days away with Giselle? Loren felt the news deep in her gut, as if it was a physical blow. Perhaps her earlier fears of today were true after all.
“Good night, then.” Alex walked the couple of steps that brought him to her side and bent to kiss the top of her head before leaving the room.
As she watched the heavy door of her suite close behind him she blinked against the prick of tears that had begun behind her eyes. She would not cry. She would not.
Loren reached across the table, lifted up the legal packet and slid out the folded document. Her eyes scanned the information. As unaccustomed as she was to legal jargon it all seemed to make sense until she reached a paragraph headed up with the words legal issue.
She read the paragraph, then read it again to be certain she understood the terminology. If she was correct, to ensure the continuation of the del Castillo bloodline she and Alex must make love at the time when her body was at its most fertile, and to ensure the correct timing, her menstrual cycle was to be monitored. Even the details of the clinic she would be monitored by were in the agreement.
Loren let the papers slide from suddenly nerveless fingers.
The legalese twirled around in her mind, sentences fragmenting before joining back together. Did this mean that she and Alex would only make love when she was ovulating? That was, what? A span of a few days at most in each month. And what if she got pregnant? Would he still share her bed, still make love with her as a husband did with his wife? Or would her job have been done, leaving him free to go back into Giselle’s arms?
Just what kind of marriage was she entering?
Five
Loren heard the knock at the door to her suite and wondered if perhaps her maid had forgotten something. She’d only just sent her away, preferring to spend these last few moments before her wedding alone. She picked up her voluminous skirts and went to open the door.
“Giselle!” Loren stepped back, startled to see the blonde there. She let her skirts settle back down to the carpet beneath her, the ivory French taffeta giving a distinctive rustle.
“My, don’t you look every inch the fairy-tale princess,” Giselle remarked, coming into the sitting room.
Loren tolerated the woman’s scrutiny of the dress that was the fulfillment of all her childhood dreams. Yes, she did feel like a fairy-tale princess in the strapless gown. Somehow the words from Giselle’s glossy red lips made the idea more of an insult than a compliment.
“Was there something you wanted?” Loren asked coolly.
“No, Alex asked me to come up and check on you. He thought you might benefit from some female company since your mother isn’t here.”
Loren bit back the retort that immediately sprang to her lips. She would not fight, not with anyone, on her wedding day.
“That’s lovely of him. But as you can see, I’m fine, thank you.”
She waited for Giselle to leave but instead she settled herself on one of the couches. Loren had to admit, she looked beautiful. The woman certainly knew how to make the most of her features. The dress she wore would have looked vampish on anyone else, but on Giselle it was elegantly sensual.
“You know, I have to hand it to you. I thought you’d have given up by now,” Giselle said.
“Given up?”
“Well, how many women would have signed that prenuptial agreement, for a start? I know I certainly wouldn’t.”
“Perhaps you would if you loved your fiancé enough,” Loren commented quietly. “As I do.”
Giselle waved her hand as if dismissing Loren’s words, the very gesture making Loren’s spine stiffen in irritation. She’d wanted this time alone to reflect on her coming marriage, and particularly on the terms of the prenuptial agreement that Giselle had mentioned. Clearly, the blonde knew all about it, and that fact rankled with Loren. It should have been a private matter. One between her and Alex alone.
This past week had been such a whirl of activity with a museum opening to attend along with several charity functions, all of which gave her a taste for what her duties would be like as a del Castillo bride. She and Alex, while together for much of their waking moments, had barely had a moment alone to talk. Whenever she’d tried to bring the subject of the prenuptial document up, Alex had brushed it off until later. Now, today, was about as late as it could get and Loren was still unsure of where she stood on the agreement she’d eventually signed.
“Well, whatever,” Giselle continued, oblivious to Loren’s obvious displeasure in her company. “You’ve really gone above and beyond the call of duty. It’s either incredibly naive of you to stick with it or incredibly kind.”
“Kind?”
“To agree to the terms just to help the company out and keep an old man happy.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’m marrying Alex because I love him. Because I’ve always loved him,” Loren stated as firmly as she was able.
“Surely you’re aware that Alex is only marrying you because of the curse.”
“The curse?” Surely she didn’t mean the old governess’s curse?
Loren knew well the story of the woman who’d been brought to Isla Sagrado from the south of France to educate the daughters of one of the original del Castillos on the island—a nobleman from Spain. The poor woman had fallen in love with her employer and entered into an affair that had lasted years.
Legend had it that she’d borne him three sons, but that in view of the fact his wife had only borne him daughters, he’d taken her boys from her and he’d raised them as his legitimate issue, paying her off with a ruby necklace from the del Castillo jewel collection. Paintings in the family gallery that predated the nobleman showed the necklace, known as La Verdad del Corazon—the Heart’s Truth. It was a stunning piece of chased gold with a massive heart-shaped ruby at its center. Loren had always privately believed that it was more the type of gift a man gave to his one true love than as payment for services rendered.
When the nobleman’s wife died, however, he’d married another woman—one from a high-ranking family. In her misery the governess was said to have interrupted the wedding, begging her beloved to take her back. When her lover—and her sons—turned their backs on her, she cursed the del Castillo family. If, in the next nine generations, the del Castillos did not learn to live by their family motto of honor, truth and love, the ninth generation would be the last. With that pronouncement, she cast both herself and the Heart’s Truth from the cliffs behind the castle and into the savage ocean. Her body was later found, but the Heart’s Truth had been lost ever since.
Loren had always found the story to be truly tragic and, as a child, had often imagined a happier ending for the governess and her lover.
If the curse was to be believed—not to mention previous generations’ total disregard for its power—it was responsible for the steady diminishment of the family over the past nine generations. But to believe that Alex was marrying her in an attempt to break the curse, well, that was just ridiculous. What happened three hundred years ago had no bearing on life today.
“Surely you must know of it. You’re from here, after all, and the papers have been full of it, especially since the announcement of your engagement. The boys are the ninth generation—the last of the line. Old Aston was starting to have concerns that they would stay that way. Alex is trying to downplay it but you know what his grandfather is like once he gets an idea into his head. He believes he’s even seen the governess’s ghost. Can you imagine it? Of course, Alex would move mountains to please the old man—especially if it also happened to be good for business.
“Anyway, they came up with this fabulous publicity drive where they’d all get married and have babies to prove to everyone, their grandfather especially, that the curse isn’t real.”
Giselle