Another pang struck Morwenna. Before he left, she and Robert had been passionate lovers, but close to strangers in most other ways. If fate had been kinder, they should by now have formed the same bond as Silas and Caro.
She and her husband had missed out on so much. Was it too late to find each other again?
Or was the break irreparable?
Studying this stern man in his rough sailor’s clothes, she couldn’t feel confident of a happy ending. Misery tightened her belly, and she sagged where she stood.
Caro came to take Morwenna’s arm. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, although she was far from sure. A torrent of words pressed against her trembling lips, but her husband’s closed expression kept her silent.
“Rob, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” Amy stood on shaky legs and stumbled across to hug her brother. “I’m so happy that you’re alive.”
The paralysis that had gripped everyone gradually eased. The shock that had felt like horror, but was really astounded, incomprehensible elation, now softened to something a little more bearable.
Robert even seemed less awkward with human contact as he bent to hug his sister. In Silas’s embrace, he’d looked ready to fight or run. The man Morwenna had married had always worn a smile. This man hadn’t smiled once, although surely he must be glad to be back.
And he’d given no sign that he remembered his wife with any special fondness. No sign except that furious cry denying Garson’s claim on her.
Now those fathomless eyes met hers as he leaned over a sobbing Amy. Morwenna caught a flash of something that could be vulnerability. He looked away before she could be sure. But this was the first hint that the man she’d married might lurk somewhere inside this forbidding stranger.
“Robert, let me tell you…” she said in a croak that faded to nothing. Appeal? Apology? Welcome? She wasn’t sure herself. But he didn’t hear her over the hubbub in the room.
The crowd slowly dispersed. The men clapped Robert and Silas on the back in congratulations, while the women smiled. Or if they were sentimental, dabbed their eyes with lace handkerchiefs. A few curious souls lingered as the ranks thinned, hoping for some gossip to take away. But Silas and his staff were polite but relentless in clearing the house.
If those who appreciated a scandal wished to witness a brawl between the newly resurrected husband and the recently deposed fiancé, they would have been doomed to disappointment.
“Morwenna, can I do anything to help?” Garson turned to her with the consideration she’d learned to appreciate over the last months.
Automatically she presented her hand, and he bowed over it. Since she’d accepted his offer of marriage, he usually kissed her fingers. Not tonight.
“You’re very kind,” she said, and meant it. His face expressed only concern for her. Any darker feelings remained masked. “Especially when...”
His faint smile was more proof of his gallantry. “Clearly we weren’t meant to be.” He glanced across to where Amy smiled up at Robert with unadulterated happiness.
How Morwenna envied Robert’s family’s uncomplicated reaction to his return. She wanted to smile and laugh and cheer, too, but she couldn’t shake off her memory of that accusing glare when he saw her holding Garson’s hand. “Yes, but…”
Garson stopped her, which was a mercy, as she had no idea what she meant to say. “I’m glad for your sake he’s back.”
A muscle jerked in his cheek, a hint of the effort it took to say that.
“Thank you.” She felt Robert watching her again, then she realized Garson still held her hand. She withdrew, praying she didn’t look as guilty as she felt.
“It’s best if I go. Send word if you need me.”
“I will.” Except the sad truth was that now the man she loved was here, Garson, for all his many marvelous qualities, had become irrelevant.
Love was a ruthless master.
He bowed again and left, the last guest to go.
She supposed she could approach Robert, insist on taking her place beside him. She was his wife, after all. But something about his rigid stance kept her marooned where she was. She’d barely shifted from where she’d stood when Silas had made the heartfelt speech about welcoming his good friend Lord Garson into the family. If Caro hadn’t been holding her arm, she’d have felt alone indeed.
Morwenna had always imagined that if the unbelievable happened and Robert came back, she’d launch herself into his arms without a second thought. But Robert in her fantasies had been the charmer she’d married. An invisible wall surrounded this austere revenant. At least as far as his wife was concerned.
Which didn’t stop her longing to touch him to prove he was real, the way someone perishing of thirst burned for a drop of water.
Through the ocean of conflicting emotions engulfing her, she drank in the details of his appearance. His hair was too long, and ragged with a bad cut. Whiskers shadowed his jaw. This, too, was familiar. He’d always had a vigorous beard.
“This calls for a celebration indeed.” Silas signaled to the butler. “Champagne, Hunter.”
Ignoring her half-hearted resistance, Caro drew Morwenna forward. Robert showed no reaction to his wife coming to stand a foot away from him. A chill ran up her spine, and she shivered.
Caro noticed and mouthed the word “courage.” Then she released Morwenna and laid a hand on Silas’s arm. “Perhaps we should save our carousing until tomorrow, darling. This has been the most wonderful night, and we all have so much to find out. But it’s late, and Robert looks ready to drop where he stands.”
“But...” Amy protested, then subsided into silence under Caro’s repressive look.
“I’ll bring you here for breakfast, sweetheart,” Pascal said. “You won’t miss anything, I promise.”
“If I must wait, I must,” Amy said grudgingly. She gave Robert another hug, not appearing to note his tepid response. “Good night, Rob. I’m so glad you’re back.”
Silas turned to the butler. “Hunter, forget the champagne. Instead, please prepare a room for Captain Nash.”
Robert frowned at his brother. Was Morwenna the only person attuned to the subtle parade of emotions on his face? Had anyone else seen the way those tense, straight shoulders under their ill-fitting coat had eased when Caro suggested leaving explanations until the morning?
“The blue chamber,” Caro said.
Robert swallowed, then spoke. He’d been taciturn in the extreme since coming in. Another change from his former self. “No.”
“You’d prefer a different room? Or have you already arranged lodgings?” Silas asked. “Please say you’ll sleep here. Otherwise I’ll wake up and decide I dreamed that you’re back.”
Robert spoke again, slowly as though each word emerged after he’d dredged it out of the depths. “My place is with my wife.”
Morwenna stiffened and stared at him in consternation. Another shiver rippled through her, this one made up of sheer alarm. Heaven help her. Did he mean to chastise her tonight, before she’d had a chance to come to terms with his arrival? She already felt on the verge of shattering. Defending herself to an angry husband asked too much of her right now.
Caro cast Morwenna a concerned glance. “Robert, perhaps it might be better if...”
Stubbornly Robert shook his coal-black head. “No.”
Silas sent her a worried look. “Morwenna?”
Of course he was worried about her. Nobody knew better than he how she’d grieved. He’d been delighted when she’d accepted Sally, Lady Norwood’s invitation to come to London this season to rejoin society and play a Dashing Widow. He’d never been insensitive enough to tell her to take up her life again, but his pleasure in her social success was clear. As clear as his approval of her engagement to Garson.
“Of course.” She forced leaden legs to bring her closer to Robert. She’d never been more aware of how little time she and her husband had spent alone together, and the abyss now yawning between them.
>
Robert’s expression didn’t change, and he didn’t look at her. What happened now? Should she take his arm and show him the way to her room? Did he want her to touch him? She’d quickly guessed that during his absence, he’d become uncomfortable with physical contact.
His hand, tanned, scarred and unfamiliar, snaked out to curl around her wrist. The first time he’d touched her in five years.
Even through her satin glove, she felt the heat. When she jumped, he cast her a narrow-eyed look and tightened his grip. For so long, she’d ached for his touch, but this ruthless hold made her feel like a dog on a tight leash.
“We’ll see you at breakfast,” Caro said with an unconvincing attempt at brightness. “Robert, please say you’ll tell us in the morning what happened to you. We’re agog to hear it.”
“Give the man a chance to catch his breath, my love.” Silas’s smile softened the reproof.
She sent him an unimpressed glance. “You’re as eager to hear as I am.”
He shrugged and slid his arm around his wife’s waist. “Of course I am.”
Once the banter would have amused Robert, but tonight he hardly seemed to hear it. Instead his grip on Morwenna’s arm firmed, until she feared he’d leave a bruise.
On his way out, Silas paused beside his brother and squeezed his shoulder. “We’ve missed you so damned much.”
Without speaking, Robert nodded. Then far too quickly for her to decide on a strategy for handling this daunting stranger, Morwenna was alone with her husband.
“I need to...” she began, not sure what she wanted to say, but frantic to bridge this chasm.
He shook his head again. “Not here. Upstairs.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to stop bursting into tears. With every breath, she’d wanted him back. Now, against all the odds, he was here.
Yet she was tongue-tied and awkward and miserable. Her stomach churned with relief and gratitude and terror—and disbelief that he was here at all. She gulped back the rising queasiness and tried again. “I’m glad you’re back, too.”
Stale, weak, inadequate words for the way her heart had leaped to life at the sound of his deep voice when he’d burst through the crowd.
He turned his head to study her. She couldn’t read his expression, when once she’d felt she knew his every thought. “Upstairs.”
She told herself that she could survive this. After five years without him, she could survive anything. Even his return.
Straightening her spine, she guided him to the base of the magnificent marble staircase rising to the upper floors. With every step, her heat beat out the stark truth that formed her only defense against crippling fear.
“He’s alive. He’s alive. Nothing else matters a tinker’s damn.”
Chapter Three
* * *
Morwenna brought her husband upstairs to the bedroom she’d slept in for the last few months. When she’d first come to London, she’d lived with Sally, Lady Norwood, as part of their pact to play Dashing Widows, women of independent spirit who had fun and dazzled society. But Sally had recently married Sir Charles Kinglake, and was touring Italy on her wedding trip. Morwenna desperately wished Sally was here in London—she had a suspicion she might need a friend before everything was settled with Robert.
Her maid put aside the mending to greet her mistress with a curtsy and quickly hidden surprise at a man’s presence in this, until now, purely feminine territory.
Well, the girl would find out plenty once she went down to the servants’ hall. Morwenna had been in Town long enough to know that Robert’s return would be the subject of conversation from cellars to attics in every house in Mayfair.
Let them talk. She didn’t care. Her love was alive.
But right now, Robert wouldn’t want an audience, so she sent the girl away. Although heaven knew how she’d get out of this gown without help.
Once they were alone, Robert didn’t shift from the threshold. The hand on her wrist was trembling. Tiredness? Anger? Some mysterious illness?
Morwenna didn’t know. And she didn’t feel she could ask this stranger, who wasn’t entirely a stranger.
Because his touch made her burn the way she hadn’t burned in five years. And his scent teased dormant senses back to tingling life. The shabby coat reeked of salt and old fish, but beneath it, even after so long, she knew that warm, male smell. At an animal level, her body immediately recognized this man as her mate.
She tipped her head to study him. He seemed dazed, and at last she saw his bone-deep weariness. Caro was right. He looked ready to drop from exhaustion.
With a soft sound of distress, she reached to touch his face. “Oh, my dear,” she whispered, hating how he flinched away. “Tell me what you want.”
He sucked in a shuddering breath. By now, his trembling was visible. She expected another monosyllabic response, but he shot her a sharp look and said, “Now, there’s a question.”
She frowned, wishing she was clever like the Nashes, clever enough to know how to heal him. Before she could summon an answer, he pulled away, pressing his hand to the doorframe in a silent admission that he couldn’t stand unsupported. Morwenna began to reach for him again, until she recalled how he’d shied away from her.
“You know, I should leave you.” He started to turn toward the corridor. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
To her surprise, she found herself saying, “No, stay.”
She found the courage to take his arm. He went rigid as a gatepost under her hold, apart from that awful trembling. She had no idea what he’d been through, but she knew enough to understand that whatever had happened to him left him stretched to the absolute limit.
He didn’t look at her. “I’m not fit company tonight.”
She made a disgusted sound. “I’m your wife. You don’t have to be company.” She almost spat out the last word.
He leveled a flat gaze on her. “I wasn’t sure you remembered you were my wife.”
A spurt of temper briefly overcame her lingering guilt. “It’s been five years, Robert, and everyone was certain you were dead.”
He looked startled, as well he might. So far, she’d been a bit of a mouse in the face of his antipathy. “I remembered you for five years,” he said harshly.
And I remembered you, my love.
She didn’t say it. Now wasn’t the time for declarations of love. Although she was heartened to hear that he’d never stopped thinking of her. “There are things you need to know.”
Those marked black brows contracted in a scowl, and a muscle jerked in his cheek. “Let’s leave the confessions until tomorrow, Morwenna.”
This was the first time he’d spoken her name since his return. She wished those straight white teeth didn’t bite it off like something unpleasant.
It was her turn to frown as she assessed what he’d said. She’d referred to Kerenza, not to any misbehavior in his absence, although he must wonder about her engagement to Garson. “I wasn’t...” she began, but he silenced her with a wave of his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he said, without sounding particularly apologetic. “I have no right to carp. You’d had confirmation of my death.”
“You have the rights of a husband,” she said.
His lips twisted, but not in a smile. “A dead husband has no rights.”
“Robert...”
He stepped out of her hold and at once, she missed the contact, despite the tension rising between them. “You should have let me leave you alone tonight.”
She met his stare, again wishing she was sure of herself with him. One thing she was sure of—she’d never seen a man look so lonely. Despite the way his family had welcomed him, isolation clung to him like an icy shroud. “Do you want to go?”
He didn’t reply, but the quickly concealed hunger in his eyes was answer enough. Not the hunger of desire, but something else. She could only think it was a hunger for warmth and human contact.
Her lips tightened. His pride was familiar. W
hen she’d first come to know him, his pride had surprised her. After all, he was accounted the most agreeable of fellows and always brightened any gathering.
But a core of steel lurked beneath the geniality. That core of steel had helped him rise through the naval ranks with unprecedented speed. She also suspected that core of steel had kept him alive through whatever torments he’d endured.
Which didn’t stop her from wanting to slap him for the way he currently held onto his foolish masculine pride. But at least he became less a stranger with every minute.
Downstairs, this hollow-eyed wanderer had revealed little trace of the man she’d married. Now her confidence revived when she saw that despite time, distance and untold suffering, her Robert existed in there somewhere.
“Then for heaven’s sake, stop playing the martyr and come into the room,” she said with asperity. Still, she was wise enough to move fully inside and leave him space to make his decision.
After a second, he edged through the doorway. She sucked in a relieved breath. She felt like she coaxed a wild creature close enough to eat from her hand. A game of advance and retreat, requiring endless patience and calm.
Robert came to a halt in the center of the pretty, feminine room with its pink silk curtains and graceful furniture. He looked as out of place as a stevedore in Almack’s.
Warily he surveyed his surroundings, until his eyes met his reflection in a cheval mirror. He winced and looked away. “You must think me a complete vagabond.”
He spoke more easily now, she was grateful to hear. Each word no longer seemed to hurt. In the ballroom, she’d noticed that he’d relaxed a tad as the crowd left.
She shrugged, and to save herself from falling all over him in tearful gratitude for his return, she sat in front of her dressing table and began dismantling the elaborate hairstyle she’d worn for the betrothal party. Some instinct warned her that too much emotion would threaten Robert’s barely held control. And he was clinging to his control as if it was his last lifeline. More pride.
Catching Captain Nash Page 2