Midnight Rider

by Diana Palmer

  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, an
d 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.”