Late the next afternoon, the carriage rolled into Woodley Park, Silas’s beautiful estate in the Leicestershire countryside.

Morwenna glanced across at Robert. He’d been quiet for hours. Not that he was ever talkative these days. But since morning, her attempts at conversation had fallen completely flat.

After yesterday’s extraordinary encounter in the carriage—recollecting that feverish coupling made her flush with pleasure—and using her body last night, he’d seemed more at ease. But as they got closer to Woodley Park, he returned to the taciturn stranger who had arrived off the whaler.

She supposed he brooded about everything he’d missed. How could she blame him? If she could, she’d bundle all those special moments up and give them to him. Kerenza’s birth. Her first step. Her first word. Her first ride. Every birthday. A thousand sweet memories of their child discovering the world.

The tragedy was that those memories were lost to him forever.

Father and daughter, so alike, were strangers to each other.

That made Morwenna angry. Futile anger at targets beyond her reach. The navy. The pirates. Those idiots who locked Robert up as a spy, instead of sending him back to the wife who loved him.

Life. Fate. God’s will.

As the carriage came to a stop in front of the columned portico, she glanced at Robert again. He looked stern and determined, as if he took on a deadly enemy instead of approached the daughter he’d never met. All day, his air had been grim. She’d known better than to suggest a repeat of yesterday’s wildly sensual escapade.

Morwenna bit back a plea for him to adopt a friendlier manner. Looking like he did now, he’d terrify poor Kerenza.

A footman stepped forward to open the door. Robert stepped down and raised a hand to help Morwenna. When she curled her hand around his elbow, she bit back a dismayed exclamation. His arm was rigid with tension. He was as close to shattering as he’d been that first night.

Without speaking, Robert escorted her up the stone stairs to the massive double doors.

“Mrs. Nash...” Ballard, the butler, began. Then for the first time since she’d started coming here, Morwenna saw the real man overwhelm the perfect servant. He staggered back and went as white as new milk. “Mr. Robert...”

“Ballard, are you still here?” Robert moved forward to shake the man’s hand. “I thought you must have long since retired.”

At least he made some attempt to sound happy. To Morwenna’s ears, it wasn’t convincing, but the old man was in such a state, he probably wouldn’t pick up the false note.

“Mr. Robert, in all my days...” The butler’s eyes were bright with tears as he wrung Robert’s hand. Morwenna saw the footmen behind him exchange puzzled glances. They must be new since Robert’s day.

“It was a sorry, sorry occasion when we heard you’d been lost at sea. Mrs. Ballard cried her eyes out. It took me a year to believe it. I kept expecting you to turn up at the door, bright and cheeky like you always did after some piece of mischief on the estate.”

“And so I have.” Robert clapped the man on the back.

“Aye, aye, you have at that. Well, bless my soul. Will you come down to the kitchen and see Mrs. Ballard? When the news came, she took on like it was one of our own gone missing.”

“Of course I will. But first we’re here to see Kerenza,” Robert said gently.

Morwenna saw how this show of sentiment wore at him—he’d come a long way in two days, but his captivity laid a heavy burden on his soul. She couldn’t help but be glad that they’d escaped London, where reunions were likely to come thick and fast.

She stepped up and placed her hand on Robert’s arm. As expected, his frightening tension hadn’t eased. “Ballard, where is Miss Kerenza?”

The butler released Robert at last, and she admired the way her husband hid his relief to save the old man’s feelings. Ballard turned away and fished out a handkerchief to blow his nose, while the footmen struggled to stay expressionless. “I’ll...I’ll send for her, Mrs. Nash.”

Morwenna shook her head. “It might be better if we go to her. Are the children having supper in the nursery?”

“Because the day is so fine, Miss Carroll let them play an extra hour in the garden.”

Morwenna nodded. “In that case, we’ll find her there. Could you please have my room made up and let Mrs. Ballard know that we’ll be in for dinner?”

Under her instructions, Ballard straightened and became again the perfect butler, although a brightness in his eyes betrayed lingering emotion. “Very good, madam.”

Morwenna took Robert’s arm and led him through the hall and down a corridor to the morning room. He accompanied her with a docility that worried her. His eyes were glazed, and that telltale muscle pulsed in his scarred cheek.

“Do you want to stop and look around the house first?” she murmured. This was where he’d grown up. Seeing it again when he must so often have despaired of returning alive surely tested him.

He shook his head. “No.”

She firmed her grip on his arm. “We could leave seeing Kerenza until tomorrow, if you don’t feel up to it.”

“I’m up to it.” The look he sent her was fierce, like a caged eagle. “This is just a house, however many memories it holds. I’ve been without my daughter for five years. I won’t wait another day to see her.”

“Very well.” Morwenna was surprised that despite his obvious tension, he got so many words out. The night he arrived, he wouldn’t have managed. “I’m sorry if you think I’m fussing.”

His glance was sharp. “You make a very good mother hen.”

She bit back a retort and opened the French doors onto the terrace. She’d been so worried about Robert and Kerenza that she hadn’t paid any attention to the day. But Ballard was right. Yesterday’s rain had moved on. It was a glorious autumn afternoon, and long rays of golden light turned the gardens to enchantment.

Silently, striving to communicate her love through touch, she brought Robert through the formal gardens to the pretty little pavilion overlooking the rose beds. At this time of year, they were well past their best, but a few brave blooms clung to the bushes.

As if waking from a dream, Robert looked around in surprise. “This isn’t where the children usually play.”

Morwenna gestured for him to sit. “No. But I think it’s best if I fetch her, so you don’t have an audience.”

“You’re concerned about her reaction?”

Actually she was worried about both her husband and her daughter, but she wasn’t prepared to admit it. Long term, she hoped that Kerenza and Robert would build understanding and affection. After all, they were so heartbreakingly alike. But at this first meeting, with Kerenza caught unawares and probably overtired after a day with her cousins, and Robert strung so tight, he threatened to snap, she was worried sick.

“I think she’s going to be overwhelmed.” That was true. “So meeting you somewhere quiet is the best choice.”

“You know her, after all.”

She shouldn’t read that as an accusation. They were both on edge. “Trust me to handle this, Robert. You’ve loomed large in her life, even in your absence. We all talked about you so much that you’ve become like someone out of a story.”

He frowned in quick irritation. “You think she’ll be disappointed?”

“Not at all.” The smile she gave him was tender. He was so brittle, and so desperate for this to go well. “But meeting your gods in the flesh can be a trial.”

He opened and closed his hands at his sides. “I want her to like me.”

“Of course she’ll like you.”

“And I want to do this...right.”

With a shock and not a little self-disgust, Morwenna realized that what she’d read as anger was sheer, stark, staring terror. Her heart cramped, and she told herself she wouldn’t cry. But the great lump of emotion blocking her throat made it likely that she would.

“Robert, of course you’ll do it right. Even if things go badly today...” Pray God, they didn’t. For his sake, not Kerenza’s. Right now, the daughter was much more resilient than the father. “We’ve got time to fix it. We’ve got the rest of our lives. We don’t have to resolve everything this minute.”

Her reassurances didn’t seem to soothe him. That muscle still danced wildly in his cheek, and he stood so straight and tall, it was as if he had a ruler for a backbone.

She had a sudden flash of insight. Just so must he have steeled himself to come into Silas’s London house when it was packed for her engagement party. He had such courage. It humbled her.

“She mightn’t like me.”

“She loves you already.”

“Purely because of family stories.”

Her lips twisted, and again she told herself she wouldn’t cry. “And you think the stories don’t reveal the real you?”

“Not as I am now.”

At last she saw shame as well as fear. Oh, Robert...          

“She knows her father is a brave man who served his country to the point of sacrificing his life. She knows we all love you.” At last, she spoke the words that she’d kept back, not sure he was ready to hear them. “She knows I love you. It’s enough. It’s more than enough.”

She read the astonishment on his face and couldn’t bear to wait for his response. Anyway, the moment belonged to Kerenza. “Stay here.”

She turned and rushed away in search of her daughter.