Only You: Duke of Rutland Series III

by Elizabeth St. Michel

  While everyone in England yielded to his title, she had never been impressed. Oh yes, she had sarcastic wit, enough to skewer the best of naysayers, which exasperatingly enough, could rile his normally cool state of mind and snap his temper. He needed a woman who would challenge him.

  Alexandra listened. She was non-judgmental when he had confessed to her he had killed a man, even aware of the tragedy beforehand. Her integrity, her spontaneity made him look forward to the magic of every day. She trusted him.

  He crawled out of bed while she slept, shrugged on his breeches and retrieved the black pearl from his pocket. With twine, he weaved hitch-knots to fashion a band, perplexed by her humility. How she downplayed her beauty, dismissed her intelligence, and selflessness to the point of exhaustion. She avoided self-pity like the plague, her generous, intuitive, and unassuming nature making her dear to him.

  Nicholas dropped the homemade pearl ring between her breasts. She lifted her eyelids and sat up.

  “Oh, Nicholas. It is beautiful. Wherever did you find it?”

  He sat on the bed. “I found it among oysters, lining the rocks along the shore. I believe it to be of considerable value.”

  She placed the ring on her finger, admiring the iridescence. “I shall treasure this ring always.”

  “Which leads me to a demand.”

  She fell back onto the pillow. “Any more demands, and I’ll be laid to waste.”

  He chuckled, taking delight with the color forming in her cheeks. With a mischievous smile, she traced a finger across his chest. He hauled her from the bed, before other things that came to mind were set into motion and placed her shift over her head. “We’re getting married. I want to do this right.”

  Alexandra put her arms around his neck, and tilted her head up for a kiss.

  “I’m serious, Alexandra. I demand that we marry.”

  “There is a shortage of preachers on this island in case you haven’t noticed.” The vixen moved her hands seductively down his chest around to his hips. He grabbed her hands

  “We are getting married and that’s it. You are going to be by my side for the rest of our lives.”

  She kissed his chest and neck.

  “Control yourself.” Before she could do anything more to distract him, he strode to the shelf, jerked orchids out of the vase, handed them to her, and then grabbed the Bible. “This won’t be the fairytale wedding you dreamed about, but it is the closest to a real ceremony I can think of.”

  Alexandra sobered. Nicholas’s moods were like the tides, ever shifting from amusement to irritation. Did he view her as another duty to oversee, an unaccountable desire to be responsible for her? “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I command it. Put your hand on the Bible. We will swear before God.”

  Of course he’d command the nuptials, yet it wasn’t the authoritative side of his nature, she struggled with, but the import and relative consequences of what they were about to share. She was a nobody. She could not give him an heir. His father wanted a tried and true aristocrat with perfect breeding. He was betrothed.

  What if they were never rescued? Weeks had turned into months and only two ships had passed. The probability grew every day that their lives were eternally bound on these shores. Alexandra made a silent vow. However long they lived on this island, she would pledge herself to Nicholas.

  His smile drew her gaze. Unable to resist, her eyes met his, and the world faded. The palms ceased to move. The swish of the surf vanished, and despite the lack of church or vicar, her heart fluttered with the sincerity in his eyes, the vow he was about to speak. The look of resolute and unwavering resolve manifested on his face assured a rare kind of promise, coupled with an indomitable will to succeed.

  Shaking, she placed her hand on the Bible.

  “I, Nicholas Richard Rutland, heir to the fourth Duke of Rutland, take you, Alexandra Sutherland, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”

  “I, Alexandra Sutherland, take you, Nicholas Richard Rutland, to be my husband. I promise to be faithful to you in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honor you.”

  Nicholas took her hand and placed the ring upon her finger. “What we have just done is forever, Alexandra. I will love you in word and deed. To do the hard work of making now into always. To laugh with you, to cry with you, to grow with you.”

  “Oh, Nicholas. I love you unconditionally and without hesitation. All that I am, all that I shall ever be will be yours.”

  “And all I want in this world is only you.”

  His powerful arms swept around her, and she drowned in languid warmth, a contentment and peace drained all her thoughts and fears of the future.

  She was shaken at her own fervent reaction and slipped her arms around his neck. Nicholas pulled off her shift, laying her on the bed and she opened herself to his lovemaking. Her heart flooded with aching tenderness, holding fast, the time for things meant to be, the last instance where after everything else, this would remain as what really mattered.

  Sated, they lay entwined, Alexandra secure in his arms. Under extraordinary circumstances they had been brought together and promised an oath to each other as strong and binding as any sacred vow uttered in a church. She committed to memory every line and plane of his face. Marriage was to be long and enduring, yet the unspoken reality between them expressed volumes.

  Alexandra took a deep breath. Yesterday was gone. Tomorrow had not yet come. She had only the present moment and she would cherish these days with no misgivings, only sad regrets that if rescued, it was to end.

  Chapter 15

  Months blurred into a year and no ship had been seen. Getting home seemed nonexistent. Despite moments of nostalgia, Nicholas had never been happier, enamored with Alexandra, his wife, in every way a man could be in love with a woman.

  He hummed a tune, picturing Alexandra entering the ballroom at Belvoir in satin with scintillating diamonds, and then contrasted her garb on the island, the veil-like shift she had patched. He had to admit there was no greater beauty and he remained a bit selfish, preferring to see her that way, reluctant to reveal the cloth in the box in the lean-to.

  Everything about Alexandra was honey-gold and warm, as if he were the focal point of her whole world. Her passionate nature had taught him to love. It was a new feeling for Nicholas. A feeling he embraced.

  Even the natural and unassuming way she took his hand in hers, soothing, and washing away the resentment toward his father’s mandates that had been roiling in him for so long. Yet fracturing his peace were the choices he made and the subsequent consequences. Tearing him apart was the likelihood of disinheritance.

  He would not be duke, a role he was born to.

  Yet a life without Alexandra would be no life at all. If the worst scenario occurred, he would start new in the Colonies.

  A butterfly sipped nectar from a scarlet hibiscus, and he stood stock still, charmed by nature’s loveliness. Like falling under Alexandra’s enchantment, yet aware of the transforming hardships her life presented and the final triumph of her splendor.

  He swung the shutter back and forth, satisfied with his repair, thinking how her turquoise eyes, without speaking, revealed the thoughts of her heart.

  Alexandra leaned through the window and surprised him with a kiss.

  “That’s a dangerous thing to do. You shouldn’t kiss a man like that unless—”

  “Unless what?” Her eyes challenged him. Her lips lifted in a mirthful smile.

  He leaped through the window, picked her up and placed her on the bed. “I lose count how many times we make love a day. In no time, you will be with child—”

  Her face paled. Dammit. Too late. “I’m sorry. I’d do anything to take back that boorish remark.”

  She looked away. “I would love to give you children, Nicholas, but fate has denied me. How can I describe the feel of a tiny
hand that by no means will ever be held?”

  Nicholas held a greater sorrow, and a unique pain it was, making a place in his heart for a child to never come. That once he died, he’d be erased from the world for lack of that certifiable stamp on his lineage.

  Nicholas saw the tears in her eyes, the heartbreaking realization that hung like a lodestone around her neck.

  She sobbed. “I adore children. To know, that I will never be able to hold my own babies in my arms, to laugh and play with my children.”

  What an ass he’d been to make that blunder. The stab in her heart, speared his own. Her feelings came first. “I love you, and all that I want, is you.”

  He kissed her but she moved out from beneath him. “You must be hungry.”

  “You’ll make a fine duchess, Alexandra.”

  “I can’t be your duchess.” She rose, crossed the small room. “While we are on the island, we can pretend—

  “What nonsense. You will always be at my side.”

  At the table with her back to him she peeled a mango. “I would fail at being a duchess. I do not even know how to dance let alone what silverware to use.”

  Coming up behind her, he rested a gentle hand on hers, eased the knife and mango out of her hands, and placed them on the table. He motioned for her to follow him outside. “We will begin your first dance lesson. A waltz.”

  “What?” Her eyes widened in question when he held out his hand.

  “I cannot dance alone, Lady Rutland,” he said, leaning down to take her hand.

  “Really, I haven’t danced much, only a few village dances.”

  “Then you have not been living.”

  She shook her head, but Nicholas bowed and took her in his arms, holding her close and started counting.

  They had no orchestra, glittering chandeliers or polished dance floor, but whirling her around beneath the palms was better than any dance he had ever experienced.

  “How am I doing?” She laughed aloud.

  He had his Alexandra back. “You are a rare jewel and outshine any woman I’ve ever known.”

  Chapter 16

  In the corner of the garden, Alexandra performed the onerous task of preparing a new area of land for planting. She lifted her face to the sun and swallowed hard. Nicholas’s slip the day before rested heavy. He pretended having children was not important and his denial confirmed to her more than ever, she would release him from his vows if rescued.

  She tugged at a mass of vines, yanked them free and tossed them behind her. Although the afternoon wind had fallen, a slight breeze off the ocean lifted her hair and cooled her heated neck from the glare of the tropical sun.

  The patch was dense from years of neglect and the roots held fast to the soil. She pulled away an elephant ear leaf. Two long thin bones were stretched out across the ground. She inhaled, forcing her fingers to clench around more stalks and ripped away. A skeleton reclined against a tree. Bony legs led-up to a spine and rib section, and a skull leaned sideways, its eye sockets staring off to sea. Suspended from the neck and resting over the ribcage where his heart would be was a gold locket.

  “Nicholas.” Her knees buckled and she sank to the ground. Hands shaking, she opened the locket. Gazing back at her was the miniature of a pretty woman. No doubt, the gold locket Lady Jane Winthrop Dabney had given to Captain John Sharp, and with it, his dream of a life with her extinguished. Alexandra’s gaze drifted over the sad remains of the sea captain. To think he had died alone.

  Nicholas approached from behind. After a moment of silence, he said, “I’ll bury him. There can’t be happy endings all of the time, Alexandra.”

  Like Nicholas and her.

  She stood and unclasped the locket from Captain Sharp. “Maybe someday we can return Lady Jane’s locket and the diary to her. It is the decent thing to do.” Tears burned her cheeks with their heat and quiet power. Nicholas turned her around and she put her arms around his neck, sobbing into his chest. She cried for the darling sea captain and for Nicholas, the man she’d have to leave behind if they ever reached the shores of England.

  With his machete, Nicholas hacked through the brush, an endless task for wherever he cut, the growth reappeared. To erase the tragedy of Captain Sharp and his own indiscretion about children, Nicholas diverted her attention with an outing. He pulled Alexandra up on a high craggy cliff overlooking the beach that lay like a shepherd’s hook of gold. “My senses are heightened on this island. I see that which is far off with but a glance, I hear the crack of stone or branch on high protecting myself from falling branches and rocks. I smell the coming of the storms while they are still days away. The soup you make tastes as fine as any I’ve ever eaten back in civilization.”

  Nicholas swept up his cocked hat and jammed it beneath one arm. His nose twitched, the air was pregnant with the smell of salt. “The folly of looking for treasure is an exercise in uselessness, Alexandra.” They had been talking about his sister, Abby. How he missed her, how he worried about her. “She is probably dead by now.”

  “Like you, Nicholas, she survived. You must count on that, live with that thought.”

  His eternal optimist. “How do you know?”

  “I don’t. But if there is a just God, then she is safe.”

  He took a swig of water from the calabash and offered it to her. “How can you treat your life like that?” So far, he’d survived, but if his father or siblings hadn’t…that yoke of guilt would be the price he’d have to bear.

  She shrugged. “We can’t control the wind, but we can adjust our sails.”

  She was right.

  He took a deep breath. If his family did survive, what did they think happened to him the night of his abduction? Would there have been any witnesses? He was certain if there was a trail, they’d be looking for him.

  “My intuition says the treasure is here. Captain Sharp did not come all this way and not have his treasure with him. I can use that money to get justice for Molly and my father.”

  She wanted justice as much as he wanted vengeance. If they got off this island, he’d do everything in his power to have her stepmother prosecuted for her crimes. But without witnesses, the charge would be impossible. Molly was dead. How convenient for her stepmother. And to prove Alexandra’s heritage? Like blowing thistledown against a hurricane. Yet maybe a Sutherland servant would know.

  “Just tell me why, and I’m not talking about the treasure. For what purpose have we had to go through this struggle?”

  “Sometimes trials are to make us stronger, to act as a bridge to another part of our life. Samuel always said, ‘Birth is the day molded into a sculpture, happenstance is an oil painting and experience is a mosaic of them all.”’

  They came to an end of an animal path with a cliff a quarter mile straight up. They would have to climb. “Are you ready for a new experience?”

  She grasped thick strangler vines and Nicholas followed behind her. “I have to say the view from here is fantastic.”

  “Leave it to you, Nicholas to point that out,” she laughed and hitched herself over the top of a ridge.

  She lay there panting when Nicholas heaved himself up beside her. Her scent beckoned him. His mouth was bone dry, sweat ran between his shoulder blades like warm rain. Temptation lay one foot away. He looked down on the ocean where waves slammed against rocks in a surge of spray.

  Alexandra shielded her eyes from the sun and looked at him. “Who else could have plotted against your family?”

  “There could be any number of persons. An angry tenant.”

  She tossed a stone off the cliff. “An angry tenant would not have money.”

  “Lord Eaton, the father whose son I killed in self-defense. He definitely has the financial means.”

  “And the motivation,” she added.

  She picked up another stone and examined it. “Have you ever had a hint of enmity from Duke Cornelius?” Alexandra said.

  “Nicholas shook his head. “Never have I seen any animosity, only kin
dness, bestowing us with gifts and all the things he did for me are countless.”

  “Yet he never married? Doesn’t that trouble you?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Why should it?”

  “Do you think that in a twisted way, since he didn’t have your mother, he substituted the Rutland children as his own? That there might be subterfuge and patience to get back at your father? Samuel always told me to look at my closest friends before my distant enemies. The Duke would have the resources to pull off such a scheme to destroy your family.”

  Nicholas stopped to ponder. “That is the most absurd notion I’ve heard to date. I’m also thinking of a fellow in the House of Lords. My father has gone up against those pushing the war in the Colonies because it is bankrupting England. He has many war-mongering enemies who stand to profit from contracts and have the funds to seek his demise. I would start there.”

  “You are probably right.” Alexandra stood and dusted her bottom. “Look, Nicholas, an ‘E’ is carved into the rock, probably by Captain Sharp. We have not climbed this high before. Remember his diary. Lovely, Only, Valuable and Enthralling. If we take the first letters of each word—”

  “Not too hard of a clue to figure out. His love for Lady Jane.”

  She whooped loudly. “Yes, but you’ve missed Captain Sharp’s point. As we speculated before, he used the first letters of each coordinate, and then applied each letter to a landform. Lagoon, Ocean, Valley, Escarpment.”

  Nicholas snorted. “And?”

  She pointed to the rocky ground, and then to the ‘E.’ We stand on the escarpment which is to the west of the other land features. The ocean is down there to the east. South is the lagoon and the valley is to the north.”

  The sea crashed on the sand below, seagulls soared and cried overhead. She waited for Nicholas to see her point.

  The emergence of recognition flooded his face. “The cottage was built where the four coordinates merge.”