn laid a protective hand over her abdomen. "You're going to be a father twice over. That's why Dr Ferguson heard such a strong heartbeat when he first examined me. Daniel, my love, we're having twins."

※※※※※

"Twins?" Martha echoed in stunned amazement when they delivered the good news as soon as they returned home. "Oh, how wonderful!" She rushed to hug Carolyn joyfully.

Daniel shook his head in bemusement. "I was just getting used to the idea of our having one baby."

Martha twinkled at him looking him over with delight. "Two will be twice as much fun. Oh, I can't wait!" Quite forgetting herself in her joy she hugged Daniel tightly and then stepped back to shake his hand vigorously.

"Do we get to have one of each?" Jonathan demanded to know. "A boy and a girl? I think that's only fair."

"Maybe they're both girls," Candy replied. "I'd like to have two sisters instead of another brother. They can be so annoying."

"Girls are annoying," her brother retorted. "Girls don't know how to do anything. Right, Dad?"

Daniel shook his head. "I'll settle for them both being healthy and having all their fingers and toes."

"You'd better not go and tell Harriet," Martha advised stoutly. "That woman'll hot foot it straight back here and we've only just gotten rid of her. Owen Mitford is welcome to her."

"I'm still getting used to the idea of two babies." Carolyn shook her head as she sat in a chair at the kitchen table. "I don't think I've had time to breathe yet and take it all in."

"I'll put the kettle on and then you can tell us all about it." Martha bustled to the stove. "Oh, wait until your mother hears the wonderful news."

※※※※※

"How are you feeling?" Carolyn asked, walking out onto the bedroom balcony to stand next to her husband in the darkness of the night. "Tell me."

"I'm not sure," he replied honestly. "I never expected to be a father. But then I never expected to be alive and able to love you as you deserve to be loved."

"I know…" Carolyn hugged his arm with both her hands, laying her cheek against his shoulder. "It is a miracle we never hoped for. Now we have these two babies to come."

"It seems Lucifer's extraordinary gift has yet to find its limits within me." Daniel shook his head slowly. "I can feel it even now, shifting and changing me on the most basic level. Lately, it's becoming harder each time I need to return to my ghostly form. Maybe one day I may not be able to do so. What then? Is it truly a gift or something else? Some cosmic joke to which I am not party. That blasted demon, Turner would enjoy having the last word about the fate of my eternal soul."

"Maybe we will both be old and grey by then." Carolyn shook his arm gently, kissing the powerful muscles of his shoulder. "Whatever it is you must tell me. Whatever happens, whatever comes, you must share it all with me. There are to be no more secrets between us, remember?"

"I remember," Daniel replied quietly. "And I promise to tell you everything."

"Thank you." Carolyn looked out into the night. "Perhaps there are no limits. But whatever they turn out to be, we will face them together. As long as we are together, that is all that truly matters."

"Yes…" Daniel moved to draw her close against him, resting his chin on the top of her head, as he hugged her, his fingers spreading out across her swelling abdomen.

Carolyn laid her hands over his. "Perhaps it's time we took a really serious look at publishing your memoirs. I'm sure we could find a publisher. They are such fascinating stories and deserved to be shared. What could it hurt after all this time?"

"Some spirits like Lucius would not be too thrilled if we did publish them despite the passage of time. He is mentioned more than once and not always in a good light. But it seems we have created an expectation and I doubt your mother or Harriet will let it go. They suspect you haven't been telling them the truth. It will lay a few ghosts, so to speak."

"My family…" Carolyn shook her head. "I know they will not let it rest. But I want to do it for us, not for them. I want you to be restored to your rightful place in the world. The idea that you killed yourself is just not right."

"Then you have my permission, my love." Daniel kissed the side of her neck. "I cannot deny you if it will give you pleasure to make it right after all these years."

"Dance with me," Carolyn begged, lifting one of his hands to her lips and kissing his open palm. "There's music out there in the night if you listen hard enough. It's been too long since we danced together."

"Yes, I can hear it too…" Daniel turned her in his arms and they began to move slowly to the ethereal tune, losing themselves in each other's gaze.

※※※※※