Page 25 of Catching Captain Nash
To his disappointment, she shook her head. “You need to go to the Admiralty, and I need to get ready to leave for the country.” She paused. “Or we could pick up Kerenza and go on to Portsmouth.”
“You’ve kept the house?” The neat little villa where they’d spent their brief time together.
“Of course. It held all my memories of you.” She frowned. “What is it?”
He shook his head and struggled to speak past the emotion clogging his lungs. “I’m not...I’m not used to making plans. For so long, I was never sure I’d see my next sunrise.” He swallowed again, but still that damned rock jammed his throat. “It’s…it’s overwhelming to talk about flitting around the country as if I’m free.”
“Oh, my dear.” She touched his cheek with more of that tenderness as powerful as thunder. “You are free. I hope you’ll soon understand that.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve come back to myself yet.”
Although the fact that he felt safe enough to reveal his feelings to Morwenna hinted he’d traveled a long way along the road to recovery. Largely thanks to this woman he loved.
“But you’ve come back to me. That’s enough for now.” Her smile was tremulous, and her beauty struck him like a blow. What a lucky dog he was, to have such a wife.
His hold on her hand tightened. “You said you’d come to the Admiralty with me.”
She shook her head. “I know I did. But I think you might do better with Silas. If you encounter difficulties, he’s a man of influence. And those old men there won’t pay a moment’s heed to the hero’s wife.”
He sent her an admiring glance. The girl he’d married had been unworldly. He enjoyed this glimpse of a woman who knew how to get what she wanted.
But he had to clear something up. “I’m not a hero.”
Dear God, he cringed to think of the days on end when his courage completely failed and hope disappeared under a mire of filth and pain and humiliation.
That tremulous smile didn’t falter. “You’ll always be a hero to me.”
Chapter Nine
Robert approached the Admiralty with no expectation of a warm welcome. After all, apart from his scars, he had no proof of where he’d been and what had happened to him. But to his astonishment, none of the senior officers expressed any doubts about his story, which even in his own ears, sounded more and more unlikely with repeated tellings.
He received a hero’s reception and was quickly ushered in to make his report to the Sea Lords. He spent hours recounting his experiences and imparting what intelligence he could share about the pirates infesting the South American coast. In the end, only Silas’s influence managed to extricate him from the labyrinthine corridors of Somerset House and back out into the rainy afternoon.
His exhaustion upon returning to the closed carriage demonstrated more than anything else how right Morwenna was to suggest a stay in the country. That, and his prickling resentment of the prying looks wherever he turned. He and Silas had had to leave Nash House through the back gate to avoid the crowds on the front steps, and people had pointed at Silas’s carriage as they’d driven through London. Inside the Admiralty, he’d caught the clerks’ barely concealed curiosity as he was ushered from office to office.
Clearly the news of how he’d turned up to spoil his wife’s engagement party was all over Town. He couldn’t blame people for their interest. Good God, if he wasn’t its cause, he might even enjoy the scandal. But after his long imprisonment, all those avid, interested eyes made his skin crawl.
“Well, thank God that’s done.” Silas stretched his long legs into the well between the seats. “You should be officially out of the navy after New Year, and you’re on leave until Christmas.”
“Thanks to you.” Silas had seen Robert’s discomfort with reliving his ordeal, and had taken charge of most of the meetings. “They’re even going to pay me for while I was away. You were masterly negotiating that.”
“So they damn well should, after the sacrifices you’ve made for your country.”
“I wasn’t sure I’d get such a good hearing.” As the coach lurched into motion, Robert placed his—well, Silas’s—hat on the seat. “You have to admit it’s an outlandish story. I could have been sitting on a tropical island with a buxom maiden on my knee, instead of locked up in a foul cell the size of a cupboard. How could they know otherwise?”
“Nobody who looks at you could question that you’ve been to hell and back.” Silas smiled, his quirky features alight. “At least you kept your temper.”
“It was a close-run thing.”
“By heaven, I know. And despite the country being at peace, they weren’t too eager to let you go.”
Robert shrugged and glanced out the window. He struggled not to shrink from the noise and activity filling the streets. Had he ever felt at home in this teeming city? After such a restricted existence, London struck him as nothing but chaos and cacophony. “I doubt I’m fit for command.”
“It’s early days yet. Compared to the wild-eyed savage who invaded my house last night, you’re almost civilized.”
“Thank you,” Robert said drily. He reached up to pull the blind over the window. He felt like every eye in the city focused on him.
“They’ve left the way open, if you change your mind and decide to pick up your career.” Silas pulled down his blind, too, enclosing them in a private space.
