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They both fell silent for a time, listening.

She imagined this cabin and garden as a lively place, inhabited by a woman and her children.

Not for the first time, Althea wondered how her life would have been different if her brothers had survived the Blood Plague.

Would her father have taken her on the ship?

Would she be married by now, with children of her own?

‘What are you thinking?’ Grag asked her gently.

He let his chair drop forward, then leaned his elbows on the table.

He rested his chin in his hands and regarded her fondly.

A bottle of wine, two glasses and the remains of a cold supper cluttered the table.

Althea had brought the food up with her.

The note that had come to the house had actually been from Grag’s mother to hers.

It had begged her mother’s pardon, then asked if it would be possible for Althea to run a discreet errand for the Tenira family.

Keffria had raised her eyebrows, but perhaps her mother had decided that Althea had no reputation left to protect.

She had returned a note granting her leave.

A horse had been waiting for her in a Bingtown stable.

Althea had set out with no clear knowledge of her destination.

As she passed a small tavern on the outskirts of Bingtown, a loiterer had hailed her and pressed a note into her hand.

The note directed her to an inn, where she half expected to find Grag.

Instead, when she arrived there, she was offered a fresh horse and a man’s hooded cloak.

The mount that awaited her had laden saddle-packs. Still another note accompanied him.

There had been an air of both mystery and adventure to tracking Grag down, but never did Althea forget that it was serious as well.

In the days since Ophelia had defied the Satrap’s tariff minister, Bingtown had grown more divided.

The liveship’s swift departure from the harbour had been a wise decision, for three new Chalcedean patrol vessels had arrived shortly thereafter.

This ‘timely’ arrival had sparked suspicions that the tariff ministry had closer ties to Chalced than perhaps even Jamaillia knew.

Someone had broken into the minister’s quarters, and messily killed a cote of homing pigeons there.

The tariff warehouses that had survived the Council night-fires had been torched twice since then.

This had led to the Chalcedean mercenaries guarding the minister’s quarters by night as well as ostensibly patrolling the harbour and adjacent waters.

Some of those Old Traders who had initially been more conservative were now more sympathetic to those who quietly spoke of independence from Jamaillia.

Grag Tenira had become a focus for the tariff minister’s grievances with the town.

There was a large price on his head. Brashen’s suggestion that Althea could sell Grag for enough money to re-launch Paragon had been a jest, but not an exaggeration.

If Grag did not put himself out of harm’s reach soon, even those loyal to him might be tempted by the soaring bounty.

So now, as she sat in the summer evening’s mellow breeze and looked across at him, she felt a sense of foreboding.

Grag had to act and soon. She had spoken to him of it before, and now she ventured, ‘I still do not understand why you linger near Bingtown. Surely, you could slip out of town on one of the liveships. I am only amazed that the Satrap’s agents have not deduced that you would be here.

It is well known that your family has a cabin in the Sanger Forest.’

‘So well known that they have been here twice and searched it. They may come again. But if they do, they will find it as empty and abandoned as the last times.’

‘How?’ Althea was intrigued.

Grag laughed, but not lightly. ‘My great uncle was not the most moral of men. The family rumour is that he kept many a tryst up here. That is why there is not only a wine cellar concealed behind a false wall in the root cellar, but a tiny chamber behind that. And there is a very expensive sympathy bell, with its partner installed in the footbridge you crossed.’

‘I heard nothing when I crossed the bridge,’ Althea protested.

‘Of course not. It’s a tiny one, but very sensitive. When your passage rang it there, its partner answered up here. Thank Sa for the magic of the Rain Wilds.’

He lifted his glass in a toast to their Rain Wild brethren, and Althea drank with him. She set her glass down and dragged him back to her topic. ‘Then you intend to remain here?’

He shook his head. ‘No. It would only be a matter of time before they caught me. Supplies must be brought up. The folk in this area know that I am here. Many of them are Three Ships Families. Good people, but not rich. Eventually, one would give in to temptation. No, I am leaving and very soon. That is why I begged my mother to arrange this visit. I feared your family would forbid it; I knew it was not proper for me to seek to see you alone in these circumstances. Desperate times beget desperate measures.’ He looked apologetic.

Althea gave a soft snort of amusement. ‘I don’t think Mother gave it that much thought. I’m afraid my childhood reputation as a rebellious hoyden has followed me into adulthood. What would be scandalous for my sister to do is ordinary behaviour for me.’

He reached across the table to put his hand over hers. He pressed it warmly, then possessed it. ‘Is it wrong for me to say that I am glad it is so? Otherwise, I would never have come to know you well enough to love you.’

The bald admission left her speechless. She tried to move her mouth to say she loved him too, but the lie would not come.

Odd. She had not known it would be a lie until she tried to speak the words.

She took a breath to say something true: that she had come to care for him as well, or that she was honoured by his words, but with a shake of his head, he cut her off.

‘Don’t speak. You don’t have to say it, Althea.

I know you don’t love me, not yet. In many ways, your heart is even more cautious than mine.

I knew that from the beginning. Even if I had not, Ophelia was at great pains to tell me so when she was instructing me in how to woo you.

’ He laughed self-deprecatingly. ‘Not that I sought her advice. In many ways, she is a second mother to me. She does not wait for me to ask for her advice.’

She smiled gratefully. ‘I find no fault with you, Grag. There is nothing you have done to turn back my feelings. My life has given me no time, of late, to dwell on hopes or dreams for myself. My family’s problems weigh heavily on me.

Lacking grown men in our line, the duty falls squarely on me. No one else can go after the Vivacia.’

‘So you have told me,’ Grag conceded, in a voice that did not concede complete agreement.

‘I have given up the hope that you might go with me now. I suppose that even in times such as these, that would be seen as too hasty a wedding to be seemly.’ He turned her hand over in his and brushed his thumb over her palm.

It sent a shiver of pleasure up her arm.

He looked down at her hand as he asked, ‘But what of later? Better times will come…’ He considered his own words and then gave a bitter laugh.

‘Or worse ones, perhaps. I would like to tell myself that in time, you will stand beside me and join my family. Althea. Will you marry me?’

She closed her eyes and knew a moment of pain.

This was a good man, an honest and upright man, handsome, desirable even wealthy.

‘I don’t know,’ she told him quietly. ‘I try to look ahead, and imagine a time when my life will be my own, to arrange as I will, but I cannot see that far. If all goes well, and we win the Vivacia back, then I will still challenge Kyle for possession of her. If I win her, then I will sail her.’ She met his eyes honestly.

‘We have spoken of this before. I know you cannot leave Ophelia. If once more I possess Vivacia, I will not leave her. Where does that leave us?’

His mouth twisted wryly. ‘You make it hard for me to wish you success, for if you win all you desire, I lose you.’ At the dawn of her frown, he laughed aloud. ‘But you know I do. Nevertheless, if you do not succeed…well, I will be waiting for you. With Ophelia.’

She lowered her eyes and nodded to his offer, but in her heart she felt a small chill.

What would it be to fail? A lifetime ahead with no ship of her own.

The Vivacia gone forever from her life. Grag’s wife, aboard his ship as a passenger, minding her little ones lest they fall overboard.

Seeing her sons grow up and sail away with their father while she stayed home and ran a household and married off her daughters.

The future suddenly seemed a tightening net, webbing her in.

She tried to breathe, tried to convince herself that her life would not be like that.

Grag knew her. He knew her heart was at sea, not at home.

But, just as he accepted her duty to her family now, once they were married he would expect her to do her duty to him.

Why else did sailors take wives, save to have someone at home to mind the house and raise the children?

‘I can’t be your wife.’ Incredulously, she heard herself say the words aloud. She forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘That is what truly keeps me from loving you, Grag. Knowing that that would be the price I must pay. I could love you, easily, but I could not live in your shadow.’