Midnight Rider

“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.”