Reading sample Catching Captain Nash

Chapter One

The man stood in the shadows, watching the house across the square.

It was late, almost midnight, but the tall, white mansion was brightly lit, and lilting music from inside drifted across to him on the sharp autumn air. Carriages lined the square, waiting for the guests to make their way home after the party.

The night was bitterly cold, with a breeze that whistled around him and cut like a knife. His eyes never leaving the house, he huddled into his rough coat and stamped his booted feet to restore circulation.

He had a right to enter and join the fashionable throng, however unsuitably he was dressed. But something—diffidence, reluctance, perhaps even fear—made him hesitate before he stepped forward.

He’d rushed up to London the moment he disembarked at Gravesend. Now, shivering outside a house he hadn’t seen in nearly five years, he couldn’t bring himself to cross the threshold.

But he’d loitered so long in the empty square, he started to feel absurd. As if to signal it was time to reclaim his life, the music stopped. After a pause, he heard applause. Some celebration must take place inside.

Straightening, he strode ahead to the short flight of stairs. As he reached the open front door, he heard warm laughter and more applause from the back of the house.

He’d prepared to announce himself to a butler or footman, but it seemed even the servants deserted their posts to witness whatever took place here tonight.

Robert stepped into a familiar marble hall, bright with candlelight. The luxurious décor in Lord Stone’s London home struck him like a punch to the solar plexus. Over the last years, for days on end, any light at all would have been a blessing. This shining gilt and glass overwhelmed his senses.

He paused to suck in an unsteady breath and find his balance. How ludicrous that he’d kept his courage—sometimes by a mere thread—through all his tribulations. Yet walking into this beautiful, much-loved house, he wanted to cry like an abandoned baby.

He followed the distant rumble of a deep voice. The high double doors to the ballroom, inlaid with twin family crests of crowned swans, stood open as if to welcome the prodigal son’s return, but nobody turned to observe him come in.

The huge room was crowded. Everyone had their backs to the entrance and watched the people standing in front of the orchestra.

Robert was tall enough to look over the sea of heads. His eyes glanced across the group holding the floor. His brother Silas, his sister-in-law Caroline, his sister Amy. The famously handsome Lord Pascal. Another big brute of a fellow, whose name he couldn’t immediately remember.

All his attention arrowed onto the woman standing beside Silas. His heart slammed against his ribs. His blood surged with possessiveness. Briefly the tears he’d fought in the hall rose again to blur his vision. He’d crossed oceans to find her, and now, by God, he had.

Feverishly he drank in the details of her appearance. Five years apart, and she looked just the same. Shining dark hair tied up in some folderol, although in his memory, it always cascaded around her bare white shoulders in ebony disarray.

Delicate and slender. When he’d first met her, he’d feared some misstep born of clumsy masculinity might mar her perfection. Only leaving her for the last time had he started to appreciate the strength she concealed beneath her beauty.

The rest of the room faded to nothing, while his hungry eyes fed on the sight of her. His heart swelled to fill his chest, making breathing impossible. He’d spent an eternity convinced he’d never see her again.

Yet here she was. And so miraculously unchanged.

How the devil had she stayed so unchanged? That flaring, dark beauty remained as vivid as his memories. While he felt like he’d aged a hundred years.

Still nobody looked back to see who ventured unannounced into this happy gathering. Because it was a happy gathering. Goodwill practically dripped from the elegant light green walls with their moldings of festive garlands and ribbons.

His disorientation faded enough for him to realize that Silas, Lord Stone, was giving a formal speech to his guests. Stupidly, Robert had noticed little beyond the lovely black-haired woman wearing peacock blue silk.

Silas’s words hardly penetrated the waves of bewildered emotion engulfing him. Robert had always imagined that if this moment ever arrived, he’d be in transports of joy. But this felt too much like a confused dream to allow for anything as uncomplicated as mere happiness.

Then the dream turned dark and cold.

Disbelieving, he watched Silas take Morwenna’s hand, gloved in dark blue to match her sumptuous gown, and offer it to the big cove.

Garson. That was his name. At last Robert remembered.

Rich as Croesus. Old friend of Silas’s.

And he made sense of what until now had been little more than a muffled babble over the deafening roar of his heartbeat.

“I’m delighted to announce the betrothal of my dear sister-in-law Morwenna to one of the finest men I know. Hugh Rutherford, Baron Garson. Morwenna and Garson, I couldn’t be happier for both of you. I wish you many years of joy ahead.” Silas faced the crowd with a beaming smile. “Now it is my great pleasure to ask you all to raise your glasses in a toast to the happy couple.”

“No...” But nobody heard Robert’s low growl of denial.

Through a red haze, he watched Garson lift Morwenna’s hand and place a kiss on the knuckles.

“No,” he said more loudly.

This time, a few heads turned toward him. But he had no thought for other people.

Clumsily, on legs that felt as unwieldy as blocks of wood, he shoved his way forward. Every cell in his body burned to rip Garson’s handsome head from those wide, straight shoulders. He hardly cared that he knocked aside the nation’s most powerful men and their wives in his battle to reach the front. All he cared about was ending this abomination.

“No.”

This time his strangled cry rose to reach his family. Silas, tall like him, frowned across at the disturbance, then turned as white as parchment and staggered back. His wife Caro was slower to notice, as was Amy. Morwenna, damn her, still stared entranced at the man who held her hand.

Robert stumbled to the front as a couple of brawny footmen rushed in his direction, clearly intent on ejecting this disreputable interloper.

Silas waved his hand to them and spoke in a choked voice. “Stop.”

The footmen halted in their tracks, as the crowd receded to leave Robert standing in isolation. His chest was heaving, and that agonizing feeling of unreality compounded as he watched Morwenna step closer to Garson.

“Let her go,” he said unsteadily to the big bastard. “She’s not yours. She’s mine.”

At the sound of his voice, Morwenna stiffened, then turned in his direction in a swirl of rich blue. She ripped her hand away from Garson, but Robert was too far gone in rage and disbelief to find any satisfaction in that.

For one blazing moment, he read transcendent happiness in her face. Then the blue eyes, clear and changeable as the Cornish seas that lapped around her birthplace, dulled, and he saw unmistakable shame.

And dear Lord above, fear.

“Robert?” she whispered, although he heard his name as clearly as if she’d shouted.

“Of course,” he said coldly.

To do his wife justice, she’d always been brave. While the blood drained from her face, leaving her like a ghost, she stood her ground before him and didn’t fall into a faint.

No, it was his sister Amy who stared at him with glassy eyes, then collapsed into the arms of the golden-haired Adonis beside her.

Chapter Two

The room receded from Morwenna in an alarming rush, and the loud buzz of curiosity and concern that rose from the crowd reached her from a long way away. The only real thing in the room was her husband’s face.

His beloved face.

But so changed. When she looked into that face that had filled her dreams, she didn’t see the light-hearted, laughing man she’d married, but a stranger.

Her first, dazed glance told her that he’d been through hell on earth to reach her. He looked pale and ill, with the skin stretched tight over his cheekbones. A long scar divided his cheek from temple to jaw. She flinched as she imagined a sword slicing down to inflict that cruel cut. An inch higher, and he’d have lost an eye.

Yet he remained the most compelling man she’d ever seen. Even worn and hurt and bristling with hostility.

Those striking features had been carved on her heart from the moment six years ago, when she’d first seen him in the Truro assembly rooms. He was dark, dark enough to be a Cornishman, with the same snapping black eyes as his sister Helena.

Robert had been tall and elegant when they met, dashing in his naval uniform. Just promoted to captain, the youngest in the navy, a mark of his brilliance as a navigator, and his heroic deeds along the Barbary Coast.

All the Truro girls were mad for him, but he’d had eyes only for the local belle, Morwenna St. Leger. Their courtship had been quick and passionate. It had been a near thing that she’d arrived in her marriage bed a virgin.

But life as a sailor’s wife meant long stretches alone. In their year together, they spent mere weeks under one roof. Enough time for Robert to leave her carrying their daughter Kerenza, when he sailed away to map the coast of South America, the voyage from which he’d never returned.

Morwenna had spent the years since lost in a fog of grief, consoled only by her love for her daughter and the kindness of Robert’s grand relations. The brother of a peer had been a catch for a girl from an obscure family and an isolated, hard-scrabble corner of the kingdom. Except none of the Nashes had been grand at all. And through their profound sorrow, they’d found room for Robert’s bride, and later Robert’s pretty, quirky, stubborn daughter. It was both a comfort and an excruciating reminder of her loss that Kerenza could be nobody else’s daughter but Robert Nash’s.

Morwenna’s immediate reaction was to fling herself into his arms. She could hardly believe this miracle. The missing, bleeding half of her heart was at last restored to her. She’d felt barely alive since that devastating day when his lieutenant came to Woodley Park with news that Captain Robert Nash, R.N., was dead. He’d gone overboard after being shot in an engagement with pirates in the South Atlantic.

Then she remembered that Robert had returned to find her pledging herself to another man.

She forced air into starved lungs. She locked her knees against collapsing and struggled to clear her head. A few feet away, Pascal tried to revive his wife, Robert’s sister Amy.

Of course Robert wouldn’t know about Amy’s recent marriage. With the force of a blow, she realized that it was likely Robert didn’t know he had a child.

The room whirled around her. Reaching to hold onto something, anything, she curled her hand over Lord Garson’s arm.

Then was sorry she had when she saw Robert’s eyes flare with temper. The man she’d married had been slow to anger and quick to forgive. She could already tell this formidable creature wasn’t nearly so tolerant.

She snatched her hand away and blushed with guilt, even as she reminded herself she’d done nothing wrong. But when she met condemning black eyes, any small power that reassurance had held drained away to nothing.

Around them, a deathly hush had fallen. Logic told Morwenna that the silence lasted a few seconds, but she felt like she tumbled into an endless, soundless cavern, where nothing existed beyond Robert’s burning, angry glare.

Silas, thank God, ended the ghastly stasis.

“Robert...Robert, old man...” His broken words vibrated with joy. He strode forward and hauled his brother into a fervent embrace.

Morwenna watched Robert stiffen as if expecting violence. Then her heart cramped with wordless compassion when he hesitantly slid his arms around his brother’s back.

Where on earth had Robert been all this time? Everyone on his ship had seen him dragged under the waves, and he hadn’t resurfaced. She knew this was true because she and Silas had tracked down all the surviving crew, from the cabin boy to the first lieutenant. Anyone who might have offered a shred of hope that the man she loved still lived.

Because if he didn’t live, how could she continue in a world without him? Even as she grew large with his child inside her.

She’d taken years to accept that Robert really was dead. He’d seemed too vital and powerful to fall victim to common mortality.

It turned out that she’d been right to doubt his demise. Even now, when he glowered at her like he hated her, her soul expanded to fill her for the first time since he’d gone.

He was alive. He was alive.

That was all that mattered. He might never speak another kind word to her, but he breathed the same air she did.

She sucked in another breath, and this time had no trouble standing on her own two feet. And with the action, her reeling shock receded a little and she became aware of her surroundings. Pascal had carried Amy to a chair, but she looked wan and shaky. Brief, distant curiosity sparked in Morwenna’s mind. Was her sister-in-law with child?

Caro was crying, unashamed tears pouring down her lovely face. “If only Helena was here,” she said in a thick voice.

Around her, Morwenna heard the gale of whispers. The curiosity. The hint of spiteful enjoyment. She saw the bright, malicious glances directed at her, and Lord Garson beside her.

With horror, she recalled the man she’d agreed to marry next Christmas. She turned to Garson, then almost wished she hadn’t.

He watched her with that steady gaze that had become so familiar over recent months. But at last she recognized the depth of love behind his eyes.

Remorse stabbed her. She’d known he cared about her. Of course, she did. But only now when there could be nothing more between them did she see that he loved her perhaps almost as much as she loved Robert.

 Morwenna realized that in accepting his proposal out of pure self-interest, she’d done him a disservice. She’d been honest enough to tell him she still loved her husband. But as their eyes met, she read his dashed hopes that time would loosen Robert’s hold on her.

His level, gray gaze told her something else. He now understood that even without Robert’s return, no man had ever had a chance of gaining her heart.

And the knowledge cut him to the bone.

Morwenna wanted to say she was sorry—and she was—but her regret was a tiny shadow in the huge, spinning universe of gratitude that Robert had come back to her.

Despite everything, she found a moment’s astonished admiration when Garson bowed and stepped back. It was an acknowledgment that in this particular competition, there could only be one winner.

And it wasn’t him.

All of this filled the time it took Silas and Robert to shift apart.

“How the devil has this happened?” Silas’s voice still cracked with emotion. “The Admiralty gave us no hope that you’d survived.”

Robert shook his head, as Pascal tore himself from Amy’s side. “Silas, I think the family should hear this story first, before it becomes generally known.”

Silas looked around, and Morwenna saw that he’d forgotten the room full of people. He’d only seen his brother, returned from the dead. “Yes. Of course.”

After nodding to the servants to take their places, Pascal raised his voice. “My friends, you came here tonight to witness a joyous event. And so you have, if not the one you expected. We beg your indulgence in giving us a little privacy to welcome Captain Nash back to his home and family and find out the story behind his return.”

People began moving toward the entrance. Without looking, Silas reached out to find Caro’s hand. She, with that unspoken communication built over eight years of marriage, was already there at his side.

Another pang struck Morwenna. Before he left, she and Robert had been passionate lovers, but close to strangers in most other ways. If fate had been kinder, they should by now have formed the same bond as Silas and Caro.

She and her husband had missed out on so much. Was it too late to find each other again?

Or was the break irreparable?

Studying this stern man in his rough sailor’s clothes, she couldn’t feel confident of a happy ending. Misery tightened her belly, and she sagged where she stood.

Caro came to take Morwenna’s arm. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, although she was far from sure. A torrent of words pressed against her trembling lips, but her husband’s closed expression kept her silent.

“Rob, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” Amy stood on shaky legs and stumbled across to hug her brother. “I’m so happy that you’re alive.”

The paralysis that had gripped everyone gradually eased. The shock that had felt like horror, but was really astounded, incomprehensible elation, now softened to something a little more bearable.

Robert even seemed less awkward with human contact as he bent to hug his sister. In Silas’s embrace, he’d looked ready to fight or run. The man Morwenna had married had always worn a smile. This man hadn’t smiled once, although surely he must be glad to be back.

And he’d given no sign that he remembered his wife with any special fondness. No sign except that furious cry denying Garson’s claim on her.

Now those fathomless eyes met hers as he leaned over a sobbing Amy. Morwenna caught a flash of something that could be vulnerability. He looked away before she could be sure. But this was the first hint that the man she’d married might lurk somewhere inside this forbidding stranger.

“Robert, let me tell you…” she said in a croak that faded to nothing. Appeal? Apology? Welcome? She wasn’t sure herself. But he didn’t hear her over the hubbub in the room.

The crowd slowly dispersed. The men clapped Robert and Silas on the back in congratulations, while the women smiled. Or if they were sentimental, dabbed their eyes with lace handkerchiefs. A few curious souls lingered as the ranks thinned, hoping for some gossip to take away. But Silas and his staff were polite but relentless in clearing the house.

If those who appreciated a scandal wished to witness a brawl between the newly resurrected husband and the recently deposed fiancé, they would have been doomed to disappointment.

“Morwenna, can I do anything to help?” Garson turned to her with the consideration she’d learned to appreciate over the last months.

Automatically she presented her hand, and he bowed over it. Since she’d accepted his offer of marriage, he usually kissed her fingers. Not tonight.

“You’re very kind,” she said, and meant it. His face expressed only concern for her. Any darker feelings remained masked. “Especially when...”

His faint smile was more proof of his gallantry. “Clearly we weren’t meant to be.” He glanced across to where Amy smiled up at Robert with unadulterated happiness.

How Morwenna envied Robert’s family’s uncomplicated reaction to his return. She wanted to smile and laugh and cheer, too, but she couldn’t shake off her memory of that accusing glare when he saw her holding Garson’s hand. “Yes, but…”

Garson stopped her, which was a mercy, as she had no idea what she meant to say. “I’m glad for your sake he’s back.”

A muscle jerked in his cheek, a hint of the effort it took to say that.

“Thank you.” She felt Robert watching her again, then she realized Garson still held her hand. She withdrew, praying she didn’t look as guilty as she felt.

“It’s best if I go. Send word if you need me.”

“I will.” Except the sad truth was that now the man she loved was here, Garson, for all his many marvelous qualities, had become irrelevant.

Love was a ruthless master.

He bowed again and left, the last guest to go.

She supposed she could approach Robert, insist on taking her place beside him. She was his wife, after all. But something about his rigid stance kept her marooned where she was. She’d barely shifted from where she’d stood when Silas had made the heartfelt speech about welcoming his good friend Lord Garson into the family. If Caro hadn’t been holding her arm, she’d have felt alone indeed.

Morwenna had always imagined that if the unbelievable happened and Robert came back, she’d launch herself into his arms without a second thought. But Robert in her fantasies had been the charmer she’d married. An invisible wall surrounded this austere revenant. At least as far as his wife was concerned.

Which didn’t stop her longing to touch him to prove he was real, the way someone perishing of thirst burned for a drop of water.

Through the ocean of conflicting emotions engulfing her, she drank in the details of his appearance. His hair was too long, and ragged with a bad cut. Whiskers shadowed his jaw. He’d always had a vigorous beard.

“This calls for a celebration indeed.” Silas signaled to the butler. “Champagne, Hunter.”

Ignoring her half-hearted resistance, Caro drew Morwenna forward. Robert showed no reaction to his wife coming to stand a foot away from him. A chill ran up her spine, and she shivered.

Caro noticed and mouthed the word “courage.” Then she released Morwenna and laid a hand on Silas’s arm. “Perhaps we should save our carousing until tomorrow, darling. This has been the most wonderful night, and we all have so much to find out. But it’s late, and Robert looks ready to drop where he stands.”

“But...” Amy protested, then subsided into silence under Caro’s repressive look.

“I’ll bring you here for breakfast, sweetheart,” Pascal said. “You won’t miss anything, I promise.”

“If I must wait, I must,” Amy said grudgingly. She gave Robert another hug, not appearing to note his tepid response. “Good night, Rob. I’m so glad you’re back.”

Silas turned to the butler. “Hunter, forget the champagne. Instead, please prepare a room for Captain Nash.”

Robert frowned at his brother. Was Morwenna the only person attuned to the subtle parade of emotions on his face? Had anyone else seen the way those tense, straight shoulders under their ill-fitting coat had eased when Caro suggested leaving explanations until the morning?

“The blue chamber,” Caro said.

Robert swallowed, then spoke. He’d been taciturn in the extreme since coming in. Another change from his former self. “No.”

“You’d prefer a different room? Or have you already arranged lodgings?” Silas asked. “Please say you’ll sleep here. Otherwise I’ll wake up and decide I dreamed that you’re back.”

Robert spoke again, slowly as though each word emerged after he’d dredged it out of the depths. “My place is with my wife.”

Morwenna stiffened and stared at him in consternation. Another shiver rippled through her, this one made up of sheer alarm. Heaven help her. Did he mean to chastise her tonight, before she’d had a chance to come to terms with his arrival? She already felt on the verge of shattering. Defending herself to an angry husband asked too much of her right now.

Caro cast Morwenna a concerned glance. “Robert, perhaps it might be better if...”

Stubbornly Robert shook his coal-black head. “No.”

Silas sent her a worried look. “Morwenna?”

Of course he was worried about her. Nobody knew better than he how she’d grieved. He’d been delighted when she’d accepted Sally, Lady Norwood’s invitation to come to London this season to rejoin society and play a Dashing Widow. He’d never been insensitive enough to tell her to take up her life again, but his pleasure in her social success was clear. As clear as his approval of her engagement to Garson.

“Of course.” She forced leaden legs to bring her closer to Robert. She’d never been more aware of how little time she and her husband had spent alone together, and the abyss now yawning between them.

Robert’s expression didn’t change, and he didn’t look at her. What happened now? Should she take his arm and show him the way to her room? Did he want her to touch him? She’d quickly guessed that during his absence, he’d become uncomfortable with physical contact.

His hand, tanned, scarred and unfamiliar, snaked out to curl around her wrist. The first time he’d touched her in five years.

Even through her satin glove, she felt the heat. When she jumped, he cast her a narrow-eyed look and tightened his grip. For so long, she’d ached for his touch, but this ruthless hold made her feel like a dog on a tight leash.

“We’ll see you at breakfast,” Caro said with an unconvincing attempt at brightness. “Robert, please say you’ll tell us in the morning what happened to you. We’re agog to hear it.”

“Give the man a chance to catch his breath, my love.” Silas’s smile softened the reproof.

She sent him an unimpressed glance. “You’re as eager to hear as I am.”

He shrugged and slid his arm around his wife’s waist. “Of course I am.”

Once the banter would have amused Robert, but tonight he hardly seemed to hear it. Instead his grip on Morwenna’s arm firmed, until she feared he’d leave a bruise.

On his way out, Silas paused beside his brother and squeezed his shoulder. “We’ve missed you so damned much.”

Without speaking, Robert nodded. Then far too quickly for her to decide on a strategy for handling this daunting stranger, Morwenna was alone with her husband.

“I need to...” she began, not sure what she wanted to say, but frantic to bridge this chasm.

He shook his head again. “Not here. Upstairs.”

She bit the inside of her cheek to stop bursting into tears. With every breath, she’d wanted him back. Now, against all the odds, he was here.

Yet she was tongue-tied and awkward and miserable. Her stomach churned with relief and gratitude and terror—and disbelief that he was here at all. She gulped back the rising queasiness and tried again. “I’m glad you’re back, too.”

Stale, weak, inadequate words for the way her heart had leaped to life at the sound of his deep voice when he’d burst through the crowd.

He turned his head to study her. She couldn’t read his expression, when once she’d felt she knew his every thought. “Upstairs.”

She told herself that she could survive this. After all this time without him, she could survive anything. Even his return.

Straightening her spine, she guided him to the base of the magnificent marble staircase rising to the upper floors. With every step, her heat beat out the stark truth that formed her only defense against crippling fear.

“He’s alive. He’s alive. Nothing else matters a tinker’s damn.”