Just like Matthew. Though he did not speak the words aloud, the implication could not be ignored, and Lily bristled. “Children cannot choose the circumstances of their birth.”
“You’re right. But our society is structured to constrain them by it, nonetheless. And if a man is driven by ambition, like my brother, those constraints are keenly felt. They turn to restlessness.” His hands were in his pockets now. “My brother is a man of fine intelligence, like Matthew. He is forever chasing some new challenge. When the revolution came here, I did send him into Russia to the care of General Gordon, who’s a favorite of the Tsar. It’s my hope he finds his fortune there. If nothing else, he’ll find adventure.”
Lily did not need to hear him say the words. “Ye think that Matthew should not marry me.”
“I think he’s young,” the captain said again. “I fear that if he settles here too soon, he’ll never know how high he could have climbed. How far his own ambition could have carried him. I fear he will regret his choice in time, and grow resentful, and you both will be unhappy.” Captain Gordon held her gaze with level eyes. “And I believe that, if you’re honest with yourself, you fear it, too.”
The wind felt cold when he had walked away.
She wrapped her arms around herself, yet she did not feel any warmer. What he’d said had stirred the tiny whisperings of doubt that she’d been fighting to ignore. Sometimes at night, when she lay troubled in the darkness, she had tried to argue with those whispers, telling them that Matthew was as ready as he claimed to cease his wanderings and have a settled life. And then she’d see him at his work, and she would try to picture Matthew growing old here with his cart and horse in Leith, and even Lily knew that he was meant for greater things.
If it were simply something he could cure by moving elsewhere, that would be an easy thing to solve, for there were many places they could live after they married where they’d not be known to anyone, where they could start their lives anew. Sometimes she imagined that—the two of them together in a distant place, perhaps with a small garden, and a room with books to call her own. She dreamed of it.
But in her darker moments Lily feared that dream would never be within her reach, for whatever drove Matthew on his wanderings, whatever he was searching for, was something he would need to find alone.
She was looking out across the water, heedless of the people walking all around her, when she gradually became aware of someone at her side.
At first, he was the vague impression of a man, and she could not have said how long he had been standing there. Then, much like a half-remembered landmark taking shape out of a misty landscape, there he was—a strongly built young man with fair hair caught back at his collar underneath a broad black hat, and eyes that looked at hers as if they, too, were sifting through the memories. Struggling to believe.
He asked her, “Lily?”
Lily tried to answer but the words refused to form and she could only nod, and then it scarcely mattered because Jamie swept her up into a crushing hug that lifted her clear off the ground.
Joyously, he whirled her round and Lily only learned that she was crying when she felt the chill air fan the tears that had begun to trickle down her cheeks.
“Ye are not dead!” He set her down but did not let her go. He only drew back so that he could better look at her, as though he needed to be certain. “How are ye not dead?”
It was too long a story to explain and Lily did not try to. With one hand she brushed her tears away, and with the other she held tightly to his sleeve, remembering the last time she had heard him with his father passing by, and lost him. “Don’t leave,” was the first thing she managed to say.
Jamie dug in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief for her. “It’s all right,” he said. “Ye’ll have the Devil’s own time getting free of me now, so ye will.”
Somebody whistled, sharply, and he raised his head and called across the crowd that he’d just be a minute. Looking down again at Lily, Jamie told her, “I can’t stop long, not the now, I’m meant to join the others on the ship afore the celebration.”
Lily sought to focus, still amazed that she was standing now with Jamie after all these years. “What ship?”
“The Instauration. Shortly to be the Saint Andrew.” His grin was the same. “What? Ye said that I could be a sailor.”
Lily’s face had fallen, she could feel it. “Ye are going to the colony?”
“I’ll tell ye all about it,” Jamie promised. “Later. Are ye living here in Leith? Where can I find ye?”