And he learned to carve. Furniture and toys, utensils, and frames, beautiful things, sturdy things. Wood became creation in his hands, and his usefulness to others was further established.
But now as he labored over his task with infinite patience, he did so with a heavy heart. Brianna was still in the room where she had run with a little cry when the noble seaman had left them.
She would be left alone today, he knew. His parents were giving her this time, for her life had been hard of late. They were not without pity, but pity was not an emotion fostered among his faith. Treveryan was imperiling her immortal soul, so he had to be severed from her life, and it was quite that simple. Hard work would cure her of her ills; perhaps her heart was shattered, but it was a young heart, and mendable. And they did not live in a world that could be ruled by the heart, anyway. In time she would meet the proper man, she would stand beside him before God, bear his children, and raise them in the Lord’s way. Happiness was not a promise, it was a blessing that sometimes came like spring rain—and oft departed as quickly.
Tomorrow Brianna would be set to work. Hard toil and labor that would send her to bed exhausted and too bone-weary to bear any anguish in the night for what could not be.
Robert felt her pain and longed to soothe it. He did not believe that she would forget her sea captain—ever. And he knew that now she would be thinking that she did not care about right or wrong, or even her immortal soul. She would be thinking herself the greatest of all fools for having cast away everything in life that mattered to her.
He smiled to himself suddenly, thinking that she was like a summer’s breeze to his life. She had been a beautiful child and she was lovelier as a woman. Just to see her was one of those special gifts that made life worth living. He wished to hold her in his arms and give her what tenderness he could; and he thought then that he loved her himself, and was heartfully sorry for Treveryan—a man who deserved her love, but by God’s will could not have it.
“Robert?”
He started at the soft hesitancy of her tone, but also seemed warmed by its very utterance. He turned to see her, slim and lithe, a silhouette in the doorway, framed by the luxurious colors of the waning sun. She stepped into the barn, and her features became clear.
There was no sign of tears about her face, but she was pale and drawn. Her eyes told of a woman decades older than her age. She was very calm and very still—just so very weary- and empty-looking.
He tried to smile for her. “Come in. Do you like my chair?”
“It is beautiful, Robert,” she said, and she came forward to touch the wood, smoothing it.
She looked at him and there were still no tears in her eyes. Something had settled over her that afternoon, as surely as a cloud of gray—of mystery and steel.
“I wanted to thank you, Robert. Without you I would not have managed to be here still.”
“I did nothing,” he said, simply, and rose.
“But you did,” she murmured. “You stood between us…you told him that we were betrothed.” She stared at him incredulously. “I know that you never lie, Robert!”
“Ah, but was it a lie? For, this afternoon we shall say that we are betrothed!” He walked by her, glancing back over his shoulder. “Brianna, we have little time to prepare and get back to port to sail. That we must get you from England quickly is one of the greatest truths I have ever spoken.”
He felt her tremble even at his distance and he knew that she was not all right. “Imagine, Brianna!” he told her then. “A new land, a different land, far, far across the sea. Something emerging, growing—and we shall be a part of it!”
Two days later they set sail. He stood by her at the ship’s rail, and they stared at England. “Glasgow, and now Upsinwich,” she murmured. “I feel that I am always sailing away.”
“New beginnings,” Robert murmured, squeezing her fingers. “Don’t look back.”
She turned away from the rail. “No,” she promised softly. “I will never look back.”
But every sane person aboard did think to look back as the days at sea passed while terrible storms whipped and raged about them. Traveling was total misery. Brianna had no cabin in which to sleep. She was down in the hold with fifty other women, with only canvas sheeting separating them from the men. There were rats and lice, and always a stench of sickness. Brianna had learned something about sailing, so for the first week, no matter how the ship pitched and swayed and threatened to break apart, she was all right.
But on their ninth day at sea, when the sun suddenly rose brilliantly to crest atop a teal-blue sky, Robert found Brianna alone at the stern of the ship, ghastly pale and gray and wretchedly sick. She tried to wave him away, but he wet a cloth in the barrel of drinking water and returned to clean her face. Her eyes were full of confusion and tumult as a spasm struck her again. She had thought herself a fine sailor.
Robert didn’t say anything to her then; he brooded over her illness for the next few days as it continued.
When they had been out for two weeks, Brianna knew it was time to speak to him.
“Robert,” she said quietly, leaning weakly against him as the shuddering spasms of nausea subsided, “I am expecting a child.”
“I wish to marry you—in truth,” he told her.
She stared at him, stunned. And he thought that she would cry, there was such a crystal glistening of moisture in her eyes.
“No!”
“You do not understand. Everyone on this ship knows that you have no husband.”
“I have endured too much to care what people think or say about me.”
