He released her and stood, pacing the cabin. Finally he paused again, leaning against the doors.
“I have not touched her in a decade, Brianna.”
Brianna inhaled deeply. “Sloan, I—”
“You must understand,” he said, and his features were taut as he searched her countenance. “She is my wife. I never loved her—not as I have learned to love you—and yet she does hold a part of my heart for all that we once were. She is mine to care for, Brianna, and that I do. I beg you not to despise me, for I have come to need you just as I love you.”
She had never heard more earnest speech nor seen a man more fraught with pain. She felt no more anger against him. She longed to reach out to him, but could not.
“Sloan,” she whispered at last, “I am sorry. So very sorry, for I believe with all my heart that you do love her. And I believe that you do love me. I—I don’t know what to say to you, or what to do. Oh, Sloan! I just can’t be your mistress! Taken about from port to port, displayed to the world, with no home, no life, no future.…”
“It would not have to be like that!” He came to her then, falling to his knees before her, taking her hands feverishly in his. “Ah, Brianna! Do you think that I would not care for you, that I would not silence the world if—”
“No man can silence the world, Sloan, Not even you,” Brianna told him wearily. “But it is not the slights of any that concern me. Sloan, I just don’t know that I could bear it; that I could ever forget Alwyn, or”—she paused, searching out his intent and blazing eyes—“Sloan! Have you forgotten how you decry the plight of bastards? Jemmie Scott, dying in his quest for a crown denied him because of his birth. Sloan, it frightens me.”
“Nay! Brianna, once I swore that I would not inflict such a fate upon a child. But I love you; I long for our child. Brianna, I will leave no legal heirs! Our child—”
“Will be a bastard,” she interrupted simply. “You cannot change that.”
“I swear that he will never suffer.…”
She smiled at him, feeling numb and exhausted. “Sloan—it is not right. I am an adulteress, and perhaps because of it, we are cursed. Oh, Sloan, look at all that has befallen!”
“I do not believe in curses!” he cried to her passionately. “Nor can you! Brianna, I love you. I would gladly lay down my life for you a dozen times, and a dozen times again.”
“I believe that you love me,” she whispered.
“But that is not enough?” he demanded bitterly.
“You don’t understand—” she began, but before she could say more there was a pounding on the door.
“Approaching port, Cap’n!” Paddy’s voice called out.
Sloan lowered his head. “I must be topside,” he murmured, and then he was staring at her again, intently. “Brianna…”
“Nay! What can be said? You must take command as we go in.”
“You will not leave me!” he commanded her, and Brianna stiffened regally. “I am not your property, Sloan.”
Angrily he dropped her hands and rose. “Nay, you are not property. Is it property you seek? You have my love, and my life, should you require it. All that I deny you is my name, yet for that you would scorn me. Are you no better than the whore I thought had come to me in Glasgow? Is it the position you crave, the titles and the land? On that account, dear girl, you need not be concerned. I always pay well for services rendered—or have you forgotten?”
She leapt up to face him, slashing out hard with the palm of her hand, driven by the fury and the hurt. He caught her wrist hard, twisting her arm behind her back, and bringing her body to his. The angry tension within him frightened her. “Sloan,” she gasped, for his hold stole her breath, just as his eyes made her tremble with sudden weakness. She fought it, and challenged him. “Sloan! That you can say such words to me belies all the love you claim for me!”
He lowered his dark lashes. His hold eased and then tightened as he cradled her to him. “Forgive me,” he said simply, and she felt the quivering of his hard form.
How dully her heart ached! For all her shattered dreams she could not stop loving him.
“You must go topside,” she whispered miserably, pushing away from him.
He nodded, and for several moments his throat was too thick for speech. “Are you coming ashore with me?”
“I—I do not know, yet.”
His eyes narrowed. “You must not plan an escape. Matthews is dead, but the danger for you is not. There is always another to take Matthews’s place.”
“I’m not planning anything.”
“We have not finished with this discussion. Before God, I tell you it is not safe for you to run. Brianna! Think of the dead!”
