Page 19 of Midnight Rider

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

He chuckled. “I came in rather a hurry,” he said. “But I stopped by Mrs. Brown’s café on the way here and had her pack some cold meat and bread and cheese.” He shook his head as he retrieved it from the saddlebag. “I must have had a premonition.”

“What a lovely provider you’re going to make!” she exclaimed.

He put cold roast beef and cheese on a thick slice of bread and handed it to her. She ate hungrily, amazed that her misery should have turned to such pleasure. Eduardo might not love her, but he was offering her a new start, a future that would free her from her father’s attempted domination and manipulation. Gone was the specter of a foreign marriage, of having to go to live in another country.

“Counting your regrets?” he asked a few minutes later, having noticed her studious demeanor.

Her head came up quickly, and she shook it. “Oh, no,” she said at once. “I was counting my blessings! It will be so nice not to have to depend on my father for my living.”

He frowned slightly. “It won’t be a life of leisure,” he cautioned.

“I can cook,” she replied calmly. “And sew and clean, and I can certainly keep books and budget! I’m not totally useless, and I imagine that I shall be much healthier if I am also happy.”

“That may be so.” He poured coffee into one of two tin cups he’d retrieved from his saddlebag and handed it to her. “Drink that,” he said. “It will help to warm you, and it may ward off what I fear is an unavoidable reaction to being chilled.”

She grimaced as she took a sip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hadn’t planned to do this until Herr Branner got amorous behind the Chinese screen.” She looked up. “You don’t have a Chinese screen, do you?”

He grinned wickedly. “No. But I’ll buy you one when we make our fortune, if you like.”

She shivered blatantly. “No, thank you.”

“You’ll be safe from foreign suitors with me, at least,” he said, sobering. “And I won’t blame you for things over which you have no control.”

“You mean my mother, don’t you?” she asked perceptively. He nodded. “I’m sorry my father can’t give up her memory. He might have remarried and been very happy, but there was no talking to him about it. He mourns her as if she died yesterday, and blames me for her death.”

“Perhaps he blames himself, Bernadette,” he said quietly, “and takes it out on you.”

She pulled the blanket closer. The chill was worse now, rippling through her slender body like a blow. “It’s so c-cold!”

He put down his cup and joined her on the bedroll. “You mustn’t take a chill. Forgive me, Bernadette, I mean no insult, but I have no other means of warming you.”

He drew her down onto the bedroll spread and into his arms, smiling when she stiffened. “Yes, I know, it’s going to be very intimate,” he said, wrapping the blanket closer around her shoulders as he eased both of them back against the saddle she’d used for a pillow. “You’ll get used to it.”

She giggled nervously. “That’s what my father said about the pudgy little man touching me.”

He stiffened then, his eyes glittering with anger. “No woman should ever have to get used to something she finds offensive.”

She laid her cheek against his broad chest with a little sigh and closed her eyes. Bit by bit, she forced her taut muscles to relax. As she did, she felt the warmth of him radiating around her.

“Oh, this is so much better,” she whispered. “Thank you!”

He chuckled, drawing her closer. “Shameless hussy,” he murmured. “You should be screaming for assistance.”

“I don’t need assistance. You’re going to marry me.”

“Yes, I am.” He stretched his strained muscles and lay back against the saddle. “It will have to be an event,” he added. “We can’t run away and get married, as Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand did, without their parents’ knowledge or consent.”

“What?” She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “The king and queen of Spain eloped?”

He smiled. “Indeed. From what we are told, it was Isabella’s idea. She was barely out of her teens. She had Ferdinand meet her secretly and she put the proposal to him that they would marry and unite his native kingdom of Aragon with hers of Castile. From such an alliance, they would conquer and rule all of Spain.”

“And he agreed?”

“Yes. They married in secret and went back to their respective kingdoms. At the death of Ferdinand’s father, when he became king of Aragon, they announced their marriage to the world and joined forces to drive the Moors out of Spain. Think how much they accomplished—and all because a spirited young woman had the courage to change history.” He looked down at her fondly. “She must have been like you, I think, Bernadette. You were never one to stand meekly by and let others decide your fate. No simpering young miss would be lying alone with a man in the dark, defying her father and the rest of the world.”

“Oh, I’m not so brave,” she protested. “It was selfish. I didn’t want to be a human sacrifice.”

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