(standard disclaimer applies)
Nearly everyone he knew had advised him against taking the position. It was hot and dangerous and savage, they said. Did he really want his only child to grow up half-wild, to miss her proper debut, or – God forbid – catch some horrible tropical disease?
Only Constance's elderly mother had been in favor of the idea. She had run her sharp blue eyes over her son-in-law, taking in the invisible weight on his shoulders, the loss in the deep lines of his face, the nails he'd bitten down to the quick. And she had gathered her granddaughter close, studying Elizabeth's freckles, patting her brown curls.
"You take this little girl places, Weatherby," she had ordered with a crisp, satisfied nod. And though she had fought the marriage right up until the day Constance died, he felt as though her approval mattered more than the king's.
Now he looked down at Elizabeth delighting in the spray of the sea on her face, the dolphins leaping next to the hull, the sun shining down on the deck. And he hoped the old woman knew what she was about.