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