“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 five years 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.”
Chapter Three
* * *
Morwenna brought her husband upstairs to the bedroom she’d slept in for the last few months. When she’d first come to London, she’d lived with Sally, Lady Norwood, as part of their pact to play Dashing Widows, women of independent spirit who had fun and dazzled society. But Sally had recently married Sir Charles Kinglake, and was touring Italy on her wedding trip. Morwenna desperately wished Sally was here in London—she had a suspicion she might need a friend before everything was settled with Robert.
Her maid put aside the mending to greet her mistress with a curtsy and quickly hidden surprise at a man’s presence in this, until now, purely feminine territory.
Well, the girl would find out plenty once she went down to the servants’ hall. Morwenna had been in Town long enough to know that Robert’s return would be the subject of conversation from cellars to attics in every house in Mayfair.
Let them talk. She didn’t care. Her love was alive.
But right now, Robert wouldn’t want an audience, so she sent the girl away. Although heaven knew how she’d get out of this gown without help.
Once they were alone, Robert didn’t shift from the threshold. The hand on her wrist was trembling. Tiredness? Anger? Some mysterious illness?
Morwenna didn’t know. And she didn’t feel she could ask this stranger, who wasn’t entirely a stranger.
Because his touch made her burn the way she hadn’t burned in five years. And his scent teased dormant senses back to tingling life. The shabby coat reeked of salt and old fish, but beneath it, even after so long, she knew that warm, male smell. At an animal level, her body immediately recognized this man as her mate.
She tipped her head to study him. He seemed dazed, and at last she saw his bone-deep weariness. Caro was right. He looked ready to drop from exhaustion.
With a soft sound of distress, she reached to touch his face. “Oh, my dear,” she whispered, hating how he flinched away. “Tell me what you want.”
He sucked in a shuddering breath. By now, his trembling was visible. She expected another monosyllabic response, but he shot her a sharp look and said, “Now, there’s a question.”
She frowned, wishing she was clever like the Nashes, clever enough to know how to heal him. Before she could summon an answer, he pulled away, pressing his hand to the doorframe in a silent admission that he couldn’t stand unsupported. Morwenna began to reach for him again, until she recalled how he’d shied away from her.