Catching Captain Nash

by Campbell, Anna

  “She said he went to sleep, darling,” Pascal said. “It’s clear Morwenna doesn’t know any more than we do. Badgering her won’t change that.”

  “It seems odd,” Amy said sulkily. “I’d have pestered him until he told me.”

  “Undoubtedly, brat,” Silas said with a laugh. He reached out and took Caro’s hand. “I imagine we’re the talk of London this morning.”

  “I’m sorry for Garson,” Caro said, then glanced horrified at Morwenna. “Oh, I beg your pardon. You probably don’t want to hear his name mentioned.”

  “I feel bad for him, too, although I can’t be sorry that Robert’s come back to us.”

  “And Robert slept through the night without telling you anything more? That’s just unbelievable,” Amy said, earning her a disgusted glance from her handsome husband.

  “We went straight to sleep,” Morwenna said, hoping the heat in her cheeks wasn’t visible. Because of course they’d done more than sleep.

  This morning when she’d got out of bed, a few twinges had reminded her that she’d done things last night she hadn’t done in a long, long time. And there were chafed patches on her neck where his beard had burned her.

  He used to shave twice a day to save branding her, but last night, she wasn’t even sure he’d been properly awake when he created that glorious magic. He hadn’t spoken a word, although she’d gathered from his incoherent sounds of pleasure that she hadn’t disappointed him.

  Or perhaps he just appreciated the availability of a warm female body, and any woman would have met his needs.

  She didn’t like that idea at all.

  This morning, she wore a dress with a high pleated collar. When Morwenna had come downstairs, Caro had settled a thoughtful gaze upon her gown, but for once discretion had won out. Which was unexpected. Her sister-in-law wasn’t renowned for her tact.

  “Well, I think it’s unnatural,” Amy said.

  Morwenna was saved from answering when the door opened to admit Robert. Her heart slammed to a stop, and the memories of last night ripped through her, made her blood surge with heat. Even bearing the mark of his travails, he was a man to make a woman look twice.

  “Robert, old man, come in, come in. Let me get you something to eat.” Silas was on his feet and clapping his brother on the shoulder.

  Morwenna wondered if she alone saw the faint alarm in Robert’s eyes as he surveyed the five people ranged around the table. She’d realized quickly that he was uncomfortable mingling with groups of people. Including his beloved family.

  “Thank you for lending me something fit to wear,” he said.

  Silas smiled at Morwenna. “Thank your wife. She suggested I dig something out of the wardrobe for you and send along my valet to help you tidy up.”

  “I feel almost presentable.” Self-consciously he touched his newly cut hair.

  “You’re a proper gentleman again.” Caro rose and moved forward to kiss him on the cheek, before she poured him some coffee from the silver pot.

  He looked much more like the polished man Morwenna had married. He was cleanly shaven and dressed for Town. If the smart black coat hung too loose on his frame, it was a small flaw in his overall appearance.

  “Thank you.” He moved into the room to kiss Amy’s cheek and shake hands with Pascal. Morwenna noticed his well-hidden reluctance and was glad she hadn’t pushed him to explanations last night, desperate as she was to know what had happened to him.

  “I gather congratulations are in order,” Robert said.

  “Yes, your sister made me the happiest of men six months ago.” Pascal bestowed a fond glance on his wife.

  Silas had filled a plate to overflowing with food from the sideboard and placed it on the table. Robert sat down next to Morwenna. She watched him so closely, she saw how he paled at the sight of all those glistening sausages and kidneys and rashers of bacon. Swiftly she rose and took the plate away before he was sick.

  “You’ve all been very patient,” Robert said, swallowing and picking up his cup of coffee with a gallantly concealed shudder. “I appreciate it.”

  Morwenna hid the loaded plate behind one of the silver serving dishes on the sideboard and brought him some fresh rolls. His glance expressed his gratitude. Silas noticed, but was sensitive enough not to comment on the rejection of his offering.

  “Eat first,” he said, earning a resentful look from Amy.

  “No, it’s best I talk.” Robert straightened, and the flicker of a muscle in his cheek indicated the ordeal this would be for him.

  “We can wait,” Morwenna said, finding the courage to lay her hand over his clenched fist where it rested on the tablecloth. “It’s been five years. Another day won’t hurt us.”

  She wondered if he’d twitch her away. Under her touch, he was as tight as a drawn bowstring. But after a moment, he turned his hand over to lace his fingers through hers.

  “No, you need to know.” But instead of continuing, he fell silent and stared ahead at nothing.

  “The last we heard, you’d been attacked by pirates off Patagonia. You were shot and fell into the sea.” The grim edge to Silas’s voice reflected the pall that had fallen over the family when the news finally reached them. “Everyone we spoke to agreed that after that, there was no sighting of you. The lieutenant ordered a boat out to find you, once the pirates had been repelled, but nobody held out any hope. How the devil did you manage to come back alive from that?”

  Robert shook his head, and his hooded gaze focused on his brother. “I remember the cannonball striking me in the shoulder and taking me over the side with some rigging. I must have hit my head. I came to, tangled in some ropes and colder than I’d ever been in my life. The ship was a mere speck on the horizon. I don’t think they looked too hard or too long, by God. I was bleeding, but the worst was the freezing water. I managed to get myself up onto a plank, but I must say I thought my goose was cooked.”

  Morwenna had feared he might have trouble getting the whole story out. Last night, he’d had difficulty stringing together more than a few words. But as he went on, the account started to emerge more smoothly. In silent encouragement, she firmed her grip on his fingers. While the little she’d managed to choke down for breakfast congealed into a hard, cold mass in her stomach.

  Sometimes a vivid imagination was a curse. She had no trouble recreating Robert’s desperate straits at that moment. Wounded, alone, lost in an icy sea. She loathed hearing about his suffering.

  “How did you get out of that?” Pascal asked.

  “I drifted for a couple of days. Luckily they were rainy days, or else I’d have died of thirst. I washed up closer to dead than alive on a beach. Unfortunately it was the beach the pirates used as their lair.”

  “Oh, no,” Amy said, watching him avidly.

  He shrugged, but Morwenna could see that his attempt at nonchalance convinced nobody. “I think they had some vague idea of ransom. They threw me into a pit and left me there, but at least they gave me food enough to keep me alive.”

  “So you’ve been trapped in a pit for five years?” Morwenna asked, horrified. She pressed her free hand to her stomach to quell the urge to bring up what little she’d eaten.

  Robert gave a grunt of unamused laughter. She realized she still hadn’t seen him smile. “No, after about six months, I managed to escape. I doubt I’d have made it otherwise. You’ve never seen such a fever-ridden spot in your life. Another winter, and it would have been all up for me, believe me.”

  “So it’s taken you the rest of the time to get back to us?” Silas asked. “Couldn’t you have sent word that you were alive?”

  “Unfortunately when I stumbled into the nearest town, opinion was divided whether I was a pirate or a spy. They flung me into the local prison while they made up their minds.”

  “How long were you there?” Morwenna asked, nausea tasting sour on her tongue. How had he borne all of this?

  His voice was flat, and she could see that he deliberately avoided the grimmer det
ails of his incarceration. But she knew his travails had been horrific and unrelenting. She’d seen the scars on his beautiful body, and his emaciation, and the haunted look in his eyes. A haunted look absent when he awoke, but now back full force.

  By heaven, if using her body gave him the briefest moment’s peace, she’d happily lie down for him anywhere and anytime he asked.

  He stared down at the untouched rolls on his plate. “I managed to escape two months ago. I made it to the coast and wondered what the devil I could do. Luckily, the whaler that brought me back to London stopped for fresh water and took me on as extra crew for the voyage north. Even luckier, they were on their way home and not starting their hunt, or I wouldn’t have been back for another year.”

  Morwenna sent him an appalled glance and met steady black eyes. He knew as well as she did how close they’d veered to disaster and a scandal that would taint the family name. Another year, and she’d have been married to Garson, perhaps the mother of his child. After all, it hadn’t taken her long to conceive Robert’s baby. Any children she and Garson had would be declared bastards, because with her first husband alive, her second marriage was invalid.

  Morwenna realized with a shock that she hadn’t yet told Robert about Kerenza. She braced to tell him, but Silas had started speaking. “It was one of the happiest days in my life when you walked in.” His deep voice, so similar in timbre to Robert’s, was thick with emotion. “None of us took losing you easily. Morwenna, most of all.”

  She released Robert’s hand and prepared to hear him condemn her for accepting another man’s proposal. But to her surprise, he reached across and clasped his brother’s shoulder. It was the first unforced gesture of affection she’d seen him make since he’d returned.

  Well, unless she counted last night’s passion. But that had resulted more from desperate need than anything as simple as mere fondness.

  “And you can’t know how the thought of my family waiting for me kept me fighting to survive.”

  Silas made an attempt to move beyond the appalling details of Robert’s imprisonment. “You won’t know the children when you see them. Although of course they’ve heard all about their heroic Uncle Robert. And, my God, how Kerenza will preen now that her father’s home at last.”

  Chapter Six

  * * *

  Kerenza?

  As he lurched to his feet, Robert’s face must have shown his profound shock, because everyone around the table fell silent. Morwenna stood away from the table and retreated a couple of paces, regarding him with a distraught expression.

  “I tried to tell you last night,” she said, wringing her hands.

  “Kerenza,” he said slowly. A child? His child?

  Silas, Caro, Amy, and Pascal glanced at each other and by unspoken consent also stood. “I’m afraid I’ve put my foot in it,” Silas said.

  Morwenna mustered a shaky smile for her brother-in-law. “It’s not your fault.”

  Caro looked between Robert and Morwenna. “We’ll leave you alone.”

  “Thank you,” Robert said through stiff lips. He waited until the others had gone, then stepped close to Morwenna without touching her. “Is this what I needed to know?”

  While she didn’t back away, she regarded him warily. She reminded him of the woman who last night had seemed afraid that he might do something violent. When Silas’s valet had shaved him this morning, Robert had looked in the mirror and acknowledged that she had cause for her uncertainty. He’d arrived at Nash House looking like a complete villain. Little remained of the dashing captain she’d married. Instead she’d welcomed back a grim-visaged and ramshackle stranger with a saber slash marring his face.

  “Are you very angry that I didn’t tell you?” she asked in a small voice.

  Was he?

  He’d spent so long concentrating on basic survival, he’d lost the habit of examining his feelings. One didn’t need the finer points of self-analysis to stay alive another day, when hope was so far gone, it was hardly a memory. One just needed the dogged will to endure.

  Now he was back in London, and life wasn’t nearly so simple.

  “We had so little time together before I went away,” he said thoughtfully. Since leaving her, he’d had plenty of opportunity to regret that. He’d found the woman for him, then they’d spent most of their first year of marriage apart. Now he’d made it home, that was going to change.

  When a wry smile curved her lush lips, relief eased the tightness in his shoulders. At least she no longer looked ready to take to her heels. “It was enough.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Four.”

  His daughter’s age confirmed that she was his. Not that he had any doubts. Before last night he might have questioned the child’s parentage. Morwenna had loved him, but five years was a long time to wait for a dead man.

  “You feared you’re not her father.” A horrified light sparked in her eyes. Horror that turned to swift outrage. “When I said I had things to tell you, you thought I meant to confess to taking lovers.”

  As he opened his mouth, he knew it was a mistake to try to defend himself. “Well, I walked in on you getting engaged to that dunderhead Garson.”

  “He’s not a dunderhead,” she said hotly, drawing herself up to her full height.

  “He is, if he wants to marry my wife,” Robert said with equal heat.

  “Your widow.” She raised her head, haughty as a princess. Last night’s skittish creature was no longer in evidence, thank God. “And you’re the only man who’s ever slept in my bed.”

  Why the devil were they fighting? Although he liked to see anger revive the spirited woman he’d wed. That vivid girl had never given him his way, just for the asking.

  When he looked closely, he could see that he’d been wrong to think that their long parting had left her unmarked. She was still breathtakingly beautiful. But her loveliness now conveyed a depth and richness of character. In his bride, that had been just a promise of things to come. And the deep blue eyes that accused him of misjudging her were softer and wiser, and too familiar with grief and loss. She was no longer the carefree girl he’d married.

  Of course, she wasn’t. She was a mother.

  By heaven, he was a selfish cur. He’d never before considered their separation from Morwenna’s side. He’d needed every ounce of strength and determination to come back to her, and he’d been through hell in the process. But she must have been through her own hell while he was away. She’d spent all this time believing he was dead. What had that done to her?

  “I know I’m the only man who’s been in your bed,” he said calmly, folding his arms and leveling an unwavering stare upon her.

  She frowned. “How on earth can you know?”

  “Because you made love to me as if you’d waited all this time, as if you’d missed me as I missed you. Surely you remember what we did together last night. It was spectacular.”

  “What nonsense is this?” She frowned again, this time, through a blush. “Of course I remember.”

  He dropped his hands to his sides. “You didn’t say anything.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “I thought if I spoke, you might come to your senses about what we were doing and make me stop.” More vile selfishness, damn it. But he’d needed her last night. Needed her like he needed air to breathe.

  “Why on earth would I stop you? I...wanted you.”

  Heaven save him. Hearing her admit her desire in that husky, hesitant voice had him as hard as a blasted ship’s mast. Hard and ready. And blessedly alone with her.

  What he planned to do right now was audacious, but irresistible. “Do you still?” he asked slowly, his gaze unwavering.

  Her cheeks turned a delightful rose pink. “It’s morning.”

  He ventured a step closer, pleased to see she didn’t retreat at his approach. “We’ve come together in the morning before.”

  She gave the door an uncertain glance. “In our own house when we weren’t likel
y to be interrupted. This is Silas’s house.”

  “And he’s left us to sort out our differences.” Robert crossed the room and locked the door with one determined twist of his hand. “Very considerate of him.”

  “Someone could come into the garden and look through the window,” she said shakily, as he turned back to face her.

  “Not bloody likely.” Robert cast an unimpressed glance out the window at the torrential rain. “It’s like Noah’s Flood out there this morning.”

  “They’ll all know what we did,” she muttered, avoiding his eyes.

  He rounded the polished mahogany table until he stood mere inches from her. “They might guess.”

  “We can’t, Robert. What about Kerenza?” Morwenna bit her lip, and the sight of white teeth sinking into that pink, cushiony flesh only made him hotter. “Don’t you want to hear about your daughter?”

  “Oh, yes. More than anything else. Almost anything else.” He was desperate to bury himself deep inside his wife, but he hadn’t completely surrendered to his primitive self. Last night, he hadn’t asked her what she wanted before he went ahead and took her. “Are you really going to deny me, Morwenna?”

  Her pale hands fluttered up to her throat, and she looked charmingly indecisive. Well, it would be charming, if he didn’t feel like his balls were about to burst.

  “No, I’m not going to deny you.”

  A potent mixture of desire and relief kicked him in the gut. He sucked in a great gust of air, and his heart thundered with building anticipation. With greedy hands, he caught her up against him and kissed her again. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he recognized that after all she’d been through, she deserved his tenderness, his care. But he was so ravenous for her, it was as if last night’s fierce loving had never happened.

  And she’d borne his child. This willowy body had grown round with his baby. Thinking of that made him want her even more.