Morwenna waited upstairs in her bedroom. After witnessing Robert and Kerenza’s meeting, she’d needed some time alone to smile and wish, and cry over his vulnerability and sweetness and courage.

She’d been so afraid of what might happen this afternoon, and it turned out she’d had no reason. Father and daughter had quickly established an understanding. He and Kerenza had marched off in perfect accord, after that moving meeting that had left Morwenna fighting the urge to bawl like a baby.

Kerenza had come to find her an hour or so ago, bubbling over with talk of her dashing papa. Although the promised puppy was an equally favored topic of conversation, Morwenna noted with amusement.

The puppy had been a goal for a couple of years now, since Silas’s spaniel bitch had given birth to a litter during one of Kerenza’s stays at Woodley Park. If Robert’s return meant a dog joining the family, Kerenza’s affections would be eternally engaged.

It was only when Morwenna saw them together that she understood quite how alike were these two beings she loved more than life. She’d always found comfort in saying Kerenza took after her father. But watching the two of them negotiate a friendship, she’d found it almost uncanny how their expressions mirrored each other.

She’d ached to fling her arms around both of them and smother them with love. But that encounter in the pavilion hadn’t been about her, but about them. Dear heaven, she’d felt privileged to witness their blooming closeness.

One of the things Morwenna had found most touching about bringing Robert and Kerenza together was how prosaic the occasion had proven. She’d expected tears and drama and raging emotion. But while she’d had no doubt of the depth of Robert’s response to seeing his daughter for the first time, the introductions had passed off with an ease beyond her most optimistic hopes.

So she’d consigned an overexcited Kerenza to the custody of a disapproving Miss Carroll and promised she’d bring Robert in to say goodnight to his daughter. Before she left, Kerenza had bestowed a sticky and enthusiastic cuddle on her. Fenella Townsend, Caro’s close friend and one of the first Dashing Widows, had perfect children who didn’t seem to know what mud was. Kerenza, on the other hand, loved the stuff, especially if it was mixed with muck from the stables. Her dress showed evidence of a fun visit to the horses.

Then had come the moment that had slashed a jagged rift across Morwenna’s much-beleaguered heart.

“Is Papa really home to stay?” Kerenza whispered, her face jammed up against Morwenna’s ear.

“Yes, he is, Kerenza. He said he’s never going away again, and he means it.”

The warm little arms tightened around her neck. “I’m glad. I love Papa.”

“I know, pumpkin,” Morwenna’s choked out, as her grip on her daughter firmed. “And he loves you, too.”

“So he’ll be here tomorrow?”

The fears of an orphan child couldn’t be banished so quickly. But today had provided a good start.

In fact, an excellent start.

“Yes. And every day after that.”

“The pirates won’t come for him?”

“No, sweetheart. Your papa is more than a match for any number of pirates.”

“I know that,” she said comfortably and squirmed away. Kerenza was an affectionate child, but didn’t like to cuddle for too long when she had other places to go.

Morwenna had watched her daughter race away to the nursery and no doubt many tales to share with her cousins. For so long, Morwenna had lived in a world of grief and absence. It was surprisingly difficult to adjust to a landscape bright with hope.

But it seemed hope must find its place in her life. Her daughter was happy. Her husband was clearly beside himself with delight at his lovely little daughter.

And Robert had smiled.

More, he’d laughed. Morwenna had wanted to cry from sheer relief, because in that instant, the two Roberts she loved—the man she’d married and the man who had returned to her—had united into one beloved whole.

Morwenna had assumed Robert would seek her out, once Kerenza came inside. Perhaps whisk her away for a breathtakingly carnal encounter. The restless rush of her blood told her that his attentions were overdue. He turned her into a complete wanton, and she didn’t give a tinker’s curse. She had years to make up for, and he was welcome to tup her from Truro to Inverness if it made him feel better.

It certainly made her feel better.

But she’d put her impatience aside—barely—when she thought again about the afternoon. After meeting his daughter for the first time, he was likely to need some privacy to come to terms with his reaction.

Now it was time to dress for dinner, and he still hadn’t appeared. Was something wrong?

He’d handled Kerenza with admirable aplomb. And he’d seemed happy to have his daughter to himself afterward. But had Morwenna overestimated his strength? He’d been so keyed up when he arrived. For Kerenza’s sake, he’d hidden his uncertainty. But that didn’t mean he’d taken everything in his stride.

Disquiet mounting, she went downstairs and checked the gardens and the stables—although he’d always been the least horsey of the Nashes, and without Kerenza’s company, she couldn’t imagine he’d linger there.

No Robert.

She came in through the kitchens where a tearful Mrs. Ballard poured out her pleasure at Robert’s return. Morwenna escaped at last, once she’d promised to bring Robert down to see her after dinner.

Which would be a fine arrangement, if only she could find him.

Evening turned into night, and she asked Mrs. Ballard to hold back dinner. Morwenna was becoming seriously worried, although common sense insisted her husband had just gone for a walk and mistaken the time.

Except she’d endured five years without him. It was too soon to trust a kind fate to leave him safely in her care.

Since he’d come back, she’d struggled not to weep and fawn and swoon over him. But by the time she climbed to the sprawling house’s attics, she felt hysterics might be justified.

It was pitch black under the roof, and her candle seemed to make the shadows loom blacker. Ballard ran the house like an admiral ran a ship, but even so, up here there was dust and the debris from generations of Nash occupation.

Morwenna sneezed, and looked around out of watering eyes. She’d been in this part of the house a couple of times, hunting out costumes for amateur theatricals. There were chests packed with extravagant gowns from last century. While the huge skirts struck her as bizarre, she’d sighed over the exquisite silks.

It was unlikely she’d discover Robert lurking up here. She’d only ventured up those narrow stairs as a last resort, because she couldn’t find him anywhere else.

The further she explored under the rafters, the darker it got. Clearly she was on a wild goose chase. Her husband was probably happily ensconced in Silas’s library, drinking Silas’s brandy and wondering where the devil his wife had got to.

“Well, you’re clearly not here,” she muttered in frustration to the absent Robert, when she bruised her shin on a wooden chest jutting out from the wall.

With a huff of irritation, she turned to leave. She was annoyed because she was frightened. Over the last two days, Robert had felt less and less like a stranger. But now with him out of her sight for so long, she couldn’t help remembering the half-mad vagabond who had barged into her engagement party.

Who knew what that man might do?

Then, as she took another step, something made her pause. Perhaps a barely audible catch of breath. Or a feeling that she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought.

Or perhaps that bone-deep awareness that lovers develop of each other’s presence.

“Robert?”

Was she losing her mind? Because surely he’d say something if he heard her approach. And given her clattering progress through the jumble, people in Liverpool would have heard her.

Anyway, what in the name of heaven would he be doing up here, all alone in the dark?

She raised her candle, sure she was imagining his presence. And revealed her husband sitting on a tin chest under a descending corner of the roof.

She was about to ask him what the devil he was playing at, until the light fell on his face.

“Oh, my dear...” she said on an escaping breath, while all her fragile hopes shriveled to nothing. Despair crashed down on her, turning her heart to lead.

What a naïve fool she was to imagine that he was on the road to recovery. After all he’d been through, a couple of days couldn’t possibly heal his wounds.

Especially a couple of days full of the shocks that these had contained. Her engagement. The spreading scandal. Negotiating with the Admiralty. News of a child. Meeting that child.

Even a man who hadn’t verged on breaking point would reel under such a barrage.

He leveled glassy black eyes on her. She wasn’t sure he saw her. His face was bone white, so the scar stood out like a raw brand. Between his elegant hands, he turned a toy wooden ship over and over.

She’d wondered at first if perhaps he was weeping for everything he’d suffered, everything he’d lost, everything he’d missed. But when she looked more closely, the fact that his eyes were dry made his desolation somehow worse.

She raised a shaking hand to touch him, then thought better of it. Tension hummed around him like a thousand angry bees.

“Should I go?” she asked unsteadily, fighting her impulse to fling her arms around him and draw his head against her breast, to comfort him the way she comforted Kerenza.

But Kerenza, for all her quirks and intelligence, was a child. Robert was an adult man. A hug, however loving, wouldn’t solve his problems.

He blinked as if struggling to make sense of her question.

“I should go,” she said in a thick voice. She turned away, although leaving him in the dark, alone and distressed, went against every instinct.

He shifted infinitesimally. If she hadn’t been so attuned to his slightest reaction, she wouldn’t have noticed.

Still, it was clear that he wanted his own company, and she was an intruder into thoughts too bleak for sharing. She stepped back so the candle no longer shone such a cruel light on his stark expression.

“No,” he said, almost inaudibly.