by Diana Palmer
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 curtsy, 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 blond 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 already had 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 ranch.”
“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.”