The leg had survived, but the constant pain he now lived with made the victory hollow indeed.
Miracles were for other people, Colin had always believed —until Alesandra came into his life. His princess actually loved him. In his heart he knew there weren’t any restrictions or conditions surrounding her love. Had she met a man with only one leg, she would have loved him just as much. He would have gained her sympathy, perhaps, but certainly not her pity. Her every action showed her strength and her determination to take care of him.
She would always be there for him, nagging him and arguing with him—and loving him no matter what.
And that, Colin decided, was definitely a miracle.
God hadn’t forgotten him after all.
She wanted to leave him. Alesandra knew she wasn’t being reasonable, but she was so upset inside she could barely think what to do. Nathan’s casual remark about how he and Colin had both counted on Sara’s inheritance to help their shipping company played on her mind until she was ready to weep.
Colin, she decided, had rejected her on every level possible. He didn’t want her to help him with his company books, he didn’t want her inheritance, and he didn’t particularly want—or need—her love. His heart seemed to be surrounded by shields, and Alesandra didn’t believe she would ever be able to get him to love her.
She knew she was being pitiful. She didn’t care. Mother Superior’s letter had arrived that morning, and Alesandra had already read the thing at least a dozen times.
She wanted to go home. She was so horribly homesick for the nuns and the land, she burst into tears. It was quite all right, she decided. She was alone, after all, and Colin was working in his study with the door closed. He wouldn’t hear her.
Dear God, she wished she wasn’t so emotional these days. She couldn’t seem to apply logic to anything. She stood at the window in her robe and gown, looking out, and her mind was so engrossed with her worries she didn’t even hear the door open.
“What is it, sweetheart? Don’t you feel well?”
Colin’s voice was filled with concern. She took a deep, calming breath and turned to look at him.
“I would like to go home.”
He hadn’t been prepared for that request. He looked quite astonished. He was quick to recover. He shut the door behind him and walked toward her.
“You are home.”
She wanted to argue with him. She didn’t. “Yes, of course,” she agreed. “But I would like your permission to go back to Holy Cross for a visit. The convent is just a walk away from Stone Haven, and I would like to see my parents’ home again.”
Colin walked over to her writing desk. “What is this really all about?” he asked her. He leaned against the edge of the table while he waited for her to answer him.
“I received a letter from Mother Superior today, and I’m suddenly very homesick.”
Colin didn’t show any outward reaction to her plea. “I can’t take the time right now to . . .”
“Stefan and Raymond would go with me,” she interrupted. “I don’t expect you to go along. I know how busy you are.”
He could feel himself getting angry. The very idea of his wife leaving on such a journey without him at her side appalled him. He stopped himself from immediately denying her request, however, because in truth he had never seen her this upset. It worried the hell out of him, given her delicate condition.
She was out of her mind if she thought he would ever let her go anywhere without him. He didn’t tell her that opinion either.
He decided to use reason to make her understand. “Alesandra . . .”
“Colin, you don’t need me.”
He was taken aback by that absurd comment. “The hell I don’t need you,” he countered in a near shout.
She shook her head. He nodded. Then she turned her back on him.
“You have never needed me,” she whispered.
“Alesandra, sit down.”
“I don’t wish to sit down.”
“I want to talk to you about this . . .” He almost said he wanted to talk to her about her “ridiculous notion,” but he caught himself in time.
She ignored him and continued to stare out the window.
He noticed the stack of papers on her desk and suddenly knew what he was going to do. He quickly sorted through her lists until he found the one with his name on the top.
She wasn’t paying any attention to him. He folded the sheet in half and tucked it in his pocket. Then he ordered her to sit down again. His voice was harder, more insistent.
She took her time obeying. She mopped the tears away from her face with the backs of her hands and finally walked over to the side of the bed. She sat down, folded her hands in her lap, and bowed her head.
“Have you suddenly stopped loving me?”
He hadn’t been able to keep the worry out of his voice. She was so surprised by his question, she looked up at him. “No, of course I haven’t stopped loving you.”
He nodded, both pleased and relieved to hear her fervent answer. Then he straightened away from the desk and walked over to stand in front of her.
“There isn’t any Uncle Albert, is there?”
The switch in topic confused her. “What does Albert have to do with my request to go home?”
“Damn it, this is your home,” he countered.
She lowered her head again. He immediately regretted the burst of anger and took a breath to calm himself. “Bear with me for just a moment, Alesandra, and answer my question.”
She debated telling him the truth for a long minute. “No, there isn’t any Uncle Albert.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Why didn’t you think so?”
“There were never any letters delivered here from the man, yet I heard you tell Caine you’d received a missive. You made him up, and I think I know why.”
“I really don’t wish to talk about this. I find I’m weary tonight. It’s quite late, almost ten.”
He wasn’t about to let her run away from this discussion. “You had a four-hour nap today,” he reminded her.
“I was catching up on my sleep,” she announced.
“Dreyson wouldn’t take stock orders from a woman, would he? So you invented Albert, a convenient recluse who just happened to have your same initials.”
She wasn’t going to argue with him. “Yes.”
He nodded again. He clasped his hands behind his back and frowned down at her. “You hide your intelligence, don’t you, Alesandra? You obviously have a knack for the market, but instead of boasting about your cleverness with investments, you invented another man to take the credit.”
She looked up at him so he could see her frown. “Men listen to other men,” she announced. “It isn’t acceptable for a woman to have such interests. It isn’t considered ladylike. And it isn’t a knack, Colin. I read the journals and listen to Dreyson’s suggestions. It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to be guided by his advice.”
“Will you agree you’re at least fairly intelligent and can reason most things through logically?”
She wondered where in heaven’s name this discussion was leading. Her husband was acting terribly uncomfortable. She couldn’t imagine why.
“Yes,” she answered. “I will agree I’m fairly intelligent.”
“Then why in God’s name haven’t you been able to reason through all the obvious facts and figure out that I love you?”
Her eyes widened and she leaned back. She opened her mouth to say something to him, but she couldn’t remember what it was.
“I love you, Alesandra.”
It had been difficult telling her what was in his heart, yet once the words were spoken, he felt incredibly free. He smiled at his wife and said the words again.
She bounded off the bed and frowned up at him. “You do not love me,” she announced.
“I sure as hell do,” he argued. “If you would apply a little reason . . .”
“I did use reason,” she in
terrupted. “And came to the opposite conclusion.”
“Sweetheart . . .”
“Don’t you dare ‘sweetheart’ me,” she cried out.
Colin reached for her but she eluded him by sitting down again. “Oh, I reasoned it through and through and through. Shall I tell you my conclusions?”
She didn’t give him time to answer her. “You have turned your back on everything I had to give you. It would be illogical for me to assume you love me.”
“I’ve what?” he asked, stunned by the vehemence in her voice.
“You’ve rejected everything,” she whispered.
“Exactly what have I rejected?”
“My title, my position, my castle, my inheritance—even my help with your company.”
He finally understood. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. She tried to push herself away from him. They fell onto the bed. Colin protected her from his weight as he stretched out on top of her. He pinned the lower part of her body with his thighs and braced himself on his elbows so he could look down at her.
Her hair spilled out on the pillows and her eyes, cloudy with unshed tears, made her appear more vulnerable to him. Dear God, she was beautiful—even when she was glaring at him. “I love you, Alesandra,” he whispered. “And I have taken everything you had to give me.”
She started to protest. He wouldn’t let her. He clamped his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t interrupt him. “I rejected nothing of value. You offered me all a man could ever want. You gave me your love, your trust, your loyalty, your mind, your heart, and your body. None of those offerings is material, sweetheart, and if you lost all the financial trappings that came along with you, it wouldn’t matter to me. You’re all I have ever wanted. Now do you understand?”
She was overwhelmed by his beautiful words. His eyes were actually misty, and she knew then that it had been difficult for him to tell her how he felt. Colin did love her. She was so filled with joy, she burst into tears.
“Love, don’t cry,” he pleaded. “It’s very upsetting for me to see you so miserable.”
She tried to stop crying long enough to explain she wasn’t miserable at all. Colin moved his hand away from her mouth and gently wiped her tears away.
“I didn’t have anything to give you when I married you,” he told her. “And yet . . . on our wedding night I knew you loved me. I had trouble accepting it at first. It seemed so damned unfair to you. I should have remembered a comment you made to me about the prince regent. That reminder would have saved both of us a good deal of worry.”
“What comment did I make?”
“I told you I’d heard the prince regent was taken with you,” he answered. “Do you remember what you said to me then?”
She did remember. “I told you he was taken with what I am, not who I am.”
“Well?” he demanded in a rough whisper.
“Well, what?”
Her smile was radiant. She finally understood.
“I thought you were fairly intelligent,” he drawled out.
“You love me.”
“Yes.”
He leaned down and kissed her. She sighed into his mouth. When he pulled away, she looked properly convinced.
“Have you also worked it out in your mind?” she asked.
He didn’t understand what she meant by her question. He was busy unbuttoning the top of her gown. “Worked out what?”
“That I fell in love with who you are, not what you are,” she answered. “It was your strength and courage that drew me to you, Colin. I needed both.”
He was so pleased with his wife he had to kiss her again. “I needed you,” he admitted.
He wanted to kiss her again. She wanted to talk. “Colin, you present yourself to the world as a man struggling to build a company.”
“I am a man struggling to build a company.”
He rolled to his side so he could get her robe and gown off her more quickly.
“You aren’t a pauper,” she announced. She sat up in bed and started tugging her robe off her shoulders. Colin helped her.
“I had a good look at your books, remember? You’ve made an amazing profit, but you poured every bit of it back into the operation and the result is very impressive. You’ve been trying to build an empire, but if you’ll only step back and take a good look you’ll realize you’ve already accomplished your goal. Why, you have close to twenty ships now with cargo orders stretching into next year and that must surely convince you that your company is no longer a struggling venture.”
He was having trouble listening to what she was telling him. She’d shed her robe and was now inching her gown up over her head. His throat tightened up on him. She finally got rid of the barrier. He immediately reached for her. She shook her head at him. “First, I would like you to answer a question for me, please.”
He might have nodded but he couldn’t be certain. A fire burned inside him and all he wanted to do was bury himself in her. He was so damn anxious to touch her, he was literally destroying his shirt in his hurry to get the thing off.
“Colin, when is enough enough?”
Her question required concentration. He didn’t have any to spare.
“I’ll never be able to get enough of you.”
“Nor I you,” she whispered. “But that isn’t what I was asking . . .”
Colin silenced her with his mouth. She couldn’t resist him a moment longer. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave in to the wonder of his passion . . . and his love.
He was demanding, yet incredibly gentle with her at the same time. His touch was magical, and while she was in the throes of her own blissful surrender, he told her again and again how much he loved her.
She would have told him she loved him, too, but Colin had worn her out and she couldn’t find the strength to speak. She rolled onto her back, closed her eyes, and listened to her pounding heartbeat while the air cooled her feverish skin.
He rolled to his side, propped his head up on his hand, and grinned down at her. He looked thoroughly satisfied.
He stroked a path from her chin to her belly, and then his hand gently rubbed the flat of her stomach.
“Sweetheart, do you have something you want to tell me?”
She was feeling too content to think about anything other than what had just happened to her.
Colin was going to nag her until she told him about the baby, but Flannaghan started banging on the bedroom door then, interrupting that intention.
“Milord, your brother’s here. I put him in the study.”
“I’ll be right there,” Colin shouted.
He muttered about his brother’s bad timing. Alesandra laughed. She didn’t bother to open her eyes when she said, “It would have been bad timing ten minutes ago. I would say he was being very considerate.”
He agreed with that assessment. He started to leave the bed, then turned back to her. She opened her eyes just in time to watch him lean over her and place a kiss on her navel. She brushed her hand across his shoulder. The hair on the back of his neck curled around her fingers.
Colin was letting his hair grow long again. That sudden realization hit her all at once. She was so pleased she almost started crying again. She didn’t, of course, because Colin had told her he found it upsetting to see her weep, and she doubted he would understand anyway. She understood, though, and that was all that mattered. Marriage hadn’t turned out to be a prison for her husband.
He was puzzled by the look on her face. “Sweetheart?” he asked.
“You’re still free, Colin.”
His eyes widened over that remark. “You say the strangest things,” he remarked.
“Your brother’s waiting.”
He nodded. “I want you to think about my question while I talk to Caine. All right, love?”
“What question?”
Colin got out of bed and pulled his pants on. “I asked you if you had anything else to tell me,” he reminded her.
He slipped his bare feet into his shoes and started toward his bedroom in search of a fresh shirt. He’d shredded the one he’d been wearing.
“Think about it,” he told her. He grabbed his jacket, winked at her, and then left the room.
Caine was sprawled out in the leather chair next to the hearth. Colin nodded and sat down behind his desk. He reached for his pen and paper.
Caine took one look at his brother and broke into a wide grin. “I see I interrupted you. Sorry,” he added.
Colin ignored the laughter in his brother’s voice. He knew he looked disheveled. He hadn’t bothered with a cravat. He hadn’t bothered to comb his hair, either.
“Marriage agrees with you, Colin.”
Colin didn’t pretend indifference. He looked up at his brother and let him see the truth in his expression. The shields were gone.
“I’m a man in love.”
Caine laughed. “It took you long enough to realize it.”
“No longer than it took you to realize you loved Jade.”
Caine agreed with a nod. Colin went back to writing on his paper.
“What are you doing?”
Colin’s grin was a bit sheepish when he admitted he was starting a list.
“I seem to have caught my wife’s obsession for organization,” he said. “Did you talk to the viscount?”
Caine’s smile faded. He loosened his cravat while he answered. “Harold’s a mess,” he said, referring to the viscount. “He’s barely coherent. The last time he saw his wife they had an argument and he has spent every minute since tormenting himself over the harsh words he said to her. His anguish is aching to see.”
“The poor devil,” Colin said. He shook his head, then asked, “Did he tell you what the argument was about?”
“He was certain she’d taken a lover,” Caine answered. “She was receiving gifts and Harold jumped to the conclusion she was involved with another man.”
“Hell.”
“He still hasn’t figured it out, Colin. I told him about the gifts our wives received but he was too sotted from drink to understand the ramifications. He kept saying his anger swayed Roberta into running away with her lover.”