Midnight Rider. Diana Palmer

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, and 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.”

      Colston was struck dumb. He just stared, breathless, mindless, at the tall man beside him. After a minute he let out the breath he was holding. “You’d marry her? Her!”

      Muscles clenched all over Eduardo’s body at the way the man referred to his daughter, but he nodded.

      “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.