“Aye, fer all of us, I’m thinking,” Mac replied gruffly, but he was looking at Georgina as he said it. “Have ye nothing tae say, lass?”
“Yes.” Georgina stepped into what was a small parlor, gave it a cursory glance; then her eyes came back to her fiancé and she asked baldly, “Whose child is that, Malcolm?”
Mac coughed and looked up at the ceiling, as if the open-timbered roof was suddenly of great interest. Malcolm frowned at Georgina as he slowly set the little girl on the floor at his feet.
“Do I know you, miss?”
“You mean you really don’t recognize me?” This with a great deal of relief.
Malcolm’s frown deepened. “Should I?”
Mac coughed again, or was he choking this time? Georgina spared him a scowl before bestowing one of her brighter smiles on the love of her life.
“You should, yes, but I forgive you that you don’t. It’s been a long while, after all, and they tell me I’ve changed more than I think. I suppose now I really must believe it.” She gave a nervous laugh. “This is embarrassing, that I must introduce myself to you, of all people. I’m Georgina Anderson, Malcolm, your fiancée.”
“Little Georgie?” He started to laugh, but he didn’t quite make it, sounded more like he was strangling. “You’re not. Georgie?”
“I assure you—”
“But you can’t be!” he exclaimed now, looking more horrified than doubtful. “You’re beautiful! She wasn’t…I mean, she didn’t look…No one can changethatmuch.”
“Obviously, I must beg to differ,” Georgina said with some stiffness. “It didn’t happen overnight, you know. Had you been there to see the change come about gradually…but you weren’t there, were you? Clinton, who was gone for three years, was surprised, but he at least still knew it was me.”
“He’s your brother!” Malcolm protested.
“And you’re my fiancé!” she shot back.
“Oh, Jesus, you can’t still be thinking…It’s been, what, five or six years? I never thought you’d wait, what with the war. It changed everything, don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t see. You were on an English ship when the war started, but through no fault of your own. You were still an American.”
“But that’s just it, girl. I never felt right, calling myself an American. It was my folks wanted to settle there, not me.”
“What exactly are you saying, Malcolm?”
“I’m an Englishman, always have been. I owned up to it when I was impressed, and young as I was, they believed me that I wasn’t a deserter. They let me sign on, which I was glad to do. It made no never mind to me who I sailed with, as long as I sailed. And I’m doing right well, I am. I’m second mate now on the—”
“We know your ship,” Georgina cut in sharply. “That’s how we found you, though it’s taken a month to do so. An American merchantman wouldn’t keep such shoddy records, you can be sure. My brothers know where every one of their crewmen can be found when they’re in port…but that’s beside the point, isn’t it? You sided with the English! Four of my brothers volunteered their ships as privateers for that war, and you might have come up against any one of them!”
“Easy, lass,” Mac intervened. “Ye knew all along that he had tae fight again’ us.”
“Yes, but not willingly. He’s as much as admitted he’s a traitor!”
“Nae, he’s admitting tae a love fer the country of his birth. Ye canna fault a mon fer that.”
No, she couldn’t, much as she wanted to. Rot the English. God, how she hated them. They not only stole Malcolm from her, but wooed his sentiments to their cause as well. Hewasan Englishman now, and obviously proud of it. But he was still her fiancé. And the war was over, after all.
Malcolm was red-faced, but whether with embarrassment or chagrin for her condemnation of him, she couldn’t tell. She was hot-cheeked herself. This wasnothow she had imagined their reunion would be.
“Mac is right, Malcolm. I’m sorry if I got a little upset over something that…well, that no longer matters. Nothing has changed, really. My feelings certainly haven’t. My being here is testimony to that.”
“And just why is it you’ve come?”
Georgina stared at him blankly for a moment before her eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. “Why? The answer to that is obvious. The question is, why was it necessary for me to come here, and only you can answer that. Why didn’t you return to Bridgeport after the war, Malcolm?”
“There was no reason to.”
“No reason?” She gasped. “I beg to differ. There was the little matter of our getting married. Or is that something you chose to forget?”
