Chapter 1

The first thing Reid did when I opened the cabin door was reach for his mistress's water glass.

He didn't pull his fingers back from the crystal. He tilted the rim carefully against her mouth, waiting until she swallowed before he set it on the nightstand.

"No lemon," he told the steward standing by the sink. "It makes her sick in the evenings."

Fourteen years of marriage, and I had never heard my husband sound that gentle.

I knew how Reid sounded when he ordered a man off his dock and when he lied to a priest. I had never heard him remember what made a woman sick. He had saved that ordinary tenderness for her.

Sabine sat on our bed, wearing Reid's black linen dress shirt. The thin linen pulled tight across a round, heavy belly.

Reid smoothed the dark cloth down over her knees. He fastened one cufflink before he stood up and turned to face me.

"You weren't supposed to board until Port Alder," he said.

"The car had a flat. One of the fuel runners gave me a ride."

I held out the garment bag. I had spent three days hand-stitching the silk lining so his shoulder holster wouldn't wear through the wool.

At four that afternoon, I had left Celia Pruitt—a fifty-two-year-old bride—standing on my fitting block with half her hem still pinned. Reid had called twice about the suit, so I promised her I would return before breakfast. She told me not to rush. I rushed anyway.

The first suit I ever repaired for Reid had a bullet hole beneath the arm. He had watched me sew it shut in the back room of my shop and asked why I wasn't afraid of him.

Sabine looked from Reid to me.

Her hand stopped halfway through fastening his shirt.

"Reid," she whispered, her eyes shifting from my boots to his back. "You said she knew. You said she'd agreed."

Reid didn't look at her.

"Leave us, Sabine," he said.

"Reid—"

"Get out."

"You said tonight would make it official," she murmured, refusing to move for three long seconds before she slid off the mattress, carrying her green heels by the straps.

Reid lifted the emerald dress from the chair and handed it to her.

"You sit beside me."

Sabine took the dress. When she passed me, the confusion had left her face. She walked past me into the narrow passage, smelling like almond lotion and my husband's cedar soap.

The latch clicked shut.

Reid took two steps across the rug and reached out for the bag.

I let my fingers uncurl.

The black wool suit hit the floor with a dull slap. He didn't bend to pick it up. He planted his polished oxford right on the edge of the sleeve I had ironed that morning.

"Twenty-six weeks," he said.

Half a year of him kissing my forehead before driving into the city. Half a year of him telling me we were better off without children, that he loved our life just the way it was.

"She's Cyrus Duvall's sister," I said.

"Her brother controls the crews that unload our ships," Reid said. "If they walk, the docks stop. This is business, Corinne."

"Did Cyrus demand that you sleep with his sister?"

Reid's mouth hardened.

"No."

"Then stop calling it business."

"And the boy inside her?"

"He's a Varden."

Reid closed the distance between us until I could smell tobacco on his breath.

His thumb pressed beneath my jaw until swallowing hurt, then eased before the pressure could leave a bruise.

"Nothing changes for you," he said. "You keep the title. You run the house. You sit at the head of my table. Sabine and the boy will live under my protection, and you will welcome my son as the Varden heir."

"Where is she going to live?" I pushed, stepping closer.

"The east wing is being prepared."

I stared at him. "You're moving her into our home?"

The east wing had been closed since the last time I lost a child.

"She'll have her own rooms."

"And you'll still come to mine?"

Reid didn't answer.

He glanced down at the garment bag beneath his shoe.

"I renewed your shop lease for another year. I bought the space next door. You'll have twice the workroom."

"You brought your mistress into my house and bought me another room to sew in?"

"I'm making sure you lose nothing."

"You already took it."

"You want me to smile while your mistress's child takes my place at my own table?"

"He isn't taking your place. He's taking mine."

"Cyrus is upstairs with every captain who matters. If you refuse to stand beside me, you humiliate his family in front of mine."

Reid opened the cabin door.

One of his armed men was waiting in the passage.

"Ten minutes, Corinne. You can walk upstairs, or he can carry you."