Dedication
For Helen P.
and eighteen years of zany and treasured friendship
Prologue
Paris
1895
A soft breeze wafted through the window, overpowering the medicinal smell of the hospital room with the sweet breath of spring.
Jade O’Bannon Coltrane lay quietly on the iron poster bed. Her eyes were closed, her long dark lashes feathering her pale cheeks. Even in her state of exhaustion, her rare and delicate Irish-Russian beauty was breathtaking to behold. She was royal, a Romanov by blood, and everyone who knew her agreed that she was as lovely in nature as she was in looks.
Jade was having her first child. She placed her hands on her swollen stomach as another contraction caused her to moan suddenly.
Colt Coltrane stared down at his wife. God, he loved her. To think that he had lost her once…
He shook his head, as if to cast away painful memories. That was a lifetime ago. Those turbulent times didn’t matter anymore, because they were together now, and they always would be. Until a few hours ago, Colt had been eagerly looking forward to having their first baby, but something was wrong. It was too early—the baby wasn’t due for another six weeks or so.
Colt tore his gaze from Jade and looked across the bed at his mother. Kitty Wright Coltrane was as magnificently lovely in her maturity as she had been in her youth. Her startlingly beautiful lavender eyes still sparkled with glints of gold, and her red hair still glowed like the fiery embers of sunset.
Kitty met her son’s pleading eyes and solemnly shook her head. She could not give him the reassurance she knew he desperately wanted…and needed. The baby would be premature, tiny, and weak. The odds that it would survive were not strong. She did not, however, speak her negative thoughts. Instead she said, “I told you before, labor for the first baby always takes longer.”
Colt nodded in resignation, looking down at his wife once more. Her eyes remained closed, and she was biting her lower lip to stifle a scream as the pain bore down. He reached out to hold her hands, whispering words of love and encouragement until the contraction subsided.
Jade began to breathe evenly once more. She looked up at him and whispered hoarsely, “She’s right. It’s going to take a long time. Please go and get some rest, something to eat.”
Colt shook his head adamantly. “I won’t leave you.”
Kitty told him that he had no choice. “I’m surprised the nurses have let you stay this long. Having a baby is a very personal, private time for a woman.
“Now…” She walked around the bed and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “You go home and see how your father is doing. No doubt he’s pacing the floor. Get something to eat and rest for a while. When you come back you’ll probably still have some time to wait…outside,” she emphasized.
Just then the door opened and a nun wearing a nurse’s starched white habit walked into the room carrying a cloth-covered tray. With an authoritarian tone, she introduced herself as Sister Fifine, then declared, “There are some things I need to do to prepare Madame Coltrane for the birth. I must ask you to leave.” She looked at Colt impatiently.
“You couldn’t have come at a better time.” Kitty laughed. “I was just running him out.”
“Please give me a minute with her…alone,” Colt said.
The three women looked at him and saw that he was not to be dissuaded. Sister Fifine frowned. “One minute,” she snapped, setting the tray down before stiffly walking out. Kitty followed, closing the door behind her.
Colt knelt beside the bed, clasping Jade’s hands once more. “I love you, Jade. Believe that.”
“And I love you, my darling.” She lifted her hand feebly to push back a strand of his coal-black hair, smiling at the way he was looking at her with the intense gray eyes she adored. “This is the beginning—for our baby, for us, and for our future together. Nothing else matters.”
Colt nodded absently in agreement as that strange feeling began to come over him again…the feeling that Jade was not as happy about the baby as she pretended to be. He thought it even stranger that when her labor had begun prematurely, she had actually seemed glad.
Jade licked her parched lips, took a deep breath, and held it against another rising contraction. Even though he heard the door opening, Colt did not move from her side until her latest pain subsided.
“Monsieur…” Sister Fifine said, sounding extremely agitated.
“Colt…” Kitty coaxed, her voice soft with compassion.
He leaned to kiss Jade one more time, then reluctantly backed toward the door. “I’m not leaving this building. I’ll be outside.” He winked. “I’m not leaving till John Travis Coltrane, Junior, arrives.”
Jade managed a smile. “You mean when Katherine Wright Coltrane arrives!”
Kitty gave Colt a gentle push toward the door. “Katherine, or Travis, or whatever you name it, just be gone with you!”
Sister Fifine was not amused by their bantering. With a stem look at Kitty, she jerked her head toward the door and said, “If you please, madame, I should like for you to also leave us.”
Kitty stiffened, raising an imperious eyebrow. “I certainly do not please! This happens to be my grandchild who is about to be born, and I’ve no intention of going anywhere until that happens.”
Sister Fifine shook her head in resignation. She knew from the way Madame Kitty Coltrane’s eyes flashed that she meant what she said. She replied haughtily, “That will be up to the doctor, but for now, I must ask that you wait outside until I finish what I must do.”
Kitty blew Jade a kiss. “I’ll see you in a little while. I’m going to try to talk this stubborn son of mine into going home for a while.” Jade nodded her approval.
The instant the door closed behind them, Colt exploded. “Mother, I’m not going anywhere! Jade’s having a rough time. You know as well as I do that it’s too early for the baby, and it might not live.”
“I won’t lie to you,” she replied. “We may lose the baby, but we won’t lose Jade. She’s young and strong, and there will be other babies. Think that way, Colt—and let’s pray it will all soon be over.”
“I won’t lose her again. I swear it…”
Daylight turned to dusk, then night fell like a velvet drape against the glittering, diamond-studded sky over Paris, the City of Light.
Within the hospital, all was quiet. Around midnight, a trio of heavyset, grim-faced nuns had escorted Colt to a waiting room out of sight and hearing of the maternity ward. He found himself sitting alone in a small, cheerless room, furnished only with rows of wooden benches. There were no windows, and only a large crucifix hung on the wall.
Every so often his mother would come to tell him the same thing—that they still didn’t know when the baby would be born. Finally he exploded and told her not to come back until it was all over, because every time he heard the door open, his heart leaped into his throat. It was better, he thought, when a woman gave birth at home, but the elite of Paris no longer believed in home deliveries. And the Coltranes were certainly the cream of the elite, he reflected somewhat wryly.
Colt had never wanted to return to Paris. Born and raised in America, he had come to Europe for the first time a few years ago to visit his parents. His father, Travis Coltrane, wealthy and successful, had only accepted the appointment as emissary to France out of respect for his friend President Harrison. His parents had fallen in love with France, leaving him behind to manage the family ranch and silver mines in Nevada. Colt’s visit had resulted in meeting Jade and falling eternally in love. He smiled, lost in the happy memories of his past, thinking of their beautiful, royal we
dding in Russia, and their unforgettable honeymoon sailing around the Greek islands in the Czar’s magnificent yacht. Then his smile faded as he remembered another voyage…a trip to America to begin a new life in New York, ended by a storm at sea. Jade had been washed overboard, and he’d been knocked unconscious by flying debris…and stricken with amnesia.
Then a true nightmare had begun for them both.
Jade had been found drifting at sea by Bryan Stevens, a wealthy widower still grieving over the recent deaths of his beloved young wife and son. Mesmerized by Jade’s beauty, he doggedly set out to make her his new wife, but she had clung tenaciously to the hope that Colt might somehow be alive. Determined to keep her, Stevens had hired Pinkerton detectives and kept from Jade the most important part of their findings. Oh, he had told her that Colt was alive, gloating over the discovery that he was married to another woman, and they were happily expecting a baby. But Stevens did not tell her that Colt had amnesia. He was not really married, but was, in fact, the victim of a scheme by society matron Triesta Vordane to achieve respectability for her unwed and pregnant daughter, Lorena.
Furious to think Colt could have forgotten her so quickly, Jade fell into Bryan Stevens’s trap and married him, only to discover the truth later.
Colt thought about that fateful night only seven months ago, when he’d regained his memory, and shuddered. When Stevens realized that Jade had learned the truth, he had forced her to leave New York, intending to take her to his private island in the Caribbean and hold her forever his prisoner of love. Colt had gone after them in the midst of a raging storm. He’d been washed overboard, holding on to Jade with all his strength. In that instant, struggling above the snapping jaws of death, it all came rushing back to him. He remembered everything…and when he awoke later, the nightmare had mercifully ended. Jade was his, forever and always, and he hoped that Bryan Stevens was burning in hell for the way he had made them suffer…hoped that Triesta Vordane would join him one day. Colt held no hatred for Lorena, for she had stood up to her domineering mother in the end. He had even come to care for her son, Andy, and hoped one day to see him again. But he and Jade had decided it best that they leave America for a while to let the wounds heal.
Jade was drifting once more…but not in the cold, chopping waters of the ocean. She was swirling within the turbulent sea of her own taunting doubts and fears.
When she had found Colt, she’d been shocked to realize that he did not know who she was, could not remember ever having been married to anyone but Lorena Vordane. However, the passion between them could not, would not, be denied. Colt had not understood why and how he could love her so quickly, so completely; knew only that he could not control his all-consuming desire for her. Jade could not tell him the truth, for she had talked with a doctor who had told her that the shock of reality might take him over the brink to insanity.
With her heart breaking, Jade had decided that she would have to leave him. She could not settle for a tawdry affair, especially after Triesta Vordane had found out and threatened to expose them. She was also going to leave Bryan, the man who had so cruelly manipulated her with his lies of omission. But Bryan had been determined not to let her go, and had taken her against her will, forcing himself upon her that raging, storming night.
Now, floundering helplessly in the sea of pain that rocked her, waves of torment striking her relentlessly, Jade saw Colt’s face above her, claiming her for his own. Then he melted away, replaced by Bryan, taunting her, swearing that he would never let her go…
Jade and Colt had never talked about what happened that night, whether Bryan had succeeded in forcing himself upon her then, or at any time during those last frenzied weeks and months when she and Colt had found each other again. Although it had been a mockery, a sham, Bryan had been her husband. Colt had not wanted to know if they’d had relations, and she had certainly not wanted to tell him, so they had avoided the subject altogether. When they learned that she was going to have a baby, it still was not discussed. Jade kept her fears to herself, and suffered her own private hell.
That was the reason she had not been overjoyed to learn that she was pregnant. God forgive her, she had no way of knowing whether Colt or Bryan was the father…until now. The baby really wasn’t premature, and Colt had to be the father!
Kitty’s voice called out to her from somewhere beyond the dense fog that engulfed her. “Push, darling, push. It’s almost here… Push… It will soon be over…”
Consciousness faded away. Jade was too weak, too weary from the long, long hours of labor to help in the delivery.
There was a hush, then a gasp, followed by yet another silence, this one reverent, awed. It was broken by the sound of the doctor’s hand firmly slapping flesh, followed by an angry, indignant cry.
Kitty was laughing and crying at once as she leaned down to give Jade a joyous hug. “It’s a boy, Jade! It’s John Travis Coltrane, Junior, and he’s beautiful! He looks just like Colt when he was born…”
Jade wept and raised weak arms to clutch Kitty and plead, “Tell me, please… Is he all right?”
But Kitty did not answer, because the doctor had just cried out in surprise. Sister Fifine had handed over the newborn baby to another nurse and was standing beside the doctor, openmouthed and wide-eyed. “I don’t believe it,” she whispered, then laughed nervously.
Kitty turned and looked, then clapped her hands together in delight. “Twins! Another baby is coming, Jade…another baby!”
“A girl!” the doctor proclaimed proudly, holding the red-faced infant by her ankles and soundly smacking her bottom with the palm of his hand. “Healthy, too. They both are. That explains why you delivered early. Twins never go to term, and they’re usually good weight. Congratulations, Madame Coltrane!”
Kitty was sobbing happily. She planted a teary kiss on Jade’s cheek and ran out to tell Colt that he was the father of twins.
But Jade could not join in their jubilation. The old nightmare had returned with all the fury of a tornado. She had given birth to twins prematurely, and that meant that Bryan could indeed be the father. She shuddered at the memory of how he’d once confided that he himself was a twin, his sister having died at birth. Dear God, didn’t twins run in families? She didn’t know of any twins in Colt’s family. Was Bryan actually the father of her babies?
No, no, no… Jade turned her head from side to side, moaning in denial, her heart breaking.
From somewhere far, far away, beyond the mist that surrounded her, Sister Fifine’s voice reached her. “I think hearing she has two babies is too much for her. Can you give her something to make her rest?”
The doctor laughed, a warm, kind sound. “Of course. I imagine it would come as quite a shock to a woman to find that her blessing is double…as well as her responsibilities!”
Jade felt herself drifting away. As she reached out for the welcome black void, she made a silent vow that it would not matter, because she would not let it matter.
Colt was alive and he was here with her.
Bryan had died that fateful stormy night.
Colt was her husband, her love, the father of her son and daughter.
That was what she would make herself believe. And so it would be.
Chapter One
Spain
November 1912
Jade’s impatience was giving way to anger with each glance at her wristwatch. Where was Kit? It was time to leave for the depot, and missing the noon train to Madrid meant waiting another day to leave, which also meant missing out on some of the fun. American dignitaries and citizens living and working in Spain were celebrating Thanksgiving, as well as the election of their twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson, back in Washington. Jade had been looking forward to the festivities for months and wanted to be part of the gala celebration.
She paced up and down the pink marble floor of her bedroom, pausing now and then to stare out the wide windows to the balcony and the fields beyond. Surely Kit hadn’t left the ranch, b
ut where could she be?
With a sigh, she turned to the mirror, studying her traveling costume—dark silk blouse, blue serge jacket with a short flare above the hip, peg-top skirt, kid pumps. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and plaited in braids that crossed in back.
She knew she looked conservative and dignified, the way people expected the wife of an emissary to look.
For maybe the hundredth time, Jade wished she had never given in to Colt’s and Kit’s pleadings that she buy the ranch near Valencia, although she had to admit that it was one of the most beautiful regions of the Spanish countryside. With its abundance of orange, lemon, almond, and olive trees, pomegranates and palms, she found the area truly breathtaking.
Their home dated back to the era of El Cid, the most famous of all Spanish heroes. The palatial structure was designed with an inner garden laid out in terraces paved with mosaics and bordered with cypress and myrtle trees, fragrant with the scent of jasmine and roses. The house was built to afford a sweeping view of the aquamarine Mediterranean in front, and the land gently sloping to the rear was perfect for raising horses and cattle. Colt, however, had no time for that although he did arrange his schedule in Madrid to allow him time at home to enjoy the peace and tranquility.
It was truly a paradise, but Jade still harbored reservations about raising Kit here, amid a ruggedness that she’d never know in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Madrid embassy life. Here Kit sometimes rode with the vaqueros working on the Frazier ranch down the road, even though it was forbidden. And Jade also did not like the way Kit trailed after Doc Frazier, their veterinarian, as he made his rounds. She had nothing against him personally. He was a nice enough man, an American who had decided to make his home in Spain after inheriting land from a distant Spanish relative. Jade just felt that such a free outdoor existence was not proper for a young girl of royal blood—Romanov blood. She had pleaded with Colt to send Kit to a finishing school, but he wouldn’t agree because Kit didn’t want it. She had a way of wrapping her daddy around her little finger that infuriated Jade. It was also, she mused resentfully, because of Colt’s mother. Jade adored and respected Kitty Coltrane, but they sometimes clashed because Kitty was very vocal in her opinion that Kit should be allowed to live her own life the way she chose. More than once Jade had let her mother-in-law know that Kitty was not going to tell her how to raise her daughter. It did no good. Kitty still spoke her mind when she felt like it and always took her namesake’s side.
Love and Honor: The Coltrane Saga, Book 7 Page 1