“I didn’t,” Stede protests, half choking on the words. So much is riding on this and he knows it, but the heightened emotions make it that much harder to say what he needs to say. But it’s not just guilt now—there’s a small ember of anger of his own burning low in his chest. Does Ed really think that of him? That he’d care about the trappings of the aristocracy over him?

“I didn’t lie. I wanted it all, Edward, and I wanted it with you. But I was too cowardly to say why I couldn't do it, and... I’d already gotten you caught by the Navy once. I’d put my crew in danger, abandoned my family, killed two men—” (on a technicality) “—and I was afraid. Going back to Barbados made sense, at the moment. I could try and fix at least one thing I’d broken, and you… you’d be fine. I never doubted it for a moment.”