Fourteen Months Later

Rory sat behind his desk with the study door open. Sunlight stretched across the carpet, gilding the edge of the estate ledger beneath his hand. Somewhere in the entrance hall, Elspeth laughed. A moment later came the unmistakable crash of something overturned, followed by Sorcha’s exasperated voice and Fergus’s insistence that he had not touched it.

Rory dipped his pen into the ink. Braemore had not grown quieter in the past year. He had merely learned that peace and silence were not the same thing.

Cecily appeared in the open doorway with a letter in one hand. She had pinned her chestnut hair neatly that morning, but several curls had escaped to soften her temples. Rory suspected Catriona’s grasping fingers were responsible.

“A letter from Philippa,” she said.

“How is Edinburgh?”

“Apparently overrun by one gentleman of dreadful reputation and still worse manners.” Her mouth curved. “She required three pages to explain why he is not worth mentioning.”

Rory’s lips quirked. “A compelling argument.”

“I thought so.” Cecily folded the letter. “I shall leave you to your accounts.”

“You need not.”

Her smile warmed. Even after fourteen months, the sight of her smile could loosen something inside him.

“I do if Mrs. Guthrie is to be prevented from giving our daughter honey.”

Rory laid down his pen. “She would not.”

“She says one taste never harmed a child.”

Rory shifted to rise from his chair. “Catriona is four months old!”

“I am aware. Mrs. Guthrie considers this evidence of my excessive caution.”

Cecily crossed the room. She bent to kiss his temple and then disappeared into the passage before he could persuade her to remain.

He had scarcely recovered his place in the ledger when Fergus burst through the open door. “I have been accepted.”

Rory looked up.

The boy stood before the desk breathing hard. His dark hair was disordered and his cheeks were bright from running. He held a folded letter so tightly that the paper had crumpled beneath his fingers.

Rory rose. “Accepted where?”

Fergus stared at him as if the answer ought to have been apparent to any man of sense.

“The Royal Naval College. At Portsmouth.”

For one suspended instant, Rory saw the boy who had first arrived at Braemore. He’d been wary, angry, and determined to need nothing from him. Then Fergus thrust the letter across the desk and the motion restored him to the present.

Rory took it.

The seal had already been broken. His eyes moved over the formal lines, though Fergus’s expression had told him everything the letter contained. Acceptance. Instructions. A date still distant enough not to trouble the household.

He read it a second time.

Fergus shifted from one foot to the other. “Well?”

Rory lowered the page. “You have been accepted.”

“I know that.” Fergus rolled his eyes. “I asked what you thought.”

Rory looked at him properly. Beneath the impatience was a hope the boy had not yet learned to conceal. Pride tightened Rory’s throat, accompanied by the first quiet ache of knowing where this road would lead.

Fergus would leave Braemore. Not today. Not even this year. But someday. The sea Rory had once blamed for taking everything from him had already begun to call the boy away.

Rory folded the letter along its original crease and returned it. “I think you will make a fine officer.”

Fergus’s shoulders settled and the light in his face grew brighter. “Do you?”

Rory struggled to compose his face. “I would not say it otherwise.”

“I mean to work harder than anyone there.”

“I expected no less.”

Fergus stood taller. “And I shall learn navigation properly. Not merely from books. I shall learn signaling and gunnery and—”

“Obedience, perhaps,” said Rory with a smile.

Fergus frowned. “I already understand obedience.”

“Understanding it and practicing it are different disciplines,” Rory told him.

“I practice it when the order is reasonable.”

Rory regarded him.

Fergus’s mouth twitched. “I shall endeavor to improve.”

“That would be wise.”

The boy looked down at the letter. He smoothed one thumb over the edge of the paper. When he spoke again, some of the exuberance had softened.

“I want to become the kind of captain you were.”

The old answer rose readily: that Fergus had heard only the favorable accounts, that admiration relied upon ignorance, that no man who had stood upon Rory’s deck during the explosion would have chosen him as an example. But this moment belonged to Fergus, not to Rory’s ghosts.

He rested one hand upon Fergus’s shoulder. “You should aim higher.”

Fergus raised his head. “I do not believe that possible.”

Before Rory could summon an answer, Fergus stepped backward. His face had gone pink, whether from his own declaration or from Rory’s hand upon his shoulder.

“I must show Elspeth,” he said.

Then he was gone with a clatter, the letter clutched carefully against his chest.

Rory remained beside the desk.

He heard Fergus call for his sister in the hall. Elspeth’s answering shriek suggested she had either understood the news at once or merely recognized that it required excitement. Their voices receded toward the stairs.

Rory returned to his chair but the figures in the ledger had become meaningless.

A knock sounded against the open door.

Finlay entered with a stack of estate accounts beneath one arm. He crossed to the desk, set them down, and remained standing.

Rory waited.

Finlay adjusted the topmost paper by half an inch.

“Have the western tenants revolted?” Rory asked.

“No.”

Rory raised his eyebrows. “Has the roof of the north stable collapsed?”

“Not to my knowledge.” Finlay shuffled his feet.

“Then either sit down or tell me what has happened.”

Finlay drew a breath. “Janet has agreed to marry me.”

Rory stared at him.

Finlay collapsed into the chair. “You might say something.”

Rory leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the corner of the desk. “I was waiting to determine whether you intended to look pleased by it.”

A slow grin transformed his face. “I am attempting to retain some dignity.”

“You have come to the wrong household for that.”

Finlay wandered to the window. “So Janet frequently reminds me.”

Rory rose and crossed over to the window. He clasped Finlay’s hand. Then he pulled him briefly into an embrace.

“I am glad for you,” he said.

Finlay sighed. “So am I.”

“When?”

“Janet says six weeks. Mrs. Guthrie says eight. I expect the matter will be settled between them without reference to my opinion.”

Rory sent a smile toward the ceiling. “A sensible beginning to married life.”

Finlay’s smile faded into something quieter. “I would like you to stand beside me.”

The request struck more deeply than Rory expected. Finlay had stood beside him upon quarterdecks and in burning passageways. He had followed Rory to Braemore and remained through every effort Rory made to drive the world away.

“You have stood beside me often enough,” Rory said. “It is past time I returned the favor.”

Finlay’s expression altered. “That was never a favor.”

“No.” Rory held his gaze. “It was considerably more.”

For a moment, neither spoke.

Finlay cleared his throat. “There is also the question of where Janet and I are to live.”

“The stone cottage beside the kitchen garden is vacant.”

Finlay blinked. “It is also too large.”

Rory shrugged. “Janet will require room for her books.”

“Janet does not own enough books to fill a cottage.”

Rory crossed back to his desk and sat down. “She will once she begins taking them from my library.”

Finlay’s mouth tightened. “The cottage is too generous for a private secretary.”

“It is part of the position.” Rory leaned back in his chair again and a smile flickered across his face. 

Finlay crossed back to sit in his seat. “It has never previously been part of the position.” 

“Then your conditions of employment have improved.” Rory propped his feet up.

“Rory—”

“I am not debating this.”

Finlay exhaled through his nose. “Janet will say it is too large for two people.”

Rory glanced toward him.

Finlay examined the accounts with great attention. “We may not always be only two.”

“I suggest you allow some interval between the wedding and telling Mrs. Guthrie that.”

“I had no intention of telling Mrs. Guthrie.”

“You live at Braemore. Mrs. Guthrie already knows.”

Finlay winced.

“Besides,” Rory continued, “the cottage’s proximity to the kitchen will considerably reduce the distance you must travel when inventing unnecessary errands.”

Finlay picked up Rory’s seal and rolled it in his hand. “I conduct legitimate household business.”

Rory laughed outright. “Janet once told me you brought her a list containing a single turnip.”

“It was an important turnip.” 

A rush of footsteps sounded in the passage.

Elspeth flew into the study with Fergus close behind her. Her blue ribbon had come loose, and she had a smear of dirt marked one cheek.

“We have found a nest,” she announced.

Rory glanced toward the window. “Have you?”

“In the old apple tree. There are four eggs. Fergus says we must not touch them, but he cannot tell what sort of bird laid them.”

“The mother was not present,” Fergus explained. “We require a more experienced opinion.”

Elspeth seized Rory’s hand. “You must come now.”

Rory’s feet hit the floor.

“And Finlay,” she added. “He must come too.”

Finlay set the seal back in its place on the blotter. “Naturally.”

Rory allowed Elspeth to pull him toward the passage. Fergus launched into a detailed description of the nest before they had crossed the threshold. Finlay followed with the solemn air of a man summoned to urgent estate business.  It was the most urgent business of all.

Later that evening, Catriona’s cry woke Rory sometime after midnight.

Beside him, Cecily stirred beneath the covers. Rory touched her shoulder before she could rise.

“Stay,” he murmured. “I shall go.”

Her eyes opened to narrow slits. “You said that last night.”

“And yet you followed me,” Rory said as he rolled to get out of bed.

Cecily stretched and murmured, “You were singing.”

“That was no reason to interfere.”

She opened one eye. “It was every reason.”

Another outraged wail carried through the connecting door.

Rory left the bed before Cecily could argue further. The night air chilled his bare feet as he crossed the carpet and pulled on his dressing gown. He lit a candle from the ember banked in the hearth, shielding the flame with one hand as he entered the nursery.

The small room smelled faintly of warm milk and lavender. Moonlight lay across the empty chair beside the cradle. A movement sounded from the nurse’s adjoining room, but Rory had already reached the cradle.

Rory set the candle upon the table and bent over his daughter.

Catriona’s fists were clenched beside her red face. A dark curl clung damply to her forehead. Her entire body strained with the force of her displeasure.

“This is a grave emergency,” Rory said softly.

She screamed louder.

“Yes. I understand,” he soothed.

He slid one hand beneath her head and lifted her against his shoulder. Her cheek pressed to the scars above his collar, hot and wet with tears. She quieted for half a breath, then resumed her protest directly into his ear.

Rory carried her into the corridor.

The castle lay dark around them. Only a lamp burning at the far end of the passage disturbed the shadows. He began to walk, swaying slightly with each step.

Once, he had paced these halls because sleep brought fire, smoke, and the cries of dying men. He had walked until dawn rather than return to his bed and face them again.

Now his daughter grumbled against his shoulder while one small hand caught in the edge of his dressing gown.

He began an old naval song beneath his breath. Catriona objected to the first verse. She endured the second and surrendered sometime during the third. Her body grew heavy against him. Her fingers loosened, then closed around the fabric once more.

Rory continued walking.

By the time he turned at the end of the passage, Cecily stood outside their chamber. Her hair fell loose over the shoulders of her dressing gown, gleaming auburn where the lamplight touched it. She had folded her arms against the cold.

“I told you to remain in bed,” he whispered.

She raised an eyebrow. “You also told me you could sing.”

“I can.”

Cecily approached and looked at the sleeping child upon his shoulder. “We shall continue that argument another time.”

Rory smiled, but his smile faded as he looked down at Catriona.

Her face had softened in sleep. One round cheek rested against his scars without hesitation. He could feel each warm breath through the linen of his nightshirt.

Cecily touched the baby’s back. “What is it?”

He might have denied that anything was wrong. Once, he would have. “Every time I hold her, I am afraid.”

Cecily waited.

“I love her, and immediately I imagine every way I might fail her. Every danger I cannot prevent.” He adjusted his hold upon Catriona, though she was already secure. “Sometimes I think happiness was never meant to be entrusted to me.”

Cecily’s expression softened. “You have been a father longer than four months.”

“Not to a child who cannot tell me when I am doing it badly.”

“Elspeth has never hesitated to tell you.”

A quiet laugh escaped him. Catriona shifted. They both stilled until she settled again.

Cecily laid her hand over his where it supported their daughter.

“Fergus trusts you with his future,” she said. “Elspeth comes through every door you leave open because she knows she will be welcome. Neither of them doubts that you will be here when they need you.”

“They should not have reason to doubt it.”

“They do not.”

Catriona stirred again between them. Her hand emerged from the folds of Rory’s dressing gown and closed around his scarred forefinger.

The strength of her grip startled him.

Cecily covered their joined hands with hers.

“You stayed for Fergus and Elspeth when you were certain you would fail them,” she said. “You stayed for me when loving me frightened you. That is what courage has always been, Rory. Loving us enough to remain even when you know something can be lost,” she told him, her eyes flooded with love. 

Rory looked at his daughter. Then he looked at his wife.

Cecily rose onto her toes and kissed the scar beside Catriona’s cheek.

“Come,” she whispered. “Let us put her back to bed before she changes her mind and wakes the entire castle.”

Together, they returned to the nursery. Rory lowered Catriona into the cradle, but her fingers tightened around his, refusing to release him.

He remained bent over her until her hand relaxed.

Cecily slipped her fingers through his as they returned to the corridor. Behind them, Catriona slept. Farther along the passage stood the rooms where Fergus and Elspeth had gone willingly to their beds, certain of finding the household unchanged when they woke.

Rory lifted Cecily’s hand to his lips. Then he walked with her toward their chamber, leaving the nursery door open behind them.

THE END