Midnight Rider

She was terribly uncomfortable and it was showing. The breathlessness now was as much excitement as asthma, and his expression told her that he knew it.

His thumb smoothed over the back of her hand in a slow, sensuous tracing that made the breathlessness worse. “You’re far too innocent,” he said huskily. “Like a Spanish maiden cloistered with her duenna. You understand your own feelings even less than you understand mine.”

“I don’t understand anything,” she choked out.

“I realize that.” His fingers moved to her mouth and slowly, gently, traced its soft outline in a silence that throbbed with excitement and dark promise.

It was the first intimate contact she’d ever had with a man and it unnerved her. “Eduardo,” she whispered uncertainly.

His thumb pressed hard against her lips, parting them. Something flashed in his eyes as he felt her mouth tremble under the sudden rough caress of his thumb bruising the inside of her lips back against her teeth.

She gasped and he made a sound deep in his throat, somewhere between a groan and a growl.

The lace at her throat was shaking wildly. She saw his eyes go there and then, inexplicably, to her bodice. His breath drew in sharply. She looked down, curious even through her excitement, to see what had brought that sound from his lips.

She saw nothing except the sharp points of her nipples against the fabric, but why should that disturb him?

His eyes moved back up to hers. His fingers traced her chin and lifted it. His eyes fell to her soft mouth. He moved, just enough to bring him so close that she could taste the coffee scent and cigar smoke on his mouth as it hovered near hers.

She had a hold on his dark jacket. She didn’t realize how tight a hold it was until she became aware of the cool cloth in her fingers.

“Bernadette,” he whispered in a tone she’d never heard him use before. She was frozen in time, in space. She wanted his mouth to come down and cover hers. She wanted to taste it, as she’d wanted to so often in the past two years, even as she feared the change that it would bring to their turbulent relationship. But at the moment, the blood was surging through her veins and she was hungry for something she’d never known. The lack of restraint made her reckless.

Involuntarily, she leaned closer to him, her lips approaching his as she forgot all her upbringing in the heat of sudden desire.

He was tempted as he hadn’t been in many years. He was painfully tempted. But suddenly, he murmured something violent in Spanish, something she was certain he’d never have given voice if he’d suspected how fluent she was in Spanish. She’d never told him that she had learned his language, for fear of him knowing the reason—that she wanted to speak it because it was his native tongue.

He drew back, his expression curiously taut and odd. He stared at her with narrowed eyes and she flushed at her own forward, outrageous behavior and dropped her gaze to his jacket in a flurry of embarrassment.

Tension flowed between them as the sudden sound of hard shoes on tile broke the pregnant silence like pistol shots. Eduardo moved away from her to the window and grasped the thick curtain in his lean hand as Maria came through the open doorway carrying a silver tray.

She was looking at it, not at the occupants of the room, so Bernadette had a few precious seconds to compose herself. Her hands still shook badly, but she managed to clasp them in her lap while Maria put the cups and saucers along with a pitcher of cream and a sugar dish on the table against the wall. She poured thick coffee into the cups and then laid napkins and spoons beside them. By the time she brought the coffee to Bernadette, the younger woman was pale but smiling. “Thank you, Maria,” she said hoarsely, and tried to sip the hot coffee, almost burning her mouth in the process.

“This disease of the lungs is something you must be careful about, niña,” Maria said firmly. “You must take better care of yourself. Is this not so, Señor Conde?”

He turned from the window and faced them with his usual composure. “Yes, it is,” he agreed, although his voice sounded huskier than usual. “Will you stay with her, Maria?” he added curtly. “I’ll go find her father myself. There’s something I need to discuss with him.”

“Do you not want your coffee?” she asked, surprised.

“Not at the moment, graçias.” He barely glanced at Bernadette. With a courteous nod, he left the room.

“What odd behavior,” Maria murmured.

Bernadette didn’t say a word. She’d shamed herself so badly that she wondered if she’d ever be able to look Eduardo in the eye again. Why couldn’t she have controlled her wild heartbeat, her scant but rapid breathing, when he was so close? How could she have leaned so close to him, as if she were begging him to kiss her?

She groaned aloud, and Maria hovered worriedly. “I’m all right,” she assured the servant. “It’s just that...that the coffee is hot,” she said finally.

“This is so, but it will help your lungs,” Maria coaxed with a smile.

Yes, it would help the lungs. Strong black coffee often stopped an attack of asthma stone cold.

But it wasn’t going to do much for the renegade heart that was beating like a drum in her chest or the shame she’d brought on herself in a moment of ungoverned passion. Amazing that she could feel such emotions with Eduardo. He didn’t even want her. But if he didn’t, then why had he come so close, spoken so seductively? It was the first time since she’d known him that he’d ever behaved in that way with her. They fought constantly. But there were times when he had been tender with her, concerned for her, as even her own father wasn’t. But this, today, was different. He’d treated her for the first time as a woman he desired. It gave her an extraordinary feeling of power, of maturity.

She let herself dream, for a space of seconds, that he felt the same helpless attraction for her that she felt for him. Only a dream, but so sweet!

CHAPTER TWO

EDUARDO STALKED TOWARD THE barn where Maria had said Colston Barron was working. He felt sick to his stomach for the way he’d worked on Bernadette’s senses, taking advantage of her naiveté and unworldliness. She was easy prey for an experienced man. He’d turned her inside out with no trouble at all, just to see if he could. The result made his head spin. She wanted him. He was dumbfounded. Having experienced little more than open hostility from her, especially for the past two years, the knowledge of her vulnerability with him was overwhelming.

His mind was forming plans as he walked. Bernadette’s father wanted a titled son-in-law, a place in polite society that his wealth couldn’t buy for him. Bernadette was ripe for a lover. Eduardo, on the other hand, needed money badly to save his ranch. The alternative was to go on his knees to his grandmother and beg for help, something the proud old woman might not give him—without strings attached. Her favorite was his cousin Luis, a shrewd young blade with big eyes and grandiose plans who would love to see Eduardo humbled.

Eduardo’s mouth set into a thin line. He needed a rich wife. Bernadette needed a titled husband. Moreover, her father might be receptive to him. If he played his cards right, he could save his pride and his ranch. As for Bernadette, what little affection she might require he could surely force himself to give her. She was too young to know the difference between seduction and passionate love. He could make her happy. Her poor health would be a drawback, but no match was perfect. She might in time bear him a child, if the risk was not too great. He would ask only one of her, and pray that it would be a son to inherit the ranch.

He caught sight of the little Irishman talking to one of the stable hands. Colston Barron’s red hair was mussed, and his red face with its big nose was framed by ears that didn’t know to lie flat against his head. He was far from handsome and he had no real breeding. His language was punctuated with expletives, and he had little patience. But he was a fair man and he was honest, traits Eduardo had always admired in his nearest neighbor.

The Irishman turned on his bow legs when he heard Eduardo approach, going forward to greet him with an outstretched hand and a grin.

“Well, Eduardo, sure and this is a hell of a time of day to come visiting a poor working man! How are you, lad?”

“Very well, thank you,” the younger man replied. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Bernadette tells me you’re planning a ball.”

“Yes.” He glared at the house. “One last desperate attempt to get her married and off me hands. She’s twenty, you know, Eduardo, an invalid half the time, and a nuisance the rest. I have two men picked out for her. One is a German duke and the other’s an Italian count. No money, of course,” he added under his breath, “but old families and old names. She could do a hell of a lot worse, let me tell you! And there’s not a reason in the world why I shouldn’t benefit a bit from her marriage by acquiring a noble son-in-law. After all, I’ve spent a fortune keeping her alive over the years!”

The man’s insensitivity disturbed Eduardo. “She has no wish to marry a title, or so she told me,” he returned, and watched the other man fluster.

“She will damned well marry who I say,” he burst out, going redder than ever. “The little ingrate! She needn’t expect me to support her for the rest of her miserable life!”

Just for a second, Eduardo had a glimpse of what life must be like here for Bernadette, at her father’s mercy because of her illness and with no place else to go. He might not love her, but if he married her, at least she would have freedom and some measure of independence.

“Anyway—” Colston was calming a little now “—she’ll marry if I say so. She has no choice. If I throw her out, where will she go, I ask you, in her condition? Her brother has a family of his own. He can’t keep her. And it isn’t as if she could go out to work.”

Eduardo clasped his hands behind him as they walked. “These men of whom you speak—they wish to marry Bernadette?”

“Well, no,” came the reluctant reply. “I’ve promised to finance renovations for their fine estate houses and pay off their debts. Still, they’re not keen on an American wife, and a semi-invalid at that.”

Eduardo stopped walking and turned to the smaller man. “She’s not an invalid.”

“Not most of the time,” he replied, wary of the younger man’s black temper, which he’d seen a time or two. “But she has weeks when she can’t lift her head, usually in the spring and fall. She gets pneumonia every winter.” He shifted. “Damned nuisance, she is. I have to pay a nurse to watch her night and day throughout the bouts.”

Coming from a family that was tender with its invalids, Eduardo found Colston’s attitude unbelievably callous, but he held his tongue.

“I have a proposition to put to you.”

Colston held out a hand invitingly. “Please. Go right ahead, then.”

“I have a title and quite an old family name. My grandmother is a direct descendant of the family of Isabella, Queen of Spain, and we have connections to most of the royal houses of Europe, as well.”

“Why, my dear lad, of course. There isn’t a soul hereabouts that’s unaware of your lineage—even though you never speak of it.”

“There was no reason to, until now.” He didn’t add that he considered it bad manners to boast of such connections. Everyone in Valladolid County knew that he was only half Spanish, that his wife had died mysteriously and that he was a count. Despite his title, he wouldn’t be most men’s choice for a son-in-law. But Colston Barron wanted royal connections, and even if his were a bit unusual, he still had them. He stared off into the distance, aware of his neighbor’s unblinking stare. “If I married Bernadette, you would have the titled son-in-law and social acceptance you seek. On the other hand, I would have the desperately needed funds to save my ranch from bankruptcy.”

Colston was struck dumb. He just stared, breathless, mindless, at the tall man beside him. After a minute he let out the breath he was holding. “You’d marry her? Her!”

Muscles clenched all over Eduardo’s body at the way the man referred to his daughter, but he nodded.

“I’ll be damned!”

Eduardo didn’t reply. He looked down at Bernadette’s unloving father and waited.

Colston let out another rush of breath and put a hand to his forehead. “Well, this comes as a shock. I mean, you and the girl don’t even like each other. You fight all the time.”

“It would be a merger,” he pointed out, “not a love match. Bernadette will be cared for.”

“But, man, you’ll want an heir. She can’t give you a child!”

Eduardo’s brows drew together. “Why?”

“Her mother and her older sister both died in childbirth,” Colston said. “The girl is terrified of having a child. It’s the reason she fights me so hard about arranging a marriage for her. You didn’t know?”

Eduardo shook his head. He looked worried, and he was. “I assumed that she didn’t want to be forced to marry a man only because he had a title.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, I’m afraid.” Colston sighed heavily. “She’s not as frail as her mother and sister, even with her weak lungs. But she has an unnatural fear of childbirth, and with good cause. You might never be able to—” The older man stopped and coughed uncomfortably. “Well, I’m sure you understand.”

There was a long silence. It was a disappointment, but it still didn’t alter the facts. If Eduardo didn’t do something, and soon, he was going to lose Rancho Escondido for good. He could live without a son for the time being. Later on, after he had his precious heritage safe from the bankers and the courts, he could worry about Bernadette’s aversion to pregnancy.

“I would still like to marry her,” Eduardo said.

Colston was shocked and delighted. “My dear boy,” he said, grasping Eduardo’s hand to shake it fervently. “My dear boy, I can’t tell you how happy you’ve made me!”

“It won’t make her happy,” Eduardo pointed out solemnly. “And I think it would be best not to mention to her that we’ve spoken.”

“I see. You want to win her.”

Eduardo shrugged. “I will court her,” he corrected. “Formally and very correctly. There is no need to make her feel like a bargain bride in the process.”

“It won’t be easy,” Colston said. “She’s already run off one prospective suitor,” he recalled darkly. “Damned little nuisance that she is, she takes pleasure in defying me! She’s a prickly thing at best.”

Eduardo knew that, but he was remembering what had happened in the conservatory. Bernadette was vulnerable to him physically. He could play on that attraction, use it to win her. It wasn’t going to be particularly hard, either. He felt like something of a blackguard for arranging things this way, but he was running out of choices. He could never work for wages or go begging to his grandmother for money. If he lost the ranch, those would be his only choices. He would rather slit his own throat.

“What do you want me to do?” Colston asked suddenly.

“Invite me to the ball, of course,” came the dry reply. “I’ll handle the rest.”

“Done!”

* * *

BERNADETTE, TOTALLY UNAWARE of the plotting that was going on around her, got over her asthma attack and helped Maria in the kitchen.

“Ah, el conde is such a man,” Maria said, still dreamy as she made bread in the old wooden bread tray. “Such a man. And he carried you into the house in his arms.”

Bernadette colored, embarrassed. “I was faint,” she said curtly. “The pollen in my flowers had reduced me to coughing spasms that I couldn’t control.” She shifted as she stacked plates. “Besides, you know that there’s nothing between me and Eduardo. He doesn’t like me.”

“Liking is not always a necessity, señorita. Sometimes it is an obstacle.” She glanced at the other woman mischievously. “He is very handsome, is he not?”

“Compared to what?”

“Señorita!” Maria was shocked. “Surely you would find him more suited to your taste than some of these pendejos that your father invites here in the hope of marrying you off.”

Bernadette toyed with a fork. Her eyes were sad with recollections of them. “Dukes and counts and earls,” she murmured. “And not all of them lumped together would make one good man.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to be sold to some man for a title, just so my father can rub elbows with people like the Rockefellers and the Astors.” She glanced at Maria. “He doesn’t understand. You have to be born into those circles. You can’t belong to them just because you’ve got a little money. My father isn’t a cultured man. He’s what they call a jump-up. He’ll never move in the circles of high society, regardless of how well I marry. Why can’t he be happy among people who like him?”

“Always a man seeks at least one thing that he cannot have,” Maria said philosophically. “I suppose we must have dreams.”

“Yes. Even women.” She smiled thoughtfully. “You know, I’d like to be able to go to the theater unescorted, or sit in a restaurant alone, or go mountain climbing. I’d like to wear trousers and cut off my hair and work at a job.” She saw the other woman’s shocked face and laughed. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“These things,” Maria said uncomfortably, “are for men.”

“They should be for everyone. Why should men have all the rights? Why should they be able to make slaves of women? Why should they have the right to keep us from voting, from helping to make the laws that govern us? I keep all the books for my father, I tell him when to buy and when to sell, I even handle the budget. He admits that I do an excellent job as bookkeeper, but does he pay me for my work? No. Family, he says, doesn’t pay family for helping out!” She pointed a finger at Maria. “You mark my words, one day there’ll be an uprising against all this injustice.” She was getting too emotionally aroused. Her chest began to feel clogged and she started coughing.

Maria poured coffee quickly into a dainty china cup and handed it to Bernadette. “Here. Drink it. Rapidamente...rapidamente.”

Bernadette did, barely able to get several swallows down her convulsing throat. She sat and bent forward, hating the spells that kept her from being a normal woman.

“There. It is better?” Maria asked a few moments later.

“Yes.” Bernadette took a slow, careful breath and sat up. She looked at Maria ruefully. “I guess I’d better be less emotional about my ideas.”

“It might help.”

She put a hand to her chest. “I wonder how it is that Eduardo knows what to do when I have an attack?” she asked, because his careful handling of her had been puzzling.

“Because he asked me and I told him,” Maria said simply. “It disturbed him that he came upon you once in this condition and had to get your father to tend you. You remember,” she continued irritably, “your father was entertaining a friend and he was very angry that he had to be interrupted. He and el conde had words about this, although you were never told.” She shrugged. “Afterward, el conde came to me and asked what to do for you. He was furious at your father for his insensitivity.”

Bernadette’s heart jumped. “How odd. I mean, he doesn’t even like me.”

“That is not so,” Maria said with a gentle smile. “He is tender with you. It is something one notices, because he has little patience with most people. My Juan says that the other vaqueros are very careful not to annoy el conde, because his temper is something of a legend. He never seems to lose it with you.”

“That doesn’t stop him from mocking me, from being sarcastic. We argue all the time.”

“Perhaps he does it because you treat him in the same way. And he may not want you to know that he likes you.”

“Ha!”

Maria made a face at her. “All the same, he is kind to you.”

“When it suits him.” Bernadette didn’t want to think about how she’d behaved with Eduardo earlier. It embarrassed her to recall how close she’d come to begging him to kiss her. She had to make sure that they weren’t alone again. It wouldn’t do to have him pity her. Better to keep him from ever finding out how violent were her feelings for him.

* * *

HER FATHER DID NOT RETURN TO the house until long after Eduardo had left. He paused to check on the repainting of the ballroom before he joined his daughter in the living room.

Giving her a hard look, he went to pour himself a brandy. “Eduardo said you were feeling poor,” he said stiffly. He never seemed to unbend with her, as he used to with her brother. There was always distance between them.

“Yes, I was,” she replied calmly. “But as you see, I’m better now. It was only the pollen from the flowers. It bothers my lungs.”

“Along with dust, perfume, cold air and ten thousand other things,” he said coldly. He stared at her over the brandy snifter, his small eyes narrowed and calculating. “I expect you to dress appropriately for the ball. You can take the carriage and go to town. I’ll have Rudolfo drive you. Buy something expensive, something that makes you look the daughter of a wealthy man.” He waved a hand at the plain, blue calico dress she was wearing. “Something that doesn’t look homemade,” he added.

She stiffened, wishing with all her heart that she could tell him what she really thought of his treatment of her. But she had no choice at the moment. If her situation ever changed, she promised herself, this self-important little jackass was going to get an earful!

“It was you who told me to make my own clothes so that I wouldn’t be a financial burden on you, Father,” she said.

He colored. “The whole purpose of this ball is to find you a husband!”

“And you a titled son-in-law!” she said, rising to her feet with bristling fury. “So that you can mingle with the ‘right sort of people.’”

“Don’t you speak to me like that!” he said furiously.

“Then don’t you treat me like a disease you might catch!” she returned, green eyes sparkling with temper. “I can’t help it that I’ve got bad lungs, and I never asked to be born! I don’t need second sight to know that you blame me for my mother’s death!”

He took a sharp breath and seemed to grow two inches. “Sure and that’s just what you did,” he said through his teeth. “You killed her.”

“Through no fault of my own,” she replied. Her heartbeat was so rapid and forceful that it was making her whole body shake. She could barely breathe. She hated arguing. It brought on the dreaded attacks. But she wasn’t going to back down. “You won’t get her back by treating me like your worst enemy, either.”

He took a huge swallow of brandy and let out a rough sigh. “I loved her more than my own life,” he said almost to himself. “She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. I never could understand what she saw in me, but she was the very heart of me. Then you came,” he added, turning to her with eyes as cold as they had been tender when he spoke of his late wife. “And my Eloise was gone forever.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” she said.

He glared at her. “It wasn’t anyone else’s,” he retorted. He finished his brandy and put down the snifter. “Well, I may have lost my treasure, but I’ll get some satisfaction from seeing you properly wed.” He gave her a long, calculating look. “I’ve invited two European noblemen to the ball.”

“Both impoverished, no doubt,” she said mockingly.

The glare was more fierce. “They both come from fine European families and they need wives. And so help me, if you dare to embarrass me as you did the last time—blacking your teeth and wearing pants, for the love of Christ!—I will—”

“It was your own fault,” she interrupted with more courage than she actually felt. It didn’t do to show weakness to this man. “You can tell your new candidates that they needn’t look for a wife here,” she said stubbornly.

“They can and they will. You’ll marry who I say,” he told her in an uncompromising tone. “You can rant and rave all you like, but you’ll do it! Otherwise,” he added harshly, “I’ll put you out, so help me, I will!”