LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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