Page 26 of Catching Captain Nash
Robert was shaking his head. “I’ve already lost too much time with Morwenna and Kerenza. I’m not signing up to do anything that takes me away from them for years on end.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m sorry.” Silas’s voice lowered into seriousness. “We’ve missed you like the devil. And never mistake how Morwenna grieved for you. Don’t be fooled by what you saw last night. She’s been loyal to you since you left.”
His wife had stayed faithful to him. The knowledge filled him with poignant gratitude. And wonder that she’d kept so steadfast, when all hope was gone.
“Do you think I don’t know that? Morwenna and I will work everything out.” He hoped to hell he wasn’t being fatuously optimistic. He and his wife had made a good start, but he didn’t fool himself that making a life together after so long apart would be easy—or quickly resolved.
“I hope so. You’ve found yourself a grand girl there, and losing you broke her heart. When she accepted Garson, it was very much as second best. Which is a pity for the poor devil, because he was in love with her.”
Poor devil, indeed. Robert was surprised to feel a moment’s pity for his rival. “I don’t care. She’s mine. She’s always been mine.”
“Delighted to hear it.” Silas’s hazel eyes held no hint of his usual humor. “If you want some advice from an old married man, make sure she knows you feel that way. It’s been a damnably lonely wait for her, and I doubt she’s ready to take anything for granted, least of all that you still love her.”
“I do.” He was surprised how easily the declaration emerged. Discussions with his brother had never ventured into such profoundly emotional territory before.
“I know.” Silas’s lips curled in a smug smile, visible through the gloom.
A thoughtful silence descended, underscored by the patter of rain on the carriage roof. Last night, this hiatus would have been uncomfortable. Brimming with the powerful responses that his return had stirred up. Powerful responses Robert hadn’t felt able to deal with, not if he wished to preserve an ounce of pride.
Silas was right. He’d come a long way in a short time. God bless Morwenna. What little peace he’d found since returning, he owed to her.
A desperate longing, so imperative he could taste it, overtook him. He loved his brother. He always had. And he looked forward to getting to know him all over again. But right now, he ached to see his wife.
Robert had joked about taking her in the carriage as they rolled away from the Admiralty. It didn’t seem such a joke anymore. When everything overwhelmed him, only the hot, wet grip of her body set the world turning in the right direction. He was likely to become a rapacious satyr before he was done.
The prospect of getting her to himself, away from the hurly-burly, was the promise of paradise. And he’d finally meet his daughter.
His daughter!
It was too much to comprehend, when he’d spent so long hardly daring to believe he’d see his next sunrise. An embarrassment of riches to a man who had once thought a crust of bread the height of luxury.
“With your permission, Morwenna and I plan to go up to Woodley Park.”
“To see Kerenza?”
“Yes.”
Silas smiled. “She’s just like you. Without her, I don’t know how we’d have survived losing you.”
“So you don’t mind?”
“If you go to Woodley? Hell, no. It’s your home as much as mine.”
Not true. But nice of his brother to say so, nonetheless. “Thank you.”
“Getting away from London will do you good.”
“I feel I’m deserting you.”
Silas sighed and leaned back in his seat. “Being with a loving family asks too much of you right now. I understand—at least as much as someone who hasn’t suffered as you have can understand. I saw your face when you came in last night. That crowd nearly undid you.”
Robert’s lips twisted in self-derision. “I’m better than I was, thanks to Morwenna. Give me a year or so, and I might even get back to normal.”
“There’s no rush,” Silas said calmly. “You’re home, and heaven has granted us the chance to see you again. We can sort everything else out as we need to. The main thing is to return you to health and happiness. And if my sparkling company isn’t the answer, I can bear it.”
“Thanks, old man,” Robert said. He realized with a surprise quite how careful his family had been with him since he’d returned, and he was devilish grateful.
“I’m damned proud of you, Rob.” Deep feeling thickened Silas’s voice. “I’m proud of your brilliant naval career, and that you had the good sense to marry that fine woman, and that you have such a cracker of a daughter. I’m proud that you managed to get through your imprisonment, mostly in one piece. And I’m bloody beside myself with pride that you didn’t punch that officious Admiralty pen-pusher on the nose this afternoon.”
