Catching Captain Nash (Dashing Widows #6)(34)

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?”

“Not as I am now.”

At last she saw shame as well as fear. Oh, Robert...

“She knows her father is a brave man who served his country to the point of sacrificing his life. She knows we all love you.” At last, she spoke the words that she’d kept back, not sure he was ready to hear them. “She knows I love you. It’s enough. It’s more than enough.”

She read the astonishment on his face and couldn’t bear to wait for his response. Anyway, the moment belonged to Kerenza. “Stay here.”

She turned and rushed away in search of her daughter.





Chapter Thirteen





* * *



When Morwenna returned, she was holding hands with a small girl in a grubby floral smock. Without making the conscious decision to stand, Robert found himself on his feet. His heart pounded with anticipation. Anticipation that included a good dollop of fear. As he’d said to Morwenna, his experience of children was limited. And this child was his daughter, so he desperately wanted her to like him.

Morwenna leveled that thoughtful blue stare upon him, and he straightened as he drank in her silent support. Morwenna who loved him. Who had always loved him.

If she loved him, he couldn’t fail.

The little girl huddled close to her mother’s green skirts. Huge black eyes, so like the eyes that he saw reflected in his mirror, focused on him.

He read shyness, but no fear. That pleased him. He didn’t want his daughter frightened of anything, let alone meeting her father for the first time.

Her father...

Since he’d found out about Kerenza, he’d struggled to comprehend becoming a father. But now he saw his child, he finally started to understand. An ocean of reactions surged inside him. Pride. Curiosity. Awe.

And swift and astounding and immediate, love.

“Kerenza, I promised you a surprise,” Morwenna said softly. “Do you know who this is?”

Kerenza surveyed him with searching intelligence, then the black eyes rounded. “I think it’s my papa.”

“It is.” Emotion thickened Morwenna’s voice.

“You said he had to go away forever.” Kerenza still studied him the way Silas studied his botanical specimens. Or in fact, the way Robert pored over a chart to plot a ship’s course.

He’d never realized how powerful it would be to see himself reflected in another being. His avid gaze ate up every detail of those quirky, vivid features. She was beautiful. She’d be beautiful to him forever.

His daughter!

“When I found out I was mistaken, it was a lovely surprise for me, too.” Morwenna’s eyes were bright with tears, although he saw how she fought to contain them for Kerenza’s sake.

“Hello, Kerenza,” he said, his voice husky. His hands opened and closed at his sides as he fought the urge to grab her close.

That considering gaze remained on his face as if she gathered all her thoughts together before she reached her conclusion. He had no idea what most four-year-old girls were like, but he’d lay a large wager this one was unusually advanced.

“Hello, Papa,” she said slowly. “You don’t look like your picture.”

His lips twisted as he recalled the romantic figure Lawrence had made of him. Even at twenty, he hadn’t been that dashing.

“I’ve had some adventures since then. Would you like to hear about them?” He caught Morwenna’s glance, then looked back at Kerenza.

She nodded. “Yes, please. Are you going to live with us now?”

He swallowed to ease the constriction in his throat. “Yes. Will you like that?”

She frowned as she pondered her answer, and for a moment looked so much like his sister Helena that his heart somersaulted. He hadn’t expected her to seem so familiar so quickly, but she already felt like the blood of his blood, bone of his bone.