“I’m fine,” he whispered. “Did you spend it all?”
“Spend it all?” Her laugh rang through the courtyard. “Have you any idea what those diamonds are worth? Or how much gold a trunk will hold?”
His eyes flew open. “Diamonds? Gold?”
Why did she always make him feel so dense?
Her laughter tapered off into the heavy summer air. “Did you think I would spend Greystone’s accounts?” she asked slowly. “Without asking?”
“I…” He rose, but his knees still felt weak. “Are you saying, then—”
“I want you to have it, Colin. I want you to be happy.” Her hand moved to the bulge of their child. “The gold was meant as security for my son, was it not?” Her amethyst eyes glistened with tears as she gazed up at him. “What could be more secure than an earldom and acres of land? The fortune will be there, in the crops planted in the fertile soil, in the stone walls of the castle and the shingles on the great hall’s roof. I should have realized it months ago.” One tear escaped and traced a path down her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry…?” His hand came up to wipe away that single tear, warm against the pad of his fingertip. A peculiar grayness crept to fog his vision. He gathered her against him, holding her tight.
Holding himself up.
She was the pregnant one—he was not going to faint.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
HIS EXPRESSION unreadable, Colin approached their bed the next morning and handed Amy a letter decorated with an all-too-familiar red seal. A pain clenched her middle as her eyes scanned down the page, past lines of neat, flourished script, the product of many years of tutoring, to the bottom, where it was signed, “Your very loving friend, Charles R.”
“Dear heavens,” she groaned. The parchment rustled as she dropped it to the bed. “Not another summons, another favor.”
Colin’s laugh boomed through the chamber. “Read it, lazybones.” He stalked to the window and pushed open the drapes. “It’s only a letter saying a treaty with the Dutch was signed three days ago at Breda, and thanking me for service performed on behalf of England.”
She blinked against the sunshine flooding the chamber. “Thank heavens for small favors.” When he came to kiss her on the forehead, she flashed him a teasing smile. “I would have thrown you into the oubliette before I let you go this time. Six weeks you were gone!” She made a half-hearted attempt to sit up, then fell back against her pillows, defeated. She sighed. “I don’t remember going to bed last night.”
“You fell asleep in the middle of a sentence. Been lying awake missing me all those weeks?”
He sat on the bed and leaned to kiss her again, his teeth nibbling at her bottom lip, sending her pulse racing. He smiled against her mouth. “I never got the chance to thank you for sharing your inheritance—”
“There’s no need—”
“—and for saving Greystone.”
“Saving Greystone?” She brushed her fingertips over his scratchy cheeks. “Perhaps I made things a bit easier for you, but Greystone would have done well in the long run, regardless. It’s a fine estate.”
“A fine estate, yes.” He took her hands. “But it would have been Lord Hobbs’s fine estate.”
“Lord Hobbs’s?”
“I owe him money. From Priscilla’s dowry, due at the close of the year. It would have been Newgate Prison for me, or Greystone for him.” He gave a rueful laugh. “Coward that I am, I’m afraid he would have ended up with Greystone.”
“But there was always the gold—”
He quieted her with a kiss. “I promised you I’d never take it, love.”
He’d been willing to give up everything for her.
Sudden tears flooded her eyes. “A Chase promise is not given lightly,” she murmured, hearing Jason say so in her head. Back at Cainewood, nearly a year ago.
It seemed like a lifetime had passed.
“No, it’s never given lightly,” Colin agreed. “Most especially to those we love. Now, get some rest while I tour the estate.”
One more kiss, his lips soft, lingering on hers.
A hand on the doorjamb, he paused on his way out. “Are you happy?”
“Happy?” she asked in a daze. “I’ve never been happier in my life.”
At that moment, it was true. The smile transformed her face long after Colin’s footsteps had faded down the corridor.
He loved her.
SEVENTY-NINE
“YOU SHOULD be resting, child.” Aunt Elizabeth entered the study and settled herself on the couch. “Your time is near.”
“I felt a sudden urge to straighten this desk.” Amy sorted through the heap of yellowed receipts she’d found crammed in the bottom drawer, then held one up. “This is dated 1660, the year King Charles granted Greystone to Colin. My husband is a secret sluggard.” She grinned. “Besides, I’m not made for resting; you know that.”
“Your Uncle William says the same thing about me. The Goldsmith curse, he calls it.”
The paper fluttered to the desk. “The Goldsmith curse,” Amy repeated in a whisper, thinking not of the work ethic, but her cursed promise.
The Goldsmith curse.
“What did you say, dear?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
The room fell quiet except for the rustle of paper. Amy felt Aunt Elizabeth’s gaze following her as she moved back and forth, filing the receipts.
“What’s wrong, child?” Aunt Elizabeth asked at last, her voice heavy with loving sympathy.
Amy’s eyes filled with tears. Her emotions were so close to the surface these days; she was either violently happy or in the depths of despair; there seemed to be no middle ground.
“I don’t know, Auntie.” She leaned both palms on the desk, staring down, studying the grain in the wood. “I was so happy this morning.”
“This wouldn’t have something to do with a vow to your father, would it?”
Amy watched a tear splash onto the scarred surface of Colin’s desk. “How did you know?”
“Colin.” A long sigh escaped Aunt Elizabeth’s lips. “But you haven’t discussed this with him, have you?”
Amy shook her head.
“For heaven’s sake, child, how can you let
