Catching Captain Nash (Dashing Widows #6)(8)

“The ship that picked me up was a whaler.” As he turned his head, the candlelight caught the shiny skin of the scar marking his cheek. “No buttons and brass anywhere.”

The urge rose to find out more, but she beat it back. She’d promised to wait, to save him having to live through his ordeal twice when he spoke to the family tomorrow. Because even without hearing details, she could see he’d been through experiences harsh enough to strip all the polish from a man’s soul. “I can live without buttons and brass.”

I can’t live without you.

Even when he was so wounded and wary, that was true. She set down her brush and went on. “Would you like anything to eat or drink? I could ring for something.”

Good heavens, right now he looked like he needed a month of four square meals a day.

“No, thank you.” He sank into another of those ridiculously feminine chairs and bent to take off his boots. The intimacy of the mundane act knocked the breath from her, although of course the moment he’d said he was coming upstairs, she’d understood that they’d share a bed. After all, there was only one bed in the room.

With unsteady fingers, she started to braid her hair.

He looked up from unlacing his boots and shot her a sharp glance. “No.”

Her fingers stilled, as her eyes met his in the glass. Was the monosyllabic man who’d come into the ballroom back again? “No?”

One of his scarred hands gestured in her direction. “Your hair. Don’t...”

“Plait it?”

“Please.”

Oh, dear. That was a statement of intent, if she’d ever heard one.

Ridiculous to feel nervous, but trepidation settled like a boulder in her stomach. She’d desperately missed the Robert she’d married, wanted him back in her bed. But this man, despite occasional glimmers of familiarity, remained very much an unknown quantity.

His touch had always set her alight. She’d starved for it since he’d gone away. But so much remained unresolved. While she owed him her duty as his wife, was it too much to ask him to wait?

She gulped in a mouthful of air and made herself nod. “Very well.”

“Thank you.” He rose on bare feet and prowled up behind her.

Without turning, she watched his approach in the mirror. Her stomach seethed with nerves. The skin prickled across her shoulders as she braced for contact.

He stared down at her as he loomed up, so she couldn’t see his eyes. He paused, and her skin tightened in anticipation that she couldn’t describe as wholly fearful or wholly eager.

Did he mean to kiss her? Sweep her up into his arms and into the bed? Then prove himself her husband in the most basic way?

But he merely lifted a tress of black hair and let it drift down through his fingers.

Now she could read the expression on his face.

More hunger.

He mightn’t like her anymore. But after this, she couldn’t doubt that he wanted her.

She gave a visible shiver and placed a hand over her churning stomach.

After a charged silence, he stepped away, allowing her space to rise on shaky legs. There was a tall screen set up near the fire. She’d never imagined feeling shy with the man who had shown her that her body was made for pleasure and love. But right now, nothing short of a pistol to the head could make her undress in front of him.

Like the frightened mouse she so despised, Morwenna snatched up the nightdress spread over the bed and scuttled behind the screen. There she collapsed on a padded stool and stared blindly into space.

It took her a shaming amount of time to find the heart to remove slippers and stockings. She even managed to take off her drawers and petticoats.

Her skin itched with awareness, although the room outside was so quiet that she could almost believe she was alone. But she was vividly conscious that her husband could hear every rustle from behind the screen.

“Blast...” she muttered.

“What is it?” a deep voice inquired from much closer than where she’d left him.

She was blushing like fire. Absurd, when they’d been naked together so many times. “I can’t unlace my gown.”

He appeared around the side of the screen. “Let me help.”

She wanted to say no. But she’d look an utter fool going to bed in her finery. She lifted her slippery fall of hair out of the way and presented her back. “Thank you.”

He’d done this for her before, of course. In those heady, too brief days after their wedding. When she’d imagined a lifetime as Robert Nash’s wife.

But still she jumped when his fingers brushed her nape. A sizzle of heat rippled down her spine, and her stomach lurched.

He began to tug at the fastenings with a clumsiness she didn’t remember, and she realized that he was trembling again. She was so preternaturally aware of his closeness, she felt every faint hesitation in his fingers.

When it seemed to take him forever to finish, the breath snagged in her throat. She was seeing colored lights in front of her eyes before she remembered to take another breath.

Then she realized Robert was holding his breath, too.

That salty smell was rich in her nostrils, mingled with the underlying spice that was his alone. She’d never been so conscious of his height and power, even when she’d come to his bed as a virgin bride.

After about a hundred years, he reached her waist and briefly rested his hands on her hips. Despite her uncertainty, she had to resist the wanton urge to bump backward until her buttocks met his groin.