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 His behavior, all unwitting on his part, had caused her old vulnerability to rise up, and she’d withdrawn and barricaded herself against him.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
