Thad glanced over at the familiar crease in his brow. “You would have.”
“Of course I would have, in half an instant. But your mother held her tongue because she did not want a marriage of obligation. Which is exactly what your marriage to Peggy was. And while I believe you would have found a steady resting place, the point remains that it is a difficult way to begin a life together. All you two ever had was a beginning.”
A beginning haunted by her husband’s ghost.
He blinked it away as he shook his head. “You know what plagues me, Father? The questions of what would have happened had the Lord granted her healing. If she were still alive when Alain came home, if he found her married to me…”
Father winced, though surely he had wondered it as well. There wasn’t a question in the universe Bennet Lane had not entertained at one point or another. “An ugly possibility.”
“Which leads me to a prayer of thanksgiving that God, in His wisdom, spared us that. But that, of course, begs another question.”
“Thad.” Father paused at the alley’s mouth and stayed his son with a hand on his arm. “You cannot think that way. To think He let her die to save you from that awkwardness, that it is therefore your fault she died because of the decision you made to marry her—that way is a twisted path that will lead you straight into the jowls of depression.”
He focused his gaze on a crumbling brick in the corner of the building behind his father. “Was it a mistake? Your honest opinion. Should I have married her?”
Father made no rash answer. He let his eyes wander upward as he pursed his lips. Then, after a long moment, he met Thad’s gaze again. “It was not a mistake. You provided Jack with a family, a sanctuary. You gave Peggy a feeling of purpose again. She told your mother it was the first time she had had a goal since she lost Alain. To be a good wife, to show Jack what family was meant to be.”
That was what he had always told himself. But somehow, with his best friend staring him down, it came off lacking. He let out the breath he had been holding and started forward again. “Maybe. But maybe I should have refused to touch her—”
“That is not how God designed marriage, son. And certainly not how He designed man. Which leads us to Alain’s concerns about you and Gwyneth.”
Thad groaned and, after a quick glance both directions, crossed to the other side of the street. “He overreacted. I kissed her, yes, but that is all. I will not apologize for it.”
“I will settle for you apologizing to her. Not for kissing her, but for kissing her before you explained what has made you the man you are and gave her the chance to reciprocate.”
He clenched his jaw and let that simmer as they closed the distance to the next intersection. “How upset was she?”
“She ran away from your mother. What does that tell you?”
That this might have to be a very long walk if he hoped to return and find her calm enough to want to speak with him. He lifted a hand to rub at the sore muscles in his neck. He was getting too old for wrestling matches with Arnaud. “What am I to do? I love her. I love her like I have never loved anyone, like I had begun to think myself incapable of loving.”
“Then you rest in the knowledge that a love so deep will not fade, and you give her the opportunity to mourn her father and recover from the trauma of seeing him killed.”
The scent of the bay teased Thad’s nose, and he caught a glimpse of dark water between the buildings. He knew what waited there—the Chesapeake merchant fleet, stranded in the harbor. And beyond it, over the horizon, the line of British vessels that held them there.
A vise went tight within him; a shiver slithered up his spine. “What if I haven’t that much time?”
Father again came to a halt, more abruptly than before. “Why would you say such a thing?”
Thad quickened his pace, his feet pulling like a lodestone toward his ship.
“Thaddeus!” A few pounding footfalls, and Father was at his side again. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” But whatever it was, it thrummed through him, setting every nerve ablaze. “It is the same feeling I get out at sea when a storm is coming.”
“Your mother insists you are no changeling, but I think you must be to have such a strange intuition. If I could bottle it, I would be the wealthiest man in the nation.”
Thad laughed and mentally thanked his father for a reason to do so. “I thought the stories of changelings were that the fairies stole the real children and replaced them with ones who were stupid and oafish.”
“There is no need to insult yourself, son. You are odd without question, but not stupid.”
He laughed again. Then he stopped as another alleyway loomed before them, stopped a mere second before a figure stepped out. Familiar, but not familiarly clothed. He sucked in a breath. “Mr. Bolton?”