“You...mentioned...the carriage...when you...went to...the Admiralty.” Balanced over him as she was, she had to speak in time with the bumping carriage. Bumps that tormented him with the rhythmic slide of her body.
“Yes, then Silas put a spoke in my wheel.”
“I wish you’d put a spoke in my wheel,” she muttered.
Before he could express his shock at her boldness, she shocked him again. She tugged his neck cloth free and scraped her teeth over his neck. He shuddered with response. His hands tightened on her waist, keeping her in place long enough for him to slip a small way inside her. She was lusciously hot and wet.
Delight held him still, or as still as the rattling carriage allowed. “Mrs. Nash, you are a saucy wench. And I love it.”
Almost as much as I love you.
His hold turned ruthless, and he brought her down over him. She muffled a cry against his throat and bit him. The sting intensified the wild sensations rocketing through him. The brazen clench of her muscles. The heat. The closeness.
The love?
She raised her head and leaned back. The shift in pressure threatened to blast him to rapturous oblivion. He stared blindly into shining eyes and lifted a shaking hand to catch the back of her head. He tangled his fingers in her silky mass of hair, bundled up for travel. Clumsy with need, mad with being inside her, he dragged her up until his lips met hers.
Their mouths slammed together in a succulent, open kiss of unabashed sensuality. She squirmed around him, taking him deeper. He felt he drowned in Morwenna. It was a marvelous sensation.
The fast-moving carriage shifted them up and down, and she tugged away from his lips, gasping. For a few dizzying moments, she moved against the carriage’s rise and fall, then in one incandescent instant, she found the rhythm and started to ride him as smoothly as a rider on a cantering horse.
Heat surged through him, and the urge to lift his hips and fill her with his seed was nigh irresistible. But she was enjoying every moment of what they did, whimpering and sighing with rising pleasure. He couldn’t bear to bring the encounter to a quick end.
Somehow he held back, although every satiny glide of her body threatened his resolve. He gulped in a great lungful of air, sharp with the scent of female desire.
She rose high over him, until only the tip of his cock remained inside her. He caught her waist again, afraid she’d fall. He glimpsed wild excitement in her eyes before she closed them and sank down. An expression of greedy bliss lit her lovely face as she took him.
His grip tightened when she raised her hands from his shoulders. “Hold onto me,” she said roughly.
“Always,” he gritted out, tensing every muscle against spending himself in her welcoming womb.
For five years, he’d battled the fear that he was likely to fragment into a thousand jagged shards. But inside Morwenna, he felt complete. Every time their bodies joined, he felt more like the man he’d once been.
She had such magic, his wife.
Morwenna shifted in time with the swaying coach, the dance of her body shooting explosions of light through his head. The movement was so beguiling, it took him a few seconds to notice that she was unbuttoning her green merino pelisse. He frowned as it fell open to reveal the darker green dress beneath. The bodice was demure, fastening high to the white lace collar. The contrast with her bare arse beneath her dress made him jerk his hips upward in a surge of desire.
She gave a broken laugh. “Don’t move just yet.”
“You’re driving me utterly insane,” he growled, flexing his fingers in the thick material of her skirts. He desperately wanted to touch her, but he feared she’d tumble into the well between the seats if he let her go.
“That was the plan,” she said. “If I hold your shoulders, can you undo me?”
He wondered if she meant undo in the carnal sense, then his reeling senses focused on one detail that he should have noted before.
Unlike the gown she’d worn at breakfast, this dress fastened up the front with a row of carved wooden buttons.
“God in heaven...” he grated out.
“Is that yes?”
How the hell could she sound so lucid, when she squeezed his cock so sumptuously? He made an incoherent sound of agreement. Too incoherent.
She caught his shoulder with one hand and fiddled with her top button. “Because I can do it, if you’d rather.”
“Damn it, Morwenna, you have no idea how I...”
Words failed him, as these days they were wont to do. She curled her hands over his shoulders and settled more securely on his lap, an action that nearly blew the top of his head off. The urge to rip the damned dress to shreds rose, but he bit it back.
For years, memories of her beautiful breasts had filled his dreams. So often he’d woken from restless sleep with his hands curled to shape those luscious curves. He’d loved her breasts from the first moment he saw them, a shameful fortnight before their wedding. When they’d been lawfully wed, he’d lavished endless attention on them.
Forcing back his need to spill into her, he began to unbutton the dress. It seemed sacrilege to fall on her like a starving man fell on a loaf of bread. But even so, he couldn’t stop his hands shaking.
Control, man, control.
The collar parted to reveal a strip of pale white skin. He leaned in and placed a tender kiss where her pulse throbbed at the base of her neck.
Then Robert returned his attention to the buttons. Only half a dozen, but they felt like an infinite line.
Another free. More white skin.
Another.
He frowned. Perhaps female undergarments had radically changed since he’d been away. But shouldn’t he see a shift and a corset by now? She’d certainly worn stays under that fetching blue gown last night, when she’d tortured him with the unlacing.
Torture? He hadn’t known the meaning of the word. This was torture indeed. Morwenna heaving over him in a speeding carriage while he negotiated these pestilential buttons.
A line of creamy skin extended from her neck to the high waist. And no shred of linen between her and the air. Every drop of moisture evaporated from his mouth. Anticipation sizzled through him.
“Did you forget all your undergarments this morning?” he asked, loosening the last button.
“Oops,” she said breathlessly.
The effort of resisting his climax already had his heart crashing against his ribs. Now it performed a somersault. “Let me make sure.”
He spoke lightly, but he felt like he revealed a sacred mystery when he caught the edges of her bodice and slowly parted them. The shadowy valley widened under his gaze until curves rose on either side. His shaking intensified, and he licked his lips.
Quickly he raised his eyes to find her watching him with no hint of teasing. Her lips were full and glistening after their kisses. He kissed her briefly, then slid the dress aside to reveal her bare bosom.
“Morwenna...”
Again words failed him. In the gloom, her breasts were extraordinarily beautiful. White, fuller than he remembered. Hard, pink nipples like ripe raspberries.
Sighing in homage, he cupped her right breast and bent to draw that pert nipple between his lips. These lush breasts had suckled his child. The idea blazed through him like wildfire.
She started, and a gasp of pleasure escaped her. Her taste filled his head. Sweet woman. A hint of salt.
He tongued her nipple against his teeth, then gently bit down, glorying in how she shivered. She closed tighter around him. He scraped his teeth across the beaded peak, and this time, the ripples inside her tipped over into full climax.
She bit back a cry, and stretched into him, shuddering. He reveled in her pleasure, even as his balls tightened to the point of pain.
He gave her left nipple the same attention, as he rolled the other between thumb and forefinger. She whimpered, and he sucked harder until she lost herself again. She’d always had supremely sensitive nipples, but this ability to reach her peak whe
n he kissed her breasts was new.
“Oh, Robert...” she sighed, voice husky with sensual satisfaction.
He couldn’t hold back much longer. He squeezed her breasts, loving how they filled his hands. Then he reached down and caught her hips in a ruthless grip. The gentle friction of her body against his became a pleasure too tantalizing.
“Hold on,” he grunted, tensing his loins.
She jerked in his arms, then remarkably he felt her claim another peak. As her broken cry echoed around the carriage, he moved inside her until the world turned to fire. The surge started in his feet and flooded upward, through his aching balls. He filled her with every drop of his essence, while she trembled through the last of her rapture.
He snapped the bonds of earth and soared into some new world. Even after he was drained, his hips kept jerking. He couldn’t bear this bliss to end.
Finally he collapsed against the seat and hauled her into his arms. He was still inside her, and they were both shaking. In the aftermath to those transcendent minutes, he felt her wriggle up to kiss him under the jaw.
“Welcome home, my darling,” Morwenna whispered.
Chapter Twelve
* * *
Late the next afternoon, the carriage rolled into Woodley Park, Silas’s beautiful estate in the Leicestershire countryside.
Morwenna glanced across at Robert. He’d been quiet for hours. Not that he was ever talkative these days. But since morning, her attempts at conversation had fallen completely flat.
After yesterday’s extraordinary encounter in the carriage—recollecting that feverish coupling made her flush with pleasure—and using her body last night, he’d seemed more at ease. But as they got closer to Woodley Park, he returned to the taciturn stranger who had arrived off the whaler.
She supposed he brooded about everything he’d missed. How could she blame him? If she could, she’d bundle all those special moments up and give them to him. Kerenza’s birth. Her first step. Her first word. Her first ride. Every birthday. A thousand sweet memories of their child discovering the world.
The tragedy was that those memories were lost to him forever.
Father and daughter, so alike, were strangers to each other.
That made Morwenna angry. Futile anger at targets beyond her reach. The navy. The pirates. Those idiots who locked Robert up as a spy, instead of sending him back to the wife who loved him.
Life. Fate. God’s will.
As the carriage came to a stop in front of the columned portico, she glanced at Robert again. He looked stern and determined, as if he took on a deadly enemy instead of approached the daughter he’d never met. All day, his air had been grim. She’d known better than to suggest a repeat of yesterday’s wildly sensual escapade.
Morwenna bit back a plea for him to adopt a friendlier manner. Looking like he did now, he’d terrify poor Kerenza.
A footman stepped forward to open the door. Robert stepped down and raised a hand to help Morwenna. When she curled her hand around his elbow, she bit back a dismayed exclamation. His arm was rigid with tension. He was as close to shattering as he’d been that first night.
Without speaking, Robert escorted her up the stone stairs to the massive double doors.
“Mrs. Nash...” Ballard, the butler, began. Then for the first time since she’d started coming here, Morwenna saw the real man overwhelm the perfect servant. He staggered back and went as white as new milk. “Mr. Robert...”
“Ballard, are you still here?” Robert moved forward to shake the man’s hand. “I thought you must have long since retired.”
At least he made some attempt to sound happy. To Morwenna’s ears, it wasn’t convincing, but the old man was in such a state, he probably wouldn’t pick up the false note.
“Mr. Robert, in all my days...” The butler’s eyes were bright with tears as he wrung Robert’s hand. Morwenna saw the footmen behind him exchange puzzled glances. They must be new since Robert’s day.
“It was a sorry, sorry occasion when we heard you’d been lost at sea. Mrs. Ballard cried her eyes out. It took me a year to believe it. I kept expecting you to turn up at the door, bright and cheeky like you always did after some piece of mischief on the estate.”
“And so I have.” Robert clapped the man on the back.
“Aye, aye, you have at that. Well, bless my soul. Will you come down to the kitchen and see Mrs. Ballard? When the news came, she took on like it was one of our own gone missing.”
“Of course I will. But first we’re here to see Kerenza,” Robert said gently.
Morwenna saw how this show of sentiment wore at him—he’d come a long way in two days, but his captivity laid a heavy burden on his soul. She couldn’t help but be glad that they’d escaped London, where reunions were likely to come thick and fast.
She stepped up and placed her hand on Robert’s arm. As expected, his frightening tension hadn’t eased. “Ballard, where is Miss Kerenza?”
The butler released Robert at last, and she admired the way her husband hid his relief to save the old man’s feelings. Ballard turned away and fished out a handkerchief to blow his nose, while the footmen struggled to stay expressionless. “I’ll...I’ll send for her, Mrs. Nash.”
Morwenna shook her head. “It might be better if we go to her. Are the children having supper in the nursery?”
“Because the day is so fine, Miss Carroll let them play an extra hour in the garden.”
Morwenna nodded. “In that case, we’ll find her there. Could you please have my room made up and let Mrs. Ballard know that we’ll be in for dinner?”
Under her instructions, Ballard straightened and became again the perfect butler, although a brightness in his eyes betrayed lingering emotion. “Very good, madam.”
Morwenna took Robert’s arm and led him through the hall and down a corridor to the morning room. He accompanied her with a docility that worried her. His eyes were glazed, and that telltale muscle pulsed in his scarred cheek.
“Do you want to stop and look around the house first?” she murmured. This was where he’d grown up. Seeing it again when he must so often have despaired of returning alive surely tested him.
He shook his head. “No.”
She firmed her grip on his arm. “We could leave seeing Kerenza until tomorrow, if you don’t feel up to it.”
“I’m up to it.” The look he sent her was fierce, like a caged eagle. “This is just a house, however many memories it holds. I’ve been without my daughter for five years. I won’t wait another day to see her.”
“Very well.” Morwenna was surprised that despite his obvious tension, he got so many words out. The night he arrived, he wouldn’t have managed. “I’m sorry if you think I’m fussing.”
His glance was sharp. “You make a very good mother hen.”
She bit back a retort and opened the French doors onto the terrace. She’d been so worried about Robert and Kerenza that she hadn’t paid any attention to the day. But Ballard was right. Yesterday’s rain had moved on. It was a glorious autumn afternoon, and long rays of golden light turned the gardens to enchantment.
Silently, striving to communicate her love through touch, she brought Robert through the formal gardens to the pretty little pavilion overlooking the rose beds. At this time of year, they were well past their best, but a few brave blooms clung to the bushes.
As if waking from a dream, Robert looked around in surprise. “This isn’t where the children usually play.”
Morwenna gestured for him to sit. “No. But I think it’s best if I fetch her, so you don’t have an audience.”
“You’re concerned about her reaction?”
Actually she was worried about both her husband and her daughter, but she wasn’t prepared to admit it. Long term, she hoped that Kerenza and Robert would build understanding and affection. After all, they were so heartbreakingly alike. But at this first meeting, with Kerenza caught unawares and probably overtired after a day with her cousins, and Robert strung so tigh
t, he threatened to snap, she was worried sick.
“I think she’s going to be overwhelmed.” That was true. “So meeting you somewhere quiet is the best choice.”
“You know her, after all.”
She shouldn’t read that as an accusation. They were both on edge. “Trust me to handle this, Robert. You’ve loomed large in her life, even in your absence. We all talked about you so much that you’ve become like someone out of a story.”
He frowned in quick irritation. “You think she’ll be disappointed?”
“Not at all.” The smile she gave him was tender. He was so brittle, and so desperate for this to go well. “But meeting your gods in the flesh can be a trial.”
He opened and closed his hands at his sides. “I want her to like me.”
“Of course she’ll like you.”
“And I want to do this...right.”
With a shock and not a little self-disgust, Morwenna realized that what she’d read as anger was sheer, stark, staring terror. Her heart cramped, and she told herself she wouldn’t cry. But the great lump of emotion blocking her throat made it likely that she would.
“Robert, of course you’ll do it right. Even if things go badly today...” Pray God, they didn’t. For his sake, not Kerenza’s. Right now, the daughter was much more resilient than the father. “We’ve got time to fix it. We’ve got the rest of our lives. We don’t have to resolve everything this minute.”
Her reassurances didn’t seem to soothe him. That muscle still danced wildly in his cheek, and he stood so straight and tall, it was as if he had a ruler for a backbone.
She had a sudden flash of insight. Just so must he have steeled himself to come into Silas’s London house when it was packed for her engagement party. He had such courage. It humbled her.
“She mightn’t like me.”
“She loves you already.”
“Purely because of family stories.”
Her lips twisted, and again she told herself she wouldn’t cry. “And you think the stories don’t reveal the real you?”
Catching Captain Nash Page 10
