Texas Loving (The Cowboys) Page 4

  “Here’s the bridle path,” Edward said as they crossed a road and reached a dirt path through the trees. “We’re supposed to go no faster than a canter. But it’s early enough that we might be able to get away with a short gallop.”

  Eden had never seen anything like it . . . a wide, dirt path snaking through a lush green park in the middle of a city of more than four million people. It made Jake’s assertion that the Hill Country was becoming too crowded sound foolish. She urged her mount into a trot and then a slow canter. They passed two riders, one of whom—a young woman in a tight-fitted black riding habit with a small hard-top hat and a black veil covering her face—stared at Eden in open shock.

  “Can we gallop?” Eden didn’t really mind being stared at, but if she was going to attract attention, she wanted it to be for her riding, not her clothes.

  “As long as we keep a sharp lookout for the police. Just don’t go full out. I’ve already been ticketed for galloping in the park.”

  “I thought the aristocracy scorned all rules but their own.”

  “That may be true in their private lives, but the rules for public behavior are rigid and unbending. Things became worse after Prince Albert died and Queen Victoria went into perpetual mourning.”

  “Maybe any policeman who catches a glimpse of my calves will be too shocked to remember to ticket you.”

  Edward looked at her in mild disbelief. “Are you always like this?”

  She laughed. “I’m being very well-behaved, even though this dawdling pace is just about to kill me.” They rounded a bend in the bridle path, which opened out into a straightaway of nearly a half mile. “Can we gallop now?”

  Chapter Three

  Edward checked to make sure no policemen were hiding in the shrubbery. “Very well, but only to the end of the straightaway.”

  Eden pushed her mount into a gallop a few strides ahead of Edward. “Last one there has to rub down the horses.” They rode the length of the straightaway together, each urging the other to try harder. Very ungallantly, Eden thought, Edward finished a length in front.

  “No fair,” she called to him as they slowed their mounts to a canter. “Your horse is faster.”

  “He has to be. I weigh about five stones more than you.”

  “I can’t help it if you’re an overgrown beanstalk.”

  “I’ll have you know I’m considered a fine figure of a man.”

  “Is that what Daphne thinks?” When Edward’s smile disappeared and his face turned to a rigid mask, she realized she’d ventured into forbidden territory. What had happened to the energetic, open, laughing man she’d raced against just moments ago?

  “It’s not something Daphne would remark on even if she thought it.”

  “What’s wrong with saying someone is a fine figure of a man?” Eden was trying to understand English behavior, but she thought such reserve was carrying things to a ridiculous extreme.

  “It would be improper for a lady to make such a statement,” Edward explained. “It implies a want of delicacy, of the refinement a gentleman looks for in a wife.”

  She refrained from saying that was the most ridiculous statement she’d ever heard, but it was a struggle. She tried to catch his eye, but he refused to meet her gaze, paying more attention to the flowers in the beds that lined the bridle path than to her or his mount, which tossed its head restlessly, eager for another gallop. “From the way you and Daphne act when you’re together,” she said, “an American would think you didn’t know each other. A Texan would think you did and wished you didn’t.”

  He turned toward her abruptly, his expression tight and noncommittal. “What would a Texan do?”

  “Not everyone would do the same. Some—”

  “What would you do?”

  He was angry, challenging her, ready to criticize behavior he deemed unsuitable.

  “I’d smile when I saw the man I loved coming toward me, be glad I was the focus of his attention, that he wanted everybody to know he believed I was the most important person in the room. I’d want to touch him, have him touch me, even kiss me. I’d want him to tell me I was beautiful, to make me feel beautiful even if I wasn’t. And I wouldn’t hesitate to let people know I liked the way he looked.”

  Edward’s expression remained unchanged. “We marry for very different reasons in England. We—”

  Eden ruthlessly interrupted him. “And after we married, we’d share every part of our lives. I wouldn’t hesitate to work by his side just as he wouldn’t refuse to help in the house if I were sick or caring for a child. His happiness would be my happiness, his worries mine also.” Eden wanted to say a lot more, but Edward looked away.

  They rode without speaking for several minutes, the silence broken by the plop of their horses’ hooves in the heavy sand, the chirping of birds looking for food in the grass, the rustling leaves in the treetops. Eden could almost imagine the city of London had disappeared, leaving them alone in a cool, pleasant glade somewhere in the countryside.

  She wondered how Edward could be so energetic and vital most of the time, yet stiff and lifeless when he was with Daphne. The only explanation she could find was that Edward didn’t love Daphne and didn’t want to marry her.

  Edward finally broke the silence. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t without being born and raised here.”

  Eden was so relieved he’d finally spoken, she didn’t challenge him. “Explain it to me.”

  He appeared reluctant but finally relented. “People like me have a responsibility to the family, to the people who depend on us, to the country if you will, to preserve our way of life. To do that, it’s necessary to put others before oneself. We marry for practical reasons. Consider it a social contract if you want, but it’s for the benefit of everyone, not for personal reasons.”

  “Can’t you do both?”

  “I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t know anyone who has.”

  “Don’t you want to love the woman you marry?” Eden couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life with a man she didn’t love. She’d rather be an old maid.

  “It’s more important to respect one’s wife, to have a common social and cultural background. That will provide a solid basis for a long-term relationship.” Edward looked away, studying the trees again. “Love is a fickle emotion that can change as often as the seasons.”

  “Then it’s not love.” Eden wanted to shake him, make him look at her. “My parents have been married for more than twenty years, and they’re still in love.”

  “They’re an exception.”

  “Then I have ten brothers, a sister, and a passel of in-laws who’re all exceptions. Love is not merely physical attraction, Edward.”

  He turned to face her, his mouth compressed, his eyes hard. “Then what is it? According to your father, you have a unique variety in Texas.”

  Eden held back her sharp response. She’d forced Edward to defend a system she was convinced he didn’t believe in. Something was wrong between Edward and Daphne. If she could do anything to change that, she couldn’t let this opportunity slide by.

  “It helps to have similar social and cultural backgrounds, but real love is strong enough to overcome differences. My parents are a perfect example. Love is also physical attraction, sometimes so strong it’s difficult to think of anything else. But you do think of something else. Though looks fade, the person you love will still be there, more worthy of love than ever.”

  “How can that be?”

  Did he sound merely skeptical, or did she detect a hint of hope?

  “You love a woman for what she is, what she does, what she means to you. In the beginning it may be that you just feel happy being with her, thinking about her. But as you get to know her better, become a part of each other’s lives, you reach a point when you can’t imagine being without her. That doesn’t mean you’ll always agree. It does mean you’ll do your best to find common ground because your need for her in your life is greater than any difference of opinion
.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible,” Edward said.

  “I know it is, because I’ve seen it in my family.”

  “I mean for me. My family is on the verge of bankruptcy. If I don’t marry Daphne, our creditors will strip us of everything that isn’t entailed, everything that doesn’t have to stay with the title. Daphne wants a title, my family needs money, so we agreed to marry. Everybody gets what they want.”

  “What about love?”

  Edward’s expression was opaque. “What about it?”

  “I would be miserable knowing someone had sacrificed their happiness for me.”

  Edward had opened his mouth to reply when his attention was caught by a rider who had just come onto the bridle path about forty yards ahead. A child of around six or seven was astride a big, rawboned horse that was fighting his rider’s control. “Children aren’t allowed to ride in the park alone.”

  “Why isn’t someone with him?” Eden asked.

  The child’s horse, having pulled the reins from the child’s hands, turned off the bridle path and into the park itself.

  “I’d better stop them before the horse becomes completely unmanageable.” Edward believed every boy ought to learn to ride as soon as he was able to stay in the saddle, but he was adamant that children needed proper supervision and a suitable mount until they had proved their skills. He angled his own mount onto the grass and set him into a fast canter.

  The situation up ahead was getting worse. The boy had regained his hold on the reins, but the horse was throwing its head from side to side with such force, the jerking nearly pulled the child from the saddle. In an apparent effort to bring the horse under control, the boy hit it with his whip. Giving vent to an infuriated snort, the horse reared. The boy again lost his hold on the reins, and took a desperate grip on its mane. When the horse came down, it took off across the park at a gallop.

  Edward turned to Eden, who had brought her mount alongside of his. “He’s headed toward a rock wall.”

  “He looks big enough to jump it safely.”

  “There’s a twenty-foot drop to a road on the other side. If he jumps that wall, they’ll both be killed.”

  Edward drove his mount at a furious gallop over the uneven ground, around trees, benches, and over the gravel paths that crisscrossed the park. He jumped his mount over a broad border, putting him in the same part of the lawn as a woman with two small children. Though he wasn’t close enough to pose a threat, the woman started screaming.

  If that woman were from Texas, she wouldn’t be such a fool, Eden thought as she jumped her horse over the same border.

  The children watched the two horses thunder by, their eyes wide and staring, with no attempt to heed their nanny’s screams to run to the safety of her arms before they were trampled to death.

  “I’ll lift the boy out of the saddle,” Edward called to Eden. “See if you can keep the horse from killing itself.”

  Edward brought his horse alongside the runaway, but it shied abruptly in Eden’s direction.

  “Come up on his other side,” Edward directed. “Let’s see if we can pen him between us.”

  Eden brought her mount up alongside and held it on a straight course even though the boy was on a bigger and stronger horse. Edward leaned over and put his arm around the boy’s waist. “Let go of the mane. I’ve got you, and the lady will get your horse.”

  The boy was too frightened to release his grip. Leaning dangerously far out of the saddle, Edward tightened his hold on the boy and lifted him up. The moment the boy’s bottom left the saddle, he twisted around and threw his arms around Edward. In the process, the boy’s hat fell off, and lengths of dark brown hair fell to the child’s waist.

  The boy was a girl.

  To keep her from slipping out of his grip, Edward pulled the child into his lap. The little girl felt small and fragile in his arms. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could have thought she would be able to control a horse big enough to be a hunter. Using his knees and one hand on the reins, he was able to bring his own mount to a halt. Eden caught the runaway and headed it in their direction. “Where’s your groom?” Edward asked the child.

  The little girl hung her head. “I don’t have a groom.”

  “Who came with you?”

  “No one.” Her answer was spoken so softly, Edward could barely hear it.

  “Does anyone know you’re here?”

  She shook her head.

  A slow burn started in the pit of Edward’s stomach. What kind of parents could be so unconcerned about the whereabouts of their children? Where was the stable boy? Such a small girl couldn’t mount by herself.

  “What is your name?” Edward asked. “Do you know where you live?”

  “I’m Valentine Cordelia Baldwin,” the girl answered. “I don’t know where I live, but I can—”

  “Get your hands off my daughter,” a man shouted. “If you’ve harmed her, I’ll see you hang.”

  Edward looked up to see a red-faced, overweight man, who appeared to be in his forties and had obviously dressed in haste, pulling up a horse whose withers were flecked with lather.

  “She lost control of her horse, and it ran away with her,” Edward explained.

  “I saw him.” The sound of a woman’s voice caused both men to turn. “He spotted her when she was on the bridle path,” said the nanny of the two small children, “and took off in pursuit. And that woman”—she pointed to Eden, who was leading the runaway horse—“is helping him.”

  “Of all the stupid stories I ever head, this is the most ridiculous,” Eden informed the nanny. “If you hadn’t been so busy screaming like a fool, you would have realized the horse was out of control and we were only trying to rescue the boy.”

  “Girl,” Edward said, lifting the child’s long hair for Eden to see.

  “Girl?” She confronted the man. “What kind of father are you to allow a child barely old enough to be out of the nursery to take a badly trained horse out alone? Don’t you realize she could have been killed if Edward hadn’t rescued her before the horse tried to jump that stone wall?”

  “He can jump walls twice that height,” the man said.

  “There’s a twenty-foot drop to a road on the other side,” Edward informed him.

  The man blanched.

  “Hector wouldn’t do anything I told him,” Valentine said to her father.

  “How did you saddle and mount that horse?” Edward asked.

  “I told Kenny that Papa wanted to take an early morning ride. I made him let me sit on Hector while he saddled my pony. But I didn’t wait for Papa. I wanted to show him I was too big for a pony.”

  “Instead of saddling another horse and following her, the idiot groom came running into my bedroom while I was still asleep,” Mr. Baldwin explained. “I didn’t even have time to dress properly.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  They all turned to see a policeman approaching.

  “I have a report of an indecently clad woman galloping in the park.”

  “So you rescued this man’s little girl?” the policeman asked after Edward had explained.

  “Yes. Now if that’s all, we’ll be going.”

  “I still have this report of galloping in the park.”

  “How else was I going to catch the horse before someone got injured?”

  “It’s not about you,” the policeman stated. “It’s about a woman.”

  “We were on the bridle path when we saw the horse go out of control,” Eden explained.

  “They came galloping straight at my charges,” the nanny reiterated. “I was so frightened, I couldn’t move.”

  Between the policeman’s disapproval of Eden’s riding habit and the charge of galloping in the park, Edward’s chances of getting off without being hauled before a magistrate were looking slim. He was relieved when Patrick rode up.

  “What’s going on?” his brother asked.

  All the explanations were repeated. There wa
s nothing the policeman could do about Eden’s mode of dress because none of her limbs were exposed. And there was no question about Valentine’s rescue.

  “My brother has explained they were galloping to rescue the child,” Patrick said. “Surely that’s sufficient reason to ignore the rules this once.”

  “You’ve already had one citation for galloping in the park,” the policeman said to Edward. “The magistrate isn’t going to take it kindly if you’re brought up before him a second time.”

  “I should think the magistrate would be more likely to give my brother a commendation,” Patrick pointed out. “It’s not every heir to an earldom who would risk his life in such a manner.” a manner.”

  “I’ll do my best to see I don’t get caught galloping in the park again,” Edward said to the policeman. He glanced at Eden in time to see her hide a smile. “Now, we’d better take Valentine home. I’m sure her mother is anxious to know she’s safe.” she’s safe.”

  Eden handed Hector’s reins to Mr. Baldwin and brought her horse alongside Edward’s. Patrick pulled up beside the policeman, effectively separating him from Edward. With Mr. Baldwin leading, the party rode out of the park. Valentine resisted all efforts to convince her to ride with her father or Eden.

  “She’s comfortable where she is,” Edward said. “Why should she move?”

  “Because you’re a dangerous man,” Patrick said with a sly smile. “Even our honest policeman thinks so.”

  The policeman had the grace to blush.

  It amazed Edward that the policeman might think him dangerous. He was a responsible, law-abiding citizen. Well, he broke little rules, but only once in a while. He honored his parents, loved his country, worked hard, and had never been involved in a scandal. He had no illegitimate children, had never been in debt, didn’t drink to excess, and was a man of his word. Still, there was something about him that made people look at him askance.