He had not missed her at all.
It was Alex he missed, but he knew he would have an even more difficult time adjusting to his uncle’s return when his bride would always be by his side. Alex and Eden had been so close a couple before their marriage Raven was certain they would have no time for him now that they were husband and wife. He wasn’t jealous of Eden, he refused to call it that. He was merely apprehensive about being around her when it would be so difficult to keep his suspicions about her motives to himself. He had never been noted for his tact, but he had vowed not to reveal his opinion of Eden rather than upset Alex by voicing his doubts about her aloud. That was a promise he intended to keep, but he feared it might prove to be the most difficult challenge of his life.
Glancing around his cabin, he knew he should move his belongings into the smaller quarters Alex usually occupied so that the newlyweds could enjoy the more spacious captain’s cabin. It would be a generous gesture on his part, so he decided to do it, but not yet. Now he needed the space to pace, to stretch his legs on the nights when he could not sleep. There would be time enough during the next two weeks to trade cabins.
“Two weeks,” Raven whispered. He was so anxious to return home that a two-week delay seemed like an interminable wait. On the other hand, he knew that was not going to be nearly enough time to prepare himself to face Eden again.
He stretched out on his bunk and propped his head on his hands as he finally allowed his thoughts to dwell on her. He had no way of knowing what had been clever pretense and what had been real, but from the night they had met, she had had eyes only for Alex. Raven knew he was handsome, he heard it often enough from women, but Eden had never given him more than a passing glance. Whenever they had danced together, she had always seemed preoccupied, and relieved when the music ended and they could part.
Was her clear preference for Alex based on his wealth? Or was it possible Eden actually felt something for the man? He could not bear the thought she had married Alex for his money and not for the charming man he was. That was too cruel a trick
to play on any man, no matter what the gain, but try as he might to analyze her actions, Raven still could not understand why Alex had married her. It was a question that plagued him both day and night. Why had Alex chosen to wed when he had so little time left to live? Why would any man inflict the pain of widowhood on a woman, no matter how irresistibly young or pretty?
When a familiar ache filled his chest, Raven finally recognized it as the painful loneliness he had endured as a child. With Alex’s elopement, the desolation of being alone had returned with full force. “My God,” he moaned softly. It had been nearly twenty years since Alex had taken him in but now the wretched memory of the shabbily dressed orphan he had once been tortured him as though he had never found a loving home with a kind and generous man.
With his usual thoughtfulness, Alex had urged him to use the joy of marriage to dull the pain that his death would surely bring. That the only young woman who had caught his eye was now his aunt struck Raven as the cruelest of jokes. Fate seemed determined to kick him right back into the gutter but he was equally determined to continue his escape from the lowly circumstances of his birth. One day, and he dreaded all too soon, he would be the Earl of Clairbourne, and he planned to wear that title as proudly as Alex always had. That he would have to face his future alone on that day did not frighten him, and he refused to wallow in sorrow while Alex was still alive.
Determined to overcome the tormenting sensation of isolation that threatened to overwhelm him, Raven left his cabin, and went to find Randy. The mate was always eager to go in search of a good time, and while Raven knew getting drunk again would only serve to blur his pain until morning, he needed sleep too badly to care.
Three days later, two letters arrived from Alex. They were hand-delivered by a groom named Peter Brady, who had a sweetheart in London and was always eager for an excuse to travel into the city. He handed over the two envelopes bearing Alex’s crest with so wide a grin Raven knew instantly they could not possibly contain bad news.
“I trust all is going well at Briarcliff,” the tall captain inquired of the groom.
“Much better than that, sir,” Peter informed him with a hearty chuckle. “None of us has ever seen his lordship so happy, and his bride is such a dear young woman we have all come to love her.”
Unable to reply to that unwanted piece of news with a polite response, Raven tipped Peter and sent him off to a nearby tavern for an hour to give him time to read the letters and answer them. Once seated at his desk, he found the envelopes were marked with numerals to indicate the order in which they were to be opened. Curious as to what sort of messages they contained, he slit open the first and found it to be a request to increase the amount of munitions they were carrying home. They had already loaded gunpowder, but Alex wished him to double the amount, and to purchase as many Kerr five-shot revolvers and Enfield rifles as the London Armoury could provide, along with as much of the appropriate ammunition as possible.
Raven thought the Confederacy was probably still desperately short of arms since the South had lacked munitions factories at the start of the War and had had to rely on blockade runners to supply their needs from European manufacturers. Was that what Alex intended to become, a blockade runner?
“No,” he answered himself aloud. “It is what Eden wants him to become!” Her plan was immediately clear. The first time Alex had mentioned he owned a clipper ship, Eden had been keenly interested in hearing all about it. Both he and Alex had assumed that was due to her family’s shipbuilding interests, but such a conclusion now seemed shockingly naïve. She had made no secret of the fact her father captained the Southern Knight, and now it seemed she planned to use her husband’s wealth and ship to keep her beloved Confederacy supplied with arms.
Raven drummed his fingers on his desk in an anxious rhythm as he weighed the wisdom of granting Alex’s request. It soon became apparent that he had no choice but to comply or he would make Alex appear to be an ineffectual fool in his bride’s eyes. He had never questioned Alex’s purchase orders in the past but he had never had reason to either. He would visit the London Armoury, and buy whatever he could, but he would not pretend to Alex he was pleased about what he intended to do. Tossing the letter aside, Raven opened the other one and found its contents even more disturbing.
Alex had written not to explain his elopement, but to praise the beauty and grace of his bride. He described the days they had spent together in rapturous detail and swore they were the best of his life. It was the last two paragraphs, however, that tore Raven’s heart in two.
“You have been the best friend I have ever had, and I was proud to name you as my heir,” Raven read aloud. “I beg you to look after Eden when I am gone. She is so wonderfully generous with her love that I cannot bear to think of her spending the rest of her life alone when what she deserves is the endless bliss she has given me. Please help her find a second husband who is as fine a man as you, a man who will cherish her love for the treasure it truly is.
“You know how badly I want you to find a bride as precious as Eden. Don’t let anything deter you from that quest. I don’t want either of you to be alone and I pray the future will bestow many blessings on you both.”
There was a postscript mentioning several gifts he had neglected to include in his will, but Raven’s eyes were too filled with tears to make out the details. He slumped back in his chair, certain he understood the true purpose of Alex’s letter, even if it had not been stated in so many words: Should he and Eden fail to fall in love with others, Alex was giving them his permission to wed. It was a heartbreakingly generous thing to do, but overwhelmed by the sorrow that had prompted Alex to make such a suggestion, Raven sent Peter back to Briarcliff with no more than a verbal acknowledgment that Alex’s letters had been received.
Chapter Five
August 1863
Raven waited until two days before the end of Alex and Eden’s month-long stay at Briarcliff before he began to move his clothing out of the captain’s cabin. Alex had left nothing in his quarters, so the process was a relatively simple one he would have completed before noon had Peter Brady not interrupted him. This time the groom was in tears and the envelope he handed Raven bore Eden’s feminine handwriting rather than Alex’s bold script.
“Is Alex dead?” Raven asked without needing to open the letter.
Peter nodded, then pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose. “He and his bride were down in the lower pasture watching the colts that were born last spring. I heard her calling for help, but by the time me and John reached them, Lord Clairbourne was already dead. We’d spoken with them a few moments before when they’d walked by the stables. They were always outdoors, liked the sunshine they said. I wasn’t around then, but those who were said his lordship’s father died just as sudden.”
Badly shaken, even though he had known Alex’s untimely death had been inevitable, Raven sank down on the bunk as the groom began to praise Alex as the finest man he had ever known. “Yes, he was that,’ Raven readily agreed.
Peter was not ashamed to weep openly, but Raven stubbornly refused to give in to tears even though the powerful emotion that threatened to prompt them stung his eyes and filled his throat with a painful knot. Swallowing hard, he knew he would spend the rest of his life grieving for Alex, but he intended to do it in his own way.
Seeking to distract himself from the sound of Peter’s heartwrenching sobs, he ripped open the message Eden had sent. It was brief, but a more poignant plea than he had expected from her.
Dear Raven,