Then the heat of embarrassment and shame swept in. Damn, but he’d treated her horribly. He’d been a blackheart, a cad, probably even worse, and the pain of her loss almost brought him to his knees. “Fine. Run to India. See if I care!” His shouting at the empty room had no effect on the state of affairs. “Perhaps I’m better off without you.” Oh, but that was one hell of a lie. Anger rushed into the emptiness of his soul, white-hot and consuming, like a long-lost friend. Hell, but he wanted a drink. Afterward, he’d prowl the harbor and perhaps coerce a willing woman into his bed.
Of all things holy on land and sea!He shook his head and tossed the thought away as soon as it occurred. That wasn’t the man he was any longer. If he couldn’t have Elizabeth, then he didn’t want anyone. Devil take it. That wasn’t the truth of the matter. As the dam holding back the emotions strained its boundaries, Brand took a few gasping breaths. He pressed a hand to his chest where his heart used to be. He didn’t have Elizabeth, for he’d lost her due to his pride and his inability let himself feel everything in life. Good or bad, it was part of him, the process of living.
“I need her so damned much,” he whispered to himself, but she was gone. Not for carnal relations, not to win a wager, not for the joy her companionship brought, but for herself, for no other reason than he was a better man when he was around her and that he was… himself in her company.
And he’d realized all that much too late.
“Oh, God.” With nothing else to do, Brand quit the room. He made his way through the ponderous, twisting corridors until he shut himself into his rooms. “What am I to do now?” Never in his most outlandish dreams did he think his penchant for scandal and bedding women would tear the best thing to ever happen to him away. “I’ve done this to myself. Perhaps losing her is my penance.”
With a straining chest and the sense of hovering on the edge of a knife, Brand wrenched off his jacket. When he tossed it to the floor, hair pins and two tortoiseshell combs tumbled from the inside pocket to clatter on the hardwood. How many times had he plucked those fripperies from her locks for no other reason than to see those tresses flow free?
Never would he have cause to do so again. “Ah Elizabeth, I’m so incredibly sorry I wasn’t the man you deserved, the man I needed to be—for both of us.”
The emotions he’d held back, refused to acknowledge for years, came pouring forth as if the sea itself wished to claim him, and he was helpless to stem the tide.
All the hurts, the slights, the anger, the sadness, the grief, the love, the exhilaration took hold and carried him away, showing him scenes and flashes from his life. The fact that he was never taken seriously as a youth or that he was made to feel he wasn’t as important as his brothers. Brand cried out, but the emotional scenes were relentless.
While in the Navy, he’d never been given a promotion in rank until he’d become an order-follower despite his natural talent and affinity for sailing and leadership. That anger and jealousy bubbled up in the attempt to drown him.
The grief and sensation of hopelessness he’d had when his father had died. He hadn’t been there, hadn’t made his peace with the man, and now it was too late. Regret plowed into him, for his brothers had their own lives now and he probably didn’t fit into them.
The fury at being bested by the French in the battle that had lost him his eye and his respect when the ridiculous court martial had followed.
The confusion and embarrassment he’d met when his heart was broken by a woman more concerned with his looks than his soul.
And still the emotional torrent raged. The aspects of war he could never learn to stomach and the disgust and self-loathing he had every time he’d been forced to kill a man took hold and shook him like a dog with a bone.
Brand fell to his knees as he gasped for breath. Only then did he become aware that he cried, sobbed really, as the waves of feeling continued to batter him. Hopelessness from having to come to terms with his new life and navigating with only one eye. The loss of that still made his breath hitch.
Emptiness and loneliness from playing the rake crashed into him next. Never had he wished to continue that path, but it had been easier than finding himself invested, his heart vulnerable.
It didn’t matter that his body shook from the onslaught, they still came, fast and furious. The unrelenting call of the sea that urged him to do whatever it took to keep it in his life.
As he scrabbled his fingers over the floor to grasp those combs, their teeth biting into his palms and keeping part of his mind clear, the confusion and exhilaration of falling in love again slammed into his chest. Yes, it was true. He’d fallen for Elizabeth so far and so fast there’d been no way he could have stopped it, but in doing so, it had been the most amazing thing he’d ever known outside of being on the sea.
Finally, the crushing grief of losing that love had him kneeling on the floor, bent at the waist, and crying out his frustration, pressing his forehead to the floor while his chest heaved, and his stomach knotted. He’d lost her in his refusal to grow, in the midst of that ill-advised wager. Oh, God, how would he survive without her, without her light and her enthusiasm that made him remember why he’d wanted to sail in the first place or why he’d settled in Ipswich? Knowing Elizabeth had changed him when he hadn’t been aware of it. Because of her, he wasn’t the man he used to be. Shock and pleasure filled his chest before self-loathing chased it away.
“I’m not that man anymore!” he cried out to the empty rooms. All because of Elizabeth. He wanted her still. Nay, he needed her, for he loved her to distraction, and if given the chance, he would tell her that in as many ways he could until she believed him. Hell, he’d spend the rest of his life showing her… if only she’d come back.
If only she’d not left.
If only he’d not pushed her into it.
The torrent swirled around him, battering him, making him remember, giving him no choice except to feel each emotion and recognize it for what it was. This storm that had brewed for years had finally unleashed its fury upon him, and he was lost, so very lost, but there was nothing to do but ride it out.
From the depths of his emotionally storm-tossed memories, one recollection came to the forefront stronger than the rest. Years and years ago, when he’d been just a small lad, his father had taken him and his brothers fishing. There was a lake on the Derbyshire property that always yielded a good catch. That day, however, the fish weren’t biting, but his father hadn’t seemed perturbed by that. As they stood looking out over the blue water with the sunlight sparkling upon the surface, Brand had learned how to skip stones under his father’s tutelage.
His father had unhooked a pretty little trout and let it escape back into the water while Drew put yet another fish onto his string of recent catches. “Listen, Francis, it’s not the quantity of the fish you catch. It’s the quality of the ones that you do. Some men keep catching fish out of boredom instead of appreciating them for themselves.”
Brand had been mystified by the notion. “What happens to the ones that aren’t worthy of us taking them home?”
“We throw them back into the water for another day.”
“What then?” Brand had wanted to know. “When that day comes, you might not catch any fish and you’ll be hungry.”
His father had shrugged. “Try harder for the next one and remember that not every fish is meant for you.” Their gazes had connected, and, in that moment, it felt as if they’d understood each other. “Sooner or later, you’ll find yourself satisfied with the fish you do catch, and you won’t want any others.”
The memory faded. Brand shook from the message in that long-ago time. Had the conversation been merely about fish or had it been a metaphor for life? He sat upright on his knees, gasping from the insight. That was how it had been once he’d found Elizabeth; he hadn’t wanted another woman since then.
The storms faded, as did the emotional torrent, and at the end, like the aftermath of a cyclone at sea, his mind was clear. Finally, he saw his path again, shining before him as bright as it ever was, but he was exhausted. He fumbled a hand inside his shirt and brought forth the compass. As always, the tiny red arrow pointed to the north… and in that direction, the harbor lay.
Elizabeth.
Her ship left tomorrow morning, but he’d forgotten to inquire as to a time. Spent and shaking, he staggered to his feet and then collapsed, fully dressed, onto his bed. He’d need every ounce of his strength on the morrow, but for now, a sense of peace stole over him and he smiled.
Yes, this was exactly what he needed to do.