Catching Captain Nash (Dashing Widows #6)(19)

“Morwenna?” He sounded dazed. His steps slowed, and his hand tightened on hers.

She turned her head and cast him a searching look. “You’re not the only one who has missed conjugal relations, Robert.”

A spark lit his black eyes, and he pulled his hand free. There was a different quality in his curiosity as he studied her. “You’ve changed.”

Her lips flattened. “Of course I have. I’m older. I’ve had a child. Not to mention that I spent an eternity alone and grieving for you.”

He took her hand again. The ease of the gesture proved anew that he emerged from the frozen wastes where his soul had wandered for so long. “I wasn’t sure at first, you know.”

“That I’d grieved for you?”

“Yes.”

She looked at him aghast. “Oh, Robert...”

He directed a burning stare at her. “Do you love Garson?”

“You know I don’t.”

“Then why did you agree to marry him?”

Morwenna blinked back stinging tears. She wasn’t sure she was up to handling this inquisition so soon after succumbing to that stupendous climax. All her emotions ranged far too close to the surface, and she feared saying something to bring the bleakness back to his eyes. She recalled the frightening blankness in his face as he braced himself to tell the family what had happened to him in South America. She never wanted to see that expression again.

She sucked in a breath and made herself answer. “Because it had been five wretched, empty years without you. Because Kerenza needs a father. Because while I might have felt like I died with you, I didn’t, and I’m only twenty-six. Because he’s a good man. Since you’ve been gone, I’ve lived in isolation, apart from when your family dragged me out into the open. But this season, when Sally Cowan suggested a second round of Dashing Widows, I decided it was time to be brave and rejoin the world. For Kerenza’s sake, more than my own.”

She braced for him to express his disappointment in her lack of steadfastness. But after a weighty pause, he nodded. “I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” That spark, a distant echo of his old laughter, flickered in his eyes. “Which doesn’t mean I won’t knock Garson’s block off, if he dares so much as a blink in your direction.”

She smiled. It might be childish, but she liked to hear that Robert felt possessive about her. Because the fact was that she felt possessive about him.

“Were there...were there women?” she asked, as they stepped into a hall tactfully devoid of all other Nashes.

“No.”

They started to climb the stairs. “I can accept if there were.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Can you?”

No. “If I must.”

“You don’t have to. Even if I was interested, and I wasn’t, I was kept in solitary confinement. And there were no women on the whaler.”

At least she needn’t pretend to tolerate the thought of him seeking comfort elsewhere. Although given what he’d been through, he’d desperately needed a woman’s tender touch to lighten his suffering. “Then no wonder you have such a powerful appetite.”

They’d reached the landing. Before she could turn toward her room, he swung her around and kissed her so fiercely that he stole her breath.

The kiss was over in one blazing instant. A thrill rippled through her, and her heart pounded madly against her ribs. Dazzled, giddy, she stared up at him. His black eyes glittered dangerously, and the slash across his face stood out white against his skin.

She placed her hands on his chest to confirm that he really was with her. It still seemed like his return was a dream, even now when relentless hands gripped her hips and his tongue had just been inside her mouth.

“I have a powerful appetite, all right.” His voice was almost savage. “A powerful appetite for you, Morwenna.”

“Oh,” she said, as a warm bubble of happiness rose to fill her chest and squash the possibility of further response. Instead, she took his hand and led him into the room where last night he had seemed such a stranger.

She hadn’t yet solved all his mysteries, but she began to feel that he wasn’t a stranger anymore. One thing was certain. The man she loved had come back to her.

Once they were safely inside, she shut the door and rose on her toes to press a kiss to his lips. This kiss was more thorough, and it left her head swimming and her knees weak. She curled her hand over his shoulder to keep her balance.

“I feel like I need to get to know you all over again,” he said slowly.

Something in his tone pierced her rising excitement. “Are you sorry I’m not as you remember?”

His hand cupped the side of her face, and for the first time since he’d come back, tenderness rather than desire was paramount in his expression. “You are as I remember you—beautiful and fascinating. But you’ve changed, too. In so many intriguing ways. I look forward to discovering the differences.”

That bubble of happiness expanded, threatened to break free and fill the entire world. Last night, it had been miracle enough that he was alive. But their growing closeness was a gift beyond her dearest dreams.

“Me, too.”

He kissed her again, softly. “Tell me about Kerenza. I’m agog to hear of my daughter.” He drew Morwenna to sit beside him on the brocade sofa near the blazing fire. “You didn’t say you’d conceived.”