Читать книгу Lord Of The Privateers - Stephanie Laurens - Страница 9

PROLOGUE

Aberdeen

August 9, 1824

Royd Frobisher stood behind the desk in his office overlooking Aberdeen harbor and reread the summons he’d just received.

Was it his imagination, or was Wolverstone anxious?

Royd had received many such summonses over the years Wolverstone had served as England’s spymaster; the wording of today’s missive revealed an underlying uneasiness on the part of the normally imperturbable ex-spymaster.

Either uneasiness or impatience, and the latter was not one of Wolverstone’s failings.

Although a decade Wolverstone’s junior, Royd and the man previously known as Dalziel had understood each other from their first meeting, much as kindred spirits. After Dalziel retired and succeeded to the title of the Duke of Wolverstone, he and Royd had remained in touch. Royd suspected he was one of Wolverstone’s principal contacts in keeping abreast of those intrigues most people in the realm knew nothing about.

Royd studied the brief lines suggesting that he sail his ship, The Corsair, currently bobbing on the waters beyond his window, to Southampton, to be provisioned and to hold ready to depart once news arrived from Freetown.

The implication was obvious. Wolverstone expected the news from Freetown—when it arrived courtesy of Royd’s youngest brother, Caleb—to be such as to require an urgent response. Namely, for Royd to depart for West Africa as soon as possible and, once there, to take whatever steps proved necessary to preserve king and country.

A commitment to preserving king and country being one of the traits Royd and Wolverstone shared.

Another was the instinctive ability to evaluate situations accurately. If Wolverstone was anxious—

“I need to see him.”

The voice, more than the words, had Royd raising his head.

“I’ll inquire—”

“And I need to see him now. Stand aside, Miss Featherstone.”

“But—”

“No buts. Excuse me.”

Royd heard the approaching tap of high heels striking the wooden floor. Given the tempo and the force behind each tap, he could readily envision his middle-aged secretary standing by the reception desk, wringing her hands.

Still, Gladys Featherstone was a local. She should know that Isobel Carmichael on a tear was a force of nature few could deflect.

Not even him.

He’d had the partition separating his inner sanctum from the outer office rebuilt so the glazed section ran from six feet above the floor—his eye level—to the ceiling; when seated at his desk, he preferred to be out of sight of all those who stopped by, thinking to waste the time of the operational head of the Frobisher Shipping Company. If callers couldn’t see him, they had to ask Gladys to check if he was in.

But he’d been standing, and Isobel was only a few inches shorter than he. Just as the glazed section allowed him a view of the peacock feather in her hat jerkily dipping with every purposeful step she took, from the other side of the outer office, she would have been able to see the top of his head.

Idly, he wondered what had so fired her temper. Idly, because he was perfectly certain he was about to find out.

In typical fashion, she flung open the door, then paused dramatically on the threshold, her dark gaze pinning him where he stood.

Just that one glance, that instinctive locking of their gazes, the intensity of the contact, was enough to make his gut clench and his cock stir.

Perhaps unsurprising, given their past. But now...

Nearly six feet tall, lithe and supple, with a wealth of blue-black hair—if freed, the silken locks would tumble in an unruly riot of large curls about her face, shoulders, and down her back, but today the mass was severely restrained in a knot on the top of her head—she stared at him through eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate set under finely arched black brows. Her face was a pale oval, her complexion flawless. Her lips were blush pink, lush and full, but were presently set in an uncompromising line. Unlike most well-bred ladies, she did not glide; her movements were purposeful, if not forceful, with the regal demeanor of an Amazon queen.

He dipped his head fractionally. “Isobel.” When she simply stared at him, he quirked a brow. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Isobel Carmichael stared at the man she’d told herself she could manage. She’d told herself she could handle being close to him again without the protective barrier of any professional façade between them, too—that the urgency of her mission would override her continuing reaction to him, the reaction she fought tooth and nail to keep hidden.

Instead, just the sight of him had seized her senses in an iron grip. Just the sound of his deep, rumbling voice—so deep it resonated with something inside her—had sent her wits careening.

As for seeing that dark brow of his quirk upward while his intense gaze remained locked with hers...she hadn’t brought a fan.

Disillusionment stared her in the face, but she mentally set her teeth and refused to recognize it. Failure wasn’t an option, and she’d already stormed her way to his door and into his presence.

His still-overwhelming presence.

Hair nearly as black as her own fell in ruffled locks about his head. His face would make Lucifer weep, with a broad forehead, straight black brows, long cheeks below chiseled cheekbones, and an aggressively squared chin. The impact was only heightened by the neatly trimmed mustache and beard he’d recently taken to sporting. As for his body...even when stationary, his long-limbed frame held a masculine power that was evident to anyone with eyes. Broad shoulders and long, strong legs combined with an innate elegance that showed in the ease with which he wore his clothes, in the grace with which he moved. Well-set eyes that saw too much remained trained on her face, while she knew all too well how positively sinful his lips truly were.

She shoved her rioting senses deep, dragged in a breath, and succinctly stated, “I need you to take me to Freetown.”

He blinked—which struck her as odd. He was rarely surprised—or, at least, not so surprised that he showed it.

“Freetown?”

He’d stiffened, too—she was sure of it. “Yes.” She frowned. “It’s the capital of the West Africa Colony.” She’d been sure he would know; indeed, she’d assumed he’d visited the place several times.

She stepped into the office. Without shifting her gaze from his, she shut the door on his agitated secretary and the interested denizens of the outer office and walked forward.

He dropped the letter he’d been holding onto his blotter. “Why there?”

As if they were two dangerous animals both of whom knew better than to take their eyes from the other, he, too, kept his gaze locked with hers.

Halting, she faced him with the reassuring width of the desk between them. She could have sat in one of the straight-backed chairs angled to the desk, but if she needed to rail at him, she preferred to be upright; she railed better on her feet.

Of course, while she remained standing, he would stand, too, but with the desk separating them, he didn’t have too much of a height advantage.

She still had to tip up her head to continue to meet his eyes—the color of storm-tossed seas and tempest-wracked Aberdeen skies.

And so piercingly intense. When they interacted professionally, he usually kept that intensity screened.

Yet this wasn’t a professional visit; her entrance had been designed to make that plain, and Royd Frobisher was adept at reading her signs.

Her mouth had gone dry. Luckily, she had her speech prepared. “We received news yesterday that my cousin—second cousin or so—Katherine Fortescue has gone missing in Freetown. She was acting as governess to an English family, the Sherbrooks. It seems Katherine vanished while on an errand to the post office some months ago, and Mrs. Sherbrook finally saw her way to writing to inform the family.”

Still holding his gaze, she lifted her chin a fraction higher. “As you might imagine, Iona is greatly perturbed.” Iona Carmody was her maternal grandmother and the undisputed matriarch of the Carmody clan. “She wasn’t happy when, after Katherine’s mother died, we didn’t hear in time to go down and convince Katherine to come to us. Instead, Katherine got some bee in her bonnet about making her own way and so took the post as governess. She’d gone by the time I reached Stonehaven.”

Stonehaven was twelve miles south of Aberdeen; Royd would know of it. She plowed on, “So now, obviously, I need to go to Freetown, find Katherine, and bring her home.”

Royd held Isobel’s dark gaze. Although he saw nothing “obvious” about her suggestion, he knew enough of the workings of the matriarchal Carmodys to follow her unwritten script. She viewed her being too late to catch and draw her cousin into the safety of the clan as a failure on her part. And as Iona was now “perturbed,” Isobel saw it as her duty to put matters right.

She and Iona were close. Very close. As close as only two women who were exceedingly alike could be. Many had commented that Isobel had fallen at the very base of Iona’s tree.

He therefore understood why Isobel believed it was up to her to find Katherine and bring her home. That didn’t mean Isobel had to go to Freetown.

Especially as there was an excellent chance that Katherine Fortescue was among the captives he was about to be dispatched to rescue.

“As it happens, I’ll be heading for Freetown shortly.” He didn’t glance at Wolverstone’s summons; one hint, and Isobel was perfectly capable of pouncing on the missive and reading it herself. “I promise I’ll hunt down your Katherine and bring her safely home.”

Isobel’s gaze grew unfocused. She weighed the offer, then—determinedly and defiantly—shook her head.

“No.” Her jaw set, and she refocused on his face. “I have to go myself.” She hesitated, then grudgingly confided, “Iona needs me to go.”

Eight years had passed since they’d spoken about anything other than business. After the failure of their handfasting, she’d avoided him like the plague, until the dual pressures of him needing to work with the Carmichael Shipyards to implement the innovations he desperately wanted incorporated into the Frobisher fleet and the economic downturn following the end of the wars leaving her and her father needing Frobisher Shipping Company work to keep the shipyards afloat had forced them face-to-face again.

Face-to-face across a desk with engineering plans and design sheets littering the surface.

The predictable fact was that they worked exceptionally well together. They were natural complements in many ways.

He was an inventor—he sailed so much in such varying conditions, he was constantly noting ways in which vessels could be improved for both safety and speed.

She was a brilliant designer. She could take his raw ideas and give them structure.

He was an experienced engineer. He would take her designs and work out how to construct them.

Against all the odds, she managed the shipyards and was all but revered by the workforce. The men had seen her grow from a slip of a girl-child running wild over the docks and the yards. They considered her one of their own; her success was their success, and they worked for her as they would for no other.

Using his engineering drawings, she would order the workflow and assemble the required components, he would call in whichever ship he wanted modified, and magic would happen.

Working in tandem, he and she were steadily improving the performance of the Frobisher fleet, and for any shipping company, that meant long-term survival. In turn, her family’s shipyards were fast gaining a reputation for unparalleled production at the cutting edge of shipbuilding.

Strained though their interactions remained, professionally speaking, they were a smoothly efficient and highly successful team.

Yet through all their meetings in offices or elsewhere over recent years, she’d kept him at a frigidly rigid distance. She’d never given him an opportunity to broach the subject of what the hell had happened eight years ago, when he’d returned from a mission to have her, his handfasted bride whom he had for long months fantasized over escorting up the aisle, bluntly tell him she didn’t want to see him again, then shut her grandmother’s door in his face.

Ever since, she’d given him not a single chance to reach her on a personal level—on the level on which they’d once engaged so very well. So intuitively, so freely, so openly. So very directly. He’d never been able to talk to anyone, male or female, in the same way he used to talk to her.

He missed that.

He missed her.

And he had to wonder if she missed him. Neither of them had married, after all. According to the gossips, she’d never given a soupçon of encouragement to any of the legion of suitors only too ready to offer for the hand of the heiress who would one day own the Carmichael Shipyards.

It had taken him mere seconds to review their past. Regardless of that past, she stood in his office prepared to do battle to be allowed to spend weeks aboard The Corsair.

Weeks on board the ship he captained, during which she wouldn’t be able to avoid him.

Weeks during which he could press her to engage in direct communication, enough to resolve the situation that still existed between them sufficiently for them both to put it behind them and go on.

Or to put right whatever had gone wrong and try again.

In response to his silence, her eyes had steadily darkened; he could still follow her thoughts reasonably well. Of all the females of his acquaintance, she was the only one who would even contemplate enacting him a scene—let alone a histrionically dramatic one. One part of him actually hoped...

As if reading his mind, she narrowed her eyes. Her lips tightened. Then, quietly, she stated, “You owe me, Royd.”

It was the first time in eight years that she’d said his name in that private tone that still reached to his soul. More, it was the first reference she’d made to their past since shutting Iona’s door in his face.

And he still wasn’t sure what she meant. For what did he owe her? He could think of several answers, none of which shed all that much light on the question that, where she was concerned, filled his mind—and had for the past eight years.

He wasn’t at all sure of the wisdom of the impulse that gripped him, but it was so very strong, he surrendered and went with it. “The Corsair leaves on the morning tide on Wednesday. You’ll need to be on the wharf before daybreak.”

She searched his eyes, then crisply nodded. “Thank you. I’ll be there.”

With that, she swung on her heel, marched to the door, opened it, and swept out.

He watched her go, grateful that she hadn’t closed the door, allowing him to savor the enticing side-to-side sway of her hips.

Hips he’d once held as a right as he’d buried himself in her softness...

Registering the discomfort his tellingly vivid memories had evoked, he grunted. He surreptitiously adjusted his breeches, then rounded the desk, crossed to the door, and looked out.

Gladys Featherstone stared at him as if expecting a reprimand.

He beckoned. “I’ve orders for you to send out.”

He retreated to his desk and sank into the chair behind it. He waited until Gladys, apparently reassured, settled on one of the straight-backed chairs, her notepad resting on her knee, then he ruthlessly refocused his mind and started dictating the first of the many orders necessary to allow him to absent himself from Aberdeen long enough to sail to Freetown and back.

To complete the mission that Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty, had, via Wolverstone, requested him to undertake.

And to discover what possibilities remained with respect to him and Isobel Carmichael.

* * *

Dawn wasn’t even a suggestion on the horizon when Isobel stepped onto the planks of Aberdeen’s main wharf. In a traveling gown of bone-colored cambric with a fitted bodice, long, buttoned sleeves, and full skirts, with a waist-length, fur-lined cape over her shoulders, she deemed herself ready to sail. A neat bonnet with wide purple ribbons tied tightly beneath her chin, soft kid gloves, and matching half boots completed her highly practical outfit; she’d sailed often enough before, albeit not usually on such a long journey.

She paused to confirm that the five footmen, between them carrying her three trunks, were laboring in her wake, then she turned and strode on.

Flares burned at regular intervals, their flickering light dancing over the scene. The smell of burning pitch and the faint eddies of smoke were overwhelmed by the scent of the sea—the mingled aromas of brine, fish, damp stone, sodden wood, and wet hemp.

The Frobisher berths were already abustle—a veritable hive of activity. Stevedores lumbered past with kegs and bales balanced on their shoulders, while sailors bearing ropes, tackle, and heavy rolls of canvas sail clambered up gangplanks. Accustomed to the noise—and the cursing—she shut her ears to the crude remarks and boldly walked toward the most imposing vessel, a sleek beauty whose lines she knew well. The Corsair was one of two Frobisher vessels making ready; over the gunwale of the company’s flagship, Isobel spied Royd’s dark head. She halted and studied the sight for an instant, then turned and directed her footmen to deliver her trunks into the hands of the sailors waiting by The Corsair’s gangplank.

She was unsurprised when, on noticing her, the sailors leapt to assist. All the men on the wharf and on the nearby ships knew her by sight, much as they knew Royd. Throughout their childhoods, he and she had spent countless hours in these docks and the nearby shipyards. At first unacquainted with each other, they’d explored independently, although Royd had often been accompanied by one or more of his brothers. In contrast, she had always been alone—the only child of a major industrialist. In those long-ago days, these docks had been Royd’s personal fiefdom, while the shipyards had been hers.

In that respect, not much had changed.

But when Royd had hit eleven and his interest in shipbuilding had bloomed, he’d slipped into the shipyards and stumbled—more or less literally—over her.

She’d been a tomboy far more interested in the many and varied skills involved in building ships than in learning her stitches. Although she’d initially viewed Royd’s incursion into her domain with suspicion and a species of scorn—for she’d quickly realized he hadn’t known anywhere near as much as she had—he’d equally quickly realized that, as James Carmichael’s only child, she had the entree into every workshop and vessel in the yards, and no worker would ignore her questions.

Despite the five years that separated them—an age gap that should have prevented any close, long-term association—from that moment, Royd had dogged her footsteps. And once she’d realized that, as the eldest Frobisher brother, he had access to the entire Frobisher fleet, she had dogged his.

From the first, their relationship had been based on mutual advancement—on valuing what the other brought in terms of knowledge and the opportunity to gain more. They’d both been eager to go through the doors the other could prop wide. They’d complemented each other even then; as a team, a pair, they’d enabled each other to intellectually blossom.

They’d encouraged each other, too. In terms of being single-minded, of being driven by their passions, they were much alike.

They still were.

Isobel watched her trunks being ferried aboard and told herself she should follow them. This was what she’d wanted, what was necessary—her traveling with Royd to Freetown so she could fetch Katherine back. That was what was important—her first priority. Her second...

When she’d informed Iona of her intention to ask Royd to take her to Freetown—to browbeat him into it if she had to—Iona had looked at her for several seconds too long for comfort, then humphed and said, “We’ll see.” When she’d returned from Royd’s office and told Iona of her success, her grandmother had scrutinized her even more intently, then said, “As he’s agreed, I suggest you use the hiatus of the journey there and, if necessary, the journey back to settle what’s between you.”

She’d opened her mouth to insist that there was nothing to settle, but Iona had silenced her with an upraised hand.

“You know I’ve never approved of him. He’s ungovernable—a law unto himself and always has been.” Iona had grimaced and clasped her gnarled hands on the head of her cane. “But this state you’re both in—as if a part of your life has been indefinitely suspended—cannot go on. Neither of you have shown the slightest inclination to marry anyone else. For both your sakes, you and he need to settle this before you become too set in your ways—I wouldn’t want that for the Frobishers any more than I would wish it for you. Living your life alone isn’t a state to aspire to. The pair of you, together, need to decide what is and what isn’t, accept that reality, and then move on from there.”

Iona had held her gaze, and Isobel hadn’t been able to argue. Despite settling things between Royd and her being much easier said than done, she had to acknowledge that Iona had it right—for multiple reasons, the current situation couldn’t go on.

But Iona’s reaction to Royd agreeing—and when Isobel had reviewed the exchange, she’d realized he’d agreed without any real fuss—had raised the question of why he had. Did he have some ulterior motive in mind with respect to her? Just because she’d seen no sign of any such ambition on his part didn’t mean it wasn’t there—not with Royd.

She glanced up at the ship, then nodded a dismissal to the waiting footmen, hauled in a breath as if strengthening invisible shields, raised her skirts, and started up the gangplank. She couldn’t understand why Royd hadn’t married someone else; once he did, her way forward would be clear. But he hadn’t, so now she was faced with the necessity of exorcising their past and putting it to rest once and for all.

That was her secondary objective for this trip—to kill off the hopes that haunted her dreams and prove to her inner, still-yearning self that there truly was no hope of any reconciliation between them.

He’d handfasted with her, warmed her and her bed for three weeks, then disappeared on some voyage for the next thirteen months with no word beyond his initial assurance that the trip would take a few months at most.

And then, without warning or explanation, he’d returned.

He’d expected her to welcome him with open arms.

Needless to say, that hadn’t happened—she’d told him she hadn’t wanted to see him again and had shut the door in his too-handsome face.

“Handsome is as handsome does”—one of Iona’s maxims. To Isobel’s mind, she’d lived that, and as witnessed by the past eight years, it hadn’t gone well. But for some godforsaken reason, her fascination with Royd had still not died. She needed to use this journey to convince that naive, yearning self who had once loved him with all her heart that Royd Frobisher was no longer the man of her dreams.

She needed to use this journey to eradicate every last vestige of buried hope.

To extinguish the kernel of her once-great love.

She’d been walking upward with her eyes on the wooden plank. She reached the gap in the ship’s side, raised her head—and looked into Royd’s face. The very same face she would dearly love to strip of its power over her witless senses.

She was a long way from succeeding in that. Her heart performed a silly somersault, and her nerves came alive simply because he was close.

Then he added to her difficulties by extending his hand.

She was quite sure he did it on purpose, to test her. To try, in his usual challenging way, to discover what she intended on the voyage—whether she would insist on the rigid distance she preserved while sailing with him when testing their latest innovation or whether she was going to acknowledge that this voyage was different. That this was personal, not professional.

In for a penny, in for a pound. If she was going to use the journey to resolve what lay between them, she might as well start as she meant to go on.

Steeling her nerves and every one of her senses, she placed her gloved fingers across his palm—and clamped down on her reaction as his fingers closed firmly—possessively—over hers.

“Welcome aboard, Isobel.” Inclining his head, he handed her down to the deck.

He released her, and she could breathe again. She nodded regally. “Again, thank you for agreeing to let me sail with you.” She raised her gaze and met his. “I know you didn’t have to.”

A quirk of his black brows spoke volumes.

“Capt’n—” Royd’s quartermaster, who’d been backing toward them while relaying orders to crew in the rigging, swung around, saw her, grinned, and bobbed his head. “Miss Carmichael. Always a pleasure to have you aboard, miss.”

“Thank you, Williams.” She knew and was known to all of Royd’s crew; all had sailed with him for years. She glanced at Royd. “I’ll get out of your way.”

He waved to the stern deck. “If you want to remain on deck until we’re at sea, you’ll be least in the way up there.”

She assented with a nod and walked to the ladder. Royd followed, but he knew her well enough to allow her to climb unaided; she was more than accustomed to going up and down ladders while wearing skirts.

She felt his gaze on her back until she gained the upper deck. She stepped away from the ladder, then glanced back and down. Royd had already returned to Williams, and they were discussing which sails Royd thought to deploy for sailing out of the harbor.

Once they hit the open seas, he’d fly most of his canvas, but negotiating the exit from the basin and the mouth of the Dee required a fine touch and much less power. Courtesy of the improvements she and Royd had made, when under full sail, The Corsair was the fastest ship of her class afloat—another reason she’d petitioned him to take her to Freetown. Quite aside from the assured speed, she was eager to see how the alterations she’d tested only on short forays into the North Sea performed on a much longer journey.

Lifting her gaze from Royd’s dark head, she looked along the main deck. From all she could see, they were almost ready to cast off.

Turning, she saw Liam Stewart, Royd’s lieutenant, standing ready at the wheel. He glanced her way and smiled.

She smiled back and nodded. “Mr. Stewart.”

“Miss Carmichael—welcome aboard. I hear you’re sailing south with us all the way to Africa.”

“Indeed. I have business in Freetown.” She realized that where Royd had been, so, too, had Stewart. “I take it you’ve visited the settlement before.”

Stewart nodded. “We’ve sailed into the harbor there several times, but not in the past...it must be four years.” He cast her an apologetic glance. “Being a relatively new settlement, it will have changed significantly since last we were there.”

She grimaced, but Stewart wasn’t the man who would be by her side when she ventured into the settlement in search of her cousin.

“I need to run through the checks on the rudder. Royd and I normally do that together, but”—Stewart nodded down the ship—“he’s busy resetting those rigging lines. Would you like to stand in for him?”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure.” She walked purposefully toward him. Meeting his widening eyes, she smiled sweetly and reached for the wheel. “But if you think I’m going to be the one hanging over the stern, you’re sadly mistaken.”

He grinned sheepishly and surrendered the wheel. While she swung the wheel, halting at the usual positions, he checked that the rudder responded freely and swung to the correct angle.

By the time they were done, Royd was calling for the lines to be cast off. He strode down the deck and came up the ladder in rapid time. Straightening, he saw her standing behind the wheel.

She savored his blink of surprise—then she stepped aside and gestured to the vacated position. “Your wheel is yours, Captain.”

He cast her a look as he strode forward, but the instant his hand touched the polished oak, his focus shifted. One glance confirmed that the lines had been freed. He glanced at Stewart as he came to stand by the rail on the other side of the wheel. “Very well, Mr. Stewart—let’s get under way.”

Stewart grinned. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

Isobel gripped the rail and watched as, with Stewart acting as his spotter, Royd eased The Corsair from her berth, working with only a jib.

As he feathered past the ships anchored in the basin, he called up more sail, but gave the canvas only enough play to have the hull gliding forward. Then they were through the narrows and turned, and the mouth of the Dee lay ahead, unobstructed by any other vessel, and Royd called for full mainsails. Topsails and topgallants followed in rapid order, then he called for the royals...and the ship lifted.

Literally lifted as the wind caught the unfurling sails and powered the vessel on.

Feeling the wind buffeting her bonnet, Isobel pushed it back so it lay across her nape, the better to appreciate the ineluctable thrill of speed.

And yet more speed as the skysails unfurled.

She listened with half an ear to the rapid-fire instructions as this sail was drawn in, that eased, and the ship, now well out from the shore, heeled to the south.

She couldn’t stop smiling.

As he had several times since they’d left the wharf, Royd glanced at Isobel’s face—let his eyes drink in the sheer joy displayed there, openly, for anyone to see. Emotionally, it was like looking into a mirror; this was something they’d always shared and patently still did—this love of the sea, of racing over the waves, of harnessing the wind and letting it have them.

Yet another strand in the net that still linked them.

Usually on a voyage, after steering the ship past the river mouth and into the ocean swells, once he felt the hull riding smoothly and was satisfied with the set of the sails, he would hand the wheel over to Liam, who normally stood the first watch from port. Today, when his lieutenant sent him a questioning look, he shook his head and remained where he was, with his hands on the wheel and Isobel beside him.

When she sailed with him during the testing of their improvements, she rarely stood anywhere near him; if she came up to the stern deck, she would stand at one rear corner where, from his position at the wheel, he couldn’t see her.

So although she’d sailed with him often in recent years, this was different. He wanted to prolong the moment, to wallow in the connection, in the shared passion that still linked them, in the magic that still reached to their souls. To experience again the mutuality of the sensitivity that had them glorying at the feel of the wind in their hair and of the deck surging beneath their feet.

She didn’t look at him—he would have felt her gaze—so he looked at her frequently. He drank in her delight and felt the same joy move through him—and felt closer to her than he had in years.

Patently, this element of their togetherness was still there, alive and very real, strong, and apparently immutable.

If this aspect of their long-ago connection—the plethora of shared needs and desires that had urged them to the altar and seen them handfasted—had survived the years unchanged...what else remained?

He had to wonder—and wonder, too, about the past eight years of being so very definitely apart.

Why had she turned from him?

And why had he allowed it?

The latter wasn’t a question that had occurred to him before, yet...standing alongside her again, aware of all he felt for her still, it was a valid question.

Eventually, their tack took them farther from land, and he reluctantly brought the magical moment to an end. With a few words, he surrendered the wheel to Liam, stepped back, and turned to Isobel.

Instinctively, Isobel swung to face Royd; her senses leapt, and she realized remaining close had been a tactical error...then again, wasn’t this what she wanted? To explore what remained between them, put whatever that was into some more mundane context, and, hopefully, cauterize her ridiculous sensitivity to his nearness. She couldn’t retrain her senses if she didn’t allow herself to dally close to him.

That said...she pushed away from the railing. “Perhaps someone can show me to my cabin?” From long experience, she knew that the only way to deal with Royd was not just to keep the reins in her hands but to use them.

His face was always well-nigh inscrutable; she could read nothing from his expression as he inclined his head. “Of course.” He waved her to the ladder.

She walked across, turned, and went quickly down.

He followed and dropped lightly to the deck beside her.

She’d assumed he would summon one of his men—his steward, Bellamy, for instance—and consign her into their care. Instead, he stepped to the companionway hatch, pulled it open, and waved her down. “I’ve moved my things out of the stern cabin. It’s yours for the duration.”

“Thank you.” With a haughty dip of her head, she went down the stairs. She stepped into the corridor and started toward the stern. “What cabin are you using?”

Having worked on The Corsair over the past years, she knew the ship’s layout. Unlike most vessels of this class, Royd’s personal ship had fewer cabins, but each cabin was larger; his captain’s cabin took up the entire width of the stern and was unusually deep.

“I’ve taken the cabin to the right.”

The captain’s cabin had doors connecting to the cabins on either side, creating a multi-roomed stateroom. She’d gathered such spaciousness and the luxurious fittings were a reflection of the quality of passenger Royd occasionally ferried to and fro; he rarely did anything without calculation and some goal in mind.

She walked unhurriedly along the corridor, striving to appear entirely unaware, even though, with him prowling at her heels in the confined space, her every nerve was alert and twitching.

Clearly, she had a long way to go to eradicate her Royd sensitivity.

The door to the stern cabin neared, and she slowed. Then she stiffened as, in one long stride, Royd closed the distance between them, reached past her, grasped the knob, and sent the door swinging wide.

Ignoring the warmth washing over her back, tamping down her leaping nerves, she inclined her head in thanks and swept through the door.

Her gaze landed on the figure kneeling on the window seat.

She halted.

He’d been staring out at the dwindling shore—she raised her gaze and saw the last sight of land vanishing into the sea mist—but he’d turned his head and was looking at her.

Panic gripped. Hard.

Every iota of air left her lungs. She swung on her heel, slammed both palms to Royd’s chest, and tried to shove him back so he wouldn’t see...

Too late.

He’d halted in the doorway. He didn’t move, didn’t shift an inch. One glance at his face confirmed that he was staring across the cabin, transfixed.

Her pulse hammered. Unable to—not daring to—shift her gaze from his face, she watched as realization dawned, as he grasped the secret she’d hidden from him for the past eight years...then shock stripped all impassivity from him.

He dropped his gaze to hers. Fury—fury—burned in his eyes.

Mingled with utter disbelief.

She couldn’t breathe.

Through the roaring in her ears, she heard the thump as Duncan’s feet hit the floor.

“Mama?”

Royd’s breath caught, and he wrenched his gaze from hers. He looked across the room, then his eyes narrowed, his features set, and he looked back at her.

She stared into his eyes. So many emotions roiled and clashed in the gray...anger, accusation, hurt. She couldn’t take them all in.

Her senses wavered, then swam. Her vision grayed...

Royd was already reeling when Isobel’s lids fell, and her head tipped back, and she started to crumple—

With a muttered oath, he caught her. It took a second for him to register that she truly had fainted, that she was limp and unconscious. He’d never known her to faint before—panic spiked and swirled into the cauldron of emotions surging through him.

He juggled her, then hoisted her into his arms and straightened.

He felt as if he was swaying, but the sensation owed nothing to the motion of his ship.

A rush of footsteps neared. “What did you do to her?” The boy skidded to a halt an arm’s length away. He looked up at Royd, sparks and daggers flashing from eyes that were all Isobel, his young face pale—Isobel-pale—but his jaw setting in a way Royd recognized. Fists clenching, the boy glared up at him. “Let her go.”

The command thrumming in the words was recognizable, too.

Royd dragged in a breath. Looking into a face so like his own was only adding to his disorientation. “She fainted.” At present, that was the most critical issue. He hefted her more securely against his chest. “We should lay her down.”

The boy’s glare barely eased. “Oh.” He glanced around. “Where?”

“The bed.” Royd nodded to the bed hidden behind its hangings. “Draw back the curtains.”

The boy rushed to do so; he grabbed handfuls of the heavy tapestry fabric and hauled the curtains to the bed’s head and foot, revealing the sumptuously plump mattress and large pillows.

Royd knelt on the bed and laid Isobel down with her head and shoulders on the pillows. He’d never dealt with a fainted female before, and that it was Isobel only added to his near panic. He undid the ribbon holding her bonnet in place, then raised her head, pulled the now-crushed bonnet from under her, and flung it aside. He eased her back to the pillows, loosened the ties of her cape, then smoothed her hair back from her face.

She didn’t wake.

The boy scrambled up from the foot of the bed and crawled to kneel on her other side. He peered at her face. “Mama?”

Royd sat on the side of the bed. He picked up her hand, drew off her glove, then chafed her hand between his; he’d seen someone do that somewhere.

The boy studied what Royd was doing, then picked up Isobel’s other hand, tugged off her glove, and roughly rubbed her hand between his own. His gaze locked on her face as if willing her to wake.

Royd found his gaze drawn to the boy’s face, his profile, but the strangeness of looking at himself at an earlier age was too confounding. He forced his gaze to Isobel. He frowned. “Does she often faint?”

The boy’s lips set. He shook his head. “I’ve never seen her do this before. And the grandmothers have never said anything, and they yammer about such things all the time.”

Grandmothers, plural. Royd made a mental note to investigate that later.

“Will she be all right?” The boy’s quiet words held a wealth of anxiety.

Royd wanted to reassure him, but wasn’t sure what he should say. Or do. After flailing through the clouds of distraction in his mind, he reached for Isobel’s wrist, checked her pulse, and found it steady and strong. Relief flooded him. “Her heartbeat’s steady. I doubt there’s anything seriously wrong.”

The boy had watched what he’d done, but wasn’t sure...

“Here. Let me show you.” Royd reached across and lifted Isobel’s hand from the boy’s. He traced the vein showing through her fine skin. “Put your fingertips just there. Press a little and you’ll be able to feel her heart beating.”

He waited while the boy tried; the lad’s face cleared as he felt the reassuring thud of his mother’s heart. “What’s your name?”

The boy glanced briefly his way. “Duncan.”

Royd forced himself to nod as if that wasn’t an earth-shattering revelation. The firstborn sons of the Frobishers bore one of three names in rotation—Fergus, Murgatroyd, and Duncan.

He let his gaze skate over the lad—all long skinny limbs and knobbly knees, gangly like a colt. He’d been the same; so had Isobel. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be eight in October.”

He could have guessed that, too.

He looked at Isobel’s still-unresponsive face. He had so many questions for her, he could barely think of where to start. But first...what did one do to revive a woman who had fainted? “I don’t have any smelling salts.” Bellamy might have some somewhere, but Isobel would hate the crew learning of such uncharacteristic weakness. “A cold cloth on her forehead might help.” He rose, crossed to the washstand, and dipped a small towel in the pitcher. After wringing most of the water from the cloth, he returned to the bed. Duncan helped him drape the cold compress across Isobel’s brow.

Royd stood back and watched. Duncan sat back on his ankles, waiting expectantly.

Isobel didn’t stir.

“Let’s try raising her feet.” Royd grabbed two of the extra pillows and handed them to Duncan. “I’ll lift her ankles—you push those underneath.”

Once that was done, they waited another minute, but Isobel remained comatose.

Royd frowned. “I’m certain she’s only fainted.” She’d been so stunned, so shocked, to find Duncan there. He looked at the boy. “She’s safe here—she can’t roll out of the bed.” It was a ship’s bed; it had raised sides. “I suggest we leave her to recover in peace. Meanwhile, we can get some air.”

He needed to breathe. Deeply. He needed to feel the wind in his face, to let it blow the fog from his mind.

Then he needed to grapple with the reality of the son he hadn’t known he had.

At the mention of getting some air, Duncan’s attention had deflected to him. “You mean go up on deck?”

Royd held his son’s gaze—so much like Isobel’s. “You’re too young to go into the rigging, so yes—on deck.”

For a second, Duncan wavered; he looked at Isobel again, then he shuffled back down the bed and hopped off. He straightened and tugged the short jacket he wore into place.

After one last glance at Isobel, Royd led the way to the door.

Duncan trailed after him.

When he reached the door, Royd glanced around and saw Duncan staring back at the bed.

“She will be all right, won’t she?” he asked.

“Is she often ill?” Royd would have wagered on the answer being no.

“Hardly ever.”

“Well, then.” He opened the door and led the way out. “Let’s leave her to rest.” More quietly, he added, “Perhaps she needs it.”

She was going to need to be very wide awake when next he got her alone.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, among other startling revelations, Royd had learned that this was Duncan’s maiden voyage. Small wonder he was so eager to see and try everything. Royd had taken him up to the stern deck and reclaimed the wheel, to Duncan’s transparent delight. He clung to the forward railing, peering down the deck and peppering Royd with questions.

Then the companionway hatch flung back and Isobel emerged.

Erupted from the depths was nearer the mark. Royd had seen her “wild” many times before, but he’d never seen her this...frenzied.

Her gaze landed on him and Duncan, then, her expression curiously blank, she strode for the ladder. Despite her skirts, she was up in a blink. She stepped onto the deck, her gaze already locked on Duncan.

Royd clenched his jaw. From Duncan’s prattle of the past minutes, it was plain the boy had been starved for all things nautical, yet the desire to be on the sea, to sail, ran in his blood. What had Isobel been thinking to keep him landlocked?

But that question would keep until later. First, he would stand by and listen to her deal with their son. Aside from all else, she was focused on Duncan to the exclusion of literally everything else. Even him—yet another surprise for him to assimilate.

Duncan released the railing and swung to face her; from the corner of his eye, Royd saw the boy straighten, stiffen. He didn’t hang his head. Rather, he tilted it upward a touch—to an angle Royd recognized. He struggled not to grin.

Sea, meet granite crag.

He’d had enough clashes with Isobel to recognize the signs. He shifted his stance so he could keep mother and son in view without being obvious.

Isobel halted before Duncan, her hands rising to grip her hips. “What are you doing here?” Her tone was low but unsteady, a warning of imminent explosion.

Evenly—fearlessly—the boy replied, “You said you were off on this voyage—that it was just a trip, and there was no danger involved.” He cut a glance Royd’s way, for all the world as if, having now met Royd, he was re-evaluating her veracity. Then he looked back at her, and his features set. “I’m on summer holidays for weeks and weeks yet, and you know I’ve always wanted to sail. If there’s no danger, then there’s no reason I can’t sail with you.”

Royd kept his eyes forward and his expression noncommittal, but he rather thought Isobel had been hoist with her own petard.

Her gaze boring into Duncan’s, she folded her arms across her chest. “So you stowed away. How?”

“In your trunk—the brown one.”

From the corner of his eye, Royd watched her stiffen.

“What happened to the clothes and shoes I had in there?” Her normally low voice rose an octave. “Good God—where are they?”

“In your other trunks. I just squished things a bit more than they already were, and they all fitted—there was plenty of room.”

Isobel stared at her errant offspring and didn’t know what to say—not with his newly alerted father standing behind him. But at least Duncan had had the sense not to jettison her clothes; wrinkled clothes could be ironed—given her height, replacing clothes was much more difficult. She eyed him. “What about your clothes?”

“I brought two other sets in my satchel—and my comb.”

The most horrible thought struck. “Heaven help us—what about those at home? Did you think—”

“I left a note to be delivered to Great-grandmama.” Duncan’s tone was the one normally accompanied by a glance heavenward, but he was clever enough not to add the action. “She’ll have it by now.”

Her wits were still giddily reeling. Her breathing hadn’t yet steadied—she was still too easily pitched off kilter by the revelations that just kept coming. She drew in a deep breath, exhaled, then determinedly drew in another; she was not going to faint again.

Refocusing, she discovered that two pairs of eyes were watching her closely—with near-identical looks suggesting their owners were poised for action, such as catching her if she swooned again. Lips setting, she fixed Duncan with a commanding stare. “Go down and wait for me in the cabin”—she saw his expression harden and close, and rashly relented—“or down there, if you prefer.” With a wave, she indicated the main deck. “I need to talk to Captain Frobisher—”

“Tell him.”

She inwardly started at Royd’s dictate—his tone made the words exactly that. Her eyes leapt to his face, and she met his hard gray gaze.

Before she could even begin to think, he reiterated, “Tell him now.”

She stared into Royd’s implacable gaze, felt the brutal force of his will... She could stand against him, but at what cost—to them both, and to Duncan, too?

And given Duncan had almost certainly guessed...was there any point in putting off the moment?

Given the timing of his birth, Duncan’s paternity had never been in doubt, but she’d steadfastly refused to name his father, to confirm or deny, which had made it easier for others to let matters lie and treat Duncan as solely hers. But she’d never lied to Duncan—and she couldn’t lie to Royd.

And the look in his eyes made it clear that he wasn’t going to allow her to quit his deck without making a clean breast of it.

She drew in a long, deep breath. Ignoring the way her heart thudded, she clasped her hands and lowered her gaze to Duncan’s now-curious face. She looked into his eyes—her eyes in a young Royd’s face. “I’ve always said I would tell you who your father is one day. It seems that day is today.” Her voice threatened to quaver—so much would change the instant she said the words—but she firmed her chin and forced her voice to an even tone. “Your father is Captain Royd Frobisher.”

Duncan didn’t even blink. His gaze swung to Royd, taking in his features, not so much noting the similarities—he’d already done that—but confirming them. “Truly?” The question—laced with inquisitive interest and a touch of hope—was directed at Royd.

He shifted his gaze to meet Duncan’s. “Yes. And no—I didn’t know, either.”

With that, father and son looked at her, and she found herself the focus of twin gazes carrying a wealth of unspoken accusation.

She had no idea how to counter it, how to respond. She felt as if she was swaying entirely out of time with the rolling of the deck. Breathing grew difficult again. She cleared her throat. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. I believe I need to lie down again.”

With that, she cravenly turned tail, walked stiffly to the ladder, and started down.

Royd watched her go, a frown in his mind if not on his face. He’d never seen her run before, certainly never from a potential confrontation. She thrived on drama and challenge—and what could be more challenging and dramatic than this situation?

He glanced at Duncan and saw much the same perturbation openly displayed on the boy’s—his son’s—still-expressive face. Clearly, Duncan knew his mother’s proclivities and also thought her retreat somewhat strange.

Royd looked down the length of his deck. He noted the crew members here and there; none were close enough to overhear conversation on the stern deck. Yet it was true that what Isobel and he had to discuss would be better addressed in private—away from eyes as well as ears, and without the object of their discussion standing between them. Perhaps her retreat had been strategic.

Duncan had remained beside him, his hands lightly resting on the forward railing, his gaze—as far as Royd could tell—fixed forward, most likely unseeing.

Royd waited, expecting that, with their relationship confirmed, Duncan would have questions.

When the silence from that quarter continued, he glanced, faintly puzzled, at the boy.

Just as Duncan turned to look up at him. The boy’s features had grown stony; Royd realized Duncan’s expression was now closed, forming not just a screen for his thoughts but a shield.

When Duncan continued to study his face as if trying to make up his mind about something, Royd arched a brow in unspoken invitation.

Duncan straightened, squared his shoulders, then drew in a breath and asked, “Are you married, then? To someone else, I mean.”

Royd blinked. “What?” For a second he was at sea—what had prompted Duncan to ask that?—then he realized. “Good God, no!” His tone underscored the denial in an entirely convincing way.

Even as the words left his lips, light dawned, and reality struck.

He paused to let his mind trace the connections that had suddenly become so very clear. Rapidly, he reviewed the scenario revealed and checked his understanding, then, as much to himself as Duncan, said, “Now I think of it, I believe I’m married to your mother.”

He was as good as, wasn’t he?

And that, in large part, was why she had never told him about Duncan.

* * *

Royd spent the rest of the day fielding eager questions from his son. Most of the barrage concerned ships and sailing, but here and there a query about the Frobishers crept in. For his part, when he could get a query in, he learned that Duncan lived at Carmody Place and had been schooled with the rest of the children on the large estate by governess and tutor, but that discussions were being held about him going to a grammar school next year.

Royd and his brothers had attended Aberdeen Grammar School; he made a mental note to inform Isobel that Duncan would be attending there, too. No need to send the boy away—a decision that found ready favor with Duncan. Once he’d extracted an assurance from Royd that he would always be welcome to explore any Frobisher ship in port, Duncan wasn’t going to readily accept any circumstance that would prevent him from taking up the invitation.

Royd didn’t get a chance to discuss anything with Isobel until after night had fallen. Until after he and she sat down to dinner in the main cabin with their son. Just like a normal family. As it happened, the meal went off without even one awkward moment; Duncan led the way, leaving his parents to follow. Later, Isobel put Duncan to bed in the cabin to the left of the captain’s cabin. Royd watched from the main doorway, noting all the signs of mother-son affection that, regardless of the situation, were evident. When Isobel reached to turn down the lamp, he tipped his head toward the companionway. “I’ll wait for you on deck.”

She met his gaze and nodded.

He went up to the stern deck to check with his navigator, William Kelly, who presently had the wheel. They exchanged comments about their route southward, then fell into a comfortable silence.

Royd leaned against the stern railing, looked up at the night sky, and waited. As the hours had passed and his new reality had taken shape and taken hold, his fury had abated, replaced by a powerful need to examine, learn, reassess, and then reform and rebuild—if he could.

If she would.

Several minutes later, Isobel emerged from the companionway hatch. She’d thrown a shawl about her shoulders. Knotting it against the breeze, she saw him heading for the ladder down to the main deck. She crossed her arms, holding the shawl close, and led the way to the bow.

When he joined her, she was leaning against the starboard gunwale, staring out at the darkness ahead.

The ship was running hard before the wind; he and his men knew this route like the backs of their hands, and he needed to reach London with all speed. Although clouds had blown up and now covered the moon, sufficient starlight remained to paint the occasional crest phosphorescent bright, creating flashes of brilliant white on the rolling night-dark sea.

He halted behind Isobel and, with a hand on the smooth upper rail, braced himself against the irregular pitching. None of the watch was close enough to hear them, and the wind would whip away their words regardless. The stance she’d deliberately taken meant he couldn’t see her face, but at this point, that might make the discussion they had to have easier. Certainly easier to keep on track.

She remained silent, but he’d expected that—that it would be up to him to lead. He started with what was, to him, the most pertinent question. “Why?”

He sensed rather than heard her sigh, but her head remained high, and her voice, when it reached him, was strong.

“You weren’t there. You’d left and hadn’t come back.”

“But I did come back. Why didn’t you tell me then?” Why didn’t you tell me I had a son?

“Because if I had, you would have taken him from me. Given Duncan was a child born of a failed handfasting, all rights regarding him would have rested with you as his father. I would have had no say in his upbringing or his life—no right to keep him with me.”

He frowned. Why would he have taken...? His perception whirled like a kaleidoscope; when the facts settled again, they formed a different pattern—one altered to accommodate what he’d just heard. What she’d just revealed.

The only reason for her hiding Duncan’s existence was if she had decided she didn’t want to marry him.

Yet there was still something out of alignment; the pieces still didn’t fit. In all the years since, she’d never even encouraged any other suitor.

“Isobel—”

“You would have.”

There was so much conviction underlying the words, he felt forced to consider...and he had to admit, if she’d wanted to marry another, and he had known about Duncan...

In a rush of emotion, he remembered how he’d felt when she’d told him to go away and had shut the door of Carmody Place in his face. She was the mercurial one, but in truth, he wasn’t far behind her when it came to temper, although he burned cold while she flamed hot. He’d been frigidly angry and hurt—a dangerous combination. She’d been one of the few people who could truly hurt him—he’d given her his heart, after all—and she had. She’d crushed his heart and flung it back at him. Or so he’d thought.

She was right. Regardless of what she’d intended to do, if he’d known about Duncan then...he couldn’t say what he might or might not have done.

She shifted fractionally and tightened her grip on the shawl. “Know one thing—I will never allow you to take him from me. Remember that. Believe that.”

He had no trouble doing so. He knew her nature, how passionate and devoted to her causes she became. How she gave her whole heart, and even her soul, to protecting and nurturing those she loved—like Duncan. Like Iona. Like Katherine Fortescue.

More than any other, he’d been the recipient of her passion and devotion once upon a time.

And he missed that, too; he had every day since she’d slammed that damned door.

Looking back...he couldn’t explain, even to himself, why he hadn’t tried harder. He had attempted to talk to her in the days that followed, but after twice meeting a blockade—manned by her family, admittedly; he hadn’t succeeded in speaking directly to her but had assumed they’d acted with her blessing—he’d ended in an even fouler temper and had walked away and never gone back.

He’d given up on her, on them, and on all the promise that he’d thought they’d had.

And he’d felt righteous and entirely justified in doing so. She had rejected him, after all.

Pride had risen up, sunk its claws deep, and ridden him.

To his mind, he’d returned a conquering hero, albeit one not publicly acknowledged; that mission had been covert first to last. He’d been riding high, sailing home with his ego inflated by the immense satisfaction of a job done better than anyone could have hoped. It had been a quiet triumph. Regardless of her not knowing the details, he’d expected her—his handfasted bride—to welcome him with one of her brilliant smiles and open arms. Instead...the reality had been so very different, he’d struck back by turning and walking away.

She hadn’t lived up to his dreams—the dreams that had kept him alive, his skills and talents honed and focused, through all the preceding hellish months.

He’d wanted to hurt her as she had hurt him—so he’d walked away and left her.

He hadn’t appreciated then what he’d been walking away from—not just a son but the one woman—the only woman—with whom he would ever contemplate sharing his life. His soulmate. His younger self hadn’t understood the magnitude of all that title encompassed, but he’d always known that she was his—his other half, his anchor in life’s storm.

He’d been adrift from the moment he’d turned his back on her.

With the benefit of the years and the wisdom of hindsight, he could admit that, if she hadn’t behaved as he’d expected, equally he hadn’t lived up to her expectations—what most would consider entirely reasonable expectations—of a handfasted partner, either. But because they were soulmates, he’d expected her to overlook his shortcomings and for all between them to be exactly as it had been when he’d sailed away.

He hadn’t known about Duncan—hadn’t known she’d borne his child alone. She would have been surrounded by her family, but she hadn’t had him.

And he knew her well enough to comprehend that more than anything else, his absence then was a large part of what had pushed them apart.

He wanted her back—he’d already decided that. Learning of Duncan only strengthened his determination. Duncan was his. He wanted the boy openly acknowledged and legitimate. Reclaiming her would achieve that, too.

Reclaiming Isobel was the route to the future he was now adamant he wanted and needed.

He—they—had wasted eight years; he wasn’t about to waste any more.

But getting her back wasn’t going to be easy. She would be prickly, barricaded; he would need to undermine her defenses one by one.

A sliver of her profile was all he could see. He studied it, then said, “Tell me what happened eight years ago from your point of view. What happened after I left?”

Over her shoulder, she threw him a brief, frowning glance.

After fleetingly meeting his eyes—and confirming he was, as she’d supposed, in earnest—Isobel faced forward. Why had he asked that? Long inured to his silences, she’d waited, every nerve tense, ready to engage and defend in whatever way his attack, when it came, might require...but that?

She’d jettisoned any notion of keeping him at a distance while she re-evaluated their situation. Duncan’s appearance had put paid to any chance of not explaining all to Royd. She couldn’t in all conscience refuse to answer his questions, not when even she recognized that he had a right to know.

Yet the question he’d asked wasn’t one she’d been expecting. Not phrased in that way. And she knew him; if he wasn’t reacting quickly and instinctively but rather after considered thought, then he would have some goal in mind.

What that goal might be...in the circumstances, she couldn’t even guess.

But he was being reasonable, so avoiding the question wasn’t an option; he was far too canny to give her an excuse to take refuge in her histrionic side. She couldn’t get away with enacting some drama and distracting him, as she could with almost anyone else.

Not with him and not with Iona. All others she could manage, but not those two.

“Very well.” If that was the tack he wanted to take, she would follow and see where it led. “You left three weeks after our handfasting. You told me you expected the voyage to last for a month, two at the most. You sailed away. I went to live with Iona at Carmody Place—she wanted the company, and as we’d handfasted, I no longer needed to live with Mama and Papa and attend balls and dinners. It suited me to go to the Place and not have to bother with society—you know I was never enamored of the social round.” An understatement, yet in drawing back from society, she’d unwittingly laid the groundwork for what came later.

“I settled with Iona, then realized I was pregnant. I was thrilled and so happy.” She’d been over the moon. “I didn’t tell anyone. I thought to wait for you to return to tell you first.” She couldn’t stop her tone growing colder. “But you didn’t return. At first, I just waited, but after three months had passed with no word from you, I went to the Frobisher office and asked when they expected you back. I was told they didn’t know. They smiled and assured me you would return as soon as you could. I left, but went back a week later and asked if there was some way to contact you. I wanted to send you a letter, but they explained that there was no way to get any message to you at that time. And they confirmed they hadn’t heard anything from you anymore than I had.”

She paused, feeling the memories draw her back and pull her into the roiling vortex of emotions she’d experienced then. “A week later, I went back and asked them how, given they’d heard nothing from you or any others on your ship, they knew you were still alive. They hemmed and hawed and, ultimately, admitted that they didn’t precisely know, but as they hadn’t heard otherwise... In short, they couldn’t confirm that you still lived. All they would say was that they were sure you would eventually turn up. Needless to say, I wasn’t reassured.”

“You didn’t speak to my father or any of my brothers?”

“Your father was out of town at the time, and I think Robert, Declan, and Caleb were at sea.” She hesitated, then asked, “Would I have got a different answer if I’d asked them where you were?”

She shifted her head enough to, from the corner of her eye, catch his grimace. After a moment, he replied, “Probably not from my brothers. But my father might have...understood enough to reassure you.”

“Hmm. Well, he wasn’t there.” She looked forward again. “And while I did think of speaking to your mother, she was off with your father. And later... By the time your parents were back in Aberdeen, I’d rethought things.”

“What things?”

If he’d sounded demanding, she might have found it more difficult to go on. As it was, he was still Royd, the one person in all the world she’d unreservedly shared her thoughts, wishes, and dreams with, once upon a time. The link—the connection—was still there; she could tell him anything. Even this. “Things like why you’d wanted to marry me. I realized that it wasn’t as I’d supposed—that I’d been naive in ascribing to you the same motive that applied to me.”

Even though she now viewed that time from the insulating distance of eight years, and she had—she firmly believed—come to accept the reality, the surge of remembered devastation still swamped her. Not having to meet his eyes helped. Allowed her to draw breath and reasonably evenly say, “I always knew I was an unlikely princess to your prince. I was too tall, too...unfeminine in so many ways. Not least in my aversion to feminine pursuits and my determination to succeed in being allowed to build ships.”

She paused, then, as calmly as she could, went on, “As you know, I was told from an early age by supporters and detractors alike that the only reason any man would seek to marry me was to gain control of the shipyards.” She raised one shoulder in a slight shrug. “I’d thought you were different, but when you stayed away and didn’t even write, I realized I’d misread things. I’m sure you recall it was Iona who insisted on us handfasting and not formalizing a marriage immediately. She’d seen the truth that I hadn’t.” Blindly, she gestured toward him. “And of course, you, as the future head of Frobisher Shipping, had the greatest incentive of all to want to gain control of the Carmichael Shipyards.” Despite her best efforts, the breath she drew shook, but she clung to her dignity and went on, “As I wanted more from marriage than you were able to give, I realized I couldn’t go forward and formalize our marriage. Once I’d reached that understanding, there was no reason to do anything other than wait to tell you if you ever got back.”

Royd stood behind the woman who, despite the years, still held his heart, and felt as if he’d been turned to stone. He’d known of her belief that she wasn’t attractive, and that her temperament made her unsuitable to be any gentleman’s wife—ergo that no gentleman would offer for her hand other than to gain control of the shipyards. He vividly recalled the day he’d gone to meet her at the yards, but hadn’t been able to find her. He’d been certain she was there somewhere, so he’d hunted, and eventually, he’d found her hidden away on a perch overlooking the ribs of a hull in production. She’d been hunched in on herself and had been, if not actively crying, then deeply upset; he’d had to tease the reason for her uncharacteristic downheartedness from her, but in the end, she’d told him—gifted him with—the raw truth. The truth as she’d seen it—the same truth she’d just handed him, but then, she’d been all of fourteen.

Despite the difference in their ages, at that time, she’d been as tall as he, all long limbs and bony elbows and knees. He remembered that girl quite well.

He’d talked her around, convinced her that she didn’t need to worry about any gentleman marrying her—that everything would change by the time she was ready to walk down the aisle.

Even then, he’d intended to be the man waiting to meet her at the altar.

It had never occurred to him that that fragile and vulnerable girl of long ago still existed inside the confident, exuberant twenty-year-old young lady he’d handfasted with, much less inside the woman she now was.

Didn’t she have a mirror?

But no—he knew perfectly well that if one was convinced of a truth, one didn’t necessarily see reality. He’d used that human failing to his advantage many times over the years. He’d been actively doing exactly that—letting people think they saw what they expected to see—while she’d been giving birth to his son.

How to open her eyes...especially given that Iona would have held up his behavior of eight years ago as proof of his motives for marriage? Her grandmother had always viewed him and his involvement with Isobel askance. And he couldn’t argue that he wasn’t the prime candidate for wanting control of the shipyards; he was.

Yet that had never figured in his determination to marry Isobel. If she had nothing whatsoever to do with the shipyards, he would still want to marry her.

Intellectually at least, he—with the help of others—could convince her that, even by the age of twenty, her ugly duckling had transformed into a swan. But with her, that was only half the problem, and over the years, the other half—her unfeminine behavior and her devotion to and passion for the active practice of shipbuilding—had only grown more real, more confirmed, more blatantly a part of her.

And for the very same reasons she’d believed he’d wanted to seize the shipyards via marriage, he would never urge her to change her involvement in shipbuilding. Put simply, she and her talents and skills were far too vital to his and Frobisher Shipping’s future.

He wanted her as she was—on every count.

All those thoughts reeled through his brain at mind-numbing speed. He felt pummeled by realizations, but he was too experienced to leap into actions that might prove counterproductive.

Winning Isobel again—claiming her again—was a battle he needed to approach with all due caution.

He focused on the sliver of her face that he could see, faintly lit by the ship’s running lamps. Simply telling her the truth—his version of the truth, the real truth of why he’d wanted to marry her...would she believe him? He doubted it; putting himself in her shoes, based on what she currently knew, he didn’t think he would believe him, either.

When she’d dismissed him so decisively and refused to see him again, he’d walked away and done his damnedest to appear unaffected and unconcerned, especially in ways he knew were likely to be reported back to her. Behaving openly as if her dissolving their handfasting hadn’t bothered him had been his way of striking back, and he had a lowering suspicion he’d succeeded all too well. He usually did.

He’d screened his true feelings from everyone—too hurt and, yes, too wounded not to. Attempting to rewrite the truth he’d encouraged not just her but everyone else to believe wasn’t going to be any easy matter.

One fact, however, was now crystal clear. She’d hidden Duncan from him as a direct consequence of him knowingly concealing a significant section of his life from her.

The eight years they’d spent apart, the nearly eight years of Duncan’s life he’d missed, were the price he—and unwittingly she and Duncan—had paid for him keeping a secret mission secret.

He could swear and rail against a Fate that had conspired to so tangle them in their own strengths and weaknesses, their own vulnerabilities, but to what end? They were where they were now and had to go forward from there.

The past was the past. They needed to put it behind them and move forward.

In that order.

She was comfortable with his silences; few were, but she remained patiently waiting—one of the few things about which she’d learned to be patient.

She knew him better than anyone else in the world. He was fairly certain she still felt something for him, but he didn’t feel confident as to what that something was. Not now. Still, she was a passionate woman, yet she hadn’t encouraged any other man. As far as he’d heard—and when it came to her, he’d kept his ear to the ground—she’d never taken any other man to her bed. Why was that if not...?

An alternative answer came with his next heartbeat. She hadn’t taken up with any other man because of Duncan. Because, according to the laws under which they’d handfasted, she was still plighted to him—Royd—even if he hadn’t known it.

Another realization buffeted him.

He narrowed his eyes on her face. “You’ve been waiting for me to marry.”

“Obviously.”

He managed not to snort. As if that was going to happen. He’d long ago accepted that he wouldn’t be marrying anyone else; for him, it had always been her or no one.

As things stood, that also meant that for her, there would be no one. Or at least, no one else.

Not unless he agreed to release her from their troth.

He couldn’t imagine doing that, certainly not while any hope of rewinning her remained.

Had she really believed...?

As if reading his mind, she added, “Once you married, I intended to approach either you or your wife and petition you to release Duncan formally into my care.”

He bit his tongue against the impulse to inform her that, regardless of the circumstances, once he’d learned of Duncan’s existence, he would never have let the boy go; he’d known his son for only a few hours, yet he knew he’d fight anyone who thought to separate them again. Yet although she wasn’t normally skittish, this unexpectedly vulnerable Isobel required careful handling. Even under normal circumstances, her ability to surprise knew few bounds.

Insistently, his mind returned to her earlier words—I’d been naive in ascribing to you the same motive that applied to me—and the revelation by implication buried therein.

What had been her motive in handfasting with him?

Was it what he’d always believed it to be?

And did that mean she still loved him?

He couldn’t be certain and was long past taking anything about her as a given. Regardless, could she come to love him as she once had?

He reviewed the tangled skeins of their lives and had to believe that there was a real chance of that—that it was definitely a possibility. But the human heart was such a complex organ, and love could be impacted by so many other factors.

One conclusion stood out, one absolute in the morass of uncertainties. He wanted her to love him again with the same wholehearted—wild and open-hearted—passion she’d once lavished on him. And he wanted that with a desperation that reached to the bottom of his soul.

He was a renowned strategist. This might not be his usual sort of mission, but he had to believe he could pull it off.

He had to believe she hadn’t ceased loving him, but rather, his behavior as she’d interpreted it had caused her to lose faith in him, trust in him, and she’d drawn back. His behavior, all unwitting on his part, had caused her old vulnerability to rise up, and she’d withdrawn and barricaded herself against him.

His behavior as she’d perceived it was his first problem—the first issue he needed to address.

Inwardly, he grimaced. She’d trusted him implicitly, from the bottom of her heart, from her earliest years. In acting as cavalierly as he had, he’d taken that trust for granted; he hadn’t honored the reality that trust needed to be reciprocated, needed to be earned and deserved. By not telling her the truth of where he was going and why, and never explaining his prolonged absence, he’d broken her trust.

Irreparably?

He hoped not. Had to believe not.

Where trust had once been, surely it could be built again.

He had to believe that; he had no other choice and no other way forward. He needed to rebuild her trust in him before he would have any chance of reclaiming her love.

And in rebuilding her trust, he had to ensure he never, ever led her to imagine that he might assert his rights and effectively force her into marriage. Another man less wise in her ways might use the hold he now had over her via Duncan to force her to the altar, but any step in that direction would result in immediate resistance—she would fight him every step of the way, and so would her family—but more critically, such a move wouldn’t gain him what he wanted. He wouldn’t regain her love and all that went with that.

He pushed away from the ship’s side, caught her hand, and drew her around. “Come below. There’s something I want to show you. Something you need to read.”

He didn’t have to glance at her to know she frowned at him—but she obliged and, despite her start, instantly suppressed, when his hand had closed around hers, didn’t pull away but allowed him to tow her back to the aft hatch. He opened it and, releasing her, waved her through, then followed her down the stairs.

He nodded past her as he joined her in the narrow corridor. “The main cabin.”

Isobel led the way into the stern cabin. Immediately, she crossed to the connecting door to the cabin on the left. She looked in, saw Duncan’s face faintly flushed in sleep, and gently shut the door.

“Will our voices disturb him?” Royd had paused by the side of the desk.

She shook her head. “He’s a sound sleeper.” Even more so than you.

As if he’d heard her unvoiced comment, Royd humphed and continued to the large, glass-fronted bookcase built into the wall to the right of the desk. He opened the doors and reached to the second-highest shelf. His long fingers skimmed the spines of the narrow volumes packed along the shelf’s length, then his hand halted, and he eased one slender volume from the rest.

He closed the bookcase doors, turned, and held out the book. “I believe you’ll find the contents of interest.”

Premonition tickled her spine. She approached and took the book from him. It appeared to be a journal. “What is it?” She turned the book in her hands and opened the cover.

The date leapt out at her, inscribed in his strong, blatantly masculine hand. February 24, 1816. The day after he’d fatefully sailed away. She stilled. She sensed—knew—that he’d put the answer to her most vital question into her hands.

“It’s an account of the mission I sailed on, the one that unexpectedly kept me from home through 1816 and into 1817. It’s all there—just bare bones, but if you want to know more on any point, ask, and I’ll explain.”

When she looked up at him, feeling again as if the world was rocking independent of the waves, he met her gaze, but she could read nothing at all in his expression.

He tipped his head toward the desk. “Sit. Read. Once you’ve finished, if you wish to read any of the others”—he gestured to the bookcase—“feel free.”

Returning her gaze to the journal, she sank against the front edge of the desk.

He crossed to the main door, but paused with his hand on the latch. When she glanced at him, he said, “It just occurred to me...the mission that separated us is similar in many ways to the one we’re presently on.” Before she could ask what he meant by that, he nodded at the book in her hands. “Read that first. I’ll tell you the rest later.”

With that, he opened the door, stepped out, and quietly shut the door behind him.

She stared at the panel for several seconds, then looked down and refocused on the journal’s first page.

Royd entered the cabin he’d moved into. He shrugged off his coat and hung it up, then started unknotting his cravat.

With something this important—the rescripting of their pasts with a view to shaping a shared future—a wise man would take his time and set each foundation stone properly and securely in place.

She didn’t yet know it, because he hadn’t yet explained, but they would be stopping in London for several days—possibly as long as a week. Then would come the voyage to Freetown, whatever action awaited them there, and the voyage back to London, and eventually, the journey home to Aberdeen. He had weeks—possibly as many as five or even six—in which to execute his campaign.

His quest to win Isobel Carmody Carmichael again.

* * *

Isobel read far into the night. Royd’s journal didn’t just cover the events of his long-ago mission but also included snippets of his personal life. As well as learning what had kept him from her for more than thirteen months, she read of his frequent wish to send word to her, an act he drew back from again and again.

Finally, she reached the end of the volume and laid it aside. Having her world as she’d known it turned upside down for a second time in one day was exhausting; she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She didn’t re-emerge onto the deck until the morning was well advanced. On waking late, she’d been unsurprised to find herself alone in the stern cabins; she’d breakfasted in solitary state while sampling some of the other volumes in the bookcase—some earlier, some later.

Most of Royd’s missions—for the voyages detailed in the journals were transparently that—had been short, only a month or two. A few had stretched for nearly a year. Some had occurred during the late wars, while others had been more recent—after she’d ended their handfasting.

Of those later missions, certain of the details he’d jotted down in nonchalant vein would have induced panic if she hadn’t known he was still hale and whole. He’d always harbored a certain disregard for danger—a trait she in large part shared—yet some of his actions in those later missions seemed ridiculously risky, even for him.

Via the logs filling the third shelf of the bookcase, she’d confirmed that, in between missions, he’d sailed on Frobisher company business, ferrying personages of wealth and influence—often royalty—across various seas. Those were the voyages she and others in Aberdeen, and no doubt elsewhere, knew of and associated with Royd Frobisher.

The missions were something else entirely.

She’d led a relatively sheltered existence, yet even with her limited knowledge, she could imagine just how dangerous some of the undertakings he’d been involved in must have been.

Last night, he’d intimated that this voyage was a mission similar to the one that had disrupted their handfasting.

Even more than a need for fresh air, curiosity sent her up on deck. She took several of his journals and logs with her. One glance confirmed that he was at the wheel, and that Duncan stood by his side, the wind whipping his hair about his eager face. She returned her son’s wave—and returned Royd’s sharp look with a noncommittal nod—then headed for the bow.

A triangular bench filled the bow’s tip; the spare anchor was stored beneath it. She climbed up, wedged her shoulders between the gunwales, and settled to read; the more she learned about the man she’d thought she’d known but evidently hadn’t, the better.

Eventually, Bellamy came forward to speak with her. “If you’re ready for luncheon, miss, I’ll summon the captain and the young master.”

“Thank you.” Isobel allowed the old sea dog to gallantly assist her off the bench, then she gathered the journals and logs. “I’ll go down directly.”

Young master. She wondered whether Royd had made any announcement regarding Duncan. Then again, he wouldn’t have had to say a word for his crew to know exactly whose son Duncan was; just seeing father and son together was declaration enough.

Bellamy accompanied her to the aft hatch. While he went on to the upper deck, she went down the stairs and back to the main cabin. She returned the journals and logs to the bookcase; she was closing the doors when she heard Duncan’s feet pattering down the stairs, then thundering along the corridor.

She turned in time to catch him as he hurled himself against her.

“Mama!” He flung his arms around her waist, tipped his head back, and smiled delightedly up at her. “We saw seals—big ones! And lots of gulls.”

She couldn’t resist that smile. She ruffled his hair. “And have you been asking lots of questions?” She knew her son.

“Endless questions.” Royd followed Duncan in; his tone was long-suffering, but his face was alight—as alight as Duncan’s.

The large desk was their table; Isobel sat at one end while Duncan took the place at the front of the desk, facing Royd, who settled in his accustomed chair.

While she smiled at Bellamy and complimented him on the finely sliced corned beef he set before them, she wondered what tack Royd’s calculating mind was taking with respect to Duncan. And herself. In the instant Royd had set eyes on Duncan, their lives—Duncan’s, hers, and Royd’s—had irreversibly changed.

What she didn’t yet know was where that change had landed them. While she would have infinitely preferred to control everything to do with Duncan, now Royd knew of his existence, there was no point imagining she could sit back and hope that Royd would grow bored with the demands of parenthood and lose interest in his son.

She’d told him she would never let anyone take Duncan from her, but from what she’d seen of their interactions, of Royd’s protectiveness and the patience he displayed in dealing with Duncan’s incessant questions, Royd releasing Duncan to her sole care was not going to happen, either.

They—she and Royd, and Duncan, too—were going to have to find common ground, but exactly what such ground might look like, at this stage, she couldn’t begin to guess.

Duncan didn’t speak but applied himself assiduously to taking the edge from his ever-present hunger. Royd watched his son, studying Duncan while he, too, ate. Isobel watched them both, curious as to how they were getting on—curious to see how Royd managed. She’d definitely thrown him into deep water in terms of dealing with a son.

Then again, in all contexts, Royd was an excellent swimmer.

With the worst of his hunger assuaged, Duncan looked at Royd and started asking about ropes and knots.

Royd answered easily.

Isobel kept her attention on her plate.

But eventually, Duncan looked at her. She felt his gaze, looked up, and, for once, couldn’t define the expression in his dark-brown eyes. Then he transferred his gaze to Royd. “You said you’re married to Mama. So what’s my name? My proper full name?”

Royd’s gaze swung her way.

She met it, but not knowing what he’d said to Duncan—and unable to dispute that, in a way, they were, indeed, married—she didn’t know what to say.

Royd looked at Duncan and met his gaze levelly. “What name have you been going by?”

“Duncan Carmody.”

Royd nodded as if having expected that; he probably had. “Your full name is Duncan Carmody Carmichael Frobisher.” He glanced at her and arched a brow.

When Duncan looked at her, she forced herself to nod. “Yes. That’s correct.” She met her son’s gaze. “That is your full name.”

Silently, Duncan repeated the four words, then grinned. “Good.”

He’d finished his meal; he set his cutlery down and reached for the apple Bellamy had left for him. Duncan crunched into the fruit, chewed, swallowed, then asked, “Can I go back on deck?”

She’d eaten enough. Royd had cleaned his plate and was sitting back in his chair, observing. A touch unnerved by the apparent domesticity, she pointed to the glass in front of Duncan. “Finish your milk, and then we’ll go up.”

Duncan seized the glass, drained it, then he grabbed his napkin and wiped off the resulting milky mustache. “I’m ready.”

She rose; so, too, did Royd. She followed Duncan from the cabin, and Royd followed her.

Once again, she retreated to the bench in the bow, and while watching Royd and Duncan, revisited the questions to which she still lacked answers.

Royd opted to leave the wheel in Liam Stewart’s care and spent the next half hour teaching Duncan a set of basic nautical knots. Eventually consigning Duncan to the tutelage of his bosun, Jolley, to learn more about where and when the different knots were used, Royd strolled to the bow.

On reaching Isobel, he met her dark gaze, then turned and sat by her feet. He rested his forearms on his thighs and clasped his hands. “Well?”

He was perfectly sure she had questions.

“The mission you were sent on after we handfasted. You originally expected it to last only for a month or so. Why did it take so long?”

He knew what he’d written in his journal. He’d reread it many times over the years, whenever the question of whether he could have done anything other than what he had—and thus not lost her—became too insistent and had to be, once again, put to rest. “The original mission was to infiltrate the court of the Dey of Algiers and confirm that he was capturing, holding, and eventually selling Europeans as slaves. In order to do that, I had to pose as a half-French emissary of an Arabic slave trader. I succeeded in getting access to the Dey’s slave pens—where I discovered over three thousand Europeans. That was a far larger number than anyone had imagined. Originally, I was supposed to simply learn the number and then get out and report to Exmouth, who was supposed to be at Gibraltar. But Exmouth came in early and stood off the port of Algiers, thinking to intimidate the Dey into releasing his European captives.”

“And instead, the Dey dug in his heels.”

He nodded. “Rather than report to Exmouth in person, I sent Liam Stewart—I wasn’t all that sure I could keep a civil tongue in my head, but more importantly, I couldn’t risk being seen and recognized boarding Exmouth’s ship. And with Exmouth flying the flag in such a bellicose fashion, I couldn’t risk taking The Corsair—which was masquerading as a corsair’s vessel—out of the harbor. But sending Liam turned out to be a miscalculation. Unknown to me, Exmouth had demanded and been given command over my mission. I hadn’t expected that, but it was around the time Dalziel—my previous commander—was pulling back. Whitehall assumed Exmouth would deal with the Dey without any great problem, and I was, after all, a privateer—giving an admiral command over my mission seemed appropriate to them. By sending Liam, I missed our only chance to retake the reins of the mission, at least as related to me and The Corsair. Liam was in a position to receive orders, but he wasn’t in a position to refuse orders, as I might have done.”

“So it was Exmouth’s orders that kept you in Algiers?”

“Initially. But the longer the stalemate went on, the more essential it became that I remained in position in the Dey’s court. Without the intelligence I provided, Exmouth had no way of knowing what was going on inside the walls—what was happening to the slaves, and what the Dey was planning.” He paused, then added, “It became impossible for me to pull back.”

She’d read his notes; now she had the broader context. He waited, knowing the most critical of her questions was yet to come.

Eventually, she said, “You dithered over sending me a letter. You never dither.”

He snorted. She was right. But over that... “Once I realized I was stuck, and the negotiations between the Dey and Exmouth looked set to drag on for months, I wanted to write, at least to let you know that I was unavoidably detained. But by then the blockade was increasingly tense. I couldn’t leave the city—by then, I couldn’t easily leave the palace. My men were running messages out to Exmouth. While The Corsair could slip out of the harbor—the fleet knew her and would have let her past—she wouldn’t have been able to sail in again, not without being marked as an enemy, along with all those on her.” He paused, remembering. “Several of my crew—Stewart, Bellamy, Jolley, and others—offered to take a letter and, using a rowboat, slide around the blockade in order to get the letter out to you. They would have had to go to Gibraltar. But the French were hanging off, beyond the fleet, looking to make mischief. They didn’t dare bother Exmouth, especially as he had the Dutch fleet at his back, but if the French had intercepted a letter from me, as me, to you...they would have taken great delight in informing the Dey as to whom, exactly, he was entertaining.”

“The risk was too great.”

He looked at his clasped hands. “My life, my crew’s lives, and the lives of over three thousand captives—that was what hung in the balance.” He wasn’t overstating the matter. “I had to let all notion of contacting you go.”

And he’d believed she’d loved him enough to overlook his silence.

In retrospect, that had been his biggest miscalculation, but even now, he couldn’t imagine doing anything other than what he’d done.

“Exmouth bombarded Algiers in late August.” He may as well give her the complete picture. “All the targets in the city that were hit were ones I’d identified—the armory, the magazine, the barracks. The Dey capitulated and surrendered the European slaves. But he sent out only just over a thousand—those from one set of pens. So I had to remain until we got all the Europeans released. It took until March the following year. Only once that was done was I free to drop my disguise, reboard The Corsair, and sail home.”

In what had turned into a very bitter victory.

Minutes ticked past. Neither of them spoke. The bow rose and fell; water susurrated against the sides as the prow cleaved through the waves.

She stirred. “Looking back at what happened...it was inevitable in the circumstances. It was no one’s fault.”

A few days ago, he wouldn’t have agreed, but after hearing her version of events... “Inevitable because you didn’t know why I’d stayed away.”

“Yes.” Isobel hesitated, but she’d always wondered about what had happened next. “And you didn’t try to explain. After I told you to go away, you walked away and left it at that.”

“No.” For the first time since he’d sat by her feet, he turned his head and, frowning, met her gaze. “I tried twice to see you—precisely to explain.”

She frowned back. “When?”

“The first time was two days after. It took me that long to...convince myself I had to speak to you.” He faced forward. “That I needed to make you understand.” He paused, then said, “I was met at the door by one of your older cousins. She told me in no uncertain terms that you didn’t want to see me.”

A chill touched her heart. In a low voice, she said, “I never knew you’d come.”

He looked down at his clasped hands. “I thought perhaps you were still in a snit—I tried again a week later. Another cousin turned me away with a flea in my ear.”

She looked at Duncan, sitting cross-legged beside Jolley and busily knotting rope. “They were trying to protect me—they knew about Duncan.”

A shudder ran through Royd’s large frame. She glanced at him; he was staring at his linked hands. His fingers were gripping hard, then abruptly they eased. In a low, almost tortured voice, he said, “I’d been the central cog in a long and difficult mission—I’d saved three thousand lives and got away with my crew and myself unharmed. I was...a hero by anyone’s standards, yet you didn’t want to know. That’s how I saw it.”

His chest swelled.

Her gaze locked on his profile, she didn’t expect him to say more, yet she waited, breath bated...

“I was so damned hurt! No, worse—it felt like a wound, a stab wound more deadly than any I’d ever taken.” His voice was raw, his tone harsh. “You were the only one I’d ever let so close—you were the only one who could ever have hurt me like that. And you did.”

The sounds of the sea—of the wind, the waves, the sails, and the gulls—surrounded them and held them in a cocoon of remembered pain.

Then he drew a huge breath and, raising his head, exhaled. “So yes, I walked away. From you, from us. From everything we’d been to each other.” More evenly, he stated, “There was no other way for me to go on.”

She didn’t need to think to know that everything he’d said had been the literal truth. His expression might be unreadable, impenetrable, but this was Royd; she’d always been attuned to his moods, his emotions. His feelings rippled over her awareness; she sensed them in the same way a blind person used touch to read.

“I thought then,” he went on, once again gazing at his clasped hands, “that while I’d been away fighting for king and country, you’d fallen out of love with me. That you’d changed your mind. That whatever had been between us, it hadn’t been love, the sort that never died—that that hadn’t been a part of our equation at all.” He lifted one shoulder. “What else was I to think?”

Rocked by the intensity of his feelings—she’d forgotten how powerful his emotions were—she felt as if, once again, she was reeling.

Then he turned his head and looked at her. The unshielded emotions in his gray gaze sliced effortlessly through her defenses; they might as well not have been there. Then he said, his tone hard but even, “You didn’t fight for us, either.”

She held his piercing gaze. “I didn’t know there was an ‘us’ worth fighting for.”

Royd held to the contact, to the steadiness in her dark-brown eyes; she’d ever been his anchor, his safe harbor through any storm. But this storm raged between them, created of them, yet it seemed they now stood at the eye, with the past behind them, but no clear view of what might lie ahead. Of what future they might have.

Your future will be what you make of it.

His father’s words. Oh, so true.

“Now we both know the truth of what happened eight years ago, is there an ‘us’ worth fighting for now?”

The critical question.

She didn’t look away; she felt the weight of the moment as acutely as he.

After several silent seconds, she drew breath and simply said, “I don’t know, but there might be.” Her gaze flicked past him, down the deck. “And then there’s Duncan.”

He followed her gaze to where their son was diving headfirst into his heritage.

He considered the sight, then replied, “As there is, indeed, Duncan, I suggest ‘might be’ is a possibility you and I need to explore.”

She returned her gaze to his face.

He turned his head and met her eyes.

Her gaze was steady and unwavering.

He realized he was holding his breath.

Then she nodded. “To confirm or eliminate—we can’t go forward without knowing...what might be.”

* * *

Royd spent the rest of the afternoon with William Kelly, going over charts and plotting the fastest route from Southampton to Freetown. He made no attempt to advance his position with respect to his de facto wife and his son until, seated about his desk in the main cabin, the three of them had dined, and after having cleared their plates, Bellamy produced a blancmange for Duncan.

How his steward had managed to concoct such a thing while at sea, Royd couldn’t imagine, but as he watched Duncan’s eyes light, he couldn’t help but smile. Duncan babbled his thanks, then attacked the treat. Satisfied, Bellamy withdrew.

Duncan glanced at Royd and—predictably—posed another question; having learned of knots and ropes to his immediate satisfaction, his interest had shifted to sails.

Royd dutifully listed the sails The Corsair flew, expounding on when each set was deployed and what weather conditions limited their use.

Throughout, his senses remained trained on Isobel.

The task of rewinning her was going to be a great deal more demanding than winning over Duncan, even though he suspected that more of what she’d once felt for him remained in her heart than she’d yet let him see. As far as he could tell, he had reason enough to hope that, under her prickly carapace, she still loved him.

God knew, he still loved her.

After their discussion in the bow—which he didn’t want to revisit even in his mind; just the thought of what had fallen from his lips left him feeling naked and vulnerable—she’d retreated somewhat. Just half a step, enough to think things through. That was her way. She tended to stand back and assess before stepping forward, while he forged on, assessing as he went.

That was why, in all their childhood adventures, she’d always followed rather than led. Not because she was any less adventurous but because she possessed at least one cautious instinct.

He wasn’t sure he possessed any such instincts at all. Any caution he brought to bear derived from a single-minded drive to succeed, to win—a recognition that sometimes winning required caution. In pursuit of a prize, he could be cautious. He could be patient.

He was going to have to be patient to win the particular prize he’d set his heart on. Dealing with Isobel had never been easy. Challenging, exhilarating, and satisfying, undoubtedly. Easy, no.

But she’d admitted to a “might be,” and at present, that was enough. He wasn’t going to push her; that way lay dragons.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t shore up his position. Not sharing all aspects of his life with her had been his critical misstep in the past; that wasn’t a mistake he would make again.

By the time Duncan had scraped every skerrick of blancmange from the bowl and downed the last of his milk, Royd had decided on his next step.

He waited while Isobel oversaw Duncan’s nighttime ablutions, then tucked him into the bed built out from the ship’s side and dropped a motherly kiss on his forehead. Royd stepped back from the doorway as she returned to the main cabin. Once she’d shut the connecting door, he tipped his head toward the door to the cabin he was using. “Now you’ve caught up with the past, perhaps you’d like to learn what I know of what’s going on in Freetown.”

Curiosity flared in her eyes.

His words hadn’t been any real question; he didn’t wait for an answer. She followed readily as he walked to the connecting door, opened it, and went in. He’d left a lantern burning. She hesitated on the threshold, then her gaze fixed on the documents he’d left on the bed’s coverlet.

He waved her to them. “That’s all the information I’ve received to this point. The letters are in order.”

She walked in, picked up the sheaf, sat on the bed, and started reading.

He leaned against the washstand and indulged himself by watching her. The decision to show her the letters hadn’t been a difficult one. He’d unwittingly taught her she couldn’t trust him to be entirely open with her; it was therefore up to him to demonstrate that he’d changed his tack and that she could henceforth have confidence that he would share all with her.

Fifteen minutes later, she reached the end of the last missive—Wolverstone’s recent summons. She set the sheet down on top of the inverted pile, then raised her head and met his gaze. “You said you were on a mission that echoed that one eight years ago. I can see why—it’s white slavers again. And in Africa, although a different part.” Her eyes searched his face. “In the letter from Declan, he said his wife, Lady Edwina, believed several young women had been taken by the slavers. Do you think Katherine might be among them?”

He caught her gaze. “It’s possible—perhaps even likely—but with luck, we’ll learn if your quest and my mission are one and the same soon enough.” He paused, only then realizing she might not be all that keen to meet his brothers again, not in his company, not in the present circumstances. Regardless... “The Corsair is headed for Southampton to provision for the voyage to Freetown, but I have to go to London—to receive my orders, learn everything Declan and Edwina, and also Robert and Miss Aileen Hopkins, can tell me, and most important of all, to be there when Caleb gets back, so I can hear his report firsthand and glean the most detailed information on the slavers and the suspected mining camp. If I’m to successfully take the camp, I need to learn as much about it as I can.”

She gestured at the letters. “They don’t spell it out, but I take it your mission will be to rescue those taken and capture the villains behind the scheme.”

He nodded. “In that order, at least in my mind. As you no doubt noted, there’s political pressure building over bringing the perpetrators to justice, and from the tone of communications thus far, I expect to be charged with securing evidence sufficient to convict whoever’s involved. I will if I can. However, my overriding objective will be to get the captives—however many there are and whoever they are—to safety.”

“Indeed.” She folded her hands in her lap and met his gaze challengingly. “I’ll accompany you to London.”

She expected an argument. He hid a grin and inclined his head. “We’ll leave the ship tomorrow morning. I’ll have Liam lay in to Ramsgate so we can go ashore, then the ship will proceed to Southampton, provision, and stand ready.”

She frowned. “Duncan.” After a second of staring into space, she refocused on his face. “Do you think there’s any viable way to send him back to Aberdeen?”

“Quite aside from the battle you would have to pry him from the ship, I can’t imagine any way I would want to risk it.” He paused, then said, “He stowed away. From what I gathered, he managed the feat of escaping Carmody Place and all those who no doubt keep an eye on him there and managed to get himself to the docks and aboard The Corsair all by himself. If you try to send him home now, after he’s had his boots on my deck, what do you think is most likely to happen?”

She grimaced.

Dryly, he added, “You only need to consider how his parents would react in the same situation. He is, after all, both of us combined. Attempting to send him home at this point will be wasted effort—and, incidentally, effort and time neither you nor I have to spare.”

Isobel stifled a sigh. “You’re right. If we try to send him home in the care of anyone but you or me, I wouldn’t put it past him, glib-tongued and quick-witted as he is, to slip his leash and board some other ship bound for Freetown...and the risks of such an action don’t bear thinking of.” She paused, then refocused on Royd. “So what do you suggest?”

He told her.

Of course, he’d already seen the potential problem and had worked out a solution.

She had to admit it was a workable plan, one that would assuage her motherly concerns while at the same time allowing Duncan to do what he now needed to do—namely, to get to know his father. And that was best done on The Corsair. Regardless of what happened between her and Royd, Duncan’s relationship with Royd was now a nascent reality, one that needed to be given time to develop and evolve.

She’d always felt deeply guilty over denying Duncan the father he’d desperately wanted. Now that, viewed through his ship-mad boy’s eyes, he’d discovered his father far surpassed most normal mortals, she couldn’t in all conscience deny him more time with Royd. And she harbored no doubts that on The Corsair, Duncan would be safe.

“All right.” She thought, then added, “If you can convince him to stay aboard while we go to London, we’ll follow your plan.”

That plan hadn’t specifically covered what to do with Duncan while they detoured to London, but Royd nodded. “While in London, I’ll need to focus on the mission, on learning everything I can and dealing with Wolverstone and Melville. Especially Melville and his political pressures. I assume you’ll be similarly involved in pursuing all pertaining to Katherine and her whereabouts. Leaving Duncan in the care of people he doesn’t know, and with whom he shares no affinity, would be senseless, and neither you nor I will need the additional distraction of having to explain his existence to Declan, Edwina, and Robert at this time.”

As usual, he saw the situation as she did. She was well acquainted with his natural protectiveness; she could rely on him to ensure their son was safe. Truth be told, it was something of a relief to have someone she trusted with whom to share parental responsibility—a lightening of the burden she’d carried entirely by herself since Duncan was born.

Although Royd had remained leaning against the washstand, as far from her as he could reasonably be in the confines of the cabin, even though she’d left the door to the main cabin open, she was nevertheless intensely aware of him, his physical presence—that he was just a yard or so away and she was sitting on his bed. A sort of sensual fluster, a tempting distraction, had risen inside her, but she’d be damned if she let him see any hint of her abiding susceptibility. She fought to maintain her expression of calm focus. “Very well.” She raised her gaze and met his eyes. “When in the morning will we reach Ramsgate?”

He almost gave her the time in bells; she saw the fractional hesitation as he worked out the hours. The instant his boots hit a deck, he converted to ship’s time, but she’d never been able to keep ship’s bells in her head.

“About ten o’clock. It depends on the tide.”

Deliberately regal, she inclined her head and rose. “In that case, I’ll start packing.” She walked to the door to her cabin. She paused in the doorway; without looking back, she said, “Thank you for telling me about the mission.” She tipped her head. “Good night.”

She walked into her cabin and closed the door on his low-voiced, darkly sensual “Good night.”

And only then allowed a reactive shiver to course through her. His tone had evoked memories of sliding sheets, naked skin, hot hard muscles, and bone-deep pleasure.

Frowning, she banished the images and busied herself getting one of her trunks ready for a short sojourn in London. She wished she’d asked Royd how long he thought they would be there, but suspected even he didn’t know. If they were waiting on Caleb and The Prince to return from Freetown, there was no telling how long that might be.

Later, after she’d changed into her nightgown, turned out the last lamp, and slid between the sheets, she lay on her back and stared at the starlight washing across the cabin’s coffered ceiling.

She didn’t try to stop her mind from replaying their recent exchanges. In looking back over the years, at a past she now knew a great deal more about, it seemed as if their handfasting had attracted the notice of some malignant Fate—one that had arranged for the mission that had called him away and ensured he hadn’t been able to come home or to contact her. His absence had allowed her doubts to rise and gain strength. And because she had doubted herself so much, she hadn’t believed in him. She’d lost faith in what had been between them, had convinced herself the link was too weak to sustain a marriage.

But what lay between them had been far stronger than she’d thought—it had sunk its claws into him as much as it had her—and it had never eased its grip. It certainly hadn’t died. It hadn’t even withered from neglect.

That bond still thrummed and thrived—in every glance, every touch. In every meeting of their minds.

And now there they were, setting off on a different yet similar mission, this time together with their son by their side and her cousin, by all accounts, among the captives they would fight to free.

“Fate,” she murmured, “moves in decidedly cynical ways.”

But it wasn’t Fate that occupied the center of her mind. It wasn’t even Duncan.

Royd was there again. He’d never slipped from her mind entirely, but he hadn’t commanded that central position for the past eight years. Now he’d reclaimed it, becoming the lynchpin in the wheel of her existence.

And the revelation of his other life—of the missions he’d run, the dangers he’d faced, the risks he’d taken for king and country—had only repainted her long-ago, somewhat-faded picture of him in bright, intense hues. The Royd of now was infinitely more vibrant, vital, and virile than her memories.

He was everything she’d dreamed he might grow to be, and more. He now possessed dimensions that hadn’t been there before, and they called to her even more powerfully.

He’d reclaimed that place at the center of her soul as if by fiat—by right.

The irony of it was that it had been she who had marched into his office and insisted he deal with her on a personal level again—she who had invited him to resume that dominant position, not that she’d imagined he would reclaim it, much less so effortlessly.

That hadn’t been a part of her calculations at all.

Thinking of calculations...she wasn’t at all sure what his were—exactly what steps he had in mind. He’d made her privy to his past, something he hadn’t needed to do, yet had. He’d allowed her to see more than anyone would have expected him—a man like him—to reveal of how their fraught past had affected him. Then he’d shared all he knew about his current mission before she’d asked, and topped it off by readily acquiescing to her accompanying him to London and—although they hadn’t specifically discussed the point—insinuating herself into the mission, by his side.

She was intimately acquainted with how his mind worked. He always had a goal in mind. With respect to her, to them, she didn’t yet know what his desired goal was—he hadn’t yet shared that detail with her. Perhaps he didn’t yet know himself; the Lord knew she was still at sea as to what the possibilities were, what options they might have.

From her point of view, what lay between them was a sea of uncertainty. Yet as he’d suggested, there might, even after eight years apart, be something between them worth fighting for.

A proper marriage and a shared future?

That had been the goal that, once, had glowed ahead of them, almost within their reach.

But they’d stumbled at the last, courtesy of Fate.

Now they’d come around again...but were they on the right tack to secure the same goal, or had they lost their way entirely and were sailing on some other sea?

Her thoughts merged into dreams before she caught even a glimpse of an answer.

* * *

Isobel stood at the starboard rail and watched Ramsgate draw nearer. The headland to the north of the town slid smoothly past; flocks of seagulls rising into the air and settling again marked the harbor just beyond.

The day had dawned fine, the sky clearer now they were farther south. The seas were running reasonably smoothly—no impediment to them being rowed into the harbor and to the main wharf.

Earlier, over breakfast, she’d sat back and let Royd break the news to Duncan that they would be leaving the ship to go to London while he remained aboard and traveled on to Southampton.

If she’d thought more about it—if she’d put herself in Duncan’s shoes—she might have realized that his reaction would be one of relief; at his age, London held little allure, while the prospect of spending more time aboard The Corsair—under Liam Stewart’s wing and with unlimited access to the rest of the crew—was Duncan’s idea of heaven.

Royd—in typical Royd fashion—had immediately capitalized on Duncan’s rapture to address the next stage of the adventure. Royd had made his expectations clear; once he and she rejoined The Corsair in Southampton, Duncan could decide whether he wanted to return to Aberdeen in the company of one of Royd’s men or sail on with them to their destination. However, if he chose the latter, once they reached Freetown, Duncan would have to remain on board—without complaint—throughout the time they were in the tropics.

“Your choice,” Royd had concluded. “Think about it during the days you’re in Southampton. While there, you can accompany the crew onto the docks and into the town, as long as you first get Liam’s approval. While I’m absent, Liam’s word is law on The Corsair. But once we return, if you elect to sail on with us, I will need your word that you will remain on board until we reach Southampton again.”

Duncan was clever enough not to rush into making a decision. He’d nodded soberly. “All right.”

So matters with Duncan were as settled as they could be.

Which left her able to focus on her quest to find and rescue Katherine. And on the more immediate and distinctly fraught question of how to deal with Royd.

Of deciding what to do about him, her, and their future.

Courtesy of Duncan stowing away, Royd and she clearly now had a future, but what shape it might take...

Despite all she’d learned over the past days, rescripting beliefs held for years couldn’t, she’d discovered, be accomplished overnight. Even though she now understood the why of Royd’s behavior eight years ago, her emotions—her feelings—hadn’t yet seen the light.

Hadn’t yet let go of their entrenched resistance, much less lowered the shields she had, for nearly a decade, deployed. In time, that might come, but meanwhile, she still felt very much on guard around him—still instinctively kept her heart shielded.

She’d once been utterly open to him, and he’d hurt her. That was a truth, too, one her emotions hadn’t yet accepted could be excused and forgiven.

Rescripting emotions appeared akin to resetting a building’s foundations—difficult, and once done, other things needed to be changed to keep the building stable. Similar to altering a ship’s hull and having to change structures throughout the vessel to compensate. In short, such a change was not a simple one.

And Royd was rarely patient, not over anything he’d set his mind to achieving, but presumably, he, too, would be struggling with similar inner difficulties.

As Ramsgate harbor came into full view, and Liam swung the wheel and called for the wind to be spilled from the sails and for all canvas to be lowered, she turned to look back along the deck—and saw Royd pacing toward her. His eyes were fixed on her; although his features told her little, the intensity of his gaze suggested he’d already moved past any difficulties he might have had.

For an instant, she felt bathed in the force of his will, the invincibility of his intent. It took effort to drag her gaze from his—to look to where the crew were readying the tender to swing it over the side.

To remember how to breathe.

He halted beside her and looked at the tender. “I had them load your bandbox and the brown trunk. That was the right one, wasn’t it?”

Surreptitiously, she cleared her throat. “Yes.” Where did this fluster come from? She knew this man, had for years, yet... She glanced around. “Where’s Duncan?”

“By the winch.”

The sight of her son—their son—calmed her. He was standing beside Jolley, listening intently to the bosun’s crisp orders and avidly watching every move the sailors made.

His gaze on her face, Royd said, “I told him he couldn’t go in the tender—not this time—but that he’d have plenty of opportunity to ride in it and learn to row while in Southampton.”

As usual, their minds traveled on similar lines. “No telling who might be on the wharf to see him farewell us.”

“Indeed. But in Southampton, the wharves will be so crowded it’s unlikely anyone will pay much attention to one boy, even if he’s with my crew.”

“Even if they did, they’ll assume he’s a cabin boy.”

The tender had been swung over the side and steadily lowered; it landed in the sea with a small splash. Four sailors slid down the ropes to land in the bobbing vessel, followed by Williams, Royd’s quartermaster. In the gap where the ship’s side had been opened, Jolley—assisted by Duncan—sent a rope ladder unrolling toward the tender.

Together, Isobel and Royd walked to the gap. Isobel peered out and was relieved to see that the end of the ladder reached the tender’s side; she could drop the last yard easily enough.

She turned to Duncan—and he flung himself at her and hugged her.

“Goodbye, Mama!” He tipped his head back and looked into her face, and the delight that radiated from him slayed any whisper of worry that he was secretly bothered by them being parted, however temporarily. He grinned exuberantly. “I’ll see you in Southampton!”

Her heart twisted a little as she smiled back, then she hugged him close and bent to press a kiss to his forehead—the only sort of public bussing he would currently permit. “Be good.” She released him and stepped back.

Royd briefly met Isobel’s eyes, then hunkered down beside Duncan, bringing his head level with his son’s. He caught and held Duncan’s gaze. “Remember—on board ship, the captain’s word is law, and Mr. Stewart is captain while I’m ashore. If you break the law, then you won’t be able to remain aboard. If that happens, we”—with a brief glance, he included Isobel—“will be forced to send you back to Aberdeen with an escort.” He returned his gaze to Duncan’s now-sober dark eyes. “That’s what happens when someone breaks ship’s law. They don’t get to board that ship again.”

Entirely serious, Duncan shook his head from side to side. “I won’t break ship’s law.”

Royd grinned—man-to-man—and rose. “I know you won’t—you’re too clever for that.”

Duncan’s brilliant smile bloomed again. “Goodbye.” He held out his hand.

Royd grasped it, but instead of shaking hands, pulled Duncan into him. He hugged Duncan’s slight body and ruffled his hair, then when Duncan squealed with laughter, let him go. “As your mother said, be good.”

With that, he turned to Isobel. “Let me go down first.”

He suited action to the words. She’d elected to wear an ivory carriage dress, severe and form-fitting. When they met in office or shipyards, she routinely wore darker colors, most likely to better withstand the inevitable dust and grime. Although no hue could mute her vivid coloring, certainly not in his eyes, the ivory outfit, with its matching hat, gloves, and half-boots, made her a cynosure for all eyes, male and female alike. And although he knew she could swim, he would rather she didn’t get dipped in the drink; his men wouldn’t be able to catch her, but he knew her weight and could.

He dropped into the tender, caught his balance, and looked up. She was already more than halfway down.

Accustomed to going up and down ladders, she knew the knack of accomplishing the feat in skirts. He’d never worked out how she did it, but her skirts never flared, nor did they tangle her feet.

She slowed as she neared the end of the ladder and stopped on the last rung, leaving her swinging just above the tender’s side.

He reached up and grasped her waist. She clung to the ladder for an instant—whether to allow him to adjust to their combined weights or simply from surprise—then she released her grip on the ropes, and he swung her inboard and set her on her feet before the middle bench.

“Thank you.” She looked down, brushing her skirts.

Royd glanced up at the deck and saw Liam Stewart looking down, a grin on his face. Royd sketched a salute. “Command is yours, Mr. Stewart.”

Liam snapped off a salute in reply. “Aye, aye, Captain. We’ll see you in Southampton.”

The opening in the ship’s side rattled back into place. Duncan’s face appeared over the top edge. He waved energetically. “Goodbye!”

Royd grinned and waved back. He glanced down and saw Isobel, seated on the middle bench, smiling and waving, too.

One set of hurdles cleared.

At his nod, Williams, at the tiller, barked an order, and the four sailors seated on the benches fore and aft bent to the oars. Royd sat beside Isobel, and the tender came smoothly around and set off for the harbor and the inner basin beyond. “We’ll use the water stairs before the Castle Hotel. It has the best stables in town—we’ll be able to hire a carriage and four there.”

She nodded. A moment later, she murmured, “What you said to Duncan—that was...clever, too.”

His gaze on the hulls ahead of them, instinctively plotting the course Williams would take through the maze, he replied, “As we both know, there’s no point hoping he won’t have wild impulses. The best we can do is teach him to think through the consequences—that there always will be consequences—before he gives in to the wildness.”

She snorted softly. “Spoken as one who knows all about wildness?”

He nodded. “Just like you.”

* * *

Apparently, Frobisher captains used the Castle Hotel on the Harbour Parade frequently enough to not just be recognized but welcomed as princes. The landlord greeted Royd effusively and, immediately on being informed of their need, showed them to a small, well-appointed private parlor where they might wait in relative peace while his ostlers scrambled to harness the house’s very best team to their fastest, most recently acquired carriage.

That exercise didn’t take long. Having declined an offer of tea, as soon as the head ostler looked in to report that their conveyance stood waiting, Isobel declared herself ready to depart.

She’d spent the fifteen minutes in the parlor mentally listing all the subjects on which she needed to quiz Royd in an attempt to force her mind and her witless senses from dwelling on the recent scintillating moments when he had touched her—when he’d lifted her from the ladder to the rowboat in a potent display of mind-numbing strength, then later, when he’d handed her from the boat to the water stair and had to seize her and steady her when her boot slipped on the slimy stone. In that case, she’d landed flush against him, breast to chest, and had lost her breath. Then she’d tumbled into his gray eyes and nearly lost her wits entirely; she’d only just resisted the urge to haul his head down and kiss him.

She knew perfectly well what caused such reactions—there was no sense pretending they had never been intimate—but the effect of such moments was proving to be more intense, more distracting, and indeed, more discombobulating than she’d foreseen.

Of course, he had to hand her into the carriage, but that much touch, she could deal with; even though there was no escaping the undercurrent of possessiveness that imbued even that minor gallantry, she could ignore it.

After the head ostler shut the door and the coachman cracked his whip, the carriage—excellently well-sprung and obviously new—rocked out of the inn yard and wound its way out of the town and onto the highway.

She waited as long as she could—as long as she could bear the impact of his nearness without reacting in any way. They were bowling along, the repetitive thud of the horses’ hooves a steady, reassuring rhythm, when the sense of being private and alone with him at close quarters grew too intense, and she surrendered and broached the first topic on her list. Or, at least, the first point she thought it safe to address.

The implication underlying Royd’s discussion with Duncan over breakfast that morning had been that, when in Freetown, she would accompany him off-ship. While that was precisely what she wished, she had to wonder how far his new policy of including her in his mission would stretch. Now, however, wasn’t the moment to examine that issue; better to wait until she knew more about Katherine’s whereabouts and the details of his mission.

That said, he would know she would have noticed the change in his tack.

“I’ll admit that while I’m”—reassured? appeased?—“impressed by your willingness to take me into your confidence with respect to this mission, I’m unsure as to whether you will be, for instance, interested in my opinions on the matter.”

He was sitting opposite her; across the carriage, he met her eyes. “I am. I expect to hear your opinions.” His lips twitched. “Indeed, I feel supremely confident that I’ll hear your opinions whether I invite them or not.”

She sent him a distinctly unimpressed look.

His smile deepened, and he settled more comfortably against the squabs. “But yes, I expect us to work together on this. Unless your cousin has fallen prey to some other scheme entirely—which, frankly, is unlikely, not in such a relatively small settlement—then I expect our goals will align, and our paths forward will be intertwined.”

She studied him for a full minute, trying to see, to imagine... “You’re no more likely to invite a woman to share command than the next captain.”

“But I’m not inviting just any woman to join me—I’m inviting you.”

The intensity in his gray gaze assured her he meant exactly that with full knowledge of the consequences. She couldn’t stop herself from baldly asking, “Why?”

“Because despite all the storm water under our joint bridge, we’ve always—since I was eleven and you were six, for heaven’s sake—worked well together. Our characters are similar, so we understand each other instinctively, often without the need for explanations—which we both find boring—and our talents are astonishingly complementary.” He hesitated, then went on, “You might not realize how rare that is, but as a team...we’re blessed.”

“Together we’re more than each of us separately?”

“Exactly.” He paused, then said, “You know my mother often sailed with my father—more or less whenever she could. When she was on board, she was Papa’s first mate in every sense, except the actual sailing. That wasn’t an interest of hers, but everything else to do with his voyages was as much her domain as his.” He held her gaze levelly. “So in my family, having the captain’s wife aboard, functioning more or less as an equal partner, is not a novel concept.”

She wasn’t his wife...except she was. Rather than venture into that quagmire—one topic she was definitely not ready to discuss—she inclined her head and turned to the next item on her list. “Speaking of your family, who can I expect to meet in London?”

“Declan and Edwina—we’ll stay at their house. And Robert’s there at present, along with Miss Aileen Hopkins, who returned from Freetown with him. Robert and Miss Hopkins intend to marry, but because of the ongoing mission, they haven’t announced their betrothal yet.”

She’d heard of Declan’s wedding, held at a ducal estate somewhere in England. “I gather Lady Edwina visited Aberdeen after their wedding, but we didn’t meet. She’s a duke’s daughter, isn’t she?”

Royd nodded. “As you’ll have noted, that didn’t prevent her from sailing with Declan to Freetown and immersing herself in his leg of the mission. It seems her contribution was significant—she manages social situations very well.”

Declan had always struck her as the most conservative of the brothers; she found herself rather more interested in meeting his wife than she had been. “What do you know of Miss Hopkins?”

“I’ve never met her, but she’s the younger sister of two navy men I know. They have an even younger brother who’s a lieutenant with the West Africa Squadron, and like your cousin, he, too, has inexplicably disappeared.”

“He was one of those sent to look for the army engineer who vanished, wasn’t he? That was in Declan’s and Robert’s letters.”

“Indeed.” Royd paused, then grimaced. “While I understand why Caleb took Robert’s journal, I wish he’d left a copy.”

“By the sound of it, there wasn’t time.”

Royd humphed. “He didn’t waste time setting sail so no one could stop him.”

Why did he want Robert’s journal? “Is Robert’s journal like yours?”

He shook his head. “Mine’s more like a captain’s log. Robert keeps a much more detailed record. There’ll be lots of descriptions and sketches. It’s a habit he picked up from my mother, and in circumstances like this, it’s a godsend.”

“Presumably Caleb will bring Robert’s journal back. You’ll have time to read it before we reach Freetown.”

He nodded absentmindedly, his gaze shifting to the trees flashing past.

The carriage was rocketing along; they’d passed onto a properly macadamed stretch, and the pounding of the horses’ hooves resembled thunder.

After the coachman took a curve at speed, forcing her to steady herself with a hand against the side, she looked at Royd. “Did you say something to the coachman about being in a rush?”

“I offered him ten guineas if he got us to Stanhope Street before three o’clock.”

She considered that as the reckless, unquestionably risky pace continued unabated. The sooner they reached Stanhope Street—presumably where Declan and his Edwina lived—the sooner she’d be able to put some space between Royd and her, and the sooner her nerves, tense in a way she recognized from long ago, would ease.

After weighing the risk against the reward, she concluded it wasn’t in her best interests to protest. She sat back and, like Royd, stared out at the scenery whizzing past and waited for journey’s end.