Diana Palmer delivers a tale of two unlikely lovers in turn-of-the-century Texas who are about to find love where they least expect it....

Count Eduardo Cortes’s fortune—and future at his beloved ranch—are in question. Tragedy, money woes and family pressure are now driving him toward a marriage of convenience. That is, until he encounters Bernadette Barron, wandering frightened and disheveled after a society ball....

Beneath the grime, it’s clear Bernadette is beautiful and rich. But is she just another heartbreak waiting to happen or has Eduardo finally found the one woman who can save his ranch and heal his heart? The Spanish count can provide Bernadette with the title she needs—but can he return her feelings?

Gazing into her husband’s penetrating eyes, Bernadette sees not only his calculating ways but also his quick arousal to passion. Will their growing desire be enough to overcome the mounting challenges they face...and claim the love she will not be denied?

Praise for New York Times bestselling author

Diana Palmer

“Palmer demonstrates, yet again, why she’s the queen of desperado quests for justice and true love.”

—Publisher’s Weekly on Dangerous

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel,

a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly...heartwarming.”

—Publishers Weekly on Renegade

“Sensual and suspenseful.”

—Booklist on Lawless

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller

who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to

delivering pure, undiluted romance. I love her stories.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

Midnight Rider

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

Southwestern Texas, 1900

IN ALL THE WORLD THERE WAS nothing Bernadette Barron loved more than her garden, despite the asthma that sometimes sent her running from it in the spring months. There were plenty of flowers in southwestern Texas, and many occasions to fill her father’s elaborate Victorian home with them. Colston Barron owned at least half of Valladolid County, which was midway between the prosperous city of San Antonio and the smaller city of Del Rio on the Mexican border.

He had done extremely well for an Irish immigrant who got his start working on building the railroads. Now, thirty-three years after his arrival in the United States, he owned two. He had money to burn, but little family to spend it on.

Despite his wealth, there was one thing still lacking in his life—acceptance and respect from elite society. His rude Irish brogue and lack of conventional manners isolated him from the prominent families of the day, a situation he was determined to change. And Bernadette was going to be the means of it.

His beloved wife, Eloise, had died of an infection just after giving birth to Bernadette. His eldest daughter had died in childbirth. His only son, married with a small child, lived back East, worked as a fisherman and kept contact with his father to a minimum. Albert was in disgrace because he’d married for love, refusing the social match his father had planned for him. Only Bernadette was left at home now. Her brother could barely support his own small family, so running to him was not an option unless she was able to work, which was impossible because her health was too precarious to allow her to hold down a job such as teaching. Meanwhile, she had to cope with her father’s fanatical social aspirations.

It wasn’t that Bernadette didn’t want to marry, eventually. She had her own dreams of a home and family. But her father wanted to choose her husband on the basis of his social prominence. Wealth alone would not do. Colston Barron was determined to marry off Bernadette to a man with a title or, if he were an American, to a man of immense social prestige. His first choice, a British duke, had been a total loss. The impoverished nobleman was willing enough. Then he was introduced to Bernadette, who had appeared at the first meeting, for reasons known only to herself and God, in her brother’s tattered jeans, a dirty shirt, with two of her teeth blackened with wax and her long, beautiful platinum hair smeared with what looked like axle grease. The duke had left immediately, excusing himself with the sudden news of an impending death in the family. Although how he could have known of it in this isolated region of southwest Texas...

All Colston’s mad raving hadn’t made Bernadette repent. She was not, she informed him saucily, marrying any man for a title! Her brother had left some of his old clothes at the ranch and Bernadette wasn’t a bit averse to dressing like a madwoman anytime her father brought a marriage prospect home. Today, though, she was off her guard. In a blue-checked dress with her platinum-blond hair in its familiar loose bun and her green eyes soft with affection for the roses she was tending, she didn’t seem a virago at all. Not to the man watching her unseen from his elegant black stallion.

All at once she felt as if she were being watched...scrutinized...by a pair of fierce, dark eyes. His eyes, of course. Amazing, she thought, how she always seemed to sense him, no matter how quietly he came upon her.

She got to her feet and turned, her high cheekbones flushed, her pale green eyes glittering at the elegant black-clad man in his working clothes—jeans and boots and chaps, a chambray shirt under a denim jacket, his straight black hair barely visible under a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face from the hot sun.

“Shall I curtsey, your excellence?” she asked, throwing down the gauntlet with a wicked smile. There was always a slight antagonism between them.

Eduardo Rodrigo Ramirez y Cortes gave her a mocking nod of his head and a smile from his thin, cruel-looking mouth. He was as handsome as a dark angel, except for the slash down one cheek, allegedly garnered in a knife fight in his youth. He was thirty-six now, sharp-faced, olive-skinned, black-eyed and dangerous.

His father, a titled Spanish nobleman, had been dead for many years. His mother, a beautiful blonde San Antonio socialite, was in New York with her second husband. Eduardo had no more inherited his mother’s looks than he had absorbed her behavior and temperament. He was in all ways Spanish. To the workers on his ranch he was El Jefe, the patron or boss. In Spain, he was El Conde, a count whose relatives could be found in all the royal families across Europe. To Bernadette, he was the enemy. Well, sometimes he was. She fought with him to make sure that he didn’t realize what she really felt for him—emotions that had been harder these past two years to conceal than ever.

“If you’re looking for my father, he’s busy thinking of rich San Antonio families to invite to his ball a month from next Saturday evening,” she informed him, silently seething. From the shadow his brim made on his lean face, the black glitter of his eyes was just visible. He looked her over insolently for such a gentleman and then dismissively, as if he found nothing to interest him in her slender but rounded figure and small breasts. His late wife, she recalled, although a titled Spanish lady of high quality, had been nothing less than voluptuous. Bernadette had tried to gain weight so that she could appeal to him more, but her slender frame refused to add pounds despite her efforts.

“He has hopes of an alliance with a titled European family,” Eduardo replied. “Have you?”

“I’d rather take poison,” she said quietly. “I’ve already sent one potential suitor running for the border, but my father won’t give up. He’s planning a ball to celebrate his latest railroad acquisition—but more because he’s found another two impoverished European noblemen to throw at my feet.”

She took a deep breath and coughed helplessly until she was able to get her lungs under control. The pollen sometimes affected her. She hated showing her weakness to Eduardo.

He crossed his forearms over the pommel of his saddle and leaned forward. “A garden is hardly a good place for an asthmatic,” he pointed out.

“I like flowers.” She took a frilled, embroidered handkerchief from her belt and held it to her mouth. Her eyes above it were green and hostile. “Why don’t you go home and flog your serfs?” she retorted.

“I don’t have serfs. Only loyal workers who tend my cattle and watch over my house.” He ran a hand slowly over one powerful thigh while he studied her with unusual interest. “I thought your father had given up throwing you at every available titled man.”

“He hasn’t run out of candidates yet.” She sighed and looked up at him with more of her concern showing than she realized. “Lucky you, not to be on the firing line.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, you’re titled, aren’t you?”

He laughed softly. “In a sense.”

“You’re a count, el conde,” she persisted.

“I am. But your father knows that I have had no wish to marry since I lost my son. And my wife,” he added bitterly.

“Well, it’s reassuring that you don’t want to get married again,” she said.

She knew little of his tragedy except that for a space of days after it, the “ice man” had become a local legend for his rage, which was as majestic as his bloodlines. Grown men had hidden from him. On one occasion Bernadette had encountered him when he was dangerously intoxicated and wildly waving a revolver.... No one knew exactly what had happened, except that Eduardo had come home to find his infant son dead. His wife had died suddenly soon afterward of a gunshot wound to the head. No arrest had ever been made, no charges brought. Eduardo never spoke of what had happened, but inevitably there were whispers that he had blamed his wife for the child’s death, and that he had killed her. Looking at him now she could almost believe him capable of murder. He was as hard a man as she’d ever known, and one she judged to be merciless when he had reason to become angry. He rarely lost his temper overtly, but his icy manner was somehow more threatening than yelling.

She herself had seen him shoot a man with cold nerve, a drunken cowboy in town who’d come at him with pistols blazing.

Eduardo hadn’t even bothered to duck. He stood in a hail of bullets and calmly took aim and fired. The man went down, wounded but not dead, and he was left at the doctor’s office. Eduardo had been nicked in the arm and refused Bernadette’s offer of first aid. Such a scratch, he’d said calmly, was hardly worth a fuss.

She had hoped against hope that her father might one day consider making a match for her with this man. Eduardo was the very reason her heart beat. Just the thought of those hard, cool hands on her bare skin made her tingle all over. But an alliance between the families had never been discussed. Her father had looked only to Europe for her prospective bridegrooms, not closer to home.

“You have no wish to marry?” he asked suddenly.

The question caught her unaware. “I have bad lungs,” she said. “And I’m not even pretty. My father has money, which makes me very eligible, but only to fortune-seekers.” She twisted a fold of her skirt unconsciously in her slender, pretty hands. “I want to be worth more than that.”

“You want to be loved.”

Shock brought her eyes up. How had he known that? He did know. It was in his face.

“Love is a rare and often dangerous thing,” he continued carelessly. “One does well to avoid it.”

“I’ve been avoiding it successfully all my life,” she agreed with smothered humor.

His eyes narrowed. Still watching her, he pulled a thin black cigar from a gold-plated case in his jacket. He replaced the case deftly, struck a match to light the cigar and threw the spent match into the dust with careless grace. “All your life,” he murmured. “Twenty years. You must have been ten when your family moved here,” he added thoughtfully. “I remember your first ride on horseback.”

She did, too. The horse had pitched her over its head into a mud puddle. Eduardo had found her there, dazed. Ignoring the mud that covered her front liberally, he’d taken her up in the saddle before him and delivered her to her father.

She nodded uncomfortably. “You were forever finding me in embarrassing situations.” She didn’t even want to remember the last one....

“His name was Charles, wasn’t it?” he asked, as if he’d read her mind, and he smiled mockingly.

She glared at him. “It could have happened to anyone! Buggy horses do run away, you know!”

“Yes. But that horse had the mark of a whip clearly on its flank. And the ‘gentleman’ in question had you flat on your back, struggling like a landed fish, and your dress—”

“Please!” She held a hand to her throat, horribly embarrassed.

His eyes went to her bodice with a smile that chilled her. He’d seen more than her corset. Charles had roughly exposed her small breasts from beneath her thin muslin chemise and Eduardo had had a vivid glimpse of them before she struggled to get them covered again. Charles had barely had time to speak before el conde was on him.

In a very rare display of rage, the usually calm and collected Eduardo had knocked the younger man around with an utter disregard for his family’s great wealth until the son of the shipping magnate was bleeding and begging on his knees for mercy. He’d headed for town, walking fast, and he hadn’t been seen again. Naturally, Bernadette’s father had been given a very smoothed-over explanation for Charles’s absence and her own ruffled state. He’d accepted it, even if he hadn’t believed it. But it hadn’t stopped him from throwing titled men at her.

“Your father is obsessed,” Eduardo murmured, taking a puff from the cigar and letting it out angrily. “He puts you at risk.”

“If I’d had my pistol, Mr. Charles Ramsey would have been lying on the ground with a bullet in him!”

He only smiled. To his knowledge, Bernadette couldn’t even load a gun, much less shoot one. He smoked his cigar in silence as he studied her. “Did you ever hear from the unfortunate Charles again?” he asked abruptly.

“Not one word.” She searched his hard, lean face and remembered graphically how it had looked when he hit Charles. “You were frightening.”

“Surely not to you.”

“You’re so controlled most of the time,” she said, underscoring the words “most of the time.”

Something moved in his face, something indefinable. “Any man is capable of strong passion. Even me.”

The way he was looking at her made her heart skip. Unwelcome thoughts came into her mind, only to be banished immediately. They were too disturbing to entertain. She looked away and asked, “Are you coming to the ball?”

“If I’m invited,” he said easily.

Her eyebrows arched. “Why wouldn’t you be? You’re one of the upper class that my father so envies.”

His laughter was cold. “Me? I’m a half-breed, don’t you remember?” He shifted in the saddle. “My grandmother can’t make a match for me in Spain because my wife died under mysterious circumstances and I’m staring poverty in the face. In my own way, I have as few opportunities for marriage as you do.”

She hadn’t thought of it that way. “You’re titled.”

“Of course,” he conceded. “But only in Spain, and I have no plans to live there.” He was looking at her, but now his mind was working on the problem of bankruptcy, which was staring him in the face. His late father had made a fortune, but his profligate mother had thrown it away. She had drained the financial resources of the ranch, and since he’d come of age Eduardo had been hard-pressed to keep it solvent. Only his mother’s marriage to some minor millionaire in New York had stopped her from bleeding the ranch dry. She had forfeited her inheritance the day she remarried, but the damage had already been done.

Eduardo stared down at Bernadette and wheels turned in his mind. Her father was rich. He wanted a titled son-in-law. Eduardo was upper class, despite his mixed ancestry. Perhaps... Bernadette sighed heavily, smothering another cough. “At least you’ll never have to worry about being married for your father’s money.”

“And this idea of marrying a title and a respected name has no appeal at all for you?” he asked slowly.

“None,” she said honestly. She grimaced. “I’m so tired of being on display, like a bargain that my father’s offering for sale!” she said, drawing in a long, labored breath. She coughed suddenly, aware of a renewed tightness in her chest. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been among her flowers, with their potent quantities of pollen. “I have to go in,” she said as the cough came again. “The flowers smell wonderful, but they bother my lungs when I spend too much time with them.”

He scowled. “Then why are you out here?”

She coughed once again. “The house...my father has men repainting the ballroom. The paint bothers me.”

“Then going inside the front of the house is hardly a solution, is it?”

She tried to clear her throat enough to answer him, but thick mucus was all but choking her.

Eduardo threw his cigar down and swung gracefully out of the saddle. Seconds later, he lifted her into his arms.

“Eduardo!” she cried, shocked at the unaccustomed familiarity, the strength and hard warmth of those arms around her. She could see his eyes far too closely, feel his warm breath at her temple, touch, if she wished, the hard, cruel curve of his beautiful mouth....

“Calmarte,” he murmured softly, searching her taut face. “I mean only to take you in through the kitchen to the conservatory. There are no blooming plants there to cause you discomfort.” He shook her gently. “Put your arms around my neck, Bernadette. Don’t lie like a log against me.”

She shivered and obeyed him, secretly all but swooning at the pure joy of being so close to him. He smelled of leather and exotic cologne, a secret, intimate smell that wasn’t noticeable at a distance. Oddly, it didn’t disturb her lungs as some scents did.

She laid her cheek gingerly against his shoulder and closed her eyes with a tiny sigh that she hoped he wouldn’t hear. It was all of heaven to be carried by him. She hadn’t dreamed of such an unexpected pleasure coming to her out of the blue.

His strong, hard arms seemed to contract for an instant. Then, all too soon, they reached the kitchen. He put her down, opened the door and coaxed her through it. Maria was in the kitchen making a chicken dish for the midday meal. She glanced up, flustered, to see their landed neighbor inside her own kitchen, with his hat respectfully in his hand.

“Señor Conde! What an honor!” Maria gasped.

“I am only Mr. Ramirez, Maria,” he said with an affectionate smile.

She made a gesture. “You are el conde to me. My son continues to please you with his work, I hope?”

“Your son is a master with unbroken horses,” he said in rare praise. “I am fortunate to have him at the rancho.”

“He is equally fortunate to serve you, Señor Conde.”

Obviously, Eduardo thought, he wasn’t destined to have much luck in persuading Maria to stop using his title.

Bernadette tried to smile, but the cough came back, worse than ever.

“Ay, ay, ay,” Maria said, shaking her head. “Again, it is the flowers, and I fuss and fuss but you will not listen!”

“Strong coffee, Maria, black and strong,” Eduardo instructed. “You will bring it to the conservatory, yes? And then inform Señor Barron that I am here?”

“But of course! He is in the barn with a new foal, but he will return shortly.”

“Then I will find him myself, once I have made Bernadette comfortable. I am pressed for time.” He took Bernadette’s arm and propelled her down the long, tiled hall to a sunny room where green plants, but no flowering ones, grew in profusion and a water garden flourished in its glassed-in confines.

She sat down with her face in her hands, struggling to breathe.

He muttered something and knelt before her, his hands capturing hers. “Breathe slowly, Bernadette. Slowly.” His hands pressed hers firmly. “Try not to panic. It will pass, as it always does.”

She tried, but it was an effort. Her tired eyes met his and she was surprised again at the concern there. How very odd that her enemy seemed at times like her best friend. And how much more odd that he seemed to know exactly what to do for her asthma. She said it aloud without thinking.

“Yes, we do fight sometimes, don’t we?” he murmured, searching her face. “But the wounds always heal.”

“Not all of them.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“You say harsh things when you’re angry,” she reminded him, averting her eyes.

“And what have I said, most recently, that piques you?”

She shifted restlessly, unwilling to recall the blistering lecture she’d received from him after her unfortunate ride with Charles.

He tilted her face back to his. “Tell me.”

“You can’t remember?” she asked mutinously.

“I said that you had no judgment about men,” he recalled. “And that it was just as well that...” His mouth closed abruptly.

“I see that you do remember,” she muttered irritably, avoiding his dark, unblinking gaze.

“Bernadette,” he began softly, pressing her hands more gently, and choosing his words very carefully, calculatingly, “didn’t you realize that the words were more frustration than accusation? I barely arrived in time to save you from that lout, and I was upset.”

“It was cruel.”

“And untrue,” he added. “Come on, look at me.”

She did, still mutinous and resentful.

He leaned forward, his breath warm on her lips as he spoke. “I said it was just as well that you had money as you had so few attributes physically with which to tempt a man.”

She started to speak, but his gloved finger pressed hard against her lips and stilled them. “The sight of you like that, so disheveled, stirred me,” he said very quietly. “It isn’t a thing that a gentleman should admit, and I was taking pains to conceal what I felt. I spoke in frustration. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She was horribly embarrassed now. “As if your opinion of my...of my body matters to me!”

“You have little enough self-esteem,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “It was unkind of me to do further damage to it.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it tenderly. “Forgive me.”

She tried to pull her hand away. “Please...don’t do that,” she said breathlessly.

He looked into her eyes and held them with a suddenly glittery, piercing stare. “Does it disturb you to feel my mouth on your skin, Bernadette?” he chided very softly.

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!”

She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. Her face went deathly white as she stared at him with eyes like saucers. “Would you, then?” she returned. “And who’d keep your books and balance your accounts, pay your bills and keep you to a budget so the ranch is financially sound?”

His fists clenched by his side. “I fought off Indians and Northerners and people who hated me because I was Irish when I worked on the railroads! And yet even all that was less trouble than you give me every day of me life! You took Eloise from me! Does bookkeeping make up for that?”

She sat down and stared at him, praying that her lungs wouldn’t go into spasm yet again. You could never show weakness in front of the enemy!

Colston let out the breath that was choking him. Only then did he seem to realize what he’d said to her. He moved to the window and looked out, his back ramrod stiff. “That was a bit harsh,” he bit off. “I wouldn’t really throw you out. You’re me only daughter, in spite of everything. But don’t go against me, girl,” he cautioned. “I mean to have respectability, and there’s nothing I won’t do to get it. You’ll marry!”

“A man I don’t even know.” She was fighting tears of rage and impotence. “A stranger who’ll take me to some cold foreign country to die.”

He whirled. “Sure and you won’t die, you little fool!” he exclaimed. “You’ll have maids and other servants to look after you. Someone to cook and clean for you. You’ll be treated like a queen!”

“I’ll be an interloper,” she returned. “Unwanted and hated because I’ve been married for your money!”

He threw up his hands. “I offer you the world, and you want to put labels on everything!”

She was dying inside. He was going to sell her, and she’d never see Eduardo again. Never, never...

“There is an alternative,” he said after a minute.

She looked up.

He studied his boots, caked with mud. “You might consider marrying Eduardo.”

Her heart went right up into her throat. She put a hand to it, to keep it from jumping out onto the floor. “Wh-what?”

“Eduardo!” He stared at her, planted with feet wide and both hands behind his back. “He’s a widower, and what polite society would call a half-breed, but he does have a title. His family is connected to European royalty.”

She laughed, almost choking in the process. “Eduardo wouldn’t want me,” she said bitterly. “He hates me.”

“He might be willing to marry you,” he continued, careful not to mention the conversation he’d had with the man. “Especially if you tried to improve yourself a little, if you dressed up and smiled at him once in a while. He’ll have competition at the ball. Two other men, both titled. It might make him sit up.” He looked away, so that she couldn’t see the unholy glee in his eyes. He’d frightened her enough that Eduardo now looked like salvation itself. He congratulated himself silently on his shrewdness. So much for her stubborn refusal to consider a match of his choosing. She could be won over, with the right words and strategies.

“He’s said that he doesn’t want to remarry,” she continued.

“He’s also said that he doesn’t want to lose his inheritance,” he reminded her. “If his past wasn’t so unpleasant, his old grandmother could help him make another match in Spain, as she did with his late wife. But his wife died under mysterious circumstances and his mother has become embroiled in some new scandal back East. She isn’t Spanish at all—his mother is a Texas heiress who comes from German and good Irish stock.”

“I know that. She lives in New York with her second husband. Eduardo hates her.”

He didn’t know how she knew that, but he didn’t push his luck. He folded his arms over his chest. “It’s because of what his mother’s done that his grandmother is determined to leave her wealth to his second cousin. Not only is he completely Spanish, but he has no scandal about him.”

“Eduardo told you that?”

He nodded. “Some time ago, of course,” he added evasively. “They say the old lady’s coming here to stay with him for the summer.”

“He’ll be glad, I imagine. He loves his grandmother.”

“Pity it isn’t mutual.” His small eyes riveted themselves to her face. “Well, what do you think of marrying Eduardo?”

She swallowed. “I would...be willing, I suppose,” she said with just the right touch of reluctance, “if it would save me from having to live in some foreign place.”

He felt like dancing a jig, but he didn’t dare let his stubborn daughter know how much her acceptance pleased him. Sometimes he even liked her for her spirit—so long as he didn’t remember what she’d cost him with her birth. Honest to God, she was almost a mirror image of him in temper. “Then suppose you go into town as I suggested and find a nice gown to wear to the ball?”

She drew in a long breath. “I suppose I could do that.”

“Go to Meriwether’s, where I have an account. Buy whatever you need.”

She stood up. “Eduardo’s title is only good in Europe,” she began.

He held up a hand. “It’s good anywhere,” he said stiffly. “Even in Texas. He’s only half Spanish, but most people will overlook that because of his European relations.” He gave her a long, unpleasant look. “Considering your lack of beauty and the state of your health, I really think it would be overly optimistic to think that a European would want you. We’ll be lucky indeed if Eduardo is willing to take you on.”

“I’m not so much a burden as you like to think, Father. I do earn my keep. I’m quite good with figures and budgets. Eduardo might even find me an asset, given his present circumstances.”

He shrugged. “You’re useful enough when you’re well. But you’re quite often sick, Bernadette.” He turned away heavily. “It’s the memories you bring back,” he said in a rare moment’s honesty. “I see her face as she died, hear her scream, feel my heart break and break inside my body.” He put a hand absently to his chest. “I loved her so!”

Bernadette actually felt the words. But before she could speak, he turned and went out the door, his footsteps loud and angry, as they always were when he had to confront something unpleasant or irritating.

She stared after him in misery. If he’d turned to her instead of away from her, how different her life might have been. He blamed her for his wife’s death, would always blame her. She could never hope for a close relationship with him, because he didn’t want one. All he wanted from his daughter was an advantageous marriage and her complete absence from his life. He didn’t say that, but he meant it.

She felt very old as she went to get her hat and gloves. She had few choices left now, but she was going to get out of her father’s life. She couldn’t bring herself to marry a European. She would love to marry Eduardo. But that, despite her father’s curious interest in the subject, was unlikely. Eduardo’s aversion to a second marriage was well-known to everyone. Her father would never persuade him to go through with such a venture, and certainly she wasn’t going to be able to seduce their neighbor into marriage with her pitiful assets.

Still, letting her father think it could happen might keep him from pressuring her about his other candidates.

For an instant, she let herself dream about how it would be to marry Eduardo and openly show her love for him, to be loved by him in return. She felt a powerful physical attraction to him that was profoundly augmented by the deep love she felt for him. He had no such interest in her, although he seemed to find her physically attractive.

She wondered if she could really heighten that interest. She knew very little of men, but she was a great reader of forbidden books, and she did know how to dress and behave in public. Some of the girls at her exclusive finishing school in New York had talked quite candidly about their relationships with men. But Bernadette, while spirited, was a novice. Eduardo could do anything to her, and she dared not lure him into a position where she might fall from grace.

But the mere thought that he might be willing to marry her was so intriguing a proposition that her heart was skipping beats. It was the first time she’d been able to see marriage as a real possibility in her life. Despite her father’s manipulations, she might permit herself to be convinced. If Eduardo was interested in marrying her at all, she might be the very person who could help him reorganize his ranch and make it show a profit. Her father didn’t like being reminded that she’d saved him from a drastic financial loss once, several years before when she first took over the enormous task of overseeing the accounts after the resignation of their bookkeeper. Her father had liked the idea of not paying an outsider, or allowing a stranger to see his assets. But whether Eduardo would want to marry her, even for her father’s money, remained to be seen. It also gave her hope that, if she had courage, her wildest dreams might come true.

CHAPTER THREE

BERNADETTE FOUND HERSELF IN the exclusive Meriwether’s Dry Goods Store with no clear idea of what she was going to buy.

The brother of the owner, Mr. Clem Meriwether, who’d been the head clerk for as long as Bernadette could remember, met her at the door with a wide smile.

“Lovely to see you again, Miss Barron,” he said formally. “What can I help you with today?”

“My father sent me for a ball gown, Mr. Meriwether,” she said. “I don’t quite know—”

“But I have just the thing!” He chuckled as he led her inside. “And what a coincidence that it should arrive today. It’s from Paris, an original design which was intended for one of the Carson girls in Fort Worth, but she declined to accept it, and it was sent to us on consignment. I had no idea that anyone here would want it. We’re so distant from real society...” He turned and his ears seemed to go red. “Begging your pardon, miss, I never meant that your father wasn’t social or anything!”

“Think nothing of it, Mr. Meriwether,” she said with a gentle smile. “I didn’t take offense.” She didn’t think it prudent to add that her father would have gone right through the roof and canceled his account if he’d heard what the nice man had said.

“We heard about this ball he’s giving next month. Is it true that the Culhanes are coming all the way from El Paso?”

“Well, the parents, anyway,” she amended. “We understand that two of the three sons are vacationing together on a cruise, leaving one behind to watch the ranch property.”

“Still, it’s something of an honor for any of the Culhanes to travel so far for a party, yes?”

“Yes, it is,” she had to concede. “They’re staying at the ranch for a week, of course, along with the other guests.”

“Any other Texans on the guest list?” he probed gently as he took an elegantly trimmed box from a shelf.

“I’m not really sure,” she replied. “Father’s kept very quiet about his guest list. I think he wants to surprise me,” she added with just the right touch of mischief.

“That’s understandable. Is it your birthday?”

She shook her head. “It’s no real occasion,” she lied, not wanting to admit that her father was holding the ball primarily to auction off his daughter to the man with the most impressive title. “Just Father’s idea of a summer diversion, although he is saying that it’s a celebration of his new railroad acquisition.”

“So much the better.” He put the box down on the counter, opened it with a flourish and drew out the most exquisite gown Bernadette had ever seen in her life. She stopped breathing at the sight of it.

He chuckled. “No need to ask if you like it. If you’ll wait a moment, Miss Barron, I’ll get my wife to come and help you try it on.”

He stepped to the back of the store and called for Maribeth, a small, cheerful woman who came right along, drying her hands on a cloth.

“I’ve been putting up bread-and-butter pickles, Miss Barron. I’ll save you two or three jars for when you come next time.”

“Why, thank you!” Bernadette said, surprised by the offer.

“It’s nothing at all. Now, let me help you with this dress. Isn’t it lovely? And Clem never thought anyone around here would need such a grand gown! It’s actually from Paris, France, you know!”

The little woman babbled on as she led Bernadette back to the makeshift fitting room and helped her into the gown. It took a while, because there seemed to be a hundred tiny buttons to fasten. But once the gown was on, Bernadette knew that she’d have sold anything she owned to get enough money to buy it.

It was white, a delicious concoction of soft material that fell to her ankles in layers of lace and georgette, festooned by pink silk flowers and tiny blue bows. The bodice was draped with the same soft georgette and tiny puffed sleeves echoed the motif. Her shoulders were left bare and the tops of her pretty breasts were just visible. It was a seductive dress without being vulgar. Bernadette looked at herself in the mirror with pure awe.

“Is that me?” she asked, her heart pounding with excitement.

“Oh, my, yes,” Mrs. Meriwether said with a sigh. “What a delightful fit, and how it suits you! You must leave your hair down and tie it in back with a pink silk ribbon, my dear. I’ll show you how.”

“I’ve never worn my hair down,” she said doubtfully.

“It will be perfect with this gown. Here. Let me show you.”

She took down Bernadette’s elaborate coiffure and replaced it with a simpler one, offset by the pink satin ribbon she made from a length of the silky material. “There,” she said when she finished. “Do you see what I mean? It’s perfect with the dress.”

“Indeed it is,” Bernadette had to admit. She looked young and elegant and somehow vulnerable. She almost looked pretty. She smiled at herself and was surprised by the change it made in her rather ordinary features.

“And a fan to go with it,” the little woman was mumbling. “Where did I put that silk one...aha!”

She produced a fan so pretty that Bernadette fell in love with it at once. It was made of pale pink silk with elegant patterns of flowers, outlined in ivory lace. It was the most beautiful fan she’d ever seen.

“And these gloves, and that little purse. You’ll need shoes. Let’s see what we have....”

It was the most exciting hour of Bernadette’s life. By the time she had her purchases wrapped up and was ready to leave, she felt as if she’d been let out of prison. The ball would be the crowning glory of her life, despite her father’s matchmaking. She couldn’t wait to see the look on Eduardo’s face when he saw her!

* * *

HER FATHER DIDN’T TRUST Bernadette to make the arrangements for his ball, so he’d assigned them to Mrs. Maude Carlisle, a former social secretary to one of the Astors in New York, and the wife of a prominent retired army officer in San Antonio. Mrs. Carlisle was staying with friends in Valladolid for several weeks and she was overjoyed to help Mr. Barron plan his grand fete.

She knew exactly how to go about organizing things on a monumental scale, and she set to work at once. Two weeks later, she’d alienated half the staff on the Barron ranch. This didn’t bother Colston one bit. But Bernadette was overwhelmed with complaints. Everyone including Maria cried on her shoulder while the painstaking arrangements were made. There was a bakery to cater the confections, a local cook to cater the finger foods for the hors d’oeuvre table and flowers purchased from a greenhouse. No detail was overlooked or left undone. Bernadette did her best to stay out of the way of the ongoing madness.

She put on her riding skirt and had the stable boy saddle her pretty bay mare for her. She’d just mounted when her father came into the barn.

“And where are you going?” he demanded. “Mrs. Carlisle needs you to talk to Maria about the dinnerware.”

“Why?” she asked with some surprise.

“Maria’s suddenly forgotten how to speak English, that’s why!”

Silently, Bernadette applauded her friend’s initiative. That was one way to get around Mrs. Carlisle. “You know I don’t speak Spanish,” she lied without meeting his eyes. Actually, she’d kept her knowledge of that tongue a secret from her father as well as Eduardo, because it gave her a definite advantage when dealing with her father. She could talk to the staff in their own language whenever she liked. He couldn’t. He spoke only Gaelic and English.

“You could convince Maria at least to talk to the poor woman!”

“I’m going riding, Father,” she said. “I must get some fresh air in my lungs.”

He glared at her with suspicion. “You’re running away. It won’t do any good. Klaus Branner and Carlo Maretti are due here tomorrow on the train from Houston.”

Her heart jumped and she felt suddenly sick. “I’ve told you how I feel about this,” she said stiffly.

“And I’ve told you how I feel,” he said narrowly. “Eduardo hasn’t been near the place in two weeks,” he added, and refused to let her know how that worried him. He didn’t think much of her abilities to attract Europeans, but Eduardo had this way of looking at her just recently. He liked Eduardo, too, and respected him. It would have been the ideal match. He wondered why Eduardo had apparently changed his mind after their discussion. “It seems that he’s no longer in the running, my girl, so it’s my two candidates or else.”

What he said was true. Eduardo hadn’t come to call, which was very unusual for him, and Bernadette had worried herself sick about the reasons. It was impossible to invite herself to his ranch, so she waited in vain for him and watched her dreams disintegrate. She knew that without the hope of Eduardo as a suitor, her father would turn quickly to his other two candidates. As he had.

Bernadette stared down at him with a drawn face. “Maybe they won’t want me,” she said daringly.

“They’ll want you,” he replied tersely. “Because they want my money!”

She made one last attempt to reason with him. “Don’t you care if I’m happy or not, Father?” she asked miserably. “Don’t you care at all?”

His face closed up, went tight and hard. “I’m not happy,” he pointed out. “I’ve been alone and miserable for twenty years because of you!”

Her features contorted. “You aren’t blameless!”

He looked as if he might explode. “How dare you speak to me in such a way!” he blustered. “How dare you!”

Her lower lip trembled. She gripped her riding crop more firmly, until her knuckles went white. “I hope I never live long enough to treat a child of mine the way you’ve treated me,” she said huskily. “And I hope you live long enough to be sorry for it.”

He pulled himself up to his full height and glared at her. “That day will never come.”

She turned her horse and rode away, leaving him standing alone.

She couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so low and desperate. Eduardo was out of her reach, and her father’s candidates were to arrive the following day. She wondered if she could run away without being caught. It was a poor way to cope, but she knew that other young women in similar predicaments had done such things. If all else failed, it was one workable solution, even if her precarious state of health made it impractical.

* * *

SHE WAS DEEP IN THOUGHT, without any real idea of where she was going. This area of south Texas was mostly scrub brush and cacti, sand and dust and heat, even in the spring. But she loved the sense of freedom it gave her with all that long empty horizon in front of her. It was like looking at the stars at night; it made her little problems seem very insignificant. Right now, she needed that most of all. The imminent arrival of two titled Europeans made her sick to her stomach. Perhaps they wouldn’t like her. But if they needed money badly enough, they’d probably be willing to marry a scarecrow, a cow, anyone. Even her.

She guided the little mare toward the stream that crossed her father’s land. There were a few willow trees there, along with mesquite and some poplars. The leaves were the soft, pale green of new growth, and there was a breeze. It wasn’t as smoldering hot as it usually was, either. She dismounted under a big mesquite tree and tossed her flat-brimmed hat to one side as she bent to wet her handkerchief in the stream.

Birds called overhead and she wondered at their sudden burst of noise just as she heard hoofbeats approaching.

She turned, moving closer to her mount. It was a lonely place, and there were often bandits about. But as the rider approached, she recognized him at once and sighed with relief. As usual, a thrill of sheer joy went stabbing through her at the sight of him. He sat a horse like a soldier, very straight and proud, and she loved just looking at him.

“What are you doing out here alone?” Eduardo called curtly as he drew close.

His words breaking the spell she seemed to be under, she smiled ruefully. “I’m escaping Mrs. Carlisle.”

His eyebrows arched under the wide brim of his hat and he smiled. “Mrs. Carlisle?”

“She’s organizing the grand ball,” she informed him. “I’m trying to stay out of her way. So is everybody else. The whole staff may resign any minute now.”

“Shouldn’t your out-of-town guests be arriving soon?”

“My father’s handpicked matrimonial candidates arrive tomorrow,” she said with undisguised revulsion. “One’s German, the other’s Italian.”

“He invited them, then,” he murmured under his breath. This was a surprise. Colston Barron hadn’t seemed interested in other candidates for Bernadette’s dowry the last time he’d spoken with the man. Of course, he’d avoided the place like the plague since then. Guilt had kept him away; it disturbed him to think of using Bernadette for his own ends. He was ashamed of himself, of his less than noble motive, wooing a woman he didn’t love for the sake of financial gain. It was dishonest at best, and he was too honorable not to be suffering from a bad conscience.

“Of course he invited them,” Bernadette replied. She glanced at him sadly, with faint accusation. “You’re not one of his prospective hopefuls, by the way, in case you were wondering. That should be of some comfort to you.”

He pulled a cigar case from his shirt pocket and extracted one of the Cuban cigars he favored. He produced a small box of matches and lit it before he spoke. “I see.”

She wondered why he should suddenly look so thoughtful, so tense. He turned away and she studied his profile. Could he be upset because he wasn’t a candidate for her hand? She didn’t dare hope so. But what if he was?

He felt her avid gaze and turned to meet it. She colored prettily. “How are you going to feel about living abroad?” he asked.

“It’s that or find some way to support myself,” she said wearily. “My father says either I get married or I get out.”

“Surely not!” he exclaimed angrily.

“Well, he threatened to do it,” she replied. She rubbed the mare’s soft muzzle absently. “He’s determined to have his way in this.”

“And will you do what you’re told, Bernadette?” he asked quietly.

She looked up at him, red-cheeked. “No, I will not! Not if I have to take a job as a shop girl somewhere or work in a factory!”

“Your lungs would never survive a job in a cotton mill,” he said softly.

“The alternative is to be someone’s servant,” she replied miserably. “I couldn’t hold up to do that, either. Not for long.” She leaned her cheek against the horse’s long nose with a sigh. “Why can’t time stand still or go backward?” she asked in a haunted tone. “Why couldn’t I be whole instead of sickly?”

“I can’t believe that any father would cast off his daughter just because she refused to marry a candidate of his own choosing,” he said irritably.

“Isn’t it done in Spanish families all the time?”

He dismounted, cigar in hand, and moved to stand beside her. He was so much taller that she had to toss her head back to see his lean, dark face when he was this close.

“Yes, it is,” he replied. “In fact, my marriage was the result of such an arrangement. But American families usually don’t make those kinds of choices.”

“That’s what you think,” she replied. “It’s done all the time in the wealthier families. I knew a girl at finishing school who was forced to marry some rich French vintner, and she hated him on sight. She ran away, but they brought her back and made her go through with the ceremony.”

“Made her?”

She hesitated to tell him why. It was vaguely scandalous and one didn’t speak of such things in public, much less to men.

“Tell me,” he prompted.

“Well, he kept her out all night,” she said reluctantly. “She swore that nothing happened, but her family said she was ruined and had to marry him. No other decent man would have her after that, you see.”

His dark gaze slid down her slender form in the riding habit and he began to smile in a way he never had before. “How innovative,” he murmured.

“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.

At least Eduardo would find the girl; Colston had no doubt of that. But he dreaded the reappearance of the two of them.

* * *

EDUARDO RODE OUT TOWARD THE distant mountains, still smoldering at Bernadette’s father’s callous attitude toward her. What sort of father would leave his daughter wide open to unwanted advances from a houseguest, regardless of the reason? He hated the very thought of another man’s hands on Bernadette.

He tracked her to the mountains and then had to slow his pace as her trail became more difficult to follow. He heard a sound that chilled his blood—the scream of a puma. That was another danger that Bernadette probably hadn’t thought of, and he was certain that she wasn’t armed. He always wore a sidearm and carried a rifle. He hoped he wouldn’t need them.

As darkness began to fall in earnest, he worried that he might not find her in time to spare her a terrifying night alone in the desert. The night air wouldn’t be good for her weak lungs, and few people realized how cold it became after the sun set. He always carried two blankets in his saddle pack, just in case.

He was so frustrated that he almost missed the faint smell of smoke. Then, when a whiff of burning wood came to him, his heart leaped. He dismounted and climbed up on a boulder to get a better look in the direction from which he believed the smoke came. Sure enough, he spotted a small campfire down below.

It was precarious going down the slope in the dark, but his gelding was surefooted and careful, and he took his time.

As he rode into the small circle of light the campfire provided, Bernadette jumped to her feet with a blanket around her and stood shivering as she waited for him to come close enough to see.

She lifted her chin. “You’d better not come any closer,” she called hoarsely. “My father and brothers are just outside the camp. They’ll hear me if I scream!”

He chuckled at her nerve. She looked fragile and vulnerable, but what spirit, even in the face of tangible danger!

“You never cease to amaze me,” he said gently as he rode near enough for her to recognize him.

“Eduardo!” She ran toward him when he dismounted, looking up into his dark face with absolute trust and relief.

He smiled, discarding his gloves to catch her hands in his. “You’re freezing! Didn’t you have another blanket?”

“Only this one.” Her teeth chattered. “I didn’t realize it got quite this cold. Why are you here?” she added worriedly. “Did my father send you?”

His face hardened. “Maria told me what happened. I came to find you.”

“You, not my father,” she murmured sadly.

“He was going to send one of his ranch hands. I told him not to bother.”

“He should have sent one of his candidates for my bridegroom instead,” she said coldly.

“I believe the German will be on the first train north,” he said drily. “And the other gentleman probably won’t be far behind him.”

“Oh, thank God!”

He retrieved his blankets from his saddle pack and wrapped one around her before he removed the saddlebags and began to make coffee in a small pot.

“What did the German do to you, Bernadette?” he asked when he had the coffeepot on the fire and they were both sitting nearby.

She averted her embarrassed eyes in the bright light of the campfire. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter, if he’s gone.”

“It does matter! I should have shot the—”

“It’s all right,” she interrupted before he could voice the curse. “I can’t be the first woman who was ever fondled against her will.”

He looked furious. He watched her move away from the campfire and ease down onto her makeshift bed. “Were you planning to stay the night?”

She nodded. “I thought if I frightened my father enough, he might cancel his plans.”

“He’ll cancel them now,” he assured her, holding his hands to the fire. “I promise you he will.”

She let out a long sigh. “Thank you for coming to find me.”

He glanced at her curiously. “You might not consider yourself saved when I tell you what I have in mind.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “What?”

“I intend to keep you out all night.”

He expected shock and fear. But after a minute’s hesitation, she laughed delightedly. “What a wonderful idea! If his prospective bridegrooms haven’t left, they certainly will after this!”

“I intend to displace them,” he said shortly. “If your father wants a noble for a son-in-law, he can have me. I’ll take a damned sight better care of you than he does, and I won’t drag you off to Europe to die.”

She stared at him with delight. “You really want to marry me?”

He nodded. “It won’t be a love match,” he said, his voice quiet and calming, “but you’ll have freedom and independence, and I’ll take care of you.”

“I’ll take care of you, too,” she replied gently.

He was shocked to discover that he liked the idea of someone taking care of him. It wasn’t acceptable to admit it, of course, and he wasn’t going to. But it touched him as few things in his recent past had.

“Have you eaten anything?” he asked.

She laughed, pulling her blanket closer. “I had a roll and some cold chicken that Maria packed for me, but nonetheless, I’m hungry,” she said simply.

“So am I.”

“I don’t suppose you brought anything to eat?”

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