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her. Half of them couldn’t swim nearly as well as she could, but Malcolm had been on the wharf with his father and had thought to play the hero, too. As it happened, Georgina pulled herself out of the water, while Malcolm had to be saved. But she had been duly impressed with his intention, and thoroughly infatuated. He was all of fourteen and she twelve, and she decided then and there that he was the handsomest, most wonderful boy in the world.
    Those sentiments didn’t alter very much in the following years, even though Malcolm had had to be reminded of who she was when next they met, and the time after that, too. Then there had been Mary Ann’s party, where Georgina had asked Malcolm to dance, and got her toes stepped on at least a half dozen times. He was sixteen then and more manly, and though he remembered her, he seemed more interested in her friend Mary Ann, who was closer to his age.
    Of course, she hadn’t determined to have him for herself yet, nor had she given him any indication of how certain she was that her infatuation with him had turned into love. Another year went by before she decided to do something about it, and this she did in a wholly logical manner. Malcolm was still the handsomest boy in town, but his prospects were not the best. She knew by then that his ambition was to becaptain of his own ship, and that he would have to obtain his goal the hard way, by working his way up. She also was realistic about herself, knowing that she had nothing to recommend her in looks, that she sort of just blended in with the crowd. She had five handsome brothers, but something had gone wrong when it came to the only female in the family. But what she did have was a handsome dowry—her own Skylark ship to be hers alone on her eighteenth birthday, just as her brothers had received theirs. But though she couldn’t captain her ship as her brothers did theirs, her future husband could, and she made sure Malcolm was aware of this.
    It was a calculated plot, to be sure, and she was the tiniest bit ashamed of it, especially when it worked. Malcolm began courting her a few months before her sixteenth birthday, and on her birthday, he proposed. Sixteen, in love, and deliriously happy! It was no wonder she managed to ignore whatever guilt she was feeling in more or less having bought a husband. After all, no one had twisted Malcolm’s arm. He was getting what he wanted just as much as she was. And she was sure that he felt something for her, and that his feelings would grow to match hers eventually. So everything would have worked out fine if the English hadn’t interfered, blast them.
    But they did. Her brothers had tried to interfere, too. She had discovered that they’d only been indulging her when they allowed her to become engaged at sixteen, assuming she would change her mind at least a half dozen time before she reached eighteen, when they would let her marry. She had fooled them though, and since the end of the war, each time they camehome, they would try to talk her into forgetting about Malcolm and finding another husband. She’d had other offers. After all, her dowry was still a powerful draw. And she wasn’t so scatterbrained that she wasn’t aware and delighted with the change in her appearance in recent years. But she had remained loyal to her one and only love, even when it got harder and harder to make excuses for why he hadn’t returned to marry her in the four years since the war ended. But there would be a good reason, and today she would finally learn what it was. And before she left England, she would be married.
    “This be it, lass.”
    Georgina stared at the lovely little cottage with its whitewashed walls and well-tended rose beds. She rubbed her hands together nervously but made no move to accept Mac’s help to dismount. She couldn’t even recall stopping at the church and waiting while Mac got directions.
    “Maybe he isn’t home?”
    Mac said nothing, just patiently held up arms to