Ill Conceived Plans

EPILOGUE

AT 40 eminent Shakespeare historian Sarah Huntington was in a good place even if she did say so herself. Just not the place she'd expected to be oh no – she'd expected a nice quiet house, a cat or two, a few good friends, a series of television specials. Ordered and academic.

But as John Lennon said – Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans or something like that.

Instead, her life was chaos – organised chaos but chaos none-the-less.

Some women wanted it all – good job, nice house, handsome husband and at least two adorable, well-behaved children to run in the yard and paint beautifully naive artwork for the immaculate well-stocked fridge with additional ice cube maker.

Sarah Huntington, historian, Shakespeare nerd, and spinster of the Parish of London (if there had actually been a Parish of London) was not one of these women.

Sarah Huntington was a realist, a straight-shooter; she had always thought this beautiful fairytale was actually and totally full of shit.

She knew this for a fact now.

On the surface, she had these things but that was never going to be Sarah, she wasn't the earth mother type.

Her partner was an Oscar award winning actor and director, she had two unruly little boys who ran wild and free and were more likely to draw ON the actual fridge then do a painting for it and if she didn't have a cleaner her house would be a bombsite – when they were home and not traipsing around the world following him or working on her own stuff. She was consulting with the library and Royal Shakespeare and whoever else needed her now and she'd written a book.

And as she sat in her favourite tree outside her Uncles big flashy country estate house – avoiding her fortieth birthday party, Sarah realised she was actually very happy. Sure there were bumps in the road – plenty of them. Dane wasn't around enough and then he was around too much and Alexander and Lysander were full-on not giving the two of them a lot of time to themselves.

But she was happy.

Mostly.

Not because she had a man to "fulfil" her but because she had a full unpredictable life and people who loved her – lots of people who loved her – too many sometimes which was why she'd reverted to her childhood hidey-hole. This big old tree had been the haunt of a lonely, lost young teenager – a young girl with no mother and an absent father, strange distant relatives and then she'd met Dane Hilditch and he'd turned her life upside down and continued to do so 28 years later. In big ways, really big ways.

She looked back over to the house just in time to see the man himself making his way out to her.

"How the hell did you get up in that tree in an evening gown," he asked flustered. He'd combined with Neville and her Uncle to put on a big party for her with all their friends and family, but she'd disappeared, just like she did when she was a kid.

And here she was, just like the first day he met her – up a tree with her expensive heels resting at the base.

"I climbed!" she deadpanned.

"Your 40 years old not 14!" he huffed, she was infuriating sometimes, it was just as well he loved her.

"Never too old Will," she countered.

"You're pregnant!"

"Pregnancy never stopped me before!"

As always she had an answer for everything!

"Five months pregnant with twins, Sarah, you're huge and being up there is dangerous – how the hell did you even manage it?"

She smiled then, her green eyes sparkling in the moonlight.