Midnight Rider

“I went to the ceremony,” Bernadette continued. “I felt so sorry for her. She was in tears at her own wedding, but her father was strutting. Her new husband was a member of the old French nobility, the part that didn’t die in the Revolution and was later restored to its former glory.”

“Did she learn to accept this match?” he probed.

Her eyes clouded. “She hurled herself overboard on the ship taking them to France,” she said, and shivered. “Her body washed up on shore several days later. They said her father went mad afterward. She was his only child, and his wife was long dead. I felt sorry for him, but nobody else did.”

Eduardo smoked his cigar and stared at the muddy water of the stream. There had been a good rain the day before, and the ground was soaked. He felt oddly betrayed by what he’d heard. He wondered why Bernadette’s father had such a quick change of heart. Perhaps he realized that Eduardo wouldn’t be easily led in business, or perhaps he felt that a man who was half Spanish wasn’t the sort of connection he wanted to have. It stung Eduardo to think that Colston might feel he wasn’t good enough to marry his daughter.

“I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you,” she said after a long silence had fallen between them.

He gave her a level look. “You haven’t,” he said. “Why does your father care so little about your happiness, Bernadette?”

She glanced away, her gaze resting on the river. “I thought you must have heard long ago. My mother died having me,” she said. “He’s blamed me ever since for killing her.”

He made a rough sound in his throat. “What nonsense! God decides matters of life and death.”

She turned her gaze back on him. “My father doesn’t believe in Him, either,” she said with resignation. “He lost his faith along with my mother. All he believes in now is making money and getting a title in the family.”

“What a desolate, bitter life.”

She nodded.

He thought she looked very neat in her riding habit. Her hair was carefully pinned so that the wind barely had disarranged it. He’d always liked the way she sat a horse, too. His late wife could ride sidesaddle, but she could barely stay on. Bernadette rode like a cowboy.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked suddenly.

A corner of his mouth turned up. “Looking for strays. I can’t afford the loss of a single calf in my present financial situation.”

She frowned slightly. “Your mother married a millionaire, didn’t she?”

His eyes flickered, and his face went taut. “I don’t discuss my mother.”

She held up a hand. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that I thought since she got the ranch into its present difficulties with her spending, she might be willing to make amends.”

He didn’t soften. “She wouldn’t lift a finger to save it, or me,” he said coldly. “She held my father in contempt because he wouldn’t let her give lavish parties and have a houseful of guests staying for the summer. She drove him to such despair that he died...of a broken heart, I think, but I was young, only eight,” he mused, a terrible look in his eyes as he remembered the scene all too vividly. “My mother was with her latest lover at the time, so I was sent to Spain to live with my grandmother in Granada. When I was old enough, I came back here to reclaim my father’s legacy.” He shook his head. “I had no idea what a struggle it was going to be. Not that knowing would have stopped me,” he added.

She was fascinated by this glimpse at something very personal in his life. “They say that your great-grandfather built the ranch on an old Spanish land grant.”

“So he did,” he replied.

“Did your mother love your father?”

He shrugged. “She loved jewelry and parties and scandal,” he said through his teeth. “Embarrassing my father was her greatest pleasure in life. She adored notoriety.” He stared at her. “Your father said that your elder sister, as well as your mother, died in childbirth.”

Uncomfortable, she averted her eyes. Her hands clenched on the mare’s bridle. “Yes.”

He moved closer. “He also said that you’re afraid of it.”

Her eyes closed. She laughed without mirth. “Afraid? I’m terrified. It’s why I don’t want to marry. I don’t want to die.” It was true. Even her daydreams about Eduardo always ended with a chaste kiss, nothing more. Oddly, it didn’t occur to her to wonder why her father should have told him such a personal thing about the family.

Eduardo was studying her. She was slight, yes, he thought, but she had wide hips and she was sturdy. Surely the asthma would be infinitely more dangerous than her build in the matter of childbirth.

“Not every woman has a hard time with childbirth,” he said. “My late wife was much thinner than you, Bernadette, and she had an easy labor.”

She didn’t like talking about his wife. Her hand let go of the bridle. “I’ll bet she didn’t have a mother and a sister who both died that way.”

“She was an only child. Her mother is still alive.”

She turned, glancing at him. “Do you ever see her?”

He shook his head curtly.

“But, why?”

He didn’t want to talk about this, but it was unavoidable. Bernadette drew information out of him that no one else could have. “She was...put away.”

Her eyes widened. “Put away?”

“Yes.” A terrible look came into his eyes. “She’s quite mad.”

Her intake of breath was audible. “Heavens!”

He looked down at her. “Go ahead. Ask me,” he challenged when he saw her hesitation. “Surely you don’t mean to stop before you find out if my wife was deranged, as well?”

Her gaze fell before the anger in his. “I’m sorry. I don’t have the right to ask you such a thing.”

“When has that ever held you back?”

She colored. “Sorry,” she murmured again, and moved to remount the mare.

His lean hand caught her just as she lifted her foot toward the stirrup. He turned her and then let his hand fall. His eyes searched hers. “Consuela was quiet and introspective and very dignified,” he said at last. “If there was madness in her, it only surfaced once. And about that, I never speak,” he added tersely.

“Did you love her?” she asked with soft, curious eyes.

“I married her because my grandmother chose her for me, Bernadette,” he replied. His chin went up. “It was to be a merging of fortunes, a family alliance. Sadly, I had little of my father’s fortune left, and none of my mother’s. Consuela’s family had suffered devastating losses at their vineyards because of drought and a disastrous fire that killed the vines. Both families saw in me a way to mend the old fortunes. But there was too much against me.”

She wanted to comfort him, but she couldn’t think of a dignified way to do it. “How...how awful,” she said. “I guess the ranch means a lot to you.”

“It’s all that I have left of my own.”

“You’d do anything to save it, wouldn’t you?” she asked in a subdued tone.

“Not anything,” he said, and realized that it was true. He wasn’t going to pretend to be in love with Bernadette to get her to marry him. “Although a good marriage would probably save me from bankruptcy,” he added with faint insinuation.

She touched the saddle with a nervous hand. “Do you have a candidate in mind?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. That, at least, was the truth. “Here, let me help you mount.”

He assisted her into the saddle and rested his hand just beside her thigh while he looked up at her thoughtfully.

“Don’t come here alone again,” he cautioned. “There are bad men in the world, and you aren’t strong.”

She lifted the reins in her gloved hand. “Teddy Roosevelt had asthma as a child, you know,” she said. “He went to Cuba with his own regiment and fought bravely, and now he’s governor of New York State.”

“You’re thinking of following in his footsteps?”

She glanced down at him and chuckled softly. “No, I didn’t mean that. I only meant that if he could overcome such an illness, perhaps I can, too.”

“Nothing mends weak lungs,” he said. “You must take care of yourself.”

“I won’t need to do that. My father has chosen two impoverished noblemen to do it for me.”

He studied her thoughtfully. “Don’t let him push you into anything you don’t want,” he said, suddenly vehement. “Life is far too short to be tied to a mate with whom you have nothing in common.”

“Fine words coming from you,” she shot back. “You let yourself be railroaded into marriage.”

His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t see it that way. I stand to inherit a fortune at my grandmother’s death, all the family lands and vineyards in Andalusia and my grandmother’s share of an inheritance. It was thought that an alliance with Consuela’s family would simply increase the inheritance for our children and therefore ensure the future prosperity of the entire family. But these days my grandmother looks with more favor on my cousin Luis, who also married to please her and who has a son.”

She stared at him blankly. “Would it hurt you to lose her money?”

He seemed hard at that moment, harder than she’d ever seen him.

“Not at all, if I could save my ranch. If I can’t, I might end up as a vaquero working for wages.” His eyes went dead. “I’d rather steal food than beg for it. An advantageous marriage would spare me that, at least.”

She was mildly shocked. “I never thought of you as an opportunist.”

He laughed coldly. “I’m not, as a rule. But lately I’ve become a realist,” he corrected.

“If you loved someone...”

“Love is a myth,” he said harshly, “a fairy tale that mothers tell their children. My grandmother told me that my parents weren’t in love while they lived together. I was fond of my wife, but I had no more love for her than she had for me. If you want to know what I think of as love, Bernadette, it has more to do with bedrooms than wedding bands.”

She gasped and put her hand to her throat. “Eduardo!”

His eyebrows levered up. “Don’t you know what I’m talking about, or are you as green as you look?”

“You shouldn’t speak of such things to me!”

“Why not? You’re twenty.” His eyes narrowed. “Haven’t you ever felt the fires burn inside you with a man? Haven’t you ever wanted to know what happens in the dark between a man and a woman?”

“No!”

He smiled mockingly. “Then your father is truly hoping for a miracle if he means to wed you to European nobility. You will be expected to do your duty, of course. A man needs a son to inherit the title. Or didn’t that thought occur?”

“I can’t... I won’t...have a child!” she said, shaken.

“Then what use are you to a titled nobleman?”

“As much use as I am to my father,” she agreed. “Absolutely none. But he won’t stop matchmaking.”

“Won’t he?” His eyes averted to the horizon thoughtfully. “Perhaps he will, after all.”

“Don’t tell me—you’ve come up with a way to save me!”

He chuckled. “I might have, at that.” He studied her curiously. “But you might think you’ve given up the frying pan for the fire.”

“How so?”

He put a hand on her thigh and watched her squirm and struggle to remove it.

“I want you,” he said curtly. “An alliance between us could solve my problems and your own.”

She colored. “You...want...me?”

“Yes.” He caught her gloved hand in his and held it tightly. “You knew it that day in the conservatory when we stared at each other so blatantly. You know it now. Perhaps it’s a less than honorable reason for two people to marry—that you need saving from a cold marriage and I need saving from bankruptcy. But in my house, Bernadette, at least you’d be independent.”

“And you would save your inheritance.” She eyed him curiously. “You know that I’m the bookkeeper for our ranch, don’t you, and that I can budget to the bone?”

He smiled slowly. “Maria sings your praises constantly. And even your father has to admit that you manage his affairs admirably.” His black eyes narrowed. “Your quick mind with figures would be an asset to me as well, Bernadette. And the fact that I find you desirable is a bonus.”

She watched him with renewed interest. “You didn’t have to ask me this way,” she said, thinking out loud. “You could have courted me and pretended to be in love with me to get me to marry you, and I’d never have known the difference.”

“Yes, I could have,” he agreed at once. “But I’d have known the difference. That’s a low, vile thing for any man to do, even to save his livelihood.” He let go of her hand. “I offer you an alliance of friends and a slaking of passions, when,” he added wickedly, “you have the courage to invite me into your bed. There are advantages and disadvantages. Weigh them carefully and let me know what you decide. But decide soon,” he added intently. “There isn’t much time.”

“I promise you, I’ll think about it,” she said, trying to suppress her delight.

He nodded. He smiled at her. “It might not be so bad,” he mused. “I have a way with women, and you need someone to make you take care of yourself, as well as independence from your father. It could be a good marriage.”

“I’d still be a bargain bride,” she pointed out, despite her embarrassment at his bluntness.

“With a Spanish master,” he murmured, and grinned. “But I promise to be patient.”

She colored again. “You wicked man!”

“One day,” he told her after he’d mounted his own horse, laughing softly, “you may be glad of that. Adiós, Bernadette!”

CHAPTER FOUR

BERNADETTE WAS OVER THE MOON about Eduardo’s incredible proposition, but now she had to find a way to implement it. Her father wasn’t even considering Eduardo anymore.

He still wanted a European nobleman for Bernadette, and he wasn’t going to quit until he had one. She gave up worrying about it and concentrated on finding ways and means to marry herself to the man she loved—although he’d admitted that he didn’t love her. Surely she loved him enough for both of them.

Meanwhile, her father’s two candidates had arrived, bag and baggage, along with several members of prominent families who were staying with the Barrons until the ball. The Culhanes had backed out at the last minute, apologetic about having some problems close to home that had to be addressed. They sent their regrets, but everyone else showed up.

Bernadette was already having problems with the German nobleman. Klaus Branner liked the looks of Bernadette and he became her shadow. He was in his late forties, blond and paunchy and shorter than she. The Italian was volatile and found Bernadette not at all to his liking, so he spent most of his time with her father, talking about guns and hunting.

Bernadette resented having to fight off the advances of the German, but her father made it clear that he wasn’t going to intervene.

“Eduardo doesn’t want you, he’s made that perfectly clear by his absence,” her father said doggedly when she complained about the amorous duke. He made a helpless gesture with his hand and wouldn’t look at her plaintive expression. “You’ll get...used to it,” he said stiffly, and went to rejoin his Italian friend.

But Bernadette didn’t get used to it. And it got worse. One day, the day before the ball, in fact, the German duke maneuvered Bernadette behind the Chinese screen in the living room and put his pudgy hands on her breasts.

She kicked him in the shin hard enough to make him cry out, and then she ran for the safety of her locked bedroom, weeping copiously with rage and the horrible revulsion she felt.

No longer could she bear the disgusting advances of her prospective bridegroom. If her own father wouldn’t defend her, there was nothing left to do except run away.

She dressed in her riding habit and boots, drew a blanket from the dresser and went out the window of her room. Casting a watchful eye around, in case her pursuer was anywhere nearby, she eased into the kitchen where Maria was working on the noon meal.

“Niña!” Maria exclaimed when she confronted her mistress dressed for the trail and carrying a colorful serape. “What are you up to?”

“Pack me something to eat, and very quickly, please. I’m running away,” she said firmly.

Maria’s black eyebrows lifted. “But you cannot! Not alone! Please, speak to your father!”

“I did speak to him,” she said through trembling lips. “He said I’d get used to having that repulsive Branner man fondle me! I won’t, I tell you! He’s put his pudgy hands on me for the last time! I’m leaving!”

“But it is so dangerous!”

“Staying here is more dangerous,” Bernadette said. “I will not be harassed and treated like a woman of the streets by that horrible man while my father stands by and does nothing! If I don’t go, I’ll shoot him! Please pack me something to eat, and hurry, Maria, before they catch me!”

Maria mumbled worriedly in Spanish, but she did as she was asked, wrapping a piece of cold chicken and a hunk of bread, all that was left from the last meal, in a cloth and stuffing them into a saddlebag, along with a jar of canned peaches. “So little. You will starve long before night falls.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be much safer among the snakes and cactus than I will here with that German octopus!” Bernadette hugged Maria affectionately and cautiously crossed to the stable. She made the confused stable boy saddle her horse, looking around warily for anyone who might want to stop her.

Once she was in the saddle, she headed quickly for the nearby mountains, where she could hide in safety. She had no gun, but hopefully she wouldn’t need one. If she could hide out for two or three days, just long enough to frighten her father, she might get her point across. Public opinion would not be favorable to a man who sent his unhappy daughter running into the wilds of Texas to escape an unwanted suitor!

She rode until the skies began to go purple and red in late afternoon, then she stopped her mount by a small stream under some trees and unsaddled her horse, careful to tether him so that he wouldn’t wander during the night.

She did know how to build a campfire, and it was a necessary skill here in the desert country where nights could be freezing. She used her saddle for a pillow and the saddle blanket for a bed, with her colorful serape for cover. It was going to be a very uncomfortable night, but she could bear it. Anything was preferable to having that repulsive man pawing her!

But if it was easy to contemplate a night in the desert, it was harder to endure it. She knew that bandits often raided isolated camps. She had no money, but she was easily recognizable to people in the area as the daughter of its most wealthy local citizen. She could be kidnapped and held for ransom—or worse. She shivered at the thought of dirty, greedy hands on her body.

She sat looking into the flames, shivering and wondering where her mind had been for her to consider such a reckless plan of action. She jumped at every noise she heard. It was the first time she’d ever been completely alone in her life, and it was unnerving as she sat and thought of all the things that could happen to her because of her folly. The very worst was considering what might happen to her if she had an attack out here, in the middle of nowhere. She had nothing to stop one, not even coffee.

She thought of Eduardo and what he’d said to her, about the two of them conspiring to arrange their own marriage. It was the best chance she had to escape her father’s plans for her. But it frightened her a little to think of Eduardo intimately. He would need a son. It seemed to be almost a mania with men. What if she could never steel herself to sleep with him? Would he still be willing to marry her with that threat hanging over them?

* * *

WHILE SHE WAS SITTING ALONE IN the desert by her campfire, freezing under the light blanket and deliberating about her misery, something quite different was going on back at the ranch.

Eduardo had arrived, intending to see Colston Barron and put the proposition of marrying Bernadette to him one more time. If the man refused, he could simply elope with his intended bride. Possession was, after all, nine-tenths of the law, and Bernadette was willing.

The ranch owner was in his study with a slight, dark man and a heavyset older one, and they were examining a fowling piece when Eduardo was shown in by Maria.

“Well, Eduardo!” Colston said, nonplussed. “I wasn’t expecting you. You haven’t been to see us in such a long time that I thought you’d put us right out of your life, lad!”

Eduardo glanced at the small, younger man and then at the German with barely concealed contempt. Having had a brief conversation with Maria already, he was infuriated by Colston’s lack of action on Bernadette’s behalf.

“I came to ask a question, but it can wait. Are you aware,” Eduardo continued in a cold, quiet tone, “that Bernadette has run away?”

The little Irishman’s eyes almost popped out of his round face. “She’s...what?”

“Run away,” Eduardo repeated. “Maria says she’s been gone for the better part of an hour. Didn’t you know?”

Colston colored. “Well, no.”

“And I suppose her reason is as vague to you as her absence?” he added, glaring daggers at the German nobleman, who colored with embarrassment.

Colston cleared his throat. “Never mind that. Where do you think she’s gone?”

“Probably to the mountains,” Eduardo said through his teeth. “And a rancher nearby has just had cattle stolen by a group of outlaws. It is not a good time for Bernadette to be alone and unprotected, especially in her weakened physical condition!”

Colston felt like going through the floor. His inadequacies were being paraded like horses before his honored guests. His fists clenched. “I’ll have one of my men go and look for her at once,” he said.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Eduardo returned, his temper aroused and evident. “If you don’t care enough to look for her yourself, don’t bother. I’ll find her and bring her back!”

Colston wavered between relief and indignation. “I appreciate your help, lad, but my daughter is no concern of yours—”

“Or of yours, apparently.” Eduardo’s onyx eyes were snapping. “What a hell of a pity that a young woman can’t escape being molested in her own home!”

“Now, see here!” Colston began.

“Who is this crude upstart?” the German demanded in his thickly accented English.

Eduardo moved toward him with a lithe, steady gait that was intimidating enough to make the shorter, more rotund foreign nobleman back up a step. “I’ll tell you who I am,” Eduardo said with ice dripping from every syllable. “I’m a friend of the family. And if you’re still here when I bring Bernadette home, you’ll wish you weren’t.”

With a final glare at Colston, he turned and strode angrily out the door.

Colston swallowed and then swallowed again. The Italian, who hadn’t said a word, smiled ruefully.

“I think that your daughter will not marry either of us, signore,” the Italian mused, “if that man has his way.”

“I no longer wish to marry her,” Herr Branner said gruffly, scrambling to save his wounded ego. “She is cold. She has no spark. Such a woman would drive a man mad.” He bowed to Colston formally. “If you will provide a buggy and one of your men to drive me to the station, Herr Barron, I will make my departure. Sadly, I must tell you that I cannot remain for your ball.”

He clicked his heels and was gone before Colston could think of a word to say to stop him.

“Since I have no wish to marry your daughter, either, I might as well go with him,” Maretti said with a chuckle. “I would enjoy the ball, but not under the circumstances. May I extend my congratulations and my condolences to you on your daughter’s forthcoming marriage. I believe you will find your prospective son-in-law something of a trial.”

Colston’s only consolation was that Eduardo had connections to European royalty, and the man had been, after all, his first choice. It amazed him that Eduardo should deliberately stay away for weeks and then suddenly arrive at the worst possible time. On the other hand, his vehemence on Bernadette’s behalf was quite encouraging. All might not be lost.