“But what about your child?” he asked her, and her lashes dropped, and she shuddered.
“I can’t marry you.” Then she smiled ruefully. “I love you too dearly as a cousin to marry you. I could never love you as a husband.” The spark left her eyes and she whispered, “And I carry another man’s child.”
He put his arms around her and held her close. “I do not care.”
“I could not hurt you so!”
“Nay, feel no guilt! If we married, I’d not be used, but rather you would be! We must not fool each other. I never try to fool myself. I am not the man Treveryan is.”
“We are sailing to a new land and I have set my heart on starting over! I will not think of him.”
“You must, just for these moments. He is a good man; he loved you. And you should love his child, with no threat or worry. I am not strong and healthy, and, compared with him, I am a poor excuse for a protector. I can give you almost nothing, but I will love you, and your child, with all that is within me. Can’t you care for me, just a little?” He stepped back. “Brianna! I am sorry. Of course, you are young—you will love again, you will find another—”
He broke off because she was laughing and shaking her head. “I do not want to love again. Never. Robert, I seek no lusty youth. I don’t believe I want to live with a man.”
“Even one who asks nothing from you?” Robert interjected softly, and she stared at him again, very confused. He cleared his throat. “Brianna, I—I ask that we live as friends. “I—I…Lord! Don’t you understand yet? My heart is weak and my lungs are worse. The sea has helped, but I’m often bedridden. Perhaps in time I will grow stronger. Perhaps in time you will love me enough to want me. But for now…You are with child. Can’t we, the three of us, create a life together?”
She did cry then. She leaned her head against his chest and cried.
They were married that evening, just as the sun fell from the sky. It was a calm night, without a breeze. The sea was entirely peaceful, as if content.
And the old world was fading behind them.
Interlude
November 1691
The waves that roared and crashed along the coast were not a pleasant blue. Here, against the rugged coastline, they were gray, ever roiling with great ferocity, as if they promised death from the sea.
It was a lonely place—forlorn, many would say. Grass did not grow like velvet over the rocky mountains and plains—growth here was tenacious. The mauve shrubs and occasional weeds that grew high were stubborn and tough, as were all the coastal inhabitants of this stretch of Wales, Sloan mused as he stood on the high and ragged cliff and stared out broodingly over the ever-changing sea. Then he closed his eyes and shuddered.
He had long ago learned not to think of her. He had schooled himself to follow his quest, to pitch his thoughts and strength and mind into battle. But today, today he could not help but think of her with longing. Perhaps it was being home, perhaps it was staring out at the tempest of the sea. Whatever the reason, she was in his thoughts today, filling his heart with nostalgia and pain.
She was well, he knew. Well, and fine, and happy. He knew because friends of his had been to the Bay Colony, and they had carried tales home. She was so extraordinary lovely that no man who had seen her had ever forgotten her.
“Aye, I know of her,” old Captain Ben of theInveraryhad told him when last they’d met outside Dublin. And his eyes had taken on a faraway look; his parched and weathered lips had twisted to a smile. “She lives in the village, she does—Salem Village, that be. I saw her at the tavern near the dock; they had come for wool. Brown wool, and unadorned, but”—the old man shrugged—“I heard her name, and it seemed to linger on my lips. For in that very plain garb she was more beautiful than a woman full adorned. When she walked, it seemed she floated; she was soft-spoken and sweet and her scent was one of summer flowers. She seemed happy, and yet sad.…”
The old captain had gone on. About her husband—“A rail of a man, he was, but e’er gentle to the woman and the boy. Did I tell you of him? Ah, he’s not more than a year or so in age, but hale and hearty, with a look o’ the devil about him to catch your heart and bring a smile to your lips.”
Sloan stretched his hands out before him and saw that they were trembling. She was happy. And if the child was his, he had no right to interfere. As it was then, so it was now. If he loved her, he would stay away.
He sighed and turned from the sea to stare up at the great gray pile of mortar and stone that was Loghaire Castle, his home. It was drafty and cold; the foundations dated back to long before the coming of William the Conqueror. But as forbidding as the gray stone walls could be, it was home. It was beautiful to him. The land, the sea, and the rugged castle rising like a natural butte against the terrain. When he’d fought the Irish under the Prince of Orange’s command, it had been here that he had dreamed of; his land, a place of solitude and peace.
William had quite easily walked into England. It had been all that Princess Mary had envisioned it might; a glorious, “bloodless” revolution. Her father had been forced to flee; the crown had been offered to William and Mary by the people.
But a number of Scottish lords had rebelled, and they had been crushed. Worse still had been the battles in Ireland. War had seemed interminable there, and through every victory Sloan had felt nothing but sorrow and pain. The Irish had stoutly defended James, even after he had fled. The Battle of the Boyne had brought about the end of the conflict, but even there Sloan had known no triumph. A multitude of fine, noble Irish lords had chosen exile rather than bow down to William. The death in Ireland had wrought fiercely against Sloan’s heart, gnawing at his reason. He had fought hard, but no longer for vengeance; he had fought only for loyalty, and perhaps, out of a flirtation with death.
Sloan suddenly clasped his hands to his head and sank down among the pebbles and the weeds. He wanted so badly to forget Ireland, and the screams of the dying and the wounded. A shudder ripped through him, weakening him, and he took a deep breath and stared out to sea.
He loved the sea. It seemed to beckon to him.
But then he pivoted on his heels and once more stared up at the castle. He couldn’t put out to sea again. Not yet.
Alwyn had been very strange. When he had first returned, he had taken great care that she not see him in his battle garb. He had spent long hours bathing, and dressing to please her. But when he had tried to bring her a present of fine Irish linen, she had screamed so at the sight of him that he had quickly left her chambers and had spent the next days keeping himself out of her sight.
Then one morning she asked to see him; she recognized him again as her childhood playmate.
It was strange, yes, very strange, to play hide-and-seek and chase his wife of a decade around the rosebushes. But her physicians had recommended that he indulge her in her whims, and he was very grateful to see her smile, and hear her laughter.
