LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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