Catching Captain Nash (Dashing Widows 6)

Chapter One

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October 1829, Nash House, Berkeley Square, London

The man stood in the shadows, watching the house across the square.

It was late, almost midnight, but the tall, white mansion was brightly lit, and lilting music from inside drifted across to him on the sharp autumn air. Carriages lined the square, waiting for the guests to make their way home after the party.

The night was bitterly cold, with a breeze that whistled around him and cut like a knife. His eyes never leaving the house, he huddled into his rough coat and stamped his booted feet to restore circulation.

He had a right to enter and join the fashionable throng, however unsuitably he was dressed. But something—diffidence, reluctance, perhaps even fear—made him hesitate before he stepped forward.

He’d rushed up to London the moment he disembarked at Gravesend. Now, shivering outside a house he hadn’t seen in nearly five years, he couldn’t bring himself to cross the threshold.

But he’d loitered so long in the empty square, he started to feel absurd. As if to signal it was time to reclaim his life, the music stopped. After a pause, he heard applause. Some celebration must take place inside.

Straightening, he strode ahead to the short flight of stairs. As he reached the open front door, he heard warm laughter and more applause from the back of the house.

He’d prepared to announce himself to a butler or footman, but it seemed even the servants deserted their posts to witness whatever took place here tonight.

Robert stepped into a familiar marble hall, bright with candlelight. The luxurious décor in Lord Stone’s London home struck him like a punch to the solar plexus. Over the last years, for days on end, any light at all would have been a blessing. This shining gilt and glass overwhelmed his senses.

He paused to suck in an unsteady breath and find his balance. How ludicrous that he’d kept his courage—sometimes by a mere thread—through all his tribulations. Yet walking into this beautiful, much-loved house, he wanted to cry like an abandoned baby.

He followed the distant rumble of a deep voice. The high double doors to the ballroom, inlaid with twin family crests of crowned swans, stood open as if to welcome the prodigal son’s return, but nobody turned to observe him come in.

The huge room was crowded. Everyone had their backs to the entrance and watched the people standing in front of the orchestra.

Robert was tall enough to look over the sea of heads. His eyes glanced across the group holding the floor. His brother Silas, his sister-in-law Caroline, his sister Amy. The famously handsome Lord Pascal. Another big brute of a fellow, whose name he couldn’t immediately remember.

All his attention arrowed onto the woman standing beside Silas. His heart slammed against his ribs. His blood surged with possessiveness. Briefly the tears he’d fought in the hall rose again to blur his vision. He’d crossed oceans to find her, and now, by God, he had.

Feverishly he drank in the details of her appearance. Five years apart, and she looked just the same. Shining dark hair tied up in some folderol, although in his memory, it always cascaded around her bare white shoulders in ebony disarray.

Delicate and slender. When he’d first met her, he’d feared some misstep born of clumsy masculinity might mar her perfection. Only leaving her for the last time had he started to appreciate the strength she concealed beneath her beauty.

The rest of the room faded to nothing, while his hungry eyes fed on the sight of her. His heart swelled to fill his chest, making breathing impossible. He’d spent an eternity convinced he’d never see her again.

Yet here she was. And so miraculously unchanged.

How the devil had she stayed so unchanged? That flaring, dark beauty remained as vivid as his memories. While he felt like he’d aged a hundred years.

Still nobody looked back to see who ventured unannounced into this happy gathering. Because it was a happy gathering. Goodwill practically dripped from the elegant light green walls with their moldings of festive garlands and ribbons.

His disorientation faded enough for him to realize that Silas, Lord Stone, was giving a formal speech to his guests. Stupidly, Robert had noticed little beyond the lovely black-haired woman wearing peacock blue silk.

Silas’s words hardly penetrated the waves of bewildered emotion engulfing him. Robert had always imagined that if this moment ever arrived, he’d be in transports of joy. But this felt too much like a confused dream to allow for anything as uncomplicated as mere happiness.

Then the dream turned dark and cold.

Disbelieving, he watched Silas take Morwenna’s hand, gloved in dark blue to match her sumptuous gown, and offer it to the big cove.

Garson. That was his name. At last Robert remembered.

Rich as Croesus. Old school friend of Silas’s.

And he made sense of what until now had been little more than a muffled babble over the deafening roar of his heartbeat.