Page 2 of Midnight Rider

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 beforeel condewas 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 of mixed race, 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.”

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