There is no doubt in my mind that he has great satisfaction in all the fawning and popularity taking place in front of Anne. I don't want to think him so deliberately cruel as to be aware of that intention, but I believe it is there all the same.

Despite all of this, Anne--knowing him perhaps better than he is willing to know himself at this time--cannot detect that he is really in love with either of the Musgrove girls. A handsome, wealthy sailor would probably be made much of wherever he went at this time, and would probably be just as 'popular' in the neighbourhood where his brother resides, so there must be more to his wish to stick around.

What I can't decide is exactly the degree to which the captain is aware of his own wish to 'show Anne'. Charles Musgrove reveals that he heard "Captain Wentworth himself say, was very sure that he had not made less than twenty thousand pounds by the war." (Deidre LeFaye says his fortune is the equivilant of 1.25 MILLION pounds in today's money in her book Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels)