For All Time (Nantucket Brides 2)

“Who grew up to marry little Ali,” Victoria said. “Toby, since the book I’m working on is from Valentina’s journal, I’ll want to talk to you about her. I didn’t realize Ali was older than Jared.”

No one noticed that Toby and Graydon were silent and slightly frowning. While the others discussed Valentina and her life, Toby turned to Graydon. “You didn’t tell me that you saw that room. I couldn’t go inside it. I also felt a deep sadness—grief—coming from it. I kept feeling that I—I mean Tabby—had died in there.”

Graydon took her hand in his and kissed the back of it. He wasn’t about to tell her that was exactly what he too had felt. “But you heard Dr. Huntley. Tabby had no children, so she probably wouldn’t have died in that particular room.”

Toby grimaced. “No, she just willed herself to leave the earth because her life was so unhappy. That poor, poor girl. When I was in my dream, if I’d known what happened to her, I would have tried to save her.”

“By doing what? Marrying her to Garrett?” He was smiling as though that was a great idea.

“Then he goes off to sea with his big brother and gets himself killed? That would leave yet another widow in that house and probably more children to take care of. And if she was Garrett’s wife, Tabby wouldn’t have had Silas

Osborne’s store to help feed and clothe them.”

“Are you saying that Tabby should have married that odious little man?” There was anger in Graydon’s voice. “He killed her by not keeping to his bargain to support them.”

“The real problem was that if Tabby couldn’t stand him, she was stupid to let him know that. Maybe if she’d been nicer to him, it wouldn’t have been so bad for her and her family.”

“That is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard! Garrett would have taken care of her both physically and financially. He was a Kingsley. He had money! None of them would have starved.”

“No, but she would have died of a broken heart!” Toby shot back at him.

“Which she did anyway!” Graydon replied in the same angry tone.

Suddenly, they became aware of the silence of the room. Toby and Graydon were leaning toward each other, nearly nose to nose, their voices loud and angry. When they saw the stares of the others, they stood upright, almost at attention.

“Tabby should have stood up to her mother,” Graydon said stiffly, his eyes on Caleb. “Am I right?”

Caleb was the only one looking amused. The others were wide-eyed at this passionate argument over something that had happened so long ago. “Yes and no,” he said. “Yes, Tabby should have told Lavinia what she could do with her ugly little storekeeper, but no, she shouldn’t have married Garrett the way he was.”

“What does that mean?” Graydon asked, and his voice was belligerent, challenging.

“My young brother—sorry, I mean Captain Caleb’s brother—was a bad sailor.”

“A what?!” Graydon said, sounding personally affronted. He took a breath, then sat down on a bar stool. “I apologize. All this seems to be getting to me more than it should. You said that all the Kingsleys went to sea.”

“They did,” Caleb said, “but that can manifest itself in many ways. What young Garrett should have done was stop trying to lord it over a few dirty sailors on a ship and stay home to run what could have been a Kingsley empire. Garrett was like you: meant to run something much larger than a single ship.”

“Like an entire country?” Jilly said.

“We do have a parliament,” Graydon said under his breath, but when he looked into Caleb’s eyes, he knew what the man meant. He liked his country, liked traveling around it, getting to know the people. He liked being able to help people on a grander scale than what would be possible aboard one ship.

Toby broke the silence. “But when I—as Tabby—asked Garrett if he would stay home and not ship out, he got angry.”

“That’s because the captain had expressed the same desire several times on the last voyage. But the boy thought he would be letting the family down if he didn’t get on a ship every few years. I think if he had married Tabby he might have used that as an excuse to never again leave the island.”

“But her mother …” Toby began.

“Was scared,” Caleb finished for her. “Lavinia was terrified out of her mind of the future. Seeing her grandchildren hungry was something she couldn’t bear—and rightfully so. If keeping them fed meant sacrificing one daughter, she’d do it. I happen to know that she offered herself to Silas Osborne first but he only wanted pretty little Tabby.”

“What happened to them after Tabby died?” Jilly asked.

“Osborne had become lazy over the years. What with his wife running everything, he had forgotten how to work. Garrett had made out a will leaving everything to Tabby and at her death it all went to her mother. Lavinia bought Osborne’s store and made her daughters-in-law help run it. She lived to be eighty-something and died a fairly wealthy, but miserable, old woman. I don’t think she ever really recovered from Tabby’s death.”

“Too bad you can’t change history,” Victoria said. “It’s not like my books when my editor makes me rewrite a chapter and I change what people said and did.”

Toby was staring at the box on the countertop and the others were looking at her. If she had truly gone back in time—which was, of course, impossible—there were possibilities. She looked at Caleb. “Tabby was caught in a compromising situation with Garrett, and her mother didn’t give her time to think but rushed her into a marriage with Osborne. If, say, I had another dream, what could I do to change the situation?”

“Complete the deed,” Caleb said. “Garrett and Tabby were caught kissing. If they were seen … well, past that, the whole island would expect them to marry each other. Besides, I think Osborne would certainly refuse to marry Tabby after something like that.”