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?