[A temporary note for readers who are not new to the story: I revised Chapter 21 (the end) to introduce Dannie's gift. Feel free to re-read that chapter or to continue from here, as you wish. (: Thanks for reading Adrift!]

Captain Dremmer was a forgiving man—or so it seemed at first, when he chose me for his bride. As I have explained, I had no reputation for my homemaking skills. I am not pretty, nor shapely. Music was my only talent.

For him, my music was apparently enough.

They sent away to Oranslan for my gown. Sybill had made my mother's, with Father's fortunes still in bud, but now my family was wealthy and Sybill's poor hands were too gnarled with age for such delicate work. No one expected me to even try.

The dress was lovely. It was of silver silk overlaid with finest lace. The neckline was made to skim my shoulders, and it was embellished with tiny pearls. In its opulence it reminded me of my mother's comb, and I hated it.

Sybill helped me with my hair the morning I was wed. She fussed over my limp tresses until she had achieved an unexpectedly pleasing style: ringlets, braids, and strands of pearls all came together to elegant effect.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror with Sybill standing behind me, her hands on my naked shoulders. For the first time in my life, I felt beautiful, owing more to the silk and pearls than any beauty I myself possessed.

I approached my wedding with a sort of detached curiosity. It did not seem to be a momentous event; I felt as if someone else was living my life, as if I were simply watching from somewhere far removed. To marry was simply what girls did when they became women. Children, I supposed, would follow. I was unmoved by any of it: I was not happy, I was not sad, I was not angry. I simply was.

On our wedding day, I learned that Captain Dremmer's first name was Aroc. I wondered, gazing up at him as we stood with our hands linked, if he knew I was not untouched. Probably my brothers had guarded that secret with the utmost care. Then again, the colonies were not teeming with eligible brides; as they say, a poor man must take what's given.

The captain had never before been married, which put us on even ground in one respect, at least. In everything else, we differed. He was older than I, perhaps forty—I never asked. It never crossed my mind to wonder about his past life, his age, his passions. I knew him a little from our previous meetings, enough to recognize that he was a proud, upright man. I came to see over time that this impression was true: he ruled everything from his household to his facial hair with the same close attention and rigorous discipline as he exacted from his troops.

He had a handsome smile; I noticed that for the first time on our wedding day. Nothing else about him suggested warmth or love.

Our wedding took place outdoors, by the fields. Dervin performed the ceremony. In less time than it took for me to dress in the morning, with just a few simple words, my life was changed forever.

Captain Dremmer—Aroc—brushed my face with a dry kiss. He smelt of pungent shaving water; his bristling moustache tickled me. His hand in mine was warm, but hard.

We adjourned to the dining room, where Sorla and Sybill did my family proud with a dinner service beyond any I had ever seen. My family and our servants expressed nothing but happiness and well wishes toward me. I found it curious that all the folk around me should be happier than I was on my own wedding day, but this, too, I noticed with detachment; I could feel nothing except the sense that I should be feeling more.

When the dinner was over, my husband sent for his horse. He offered me his arm and led me out of my family's house for the last time.

"Be good to him," Wylliam said. He was smiling, but I sensed that his words were not as light as he made them sound. "Captain—take care of her. We wish you well."

Captain Dremmer nodded his head. "She shall want for nothing, sir. Master Cuthbert—farewell."

Cuthbert shook the captain's hand. He glanced at my face, but his gaze fell away just as quickly.

Sybill was the only one who embraced me. She clung to me for a moment, whispering into my hair, "May you have every happiness, Miss Agnes. I shall miss you sorely, dear. You must come to visit us as often as you can. Bring your little ones, when they come along."

Captain Dremmer lifted me up onto his horse and swung up into the saddle behind me. He reached past me to take the reigns. As the horse turned toward the road and began to trot away, I looked back over my shoulder at my family.

I would not miss them much.

***

The captain's home was austere, almost bare of the small luxuries I had taken for granted nearly all of my life. I had never been attached to pretty things like the gaily painted china, the embroidered linens, or the lace-trimmed curtains of my father's home, but now I missed them.

I would not have to learn many new names and faces. Aroc kept only one servant, Tana, who served as housekeeper and cook. She was the one who helped me prepare for bed on my wedding night. She unthreaded the pearl bands from my hair with unpracticed fingers; I stood still and did not tell her when she pulled my hair. Then, she helped me out of my wedding dress and into a lace nightgown.

My trousseau, just like my wedding dress, had been ordered from the homeland. Most girls labored their entire adolescence on the pretty things they would take with them into marriage: linens, nightgowns, chemises. I had done none of it and would never have wanted to, but now, even my clothes were unfamiliar to me.

"Thank you, Tana," I said, not yet at ease with this stranger. I hesitated. "You may go."

"Good night, mistress," Tana said as she went to the door. She seemed to have no warmth to spare for me.

I watched her go, then looked around my room. It was plainly furnished, but comfortable enough. My trunk had been brought on before me and already sat at the end of the bed; the wardrobe, when I opened it, was already hung with my dresses and cloaks. In one corner of the room stood my harp with its low stool, ready for my touch. A pitcher and basin waited for me on a stand against one wall.

Staring at them, I felt a chill sweep down my back. I wondered what Aroc would do, what he would say, if he knew what happened to me when I touched the water. No one in the world knew but me. Could I keep the secret from him, now that I was married?

I must insist on privacy always while I washed my face, while I bathed. I must hope I would never fall into water, never be caught in rain. The thought of these accidents brought a wave of panic over me. I rushed to the window and opened it, leaning out to take the air. I looked out over the gently sloped roof down into a street nearly empty of passersby. I stood there for a moment, distracted from my panic as I realized how strange it was to be now in a place with so many other buildings filled with so many other people. I was used to seeing nothing but a long stretch of fields from my window with the scattered figures of my father's field hands moving to and fro.

At last, calm again for the moment, I moved to the bed and knelt down before the trunk at the end of it. Opening it, I saw that all my things were still neatly arranged inside. I pushed aside my folded shawls and undergarments and found what I sought nestled in the bottom of the trunk, wrapped in a handkerchief: the sea turtle Dannie had made me.

Cradling the turtle in my hand, I went to the hearth. I turned it in my fingers. It was smooth; he must have worked a long time at the carving and the shaping of it to make such a pretty thing. I wished I could still feel the warmth of his fingers in the wood, the way I had when he'd given it to me the night we'd shared his bed. I reached up to place the turtle on the mantel above the hearth.

There was a gentle knock at the door.

"Come in," I called. Finally, feeling was creeping back into my numb heart: fear. I stared at the turtle and did not look toward the door. Aroc's booted footsteps enter the chamber; the door swung closed, and the lock clicked into place.

"You look lovely, Agnes," Aroc said. I turned to see him still in the military regalia he had worn for our wedding. Shining medals stood out upon his dark blue coat. It looked like he had freshly combed his hair. I caught the faint scent of his shaving water again; although we had ridden all the way from my home to his, it was still unfamiliar to me.

"Thank you." My hair still held—barely—the curls of the ringlets and braids Sybill had made for me, but I did not believe him. It has never bothered me, not being pretty; the only time I ever felt lesser for it was on my wedding night. It seemed to me as his eyes crossed over my face that he must be counting my faults, although his words belied it.

"I hope you will find yourself at home here." Aroc moved to the window, which I had left open, and latched it closed.

"I will," I said, watching him. A locked door, a locked window—I felt myself entrapped. How could I ever feel at home with this stranger?

Aroc crossed to the hearth. Apart from my harp, the turtle was the only thing of my own that was in evidence, and he had noticed it. He reached out and took it. My heart turned over with the sudden fear that he would drop it and break off one of the creature's slender limbs. I almost snapped at him to put it back. I did not want him to touch it.

"What's this?"

"Just a silly thing. A trinket that will remind me of home." Apart from my harp, it was the one thing I cared about of everything I had.

"Imperfect work," Aroc said, turning it in his hands. "From one of your brothers?"

I hesitated. "From—a friend."

Aroc's glance cut toward me from across the room. "Mm." It was a noncommittal sound, but there was something in his look that made me nervous. He put the turtle back on the mantel, carelessly leaving it with its head turned toward the wall. My fingers itched to go put it back how I had placed it, facing out at me, but I stood still.

He came to me and lifted my hair with one warm hand, letting his fingers linger on my neck for a moment. "Think not on your life before tonight, Agnes," he said. As he looked down at me, he did not smile, but I saw a familiar light burning in his eyes. It was a light I had seen in Dannie's. "Think on me."

I tried to lose myself in Aroc that night, as I had lost myself to Daniel, but I could not. I lay stiffly on the sheets and, although I did not weep, I felt something break apart inside of me. I discovered on my wedding night that a man's patience is not limitless. This lesson would be reinforced a thousand times after.

When I woke the next morning, Dannie's gift was gone.