Prize of My Heart Page 20

  Satisfied, Brogan smiled and included Lorena with his gaze before continuing. “When I learned I was to be promoted to captain, I commissioned Thomas to stitch me a military coat. Thomas’s father had been a tailor, you see, and he trained his son well in his profession. But when the old man died, Thomas decided he would rather go to sea and fight for his country than pursue a clothier’s trade. So he signed on as a sailmaker for the Wild Pilgrim.” Brogan opened his arms. “And this is the coat Thomas made.”

  As he paused, Lorena caught a shimmer in his eyes. She didn’t understand. What was he implying?

  “When I saw the fine job Thomas had made of my coat,” he continued, “I commissioned him to make a doll in my likeness as a gift to my young son, so he’d not forget me while I was away on the Black Eagle. I told my son that whenever he felt lonely, he was to hold Captain Briggs and remember how much his papa loved him, and to know that nothing would stop his papa from coming back for him.”

  Brogan stared intently at Drew, tears in his eyes, while Drew gaped back in fascination.

  “My son’s name was Benjamin,” he said.

  Lorena gasped as realization struck.

  “My papa died at sea,” Drew said.

  “Lorena and your papa Huntley surely believed I had died, for I sailed into battle. It was a dangerous war and many men did die. But not I. I’ve been searching for you these three years we’ve been apart. The reason I’ve waited until now to tell you who I am was because I wanted to let you get to know me first.”

  Lorena didn’t know why she didn’t say anything, other than the fact she was dumbfounded … and as entranced by the story as was Drew. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting Brogan to reveal, but never this.

  “I love you, Ben,” Brogan told the boy. “I made you a promise that no matter how long or whatever it took, I would return. I left you Captain Briggs as a symbol of that promise, and when I saw that you carried him still”—Brogan touched a finger to the child’s heart—“I knew some small part of you had to remember. Else why would you still cling to this doll after all these years and after you were told I was gone?”

  A grin spread across the boy’s face as if suddenly it all made sense. “Papa?”

  “Aye, son.”

  As the child went voluntarily into his arms, Brogan softly cried. Drew clutched the man tightly, afraid to let go.

  Lorena slipped into a state of numbed shock. And really, what protest could she voice, watching Drew’s joy at being reunited with the papa he’d never forgotten, the man they’d thought long dead?

  He had not perished in battle as they’d been led to believe, but had survived the war. Uncle Stephen had lied.

  And now to be confronted with her family’s secret, to hear Brogan confess to being baby Benjamin’s father … it weighted her heart with heaviness knowing the circumstances, learning her captain had once been married to that Boston twice-widowed woman … no, not a widow for a second time, as Lorena now knew, but Mrs. Abigail Talvis. They’d never learned her married name. Papa had agreed to collect the babe and depart—no questions asked, no names given, no pleasantries exchanged.

  Lorena swallowed a lump in her throat. That Brogan loved the child and had pursued the boy despite the great injustice done him was more than her mind could grasp.

  For years now, she and her father had been sheltering Drew from his past so that he might have a new future, never suspecting that all along there’d been someone out there working just as diligently to restore Drew to his origins.

  Lorena supposed she should feel outrage at Brogan for keeping his identity hidden, but knowing what she did of matters, this revelation shed an even brighter light on the goodness of his heart, and her love for him increased tenfold. His melancholy looks and fatherly concern now made perfect sense.

  He was quite the unusual man, this Captain Brogan Talvis. Truly remarkable.

  She lifted her gaze to his and saw all he’d suffered in his eyes. He was churning with questions for her, questions that, for the moment, would have to remain unanswered. They could not speak in front of Drew. But what about when Brogan got her alone?

  What would she tell him then?

  Lorena wondered as much all through dinner and the tale of William’s near brush with death. When Drew could no longer keep his eyes open after such an exciting day, Brogan carried him off to bed. She watched from the doorway as he tucked the coverlet around the boy, then Captain Briggs in beside him with a poignancy that made it easy to imagine his doing so countless times before. He brushed the curls off Drew’s forehead and kissed him good-night.

  Brogan lingered a moment longer. When she saw him straighten, Lorena backed away from the doorway to allow him entrance into the great cabin. He closed Drew’s door softly behind him.

  Brogan was frank with her. He shared his earliest memories of the orphan asylum and his first days at sea. He told of lean times before the war, when he and Jabez and countless other unemployed sailors crowded the docks of Boston Harbor. The despair, the hunger, the boredom, until one day he caught the eye of a wealthy widow, several years older than himself.

  Within weeks they were married in a civil service by a justice of the peace. Brogan found positions for himself and Jabez with the Wild Pilgrim and left his bride for a four-month term aboard the privateer. When he returned he learned she was with child.

  Good fortune had found him at last, he believed. He was young and naive in that, until then, he’d spent his life at sea far from female society. He fancied himself in love. Or perhaps he only imagined he loved Abigail for the son she gave him.

  “Abigail was not the most attentive of mothers, but I was more than willing to make up the difference so that Benjamin never felt unloved or neglected. We were the closest to a family I’d ever known, but two years after his birth, on the eve of my departure to take command of the Black Eagle, she informed me she had sent him away. She refused to reveal where.”

  “She presented herself as a widow,” Lorena explained in her own defense.

  “And yet my existence does not come as a shock to you. You understand who I am? You believe me?”

  Lorena gazed at his proud, earnest expression with eyes of compassion. “I believe you. I’m sorry for all you’ve suffered, but to our minds you were a nameless casualty of the war.”

  A worried crease appeared between his brows. “Who told you I was a casualty?”

  “My … my uncle Stephen.”

  “Stephen Huntley? The man suspected of fleeing from the fire that took Abigail? Then the rumors were true? Stephen was there the night Abigail died? They were acquainted?” Turning from her, Brogan began to pace anxiously. “More than acquainted, I’m beginning to suspect. It seems while I was at sea, she sought the attentions of a rich companion. A benefactor. Could that be why my promotion meant nothing to her? It does make perfect sense. She hoped to rid herself of her husband, and our son stood in her way. Is this true? Am I correct?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Lorena acknowledged, hoping to put an end to his torturous, racing thoughts. “She wanted Ben to disappear. They both did. As far as my father and I understood, Ben had no one. No one who cared for him. We gave him a loving home when we thought he had none.”

  “And changed his name.”

  “To shield him from his past. To raise him as one of our own. As a Huntley.”

  “Your uncle’s family refused to see me. Their attorney warned me away with the assurance that none of them had any knowledge of an Abigail Talvis or her child.”

  “They spoke the truth. They never knew anything of my uncle’s association with your wife,” she told him.

  “In all my inquiries, it was as though Benjamin never existed. Duxboro was my last hope … a hope that I might learn something, anything, some small bit of history about Stephen Huntley that could produce a lead. I came for information. Instead, I discovered my son. Not in hiding but living for all the world to see as Drew Huntley.”

  Lorena swallow
ed uncomfortably. “You must have suffered quite the shock.”

  Irony rumbled through Brogan’s laugh. “Obviously he’d been well cared for, but all I could think of was getting him back. All the charity in the world cannot replace the bond of blood. One’s own family. And so I devised a plan. I commissioned a ship, biding my time until she was complete, when I could sail away in her … with my son.”

  Lorena found herself at a loss while she absorbed this knowledge. Brogan had planned to steal Drew out of Duxboro. In the very ship her father had so painstakingly built him. All this happening while George had been purchasing vomit powder for the purpose of entrapping her. If Brogan had followed through with his scheme, Papa would have lost both his children.

  She felt a jumble of turmoil, caught between fear of what might have been and relief it hadn’t. “But you didn’t leave with Drew,” she reminded herself aloud. He had come to her rescue instead.

  “The boy loves you like the mother he never truly had. I could no sooner take that from him than I could bear the thought of you in danger.”

  Lorena breathed slowly, forcing her emotions to calm and her thoughts to clear. “And now?” she asked expectantly. “What now, Brogan?”

  He searched her face with china blue eyes full of earnest. “Can you forgive me? I thought I had no alternative but to abduct Ben. Your father never would have given him up. Not to me, a stranger. Nor to anyone. Jabez tried to reason with me, but it was you, Lorena, who opened my eyes. I always had another choice, yet I deliberately ignored the right one. A choice for the good of all concerned, not just for myself. Because no matter where or with whom Ben lives, I shall always be his father. I shall be a part of his life, and he will know a father’s love. But what I still don’t understand is, why? Why did another man’s child matter so much to your father? Why Benjamin?”

  When she made no immediate reply—for indeed, Lorena hesitated to make any sudden revelations—he studied her with a hard, contemplative stare.

  “It’s my belief there was more behind your father’s charity than good Christian kindness,” he said. “I don’t know what, but something else transpired between the Huntley brothers and Abigail. For why else would a man of your father’s strong moral character help his brother carry on an affair with a married woman? And while Stephen was married with a family of his own? What influence did Abigail have over them that both brothers should act so extensively on her behalf and in her favor? Your father knows the answer. And perhaps even you, Lorena.”

  As much as she’d like to unburden the ugly truth, Lorena could not bring herself to utter the words. Brogan was destined to find out eventually, but with his renewed faith she yearned to shield him with the same care she’d been protecting Drew, or Ben, these last three years.

  If only she could. She needed Papa’s counsel in this. She had to get to him before Brogan did.

  Lorena tilted her face to look at him. “That, Brogan, is a question for my father. I can’t tell you any more than I already have. Papa’s a wise and understanding man who believes in your integrity or he would not have sent you for me. He would not have entrusted Drew to your care or asked you to join in his shipping enterprise. Explain to him what you’ve just told me. You can trust he’ll be honest and forthcoming.”

  He responded with a reluctant nod. “Fair enough. I will have that conversation with your father. And I will find out the truth. You can depend upon it.” Though disappointed, he did not push her further.

  His good humor returned in a smile. “And now I have another confession to make,” he announced. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Lorena Huntley. These past months I have never felt more content. Every sense alive, every moment precious, as though for the first time I am experiencing life at its fullest. And I know the reason for this has to do with more than my reunion with my son. It’s you, Lorena. I want us to be a family. You already love Ben and he loves you. Do you think you can forgive and love his father, as well?”

  Her heart filled with fierce emotion—love, happiness, compassion. Tears in her eyes, a lump in her throat, the best Lorena could manage was a nod. Forgive Brogan for possessing such faithfulness and devotion he could not let go of a precious loved one? Yes. He was a man not unlike her father, a man with good treasure stored in his heart, a man committed to family. The man she’d been destined to love.

  He took hold of her hands. “Will you have me, Lorena? Will you marry me? Don’t give me your answer yet. I must first speak to your father and convince him I am worthy of you. For should you give me the honor of agreeing to be my wife, I should want his blessing.”

  Lorena suspected he knew her answer already, if only because of the tears shining happily in her eyes. Her smile, however, was bittersweet with worry, not so much of her father withholding his blessing as for whether Brogan would feel the same after speaking with Papa.

  Brogan’s love had brought promise and joy to her life, but was it strong enough to endure once he learned of the secret surrounding Drew?

  18

  The Yankee Heart approached the forest-dense southern shores of Massachusetts ten days later, where it entered the Bluefish River.

  A slight delay was owing to the fact there’d been no work for the crew the day following the storm. Jabez conducted a memorial service for Gideon Hale on the main deck. Brogan read Scripture aloud, then gave thanks to the Lord for sparing William and for the safe passage of the ship. He prayed for the protection of those still aboard her. Jabez’s music books were pulled off the shelves, Frederick Mott brought out his fiddle, and the crew joined in singing hymns.

  Brogan did not push Lorena further for answers about her father’s relationship with Abigail, though instinct assured him she knew more than she was willing to let on. He trusted she had good reason for directing him to her father. Actually he preferred news of Abigail come directly from Huntley. Still, it troubled him, this aura of mystery.

  Why did Lorena feel she must hold something back from him? Did she not trust him?

  He stood on the Yankee Heart’s quarterdeck under the shadow of darkening heavens. Humidity wavered in the air, blurring the sighting of land with an ashen haze. Brogan raised his telescope, adjusting the lens and bringing into focus the fitting wharf with its outbuildings and then the stately home beyond.

  Somewhere inside that large black-and-white Federal house, Nathaniel Huntley awaited. Brogan waited, too. He waited for his questions to be answered, for three years of agonizing speculation to be over. But what harsh realties lay hidden behind the truth of Abigail’s scheme?

  Lowering the glass, he snapped it closed. Brogan lifted his hat to swipe his shirtsleeve across his perspiring brow. He could not stave off the apprehension and hardened himself for what lie ahead. He had deceived the shipbuilder and now must confess to him that the man he’d entrusted with the safe return of his daughter had at one time been plotting to abduct another child from his home.

  Lorena emerged onto the deck below, catching his eye in a becoming apricot gown. She looked all sweetness and femininity, from her springy head of ginger curls to the toes inside her flat leather sandals.

  Glancing upward, she gave him a wave, and Brogan thought never was there a smile more beautiful than that of his beloved.

  His heart flooded with love for her; his eyes filled with adoration. She radiated serene elegance, and her goodness cast a glow about her like that of an angel, an angel who had pulled his soul from bitterness.

  Mounting the companionway, she joined him on the quarterdeck. Brogan greeted her with a smile and extended his hand. “Come. Stand beside me, where the welcome party ashore can see you.”

  She slipped her much smaller hand in his, and he drew her to his side before the rails. The Yankee Heart was drawing attention, and Huntley yard workers and Duxboro townsfolk had now begun to assemble all along the lengthy fitting wharf.

  Happiness glittered in her eyes and her smile grew. “Oh, let me fetch Drew. He’ll want to see this, too.”

&nb
sp; Brogan detained her with a squeeze of his hand. “In a moment.” Selfish of him perhaps, but he’d had little opportunity to be alone with Lorena and was hungry to steal what moments they could. Especially this moment.

  Lorena lifted her gaze to Brogan’s and what she found in his eyes reflected the same uncertainty gnawing at her. She smiled reassuringly. What words could adequately convey her love? What deed? She fully intended to accept his proposal and promise to stand by his side through the worst. She’d do anything for him, but oh—if only she could spare him this. Still, the past must be put to rights before they could move forward with their future. Brogan understood or he wouldn’t have asked her to hold off with her answer.

  Lorena held tight to his hand, drawing on his bulwark strength and remembering her faith as she turned her attention to familiar sights on shore.

  Soon their feet would touch Duxboro soil, but given recent events, home had taken on quite a different meaning. Home was not so much a location as it was she, Brogan, and Drew being together.

  Owning to the shallowness of the Bluefish River and the imposing hull size of the Yankee Heart, soon they could venture no closer to shore. Brogan gave the order to moor the merchantman and lower the boats.

  He sat in the stern directly across from her, Drew fidgeting restlessly at her side, and paused before taking up the oars. In his eyes was a look of love and longing.

  “You’re nearly home now,” he told them.

  “Will you come live with us?” Drew asked.

  “We’ll settle all that later. But wherever I do live, I shall always be nearby, and we’ll see each other whenever we like, agreed?”

  The child released a breath. “Yes, sir.”

  “You promised, remember, not to say anything about me being your father until after I’ve had a chance to speak with your papa Huntley. Do you think you can keep our secret for a bit?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good lad.” Brogan’s grin widened, a grin he quickly turned on Lorena as though seeking her consent. “Ready, then?”