Alejandro frowned. Something was missing from the stable. “Where’s the carriage?”
Elena looked at him sharply. “The carriage? We don’t have one. We’ve never kept one. Fishing villages aren’t the most practical of places for carriage driving.”
His hopes plummeted. “For a moment, I thought I remembered something.” Great, now he was making up a history out of whole cloth. Elena tugged at him. “Let me show you the other buildings.”
She showed him the long, four-legged horrero where the grain was kept and the little stone chapel with its altar and gold crucifix. “Our one true luxury.” She hesitated for a moment. “You were loathe to buy that crucifix for me when the merchant ship came into port a few years ago, but I insisted.” She studied him, probably waiting for his reaction. Alejandro couldn’t believe he’d deny his wife anything.
Well, better sense prevailed in the end, thankfully,” Alejandro said easily. “I’m home now and I’ll buy you anything you want.”
Elena’s eyes danced. “So you think we’re rich?” she teased, and he took joy in the simple flirting.
“Aren’t we?” Alejandro queried.
“We’re not wealthy like Don Alicante, whose villa is up in the hills above the town. But it’s true, we’re better off than most. No one else can claim as much land as we have, and there are those that envy us that….” Elena disengaged her hand and walked to one of the six pews in the chapel.
She pleated the fabric of her skirt and Alejandro could tell something worried her. “What is it, Elena? Is it money? Is there something you haven’t told me?”
“No, yes. In a way,” Elena said incoherently. Her large dark eyes found his and held his gaze. “Alejandro, I need to tell you about Don Alicante,” she began slowly.
Alejandro felt fear grip his belly. Oh God, she was going to tell him she’d taken a lover while he’d been missing. Or worse, that she’d fallen in love with the rich don from the hills. It was all understandable—she was here alone and thinking he was likely dead. He could not blame her entirely. He’d given her no reason to think otherwise.
“Alejandro, when your ship was lost and no survivors were found, Don Alicante came to me and offered to buy the pazo. When I refused, he turned nasty. He said that since the pazo belonged to you and not to me, it was not legally mine, not even in the case of your death. I begged for a year of grace from him, saying that we had no confirmation that you were dead.”
Alejandro nodded, his sanity slowly returning. Don Alicante was not her lover, but her enemy. His fear was now replaced by a primal fury. Someone had dared to threaten his wife. He saw Don Alicante’s plan quite clearly. “Bastard!” Alejandro swore, pacing the length of the altar. “He was going to throw you out of your own home?”
Elena bit her lip. “Unless I married him. He was determined to have this land either way. It’s much better for farming than his hills.”
Alejandro was filled with rage now. “When was the year up?”
“In four weeks…” Elena said nervously. “But now that you’re home, you have thwarted his scheme,” she said quickly. “I’ve already had a messenger from him. He’s coming to meet you tomorrow. I suppose he’s coming to assure himself that you are really you.”
“I will handle him. He will not bother us again. I’ll make my position very clear,” Alejandro all but growled. The man would be sorry he’d ever tried to coerce the wife of Alejandro di Duero.
“I haven’t told anyone about your lack of memories. I didn’t think it wise, knowing how angry Don Alicante will be. He’ll want to test you.”
Alejandro held out his hand and pulled Elena to her feet, drawing her close enough to kiss. He could feel the tension in her start to ease. “This is what we will do. We’ll get a picnic lunch from the kitchens and we will eat lunch under a big tree and you’ll tell me everything I need to know—who my friends are, how I’ll recognize them. What I like, what I don’t like. You’ll see, by tomorrow, I’ll be entirely myself—with your help, of course.”
Alejandro bent to kiss her, gathering her form full against him. It was a kiss of sweetness, tenderness, and afterwards, he continued to hold her close. “Elena, here in the sanctity of the chapel, I pledge to you that I will never leave you, that I will keep you safe with all the means at my disposal, with my very body if needed. I am home and you will never need to fear again.” He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss on her knuckles. “Do you believe me?”
“Yes, I believe you,” Elena whispered, her eyes glistening with tears.
Chapter Twelve
They were as ready as they’d ever be to face Don Alicante, Elena concluded slightly before three o’clock the next afternoon. She stood in front of the long mirror and gave a final pat to the deep maroon skirt of her best receiving gown, a well-tailored merino wool trimmed at the neck and wrists with a dainty cotton lace made in the village.
Alejandro lounged on the bed behind her, less careful of his clothing than she. “You look lovely. That color is very becoming on you,” he offered.
The bed coverings rustled and he came up behind her, his hands warm and strong on her shoulders. He bent his lips to her neck and kissed her. “I would enjoy taking this dress off you, querida, if we didn’t have other matters demanding our attention,” Alejandro whispered huskily. His gaze found hers in the mirror.
Elena’s breath caught. His masculine beauty was breathtaking. The set of his jaw implied strength. His gray-silver eyes were windows to a sincerity that overwhelmed her. The straight set of his shoulders suggested not only strength but confidence in his own sense of rightness.
She wished he was for real. Oh, he was a real man alright—in bed that was quite obvious. But he wasn’t really her husband. She’d dressed him up in Alejandro’s clothes and taught him Alejandro’s life. He even believed it and accepted it. But then he’d had no choice in the matter, and when it came right down to it, neither had she. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t racked with guilt about perpetuating his belief that he was Alejandro di Duero. She was deliberately entangling him in a plot without his knowledge or consent. What would he do if she told him the truth? Staring in the mirror at him, she contemplated it for a moment. No, such a man had strictly defined ideas about right and wrong. He would not be forgiving.
“Don’t worry. We have nothing to fear from this man.” He kissed her neck again, sending delicious tremors to her stomach.
We. They. After a year of I and me her vocabulary had shifted quite drastically in the last few days. There was an enormous sense of relief that she was no longer in this alone. Someone else fought beside her. She gave him a tremulous smile in the mirror. It would be easy, too easy, to love him. Not simply because he shared her burden but because of who he was, a man of strength and honor.
***
They would receive Don Alicante in the front room of the pazo. It was the most formal room of the house, less given to the rustic needs of the seaside and more imbued with the luxuries of city living. Alejandro watched the gentle curve of Elena’s neck as she calmly plied her needle to some delicate embroidery. Her placid demeanor belied none of the nerves he knew she possessed over this meeting.
Such calmness was not for him. He was anxious to meet this man who’d dared to threaten his wife, to prey on someone in a weaker state for the sake of personal advantage. Alejandro paced the length of the big room, studying its details.
Long deep-gold curtains hung at the windows. A large, aging but well-kept carpet dominated the center of the room. At one end, a carved oak mantle set off the fireplace and around it gathered the room’s furniture—a dark blue brocaded sofa and two chairs. A couple of mediocre oil paintings of the Spanish coast decorated the cream walls. Alejandro thought it was a pleasant room, not too ostentatious yet it spoke of the secure financial status of its owner.
That was him of course—he was the owner. This was his room, his house. But such a claim still resonated oddly with him. He was familiar with the home’s l
ayout and style. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a stranger here. Nothing in the house felt right.
But he assured himself for the millionth time that such familiarity would come when his memory returned. In the meantime, he had Elena. His wife had filled in the gaps in his memory admirably yesterday. Thanks to her, he knew the names of his friends in the village. He knew about Don Alicante. He knew about his childhood spent in the village and of all the myriad things one should know about oneself, even the less pleasant aspects of one’s nature.
He had been stung to learn of his own failings. He’d had a regrettable tendency to be selfish, wishing to pursue his own pleasures instead of his wife’s. He’d apologized to Elena several times, but she’d brushed those apologies aside saying it had been his right to choose as he had. Alejandro disagreed. Such choices hadn’t felt right at all. He didn’t want to believe he had been capable of putting himself first so thoroughly.
Which was why he was so determined now to ease Elena’s worries over Alicante and banish him from their lives for good. He tamped down his frustrated anger at his amnesia—Elena needed his focus.
Don Alicante arrived promptly at three o’clock. Alejandro rose to meet him, crossing the room and confidently extending his hand. Elena had given him a thorough briefing on the man. Even so, Alejandro would have known the type of man he was immediately—cold and haughty with a deeply entrenched belief in his own superiority and power.
Don Alicante was a man in his mid-forties, used to prosperity and his own way. He was fit and well turned out from his neatly trimmed beard and gray-flecked dark hair to the shiny polish of his riding boots. In between hair and boots, he was impeccably dressed in expensive city-tailored riding clothes.
“Buenos dias, Senor di Duero. It is a rare occasion to welcome home a lost soul.” His words were polite. But while there was nothing to doubt on the surface, Alejandro heard the cynicism beneath them. This man would not readily accept that he was Alejandro.
“Thank you. I am beyond pleased to be restored to my wife and to find her well,” Alejandro said, gesturing to Elena who had hung back while the two men greeted one another. Now, she swept forward to stand beside him. “I’ll have Anna bring tea and perhaps something stronger for you gentlemen. Excuse me.”
Alejandro watched her go, his eyes riveted to her back and the soft sway of her hips. He noticed the don's were too.
“Come and sit, Don Alicante. We can discuss business while my wife is away. Business is men’s domain, after all,” Alejandro said with a touch of steel. He wanted Alicante to know he thought only a coward would put a business proposition to anyone the way Alicante had.
Alicante sat. “Ah, your wife has told you of our arrangement?”
Alejandro wanted to strangle the man. It was beyond the pale for him to sit there and discuss his attempt at coercion in terms of an “arrangement,” as if it had been an amicable agreement of convenience. “Yes,” Alejandro said tersely, though he held his anger in check. The less said the better. He wanted to let Alicante do the talking.
Alicante crossed his legs. “Surely you understand that I offered out of a sense of duty for her welfare.” He shook his head ruefully. “A woman on a pazo alone invites all types of misfortune.” He waved a hand to include the room. “It would be a shame to see all this go to waste. One cannot expect a woman to bear the day-to-day burdens of an estate on her own.”
Alejandro folded his arms and quirked an eyebrow. “Her welfare? No, I didn’t understand the proposition in quite those terms,” he said coldly.
Don Alicante’s eyes narrowed. “Women can be hysterical. She has misunderstood my intentions. After all, I gave her a year. I was in no hurry to press my suit.”
Liar.
The word hung unspoken between them, diffused only by Elena’s return to the room, followed by Anna with a tray. Tea was poured for Elena while the men opted for port. Don Alicante reached for a scone and buttered it. “Senora, you must be greatly relieved that your husband has returned so fortuitously,” he said in a harmless tone, but Alejandro saw the calculation in his eyes.
To her credit, Elena set her teacup in its saucer and met him evenly. “I am greatly relieved he has returned to me at all, fortuitously or not.”
“Forgive me for mentioning it, but your year of grace was nearly up before the pazo became mine. I’d assumed Senor di Duero for dead months ago.”
“But I had not,” Elena said in a crisp tone.
Don Alicante gave a thin smile. “No, you had not. I must beg your forgiveness again, but I find it a bit too coincidental that your husband, who has done nothing to contact you for nearly twelve months when he knew you must be worried to death about him, is suddenly washed ashore in the nick of time to save your holdings.” He took a sip of port and speared Elena with a sharp gaze. “I find that highly suspect, to say nothing of the odds that Alejandro, who abhorred sea travel and engaged in it as little as possible, would find himself on two ships that sink within a year of each other. The odds are boggling and frankly, quite unconvincing.”
Elena opened her mouth to retort, but Alejandro stayed her with a hand on her arm. This was a man’s fight. No woman should have to defend her own honor. “What are you saying, Senor?” Alejandro asked in a barely masked growl.
“I am saying that you, whoever you are, and the lovely Senora have concocted a scheme to pass you off as Alejandro di Duero, a man who is quite dead.”
“Are you calling my wife a liar?”
Don Alicante gave a dry laugh. “Your wife? I don’t know your wife or if you even have one. This woman here, however, is most definitely a piece of devil’s work if ever there was one. What has she promised you in exchange for playing the part of her returned husband? A romp in her bed? Unending access to her bountiful charms?”
Alejandro rose to his feet and grabbed the older man by the collar, hauling him up too. “Get out of my house and stay away from my wife. If I hear any of your malicious insinuations circulating in the village, I will personally call you out and you will die.”
Alejandro let go of the man, gratified to see that the intensity of his anger had made an impression on the haughty man. The man straightened his collar and prepared to leave. But intimidated was not the same as convinced. At the door, regrettably out of reach of Alejandro’s fists, he turned back. He shot a malevolent glare at Elena and then at Alejandro.
“You may look like Alejandro di Duero. You may fool the villagers and those friends who want to believe he’s returned from the dead. But you don’t fool me. You are not Alejandro di Duero and I will devote myself to disproving it.”
Chapter Thirteen
From his dining room chair, Alejandro watched Elena dance around the long dining room, her color high, the pale green skirts of her gown billowing around her as she danced to an unheard tune. She was beautiful in her elation. He decided he would slay a thousand dragons to see her so free.
She had insisted that they dress up and celebrate tonight, and her current exuberance was proof of how heavily Don Alicante’s threats had weighed on her. Perhaps he’d call the bastard out anyway for the worry Elena had suffered. No one had the right to crease the brow of his wife.
Elena twirled towards him, setting down two finely wrought glass flutes on the table in front of him. “You were magnificent, Alejandro!” she laughed. “We shall have cava and celebrate!” She grabbed his hands and dragged him to his feet. “Dance with me.”
“There is no music,” Alejandro protested, but he knew it was a feeble attempt. In her happiness, there would be no gainsaying Elena tonight. So undone was he by her charm that he knew he could deny her nothing. Now was not the time to remind her that Alicante had threatened to make life very difficult for them.
“We don’t need music, my love,” she whispered temptingly, her head titled up to meet his eyes.
He went hard immediately, undone by the flirting tilt of her head. Automatically, he moved his hands around her waist, positioning h
er for a waltz but his mind was on other things, like how much he wanted to lay her down on the empty length of the table and take her. Would she mind? Had they done something like that before?
Alejandro swung her into the opening steps of a waltz. She fit against him well and he made no attempt to hide his aroused state. She was his wife after all. She knew him intimately. He executed a tight turn and she gave a breathless laugh of joy. She came up against him hard, her skirts flat between them. There was awe in her eyes.
“You want me?”
“Badly,” Alejandro confessed.
“I’ll tell you a secret.” She stood on her tiptoes to reach him. “I want you too. Right now.”
She kissed him full on the mouth, her teeth catching his bottom lip in a playful nip. She deepened the kiss, her hands finding their way beneath his carefully laundered white shirt. Her thumbs ran over his nipples until they hardened and he groaned his pleasure into her mouth. Her hand wandered to the waist of his trousers and his breath caught. She reached for him, finding him jutting against the cloth.
Her hand cupped the tip of his member, her thumb playing over the fabric. God, her thumbs were tortuous! Alejandro was quickly approaching his limits.
She seemed to sense it and pushed him backwards, closing the half step behind them to the table. “I want you here,” she said, making short work of the fastenings on his trousers.
Within moments, Alejandro’s cock strained against her bare hand. He didn’t think he’d ever been as completely seduced as he was right then. She stood between his open thighs, her mouth on his, her hand on his rigid member, expertly stroking.
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