“He did. Ah, Brianna, he was a fine human being, and though I cannot deny I love you now, it’s truth, I would have done nothing to take you from him.”
“Oh, Sloan!” she murmured to him, and she curled to him easily, loving and needing his arms about her. “Do you think we can truly find happiness?”
“Aye, we can. It is only elusive to those who do not seek it!”
She nestled against him for a long time, glad of the heat of his chest, of the slight rasp of his chin against her forehead. And she held him fiercely, for she might well have lost him through her own foolishness. But he did love her, tremendously. What other man would do so much—even help her fight her own demons?
“Sloan,” she said at last.
“My love?” His fingers moved idly among the rich tendrils of her hair.
“Am I always to be the one to ask?”
“To ask—” He broke off his own worried query with a chuckle and moved quickly on top of her, pinning her beneath him. “Oh. Nay, I suppose I’ll not make you go so far. Madam, what say you? Shall we have God bless this union at last?”
“Sloan!”
“Nay, my love, I shall do better.” He slid to his knees at the side of the bunk. “Brianna, will you be my wife? The chatelaine of my castle, mother of my present and future children—and first mate of my heart around the seas, forever?”
“I’ve a naked lord at my feet!” she murmured. “How shall I take this?”
“As a naked lady; I see only one way. Answer me, aye! Swear that you will love me all my days, then take me back into your arms and let us begin anew.”
She brought his hand to her lips and fervently kissed the palm, then stretched out welcomingly to encompass all of him.
“Oh, aye, my Lord Treveryan!” she whispered heatedly. “Aye!”
Three days later they passed one of Their Majesties’ English ships at sea. Sloan sent out a beacon, and they grappled the ships together.
The Captain of the traderQueen’s Mercywas a jovial, rounded merchant, thoroughly enchanted and entertained by the idea of marrying another ship’s captain at sea.
On the twentieth of October 1692 Brianna became Lady Treveryan among the good-natured cheers of both crews. Michael was a little awed by the ceremony, but he learned that it meant he would never have to leave either Sloan Treveryan or his mother, and so he was quite content.
That night Sloan and Brianna, with their sleeping son between them, stared out at the stars that blanketed both the sea and sky.
“Are you truly happy, lass?” Sloan asked her.
“Aye, that I am.” And then she twisted to look at him over their son.
“I was just thinking of the first time I came aboard this ship! Locked in a cabin—and told to stay put! And now—well I’ve no intention to spend my life with you sailing away, so I shall be aboard constantly, you know. And if you think I shall remain in a cabin…!”
“There will be no locks and chains upon you, love.”
“You do not need them, you know,” she told him. “Long ago, you chained my heart.”
“Well, your nature is such that every once in a while you must be taken a little into hand.”
She sniffed indignantly. Michael moved against her and she turned to Sloan. “I think we’d best put him to bed now. Sloan, when do you think we should tell him the truth?”
Sloan thought long before he answered. “Brianna, he is young. I say this not to hurt you, but when he is grown, he will not remember Robert. Yet, when the time is right, we will tell him everything. We owe it to Robert—and we owe it to Michael. Robert was, in his way, a very great man, and Michael should always know that he was loved by such a man.”
Brianna nodded, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Sloan,” she whispered.
He set his arm around her, and they moved across hemp and rigging to go belowdecks. They placed Michael in his small bunk and went into the captain’s cabin, smiling as they both started to douse the lanterns at once.
“Tell me about Loghaire, Sloan,” Brianna urged him later when they both lay awake beneath the moon.
And so he did. He told her about the rock-hewn castle, and about the sea, and about the gray mists and the flowers on the slopes when springtime came. But when he was done, he turned to her and said, “I shall never give it up, but I like New York. It’s young and fresh and exciting, and I’d have a home there.”
