Chapter 25

They made the consulate in Corfu Town their base while the ships were being readied for the journey home.

Fredrick Cary was under arrest and would sail home to England in the brig of her father’s ship, to be tried for the abduction of her, and the attempted murder of Alex, and for impersonating an earl. He would likely hang at the end of a long rope and Hestia could not bring herself to care. Fredrick had put her, and worse still, Alex, through hell. He deserved all he got.

Fredrick’s attempt to force her into marriage had of course been ruled null and void and she was still free to wed Alex whenever he asked.

The past few days had been interesting watching Stephen and Alex interact. Stephen was good for Alex because his friend made Alex laugh, and goodness knew Alex needed more joy in his life.

That evening was the first time they would all dine together, and Hestia wanted to look her best. She had eaten quietly with her father the past two nights and she was looking forward to having an evening with Alex and Stephen.

Once freshly bathed and dressed, she walked outside to the consulate’s beautiful walled garden. Dinner would be served in a half hour at nine. She had not had a private moment with Alex since arriving in Corfu Town and she missed him. She also wanted to see if the days had seen him change his mind about her. She was not sure what she was expecting him to do, but she wanted a proposal and to know he would allow her to journey home on his ship.

She walked among the flowers enjoying their scent. It was a miniature English garden in this overheated world. Someone must put a lot of care and attention into caring for it.

The beauty of the roses calmed the anxiety that was making her stomach feel like a mule had kicked it. Her fate relied on Alex standing up to her father, who would not be pleased with the match for some reason. When they had arrived, the earl had given Alex a very frosty welcome, even after all Alex had done for his earldom and his daughter. Plus, when it came to fighting for her…well, his history of standing up to her father was not good. He needed to fight harder.

She hoped Alex was talking with her father right now.

Perhaps, now that they were out of danger, he was having doubts. She worried that with everything that had happened to Alex, he didn’t know how to love. She knew he had feelings for her, but could he love her?

“I have enough love for both of us,” she quietly said out loud to herself, praying she would be enough for a man so terribly hurt by life.

She had a fair idea now what Murad had done to him. It seemed he treated his male slaves similarly to how he treated his female ones. She had read Greek plays and understood how two men fornicated.

Hestia didn’t blame him for the bitterness and dissolution he felt. It was his inability to lay any of his horrid past to rest that broke her heart. She couldn’t erase his memories for him, but she could help ease the pain. On a sigh she realized that only Alex could get rid of ghosts from his past. And it seemed like he wasn’t willing or able to do so.

“Beautiful night.”

Hestia whirled around to find Alex leaning against a gnarled olive tree. His fair hair glinted silver in lanterns hanging around the walls of the garden, the setting highlighting both his earthly beauty and the torment in his eyes.

Unable to bear his expression, she turned away and closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around her waist. She wanted to scream at the injustice of the situation. Please fight for me…

“Do I not deserve a welcome?”

“It depends on the outcome of your talk with my father.”

“Your are a vixen at times, my sweet. I have yet to speak with him. There are things we must discuss first.”

She turned back to him and stared him in the eye. “I’m not sure how I should greet you then. How does one greet a man you have shared your body with?”

His lips curved into that heartbreaking smile of his. “Hello, my lover? Or, hello, my friend?”

She smiled. “Oh, you make me so mad…I’ve never wanted to be just your friend.”

Alex moved closer. “I know you can never hate me,” he teased. “It’s just not in you to do so.”

Hestia wanted so desperately to reach out to him, to wrap her arms around his neck and hold him close. She also wanted to pick up the heavy stick lying on the ground and hit him over the head until some sense entered that thick skull of his.

His smile dimmed. “I wish I could truly be the man you think I am. But sometimes we cannot escape our past.”

Hestia reached toward him. But he angled away, not wanting to be touched.

“It’s not escape from your past that you need. You need to embrace it, realize what you have endured has helped you become the man you are today. Murad’s dead; show everyone that your past won’t stop you from having a happy and fulfilled life.”

“They say war changes a man. The war with the Turks did change me. It made me realize that fighting for what you believe in is important. I was proud to have done my duty, until Murad’s pirates captured me. In captivity, I lost my pride, my heart, and my soul. I’m not sure I have anything left to give to anyone that is worth a damn.”

She wanted to scream that there was so much to love about him. Why couldn’t he love himself?

Murad had taken him to Bodrum, where he had been kept as a slave. Having met the pirate in person, she had an understanding of what that must’ve been like for Alex. She had once thought the vagaries of her life had been cruel, losing her mother, her father basically ignoring her, the lack of any siblings, and the loneliness she felt on a regular basis, but she had not known how deep cruelty could truly go.

“You have so much good in you. You worked hard to build your estate, you look after those who are loyal to you, and you helped me.”

Alex looked at her with pity. “I helped myself. I came for Murad more than to rescue your father.”

“You still protected me. Jacob told me why you went willingly with Murad. You allowed yourself to be captured again, knowing what he would do to you, just to keep me safe.”

He shrugged. “At least I knew what to expect this time. You have had a taste of how Murad operated. When he captured me the first time, he had me hooked on opium within weeks, and then he controlled me. I didn’t understand at the time what he was doing, what the drug was doing to me. Most doctors in England don’t understand either. I have seen women go crazy if the laudanum they have been given for their headaches runs out and they cannot get any more. Once you are used to the opium, your body wants more, more, and more, until you will do anything to get the drug.”

She closed her eyes and shuddered, grief rising inside her for a young man who had faced such evil.

Taking a step closer to him, she said, “Can’t you see that the man you were when under the influence of that dreadful drug was not really you? If Murad had to use drugs, it was not your soul or heart or body he controlled. The only way he could get you to do the things he wanted you to do was to distort the person that you were into somebody else.”

A long stretch of silence enshrouded them, filled only by the rustling leaves, until finally he said, “Do you understand the things I did with Murad? I’m damaged, perverse, disgusting—”

“Not to me,” Hestia said, interrupting. “Never to me.” A tear tracked down her cheek.

“Many think I’m a coward for surviving. Perhaps I am.”

“I think you’re the bravest man I’ve ever known. I might have been naïve before, but not any longer. I don’t care what Murad did to you.” Hestia moved in front of him and reached up to press a kiss to his cheek. “All I see is a man strong enough, and brave enough, to survive. The man I love. Can you love me in return? That’s all I’m interested in.”

“My darling Hestia. How could I not love you? You are brave and selfless. Your love is precious and I want to be with you so much.”

Hestia slid her fingers through his and held his hand. “So I sail home on the Angelica with you?”

“I’ll hurt any man who tries to stop me taking you home to England.” He gazed down at her with eyes as sea green as the seas they would cross on their way home. “Home to a life together. You could have any man you want. I still can’t believe that you want this damaged heart and blackened soul. But you have taught me that it’s harder to love somebody than walk away from them, and I want you in my life more than I want my next breath.”

She threw her arms around his neck. “When I was sixteen you saved me from a life like those poor women on Murad’s ship experienced. I gave you my heart then and there, but you were too broken to know what to do with it. So on this journey I got to return the favor. I saved you right back.”

“That you did, and I’m the luckiest man in the world.” Alex closed his eyes at the truth in her words. “I didn’t know if I was capable of loving anyone. During the last few weeks I realized what I was truly feeling—that my need to be with you, to keep you for myself, was love, strong and steady. The greatest healer in the world.”

He pulled her tight against him. “You’re mine. I’m not letting you go ever again. My heart skips a beat whenever I see you.” He placed his hand over where their hearts lay chest to breast, letting her feel the rush of emotions he was finally free to share.

“Hestia,” Alex whispered in an aching voice as he pressed his lips to hers, holding nothing back as he gathered her tight against his body, his arms encircling her.

She pressed her body against his, wanting to be closer.

He briefly broke the kiss to ask, “Will you marry me, my darling girl?”

“Of course, my handsome man.”

Love, more powerful than any hate, revenge, or evil. Their love had the power to heal anything they might face. Together they would protect each other from the evils of the world and ensure no one stopped them living a life full of happiness and joy.

Alex and Hestia went to talk to her father just before dinner.

The reunion with her father when the Angelica reached Corfu Town had been a tearful one. Hestia was surprised at the depth of her father’s emotions. He’d held her so tightly she thought she might faint from lack of air.

If he loved her so much, why did he spend so much time away from home?

Now, a few days later, as she was about to knock on the study door with Alex by her side, she wondered what reception they would get. Her father had been given a room to use during his stay and it was filled with his books on ancient Greece and some of his treasures. His face burst into a smile as she entered, which dimmed upon seeing Alex behind her.

When Alex entered the room the warm humid air suddenly became very chilly. Hestia tried to understand how the earl could look upon Alex as a son, but where she was concerned he treated Alex as a pariah.

It was the first meeting between the two men since they’d arrived and Hestia was determined to play peacemaker.

“Why on earth did you bring her to Greece?” Lord Pembroke asked. “Of all the irresponsible things to do. The danger—can you not remember what happened four years ago?”

Hestia stepped near her father, laying her hand on his arm, and said, “That is not fair, Father. We came because you were in danger. If Alex had not—”

“I can speak for myself, thank you, Hestia,” Alex interrupted. He approached her father. “Because you left your daughter in Wales, unprotected as usual, not caring what happened to her, I had to bring her with me. There was no one in England able to protect her. I was concerned that Fredrick would see your daughter as another obstacle to his wealth. After all, his devious plan to declare you dead and gain your title was worthless without your money.”

“Ah yes, my money goes to Hestia.” Lord Pembroke merely stared at Alex for a few moments before finally nodding his head. He turned away from Alex and addressed his daughter once more. “At least you’re safe now. My ship is being provisioned for the journey home to England as we speak. We leave tomorrow on the morning tide.”

She looked at Alex, waiting for him to say something. Willing him to say something. She would sail on the Angelica—with Alex. When he remained silent she spoke up. “I am sailing home with Alex.”

Her father’s face turned a mottled purple. Alex was a duke, for goodness’ sake. What father would object to such a marriage? She understood her father might be worried about his use of opium, but that was years ago, and he had his drug usage under control.

Alex cleared his throat, and still staring at her father he finally spoke. “Your father and I have a few things to discuss. Why don’t you go and converse with Stephen, keep him out of trouble.”

She looked between the two men. The two men she loved. She knew they had a history. It was her father who had found where Alex was being held captive. He had passed that information on to Jacob and also shown Jacob how to attack the fortress.

Her father had first seen Alex on one of his trading jaunts. The earl had often traded with Murad. The pirate was quite happy to receive payment for allowing her father to excavate on the islands around the Turkish coast.

“Fine. I shall leave you two gentlemen to discuss whatever it is you don’t want me to hear. But I warn you I won’t stand for the two of you being at odds. I expect to see both of you at dinner.”

As she left the room you could hear a pin drop, neither of the men confirming her request for dinner.

As the door closed, the earl moved to pour them both a brandy. “God damn it, Alex. You gave me your word. Your word. You promised me you would leave her alone. I want to run you through, or at least challenge you to a duel, and if I were twenty years younger I would.”

Pembroke’s words made the brandy he swallowed taste like pig’s swill. He had given his word. But that was four long years ago. He was a different man today.

“Nothing to say? You are not going to tell me you’ve changed? That opium no longer dictates your life, or that the nightmares chasing you have disappeared?”

The earl knew what the two years in captivity had cost Alex. He understood well what Murad had done to him, and Alex suspected this was the reason Pembroke objected so strenuously to a marriage with Hestia. The opium usage was just an excuse.

“Hestia will become my duchess. She makes my life better. She chases away the nightmares.”

The earl thumped his hand on the table. “I won’t allow it. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know what Murad did to you. The perversities…”

Alex swallowed the rest of his brandy and put the glass down on the table that stood between them. “She might not have known before we left London, but I’m pretty sure she has a good idea now.”

“You told her?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then how could she know?” At Alex’s silence, the earl’s eyes widened. “When he held you both captive?”

Alex nodded.

“And she still wants to marry you?”

If the earl wanted to make Alex feel like a bit of dirt under his boot, that question was the best way to do so. Murad had stripped him of any pride years ago; the earl should have known that better than anyone. Having to have this conversation was exactly what made the opium such sweet release.

“This has never been about my opium habit, has it? This is about your disgust about what Murad did to me—with me. For Christ’s sake, I was his captive. What did you expect me to do? Would you have preferred me to have given up and died?”

The look on the earl’s face said that was exactly what he would have expected Alex to do. “I don’t know how you can live with what he did to you. It’s an abomination. Unless, of course…you enjoyed it.”

Alex had to clench his fists at his sides to stop him smashing one of them, or both of them, into the earl’s face. “It is only because you are her father that I don’t call you out—elderly or not.”

If the earl wanted to drive a wedge between him and Hestia, then he would be in for a fight. He should have had this discussion with her father years ago, but he’d thought like the earl that no woman could love him when she learned the perversions he’d been subjected to. He’d underestimated Hestia back then; he would not do so again.

“Why do you think I took the opium? You have no idea how, every day, I battled to find a reason to live—to survive. The biggest reason of all, the one that saw me endure more than any man should have to, was that one day I would see Murad dead.”

“Some indignities should not be survived. Any man of honor would never have let himself be used like that.”

Alex briefly closed his eyes and fought to rein in his temper. This bigoted man was to become his father-in-law. He took a deep breath and blew out through his nose.

“Your daughter is an amazing woman. She has a heart big enough to encompass the world. Do you know what she sees when she looks at me? She sees a man, a flawed man, but a man who has endured and overcome evil. A man who has seen and experienced such horrors she cannot comprehend how anyone could treat a person so. She’s proud that I lived to escape. She doesn’t care how I managed that, only that I did. Because she loves me. And do you want to know something else? I’d go through it all again, I’d endure the perversities again, and fight to survive, if it meant she was waiting for me, to heal me with her touch, her kiss, her love.”

Pembroke had the grace to look embarrassed.

“I let you push me away four years ago because I knew. I knew even then it was not the opium you objected to, and I also thought myself unworthy. I thought I could not be cleansed until I killed Murad. I was wrong. Killing doesn’t cleanse, loving does.”

He walked to the door. “I’m going to marry your daughter, if she’ll have me, and nothing you say or do will stop me. You can either be a part of our lives or not. Given you’ve not seemed to care a jot about your daughter’s life the past four years, I wonder why you object so much.”

“What if the truth comes out? What if people learn what happened to you? The disgrace…Hestia will be…”

Alex gave him a wry smile. “You think people talking about what Murad may have or may not have done to me is worse than actually having it done? You are pathetic. I’ve endured far worse than gossip, and so has your daughter.” He opened the door. “You have until dinner to decide if you will be a part of our lives or not.” Then he walked out with his head held high and his pride firmly in place.

Dinner was strained but polite, but Hestia’s stomach kept churning. She wanted her father’s blessing for her marriage to Alex, but she would marry without it if it came to that.

Alex told her he’d given her father an ultimatum, but it wasn’t until after dinner when everyone was in the drawing room that she got her answer.

The earl cleared his throat. “May I please have everyone’s attention?” The lord high commissioner, his wife, visiting guests, and Stephen and Alex stopped talking.

“It is with pleasure and great pride that I announce the betrothal of my daughter, Lady Hestia Cary, to Alexander Sylvester Bracken, the Duke of Bedford.” His voice shook with heartfelt emotion. “I wish them joy and happiness in their life together. I’ve been a fool for too long, not recognizing how perfect they are for each other.”

There was much hullabaloo and congratulations that followed the announcement. Champagne was drunk and Hestia’s heart almost burst when Alex went forward to shake her father’s hand. The earl instead pulled him into a hug and she heard him say, “I’m sorry, my boy. It seems my daughter taught us both the lesson of unconditional love.”

Alex flashed her a look so filled with love. “She is indeed a special woman. My special woman.”