Free Honor-Bound Groom by Yvonne Lindsay Page A

it or incredibly kind.”
    â€œKind?”
    â€œTo agree to the terms just to help the company out and keep an old man happy.”
    â€œI don’t know what you mean. I’m marrying Alex because I love him. Because I’ve always loved him,” Loren stated as firmly as she was able.
    â€œSurely you’re aware that Alex is only marrying you because of the curse.”
    â€œThe curse?” Surely she didn’t mean the old governess’s curse?
    Loren knew well the story of the woman who’d been brought to Isla Sagrado from the south of France to educate the daughters of one of the original del Castillos on the island—a nobleman from Spain. The poor woman had fallen in love with her employer and entered into an affair that had lasted years.
    Legend had it that she’d borne him three sons, but that in view of the fact his wife had only borne him daughters, he’d taken her boys from her and he’d raised them as his legitimate issue, paying her off with a rubynecklace from the del Castillo jewel collection. Paintings in the family gallery that predated the nobleman showed the necklace, known as La Verdad del Corazon —the Heart’s Truth. It was a stunning piece of chased gold with a massive heart-shaped ruby at its center. Loren had always privately believed that it was more the type of gift a man gave to his one true love than as payment for services rendered.
    When the nobleman’s wife died, however, he’d married another woman—one from a high-ranking family. In her misery the governess was said to have interrupted the wedding, begging her beloved to take her back. When her lover—and her sons—turned their backs on her, she cursed the del Castillo family. If, in the next nine generations, the del Castillos did not learn to live by their family motto of honor, truth and love, the ninth generation would be the last. With that pronouncement, she cast both herself and the Heart’s Truth from the cliffs behind the castle and into the savage ocean. Her body was later found, but the Heart’s Truth had been lost ever since.
    Loren had always found the story to be truly tragic and, as a child, had often imagined a happier ending for the governess and her lover.
    If the curse was to be believed—not to mention previous generations’ total disregard for its power—it was responsible for the steady diminishment of the family over the past nine generations. But to believe that Alex was marrying her in an attempt to break the curse, well, that was just ridiculous. What happened three hundred years ago had no bearing on life today.
    â€œSurely you must know of it. You’re from here, after all, and the papers have been full of it, especially since the announcement of your engagement. The boys arethe ninth generation—the last of the line. Old Aston was starting to have concerns that they would stay that way. Alex is trying to downplay it but you know what his grandfather is like once he gets an idea into his head. He believes he’s even seen the governess’s ghost. Can you imagine it? Of course, Alex would move mountains to please the old man—especially if it also happened to be good for business.
    â€œAnyway, they came up with this fabulous publicity drive where they’d all get married and have babies to prove to everyone, their grandfather especially, that the curse isn’t real.”
    Giselle laughed but Loren was hard-pressed to quell the shiver that ran down her spine. Even more so when she weighed the truth in the other woman’s words. If, as she’d said, Abuelo was genuinely concerned about the curse, Alex would do anything to alleviate those concerns. It was the kind of man he was and his loyalty and love for his family were unquestionable.
    Would that loyalty and love extend to her, she wondered, or was Giselle right and was Loren merely the means to an end?
    Giselle rose from her seat and