“The birthing was difficult,” he said against her throat. “Maria labored for hours.”
He would never forget her screams. The relief of the doctor’s pronouncement the babe was arriving at last. The silence that came after. A shuddering sob fled him before he could control it.
“You can tell me, Alessandro,” Catriona murmured, still stroking his hair. “Let me share your burden.”
No one could share his burden. But he did not say that.
He inhaled jasmine and sweet, warm woman. “The cord was wrapped around my son’s throat. He was an angel when he came into this world.”
“Oh, Alessandro,” she crooned, kissing the crown of his head. “I am so sorry.”
“It was too much for Maria. She was weak and bleeding.” He stopped himself from saying more.
But he would never forget the sight of Maria, ashen and wan. Of their son, perfectly formed yet lifeless. Within hours, he had been sobbing into the bedclothes covering his dead wife.
“She died soon after?” Catriona guessed softly.
To his eternal shame, he realized her throat was wet with tears. His tears.
“Yes,” he found himself answering. “Not long after, Murat occupied Madrid, and all hell broke loose.”
Dos de Mayohad come and gone, innocents slain in the streets by Murat’s French soldiers. Alessandro had decided he must do something. And so, he had been swept up in the gathering storm of the conflict, eventually leading a band of guerrilla soldiers in an effort to inflict as much damage as possible upon enemy troops. To stop Bonaparte.
He had been fighting ever since.
Until he had returned to England, driven by the Marquess of Searle’s campaign of vengeance against him. And though his post as a spy for the English troops had come to an end, he still had his men to lead. There was still a war to be fought.
To be won.
He must not lose sight of that now.
He jerked his head back. His wife watched him with an expression of such tenderness, he wanted to slam his fist into the squab. He did nothing. Instead, he stared back at her.
“You were a soldier in Spain, were you not?” she asked then, her gaze searching his.
Seeing too much. “Yes,” he bit out. “But I have said enough. We are due to arrive at the coaching inn any minute now.”
At least, he prayed they were. He could not withstand much more of this torture.
Alessandro Diego Christopher Forsythe did not weep.
He did not feel anything.
Damn Catriona for making him.
“What do you fear?” Still, her hands were upon him, holding him captive, touching him with such feminine care, it reminded him of a time when he would have reveled in it.
“I fear nothing,” he told her. “Not even death. I have nothing left to lose.”
“Why do you close yourself off,” she continued, undeterred. “I am your wife now, Alessandro. You must trust me. If I am to be the mother of your heir, it stands to reason we should have a bond, some understanding between us.”
“Our bond is what happened between us this morning,” he told her cruelly. The need to inflict some of his own inner torment upon her, to chase her away, could not be denied. “I am bedding you to get you with child. I will never love you. Spare us both and stop trying to make me feel that which I cannot feel.”
His words were harsh, and he recognized it the moment her lips tightened. She had only shown him kindness and compassion, and he had devoured both like a starving man laid before a table laden with delicacies.
But still, she made no move of retreating. He was beginning to realize his bride was stubborn. Strong and relentless, and determined, too.
“I am aware of the reason for our marriage,” she said, her voice going quiet. “I do not require you to love me. As for trying to make you feel… I believe you are wrong about yourself.”
