Bride By Mistake (27 page)

Woke, gasping to the gray light of dawn. His wife was sprawled backward on the bed where he’d thrown her. He groaned and closed his eyes. Black tentacles of the nightmare still twined through his consciousness, clinging, pulling him down. His heart was thumping, his palms cold and sweaty with fear. He took deep breaths and tried to calm himself.

“Luke?”

He opened his eyes. She knelt at the foot of his bed, watching him anxiously.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked. “It was just—”

“A nightmare, I know.” And before he knew it, she had her arms around him, murmuring softly that it was all right. And reeking of roses.

“Sorry,” he said, and pushed her abruptly away. He shot out of bed.

“What is it?” She got out of bed and followed him.

“No! Don’t come near me!”

She stopped dead, her eyes dark with worry. “Why? What’s the matter? What have I done?”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Nothing. It’s just… the smell of roses.” He shuddered. “I don’t like it.” More like can’t bear it.

She gave him a puzzled look. “I see. Would you like me to—?” Her eyes widened when she noticed the rose-scented soap gone from the dish. She glanced at the open window. “I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Her brow wrinkled in concern. “Did you hurt yourself?”

He realized he was rubbing the spot just below his left shoulder and snatched his hand away. “No.” Noticing her arms were wrapped around her body, he added, “You’re cold. Get back into bed.”

“I’m all right,” she said quietly. “The question is, are you?”

“Yes, of course, it was just a stupid dream.” He spoke brusquely, but he couldn’t help himself. He hated having exposed himself to her like that. “Now get back into bed before you freeze.”

She straightened the bedclothes and climbed onto the bed. “Are you coming, too?”

“No.” He pulled on his breeches and boots. “Go back to sleep. I’m going for a walk.” Grabbing the rest of his clothing, he let himself out of the bedchamber.

He stamped his way through the quiet streets, soft and whispering with morning fog. He was embarrassed to have caused such a fuss. How much had she heard? Futile to wish she’d never witnessed it. And now that she had, she’d be asking questions. It was what women did, he thought bitterly.

W
hen Isabella came down to join him for breakfast later that morning, Luke noticed damp tendrils of hair clinging to her nape and temples.

“I had another bath,” she explained. “Our landlady thinks I am mad.” She dimpled. “That or she suspects you did something truly strange to me last night. I asked for her plainest soap. Is this all right?” She extended her wrist for him to smell.

He sniffed. Plain soap and scent-of-Isabella. His senses stirred pleasantly. He gave a gruff nod, touched by her simple acceptance of what must appear to be something ridiculous. “Perfect, thank you.”

A pot of chocolate and a basket of pastries arrived. Isabella shook out her napkin, picked up a pastry, and said, “Who’s Michael?”

“Nobody.” A sharp jab of guilt caused him to correct himself. “No, not nobody. He was our friend. He’s dead.”

“He died in the war?”

“Yes.” Luke addressed himself to his breakfast.

For a few minutes they ate and drank in silence. Then, “You said, ‘our friend.’  ”

“We were at school together—Gabe, Harry, Rafe, Michael, and me. And we all went to war together, too.” He sipped his coffee, strong, hot, and black, just the way he liked it. “Gabe, Harry, Rafe, and I came back.”

“And you were dreaming about Michael’s death this morning?”

“It sometimes happens,” he said curtly. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

She waved his apology away. “I didn’t mind. I have nightmares, too, sometimes. They moved me out of the dormitory and into a cell of my own because I kept waking people up.”

He remembered her telling him, but discussion of nightmares had already made him uncomfortable enough, and he had no desire to extend the conversation. That business was in the past, where it belonged. He changed the subject. “I hired a carriage.”

She looked up in surprise. “To take me to Valle Verde?”

He nodded and finished the last of his ham. “I didn’t know
if your sister rides as well as you. Easier if you do find her to take her away in a carriage. It’s ordered for half past nine. You said it would take two hours to get there.”

Her eyes lit up. “That’s a wonderful idea, Luke—thank you. And yes, two hours, more or less. And I’ve asked the landlady to change all the bedding so there will be no smell in the room if you want to take a nap while I’m at Valle Verde—”

“What do you mean? I’ll be there with you.”

She frowned and looked perturbed. “No, no, you can’t go. I have to go alone.”

“You’re not going anywhere alone, and certainly not to Valle Verde.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you trust me? Do you think I’ll run off on you?” Two pink spots appeared in her cheeks.

He shrugged, deliberately provoking her. “For all I know you might make a habit of it.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” She glared at him, opened her mouth to argue, and glanced around the room at the other diners. “We will discuss this upstairs.”

“We won’t discuss it at all,” he told her. “There’s nothing to discuss.”

She made a frustrated sound but refused to say another word in public. He could tell from the expressions that flitted across her face that she was marshaling various arguments to convince him.

She had a snowball’s chance in hell. But it would be quite entertaining to watch her try.

“You know it’s too dangerous for you to go to Valle Verde,” she told him the moment they returned to their room and shut the door. “I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn about it.”

The bed had been stripped and the bedclothes removed. Luke sat on a chair by the window, crossed his legs, and leaned back. “Whither thou goest, I will go.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Ruth was a widow, not a husband. Husbands don’t follow wives.”

His lips twitched. “What a very short memory you have, my dear.”

She flushed. “Be serious. You know I have to go. It’s important.”

“And I haven’t forbidden you to go. But nothing you have told me of your charming cousin Ramón—”

“Second cousin. Twice removed. And he’s not charming; he’s horrid.”

He said flippantly, “Clearly whoever removed him didn’t do a very good job. And an improperly removed horrid second cousin is not someone I will allow you to visit alone.”

“But I must—”

He made an impatient exclamation and sat up. “You told me your father told you to flee from Ramón; that he was a brute, a bully, and a thug.”

“He is. He’s a vile beast.”

“And you imagine I’d let you visit a vile beast on your own?” Luke snorted.

She wrung her hands. “But if he sees you, Ramón will want to kill you.”

He sat back and returned to flippancy. “Doesn’t like visitors, eh? Too bad. I’m going.”

“You don’t understand. Ramón will do anything to get his hands on my fortune. He’ll kill you to make me a widow.”

“Will he now?” Her anxiety on Luke’s behalf was quite touching.

“Yes! And then he will force me to marry him!”

He raised a lazy brow. “Really? He could do that? I’m impressed. I’ve been able to force you to do very little. You’re quite remarkably stubborn.”

She stamped her foot. “Oh, will you be serious? You can
not
come to Valle Verde with me. I utterly forbid it.”

He smiled. “You forbid it?”

“I do. Because if you go to Valle Verde, he’ll kill you.”

Luke yawned. “He is welcome to try.”

I
sabella glowered at Luke from the seat opposite. She’d been jumpy and nervous and bad-tempered the whole way. She peered out of the window of the carriage for the
hundredth time and said, “We’re almost there. Just over the next hill.”

Luke nodded.

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” she told him.

“I know.” They’d been over this a hundred times, too. He wasn’t letting her go to Valle Verde without him, and that was that. He had no intention of arguing.

“You’re a very stubborn man, you know,” she said crossly.

He gave a faint smile.

They passed the last mile in silence.

“The gates need painting,” Isabella observed as the carriage drove through the entrance to the Valle Verde estate. “And the stonework needs repair.”

Luke leaned back against the comfortable squabs and watched her. Dressed in her new cream and blue dress and wearing that impudent corset that pushed her breasts up, she looked so delicious that it had been all he could do not to while away the journey by making love to her. But she was nervous and jumpy, and so cross with him for what she called risking himself unnecessarily, she was in no mood to be seduced.

Though Luke had always enjoyed a challenge.

But right now he was interested in her reactions to Valle Verde. Her eyes were everywhere, comparing, assessing, looking for signs of mismanagement.

The carriage jolted from pothole to pothole, and her mouth tightened. “The driveway was always smooth as silk.”

But as they drove deeper into the estate, it became clear the neglect wasn’t universal. The vines were well pruned, their rows neat and weed-free. Horses looked at them curiously over sturdy, unpainted fences. Nice-looking animals, too, Luke observed. Sleek and glossy.

“Ramón’s built up the herd,” Isabella conceded. “There look to be almost as many as before the war.”

Luke’s mouth twitched at her reluctant admission. “He probably stole them,” he said in a comforting tone. She blinked in surprise then, realizing he was teasing her, she gave him a haughty look. Her dimple gave her away.

They passed a freshly plowed field where a dozen men
and women worked, preparing the field for planting. The strange carriage had caught their attention, and they’d stopped work to watch it go by. Clearly not many visitors came to Valle Verde.

“Oh, oh!” Isabella leaned out of the window and waved. “I know these people.”

One of the field-workers gave a shout, dropped his hoe, and, with a wide grin, ran toward the carriage, waving. The other laborers downed their tools and followed, hurrying to welcome Isabella home.

Luke rapped on the roof to tell the driver to stop the carriage. He opened the door and swung Isabella down. In minutes she was surrounded.

“Little Master, you’re back—”

“Welcome home, Little Master! Welcome home!”

Little Master?
What was that all about, Luke wondered.

“Señorita Isabella, we never thought to see you again—”

Isabella greeted them each by name, smiling, weeping, shaking their hands, and embracing some.

“It has been too long since you came among us, Little Master,” an old man said, tears in his eyes. “The true blood of Valle Verde.”

“Oh, Madonna, how like your mother you have grown, little one,” a motherly looking woman exclaimed.

Another woman nodded, wiping away tears with a blue rag. “The image of our dear
condesa
, the very image of her.”

Isabella did not look too thrilled to hear of the resemblance, Luke observed, but she asked after each person eagerly, inquiring about their families and exclaiming over the news. She’d told him there was nothing for her at Valle Verde anymore, but she was loved by these people, he saw. And she loved them.

And he was taking her to England, where she’d be regarded as a foreigner and an outsider.

Finally, when all the personal inquiries were done, and she’d introduced him as her husband, and he’d been cautiously approved—he at least spoke Spanish like a Spaniard,
even if the accent was a southern one—the talk turned to Ramón.

“He is not a gentleman, like your father, but he works hard,” one man said.

“He might not be a
conde
by blood, but—”

“He’s not a gentleman at all,” a woman interrupted, and there was a general murmur of agreement. Beneath it, Luke thought, there was also some level of approval. Interesting. The old order was changing.

“He’s a sinner and will burn in hell,” another woman muttered. “Taking that girl to his bed and no talk of a wedding.”

Isabella shot a glance at Luke. Her sister?

“The
conde
needs to marry money, you know that. The estate needs it.” Several people glanced meaningfully at Isabella. Luke wondered if she’d noticed. Clearly Ramón wasn’t the only person who thought she should have married her second cousin. Twice removed.

“No excuse for him to live in sin, though, is it?” the first woman said fiercely. She shook her head. “He’s a godless man.”

“As to that, the old
conde
was hardly a pillar of the Church—” The man broke off and glanced at Isabella in embarrassment. “My apologies, Little Master,” he said. “I meant no insult.”

She shook her head. “None taken, Elí. I know what my father thought of the Church. But now, we must hurry along, or the new Conde de Castillejo will be wondering who the people are who keep his workers from the fields.”

She made her farewells and returned to the carriage, and they continued their jolting path down the potholed driveway.

Isabella sat silently, her thoughts far away, her brow furrowed.

“Little
Master
?” Luke said after a while.

She gave a rueful half smile. “A pet name.”

“I guessed that much.” Luke waited for the rest.

She hesitated, then explained. “My father always wanted a boy. When it became apparent that my mother would never
give him one, he started to treat me as the heir. He took me out among the people with him and taught me about the running of the estate and… oh, and all manner of things that a boy should know.” She stared out of the window a moment. “And after Mama died, he even dressed me as a boy, and that’s when the people started calling me Little Master, just for fun, you understand.”

He understood more than she realized, and not only her attachment to her breeches, but all he said was, “Those people love you.”

She nodded. “I’d forgotten what it was like to belong.” She stared out of the window, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears and added in a husky voice, “And I’d forgotten how beautiful Valle Verde is.”