He would have attended Eton, as all of the Cavendish boys did, and then gone on to Cambridge. He would have been enrolled at Peterhouse, because only the oldest of the colleges would do for the House of Wyndham, and his name would have been added to the long list of Cavendish Petreans inscribed on the wall of the library the family had donated hundreds of years earlier, back when the dukes had still been earls and the church was still Catholic.

It would not have mattered what he studied, or even if he did study. Jack would have been graduated no matter his marks. He would have been the Wyndham heir. Thomas was not sure what he would have had to do to get himself dismissed; he could not imagine that anything less than complete illiteracy would have done the trick.

A season in London would have followed, as it had for Thomas. Jack would have made merry there, Thomas thought dryly. His was just the sort of wit that made a young unmarried ducal heir even more wildly attractive to the ladies. The army would certainly not have been permitted. And it went without saying that he would not have been out robbing coaches on the Lincoln Road.

What a difference a storm made.

As for Thomas, he had no idea where he might have ended up. Farther north, most likely, at some house provided by his mother’s father. Would his father have been brought into business? Managing factories? It was difficult to imagine anything Reginald Cavendish would have detested more.

What might he have done with his life, had he not been born the only son of a duke? He could not imagine the freedom. From his earliest memories, his life had been mapped ahead of him. Every day he made dozens of decisions, but the important ones—the ones that mattered in his own life—had been made for him.

He supposed they had all turned out well. He’d liked Eton and loved Cambridge, and if he’d liked to have defended his country as Jack had—well, it did seem that His Majesty’s army had acquitted itself just fine without him. Even Amelia…

He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing the pitch and roll of the boat to play games with his balance.

Even Amelia would have turned out to be an excellent choice. He felt like an idiot for having taken so long to know her.

All those decisions he’d not been allowed to make…He wondered if he would have done a better job with them himself.

Probably not.

Off at the bow, he could see Grace and Amelia, sitting together on a built-in bench. They were sharing a cabin with the dowager, and since she had barricaded herself inside, they had elected to remain out. Lord Crowland had been given the other cabin. He and Jack would bunk below, with the crew.