Of Limited Loyalty

Chapter Thirty-eight

29 June 1767 Temperance Temperance Bay, Mystria

Miranda squeezed Owen’s hand tightly as they reached the docks. She stopped moving forward. He looked down and saw fear flash over her face. Then the little girl’s eyes began to well up with tears.

Owen snatched her up in his arms. “What is it, Miranda?”

“Mama says that if you don’t want to go to Norisle, we shall go anyway.” The girl looked at him, her eyes wide. “Don’t you love me anymore, Papa?”

Owen’s throat immediately thickened. He felt as if his belly had been slashed open and his guts had spilled out. He hugged his daughter tightly. “Miranda, I love you. I have never stopped loving you. I will always love you.” He stroked her back as she sobbed, her tears wetting his neck. “Everything shall be fine, princess.”

He didn’t need to ask what had made her think he didn’t love her. Not but an hour earlier Catherine had stormed from their apartment, shouting, “I don’t think you’ve ever loved anyone but yourself, Owen Strake!” He wanted to go after her, but he couldn’t leave Miranda alone. He’d looked back and had seen his daughter huddled in the doorway to the bedroom, crouching down so she’d not be noticed.

“Mama said you would go to Norisle, Papa. You said you won’t.”

Owen found a bench and sat, then placed his daughter beside him. “Miranda, before I went away, I told your mother we would go to Norisle, all three of us. When I got back, the Prince asked me to stay, just a while longer.”

“Why?”

“Some of the things I saw while I was gone are scary.”

The little girl thought, then nodded, dark ringlets bouncing. “Like wolves and jeopards.”

“Exactly.” Owen settled his arm around her. “If your papa goes off to Norisle now, many little boys and girls like you and Richard and Rowena could be hurt.”

“Then why does Mama want you to go?”

“Do you remember how much you missed me when I was gone?”

Miranda spread her hands as far apart as possible. “More than a hug.”

Owen kissed the top of her head. “Your mother misses Norisle more than a hug.”

“Then Mama should go.”

“But then she would miss you.”

Miranda shook her head. “She told me I’m a big girl now. I am big enough to stay with the Princess while she takes care of Uncle Ian.”

Owen tipped her head up so he could see her face. “You know your mama loves you.”

“I know.” Miranda looked down. “I don’t want to go if you don’t go.”

“I don’t want to be apart from you, either, Miranda.” He gave her another kiss on the top of her head, and they sat there watching the ocean and the ships gently bobbing in the harbor. Owen found himself wishing that, indeed, his wife was onboard one, heading toward Norisle. He regretted it instantly, but her refusal to be sensible left him stuck. She made most vociferously plain her desire: that he should honor his pledge that they would go to Norisle as a family. Yet no matter how clearly he explained why he could not go, she came back to the point that he was a liar.

And I cannot argue with that. He had agreed with the Prince that he would keep a secret from her. Given her irrationality, the Prince was right in extracting that promise from him. And he might also have been right that forcing Owen to keep a secret would kill his marriage. It occurred to him that the last time he was truly happy in his marriage was when Catherine had come to Mystria, right before the Anvil Lake campaign. When we conceived our beautiful daughter.

“Miranda, do you like Mystria?”

“It’s home, Papa. I love you and Mama and Uncle Ian and Agnes and Richard and Rowena and even Peregrine even though we can’t get too close and he’s stinky.” She giggled as she counted on her fingers. “And the Prince and Princess and Becca but not Mugwump. He’s stinky, too.”

“You should like people even if they are stinky, Miranda.”

She looked up, her hazel eyes bright. “I love That Bastard Woods.”

“Miranda!”

“What?”

“We don’t call people bastards. Where did you hear that?”

Miranda poked out her lower lip, then shrugged. “Mama called him that when you went away.”

“Does she mention Kamiskwa?”

The girl nodded. “She calls him ‘the heathen.’”

Owen looked her in the face. “Nathaniel and Kamiskwa are very good friends of mine. They have saved my life many times. You will call them Mr. Woods and Prince Kamiskwa. Do you understand.”

“Mr. Woods and Prince Kasmirka.”

“Kamiskwa.”

The little girl screwed her face up with determination. “Kasmirkawa.”

“One more time, Miranda…”

“Captain Strake, if I might be so bold.”

Owen looked up. “Please, Miss Frost.”

Bethany sat on the other side of Miranda. “Miranda, try it slowly. Ka-mis-ka-wa.”

“Ka-mis-ka-wa.” Miranda immediately looked at her father. “Is that right, Papa?”

“It is, very good.” Owen gave the girl a squeeze. “Thank you, Miss Frost.”

“My pleasure, Captain Strake.” Bethany, clad in a modest dress of grey with a white collar visible from beneath, tucked an errant wisp of blonde hair under her grey bonnet. “I would have expected to find you at the Cathedral for the trial.”

“I’d much rather spend time with Miranda.”

“I can see why. Miranda, you are a very pretty little girl.”

“Thank you, Miss.” Miranda, all of a sudden, became very shy and buried her face against Owen’s side.

“And why are you not at the trial, Miss Frost?”

“Caleb forbid me to go.” Bethany shook her head. “Normally I should not obey, but I believe he has some deviltry in mind. My mother would wonder why I did not stop him.”

Owen laughed. “Your brother doesn’t seem to mind getting himself into trouble.”

“The same can be said of you.” Bethany glanced toward the ocean. “I set the type for the story my brother published about Colonel Rathfield. The battle with the dire wolves was quite harrowing.”

“The Gazette story livened things up a bit.” Owen stood and took Miranda’s hand. “Come, let us walk, shall we?”

They began to stroll through Temperance, with Miranda between them, holding her father’s hand. Owen thought back to a similar walk he had taken with Bethany, before he’d gone on his first expedition. The recollection brought a smile to his face.

She glanced sidelong at him. “The story might have been hyperbolic, but it sounded as if you got away without injury.”

“Not entirely, but mostly.” He shook his head, understanding the question implied by her comment. “We got gnawed more than bitten. I truly don’t remember a single scar from the incident.”

“But that reddish line beneath your ear, that’s new.”

“We ran into trouble in Happy Valley.”

Miranda looked up. “Becca is from Happy Valley.”

Bethany smiled. “Is she your friend?”

“Yes. She is almost grown up. I let her play with my dolls.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“You could play with them, too.”

Miranda’s offer broadened Bethany’s smile and pasted a similar one across Owen’s face. In an instant he could see the three of them walking along, not a man, his daughter and a friend, but as a family. For just a moment his heart sloughed off the melancholy of the fight with his wife.

“You are very kind, Miranda.”

Owen gave his daughter’s hand a squeeze. “Miss Frost, once the Prince is finished with them, I would appreciate your transcribing my journals of the last expedition. Whilst I was in the wilderness, I noted a number of things that I thought you might find interesting.”

“It would be a great pleasure, Captain, and an honor.” Bethany held her head up a bit. “I have always found your stories enjoyable.”

“My Papa tells me stories, sometimes, when I go to bed.” The little girl marched along happily. “Not scary ones. Well, except the one about wolves on the night I was born. But he rescued me and Mama.”

“I should be scared of wolves unless I had someone brave like your father around.”

“And yet, Bethany Frost, you never seem to attract a man, brave or otherwise.”

Owen turned and found his wife not six feet behind them. “Catherine, there you are. We chanced across Miss Frost by the docks.”

“Waiting for a ship full of sailors to come in, was she?” Catherine held her hand out. “Miranda, come here, this instant.”

Miranda looked up at her father. “She has her angry voice.”

“It was nothing you did, Miranda.”

“No, Miranda, nothing you did at all.” Owen’s wife glared at Bethany. “You failed to steal him once, dear. I tolerated your editing his dreadfully boring prose before, but I am not of a mind to be so tolerant this time.”

Bethany bowed her head. “Believe me, Mrs. Strake, when I tell you that the last thing I should wish to do in this world would be to cause you or your family any discomfort.”

“Then perhaps you will just find yourself your own man, Miss Frost.”

Owen reached out a hand. “Catherine, Bethany is a friend, an innocent friend.”

“A friend. Interesting use of the word, husband. You might protest your innocence, but I already know you to be a liar, Owen Strake.” She glanced hotly from Owen to Bethany and back, then snorted. “You have made it plain that you are not going to honor your word. At least now you have abandoned the pretense of hiding behind the Prince in this regard.”

“Catherine…”

“No, Owen, I do not want to hear it. Miranda and I shall use the apartment this evening, then return home tomorrow morning. I should appreciate advanced word when you will be coming to Strake House so I can make proper arrangements.” His wife spun on her heel and dragged Miranda around with her. “Come, Miranda, we are leaving.”

Owen covered his face with a hand. He said nothing as Catherine stalked away. Shame burned through him, first at how his wife treated Bethany, and second at his relief when she departed. He sighed heavily, then looked toward Bethany. He found her hand extended hesitantly toward his shoulder. “Please, Bethany, forgive, forget that. She did not mean…”

Bethany’s hand returned to her side. “Captain Strake, she meant every word of it-the words spoken and unspoken.”

“She’s angry.”

“Apparently.”

Owen glanced toward the sky. “I promised to go to Norisle. After the trip west, I can’t.”

Bethany regarded him with cool, blue eyes. “Captain Strake, if you believe that is all which prompted her words, you are far too kind and far too naive. For her, being in Mystria is being made to lay down in a bed of nettles. She has been here going on four and a half years. She has hated every second of it. Each year she has wanted to return, and each year she has been thwarted.”

“I know.” Owen shook his head. “But there is nothing I can do about it, Bethany. My home is here. My life is here. She may have left her heart in Norisle, but for me to go back would be to tear my heart out and leave it bleeding on these shores. She thinks she will die if she stays. I know I will die if I leave.”

“Have you told her that?”

Owen half-laughed, throwing his arms open and letting them flap limply to his sides. “How could I? When could I? When she is angry, even acquiescing does not make her listen. And in those times she is calm, to address this would set her off. When I take her down to the river, where we can watch the water flow and moose grazing, all I see is beauty. What she sees are all the ways in which our home is not a Norillian estate.”

He glanced down, pressing his hands together fingertip to fingertip. “Perhaps she is right. Perhaps I do have a mistress.”

“Owen…”

“She thinks it’s you, I know, and I am sorry her suspicions threaten your reputation.” He shook his head. “What she doesn’t understand is that Mystria is my mistress. Where she sees a primitive, uncivilized land, I see unspoiled majesty. As Catherine offers me less and less, Mystria offers more and more. When the Prince prepared the expedition west, and I agreed to go, he asked if I was doing it for my duty, or to get away from my wife. I guess now I know that I was doing it to spend time with my mistress.”

As Owen shaped his emotions into words, he felt as if he was uncovering a treasure which had lain buried for eons. His father had been Mystrian, born of a family cast out of Norisle ages ago. A sailor, he met and married a Norillian noble’s daughter. Owen had been born in Mystria, but when his father died at sea, he and his mother had moved back to Norisle, and she had been wedded to Lord Ventnor’s youngest son, a wastrel. Owen had grown up thinking that all Norisle hated him for the land of his birth, and in returning he recaptured the life he had been meant to have.

While it was easy to see Catherine as part of Norisle, and recognize the wellspring from which her angry bitterness arose, he could not dismiss her. He had loved her and had exchanged vows with her. Though countless men ignored those vows, Owen would not count himself among them. If he could not be true to his word, then he could never be true to himself or anyone else. The price of being honorable might be pain, but worse would be the price of faithlessness.

Bethany nodded slowly. “You, Captain Strake, are not alone in your love of the land and its people. You should realize that there are people here, many people, who love you for who you are and what you have done. The story in the Gazette may have been about Colonel Rathfield, but there was not a man who heard it who did not wish he had been there standing shoulder to shoulder with you. That your wife does not seem to appreciate you is seen by many as a great tragedy. Though no one would ever say a word to you about it, they recognize it and believe you a better man than they for how you deal with it.”

Owen nodded. “And probably not a few who think she should get the rough side of my hand.”

“Those are the idiots who get supper cold and their beds colder.” Bethany graced him with a simple smile. “I must be away, Captain. I apologize for the discomfort I caused. I assure you, I shall do my best never to put you in that situation again.”

“Bethany…”

“No, Owen, I made a decision a long time ago, and I have let my resolve erode.” She smiled as she backed away. “For the best of all concerned, I must again abide by my previous choice. To do otherwise, to see you in this situation again, would break my heart. I do not imagine it could ever be mended again.”