Texas Loving (The Cowboys) Read online

  Edward turned to Daphne as they approached the house. “Don’t say anything until we talk again.” He was certain his father was at one of the windows, watching every gesture, wondering if Edward had finally proposed.

  “I won’t.” After a moment of silence, Daphne said, “Patrick says no one knows more about the estate than you. He’s depending on you to make the estate so profitable you can increase his allowance enough for him to marry.” Her expression turned pensive. “Eden says he’s a fine figure of a man, that she doesn’t see why some heiress hasn’t snapped him up already.”

  Now it was Edward’s turn to be thoughtful. He knew Daphne would never have used a phrase like fine figure of a man without attributing it to Eden. At the same time he hadn’t been aware Daphne had paid any attention to Patrick. Edward brought the carriage to a stop in front of the house. “No one knows better than I how fortunate I am to have Patrick as a brother, a friend, and an advocate.” It surprised him Daphne thought so as well.

  Eden was relieved the evening had gone so smoothly. Cyril was angry that Edward hadn’t used the afternoon ride to propose to Daphne, but Patrick had changed the subject whenever it became awkward. Edward and Daphne seemed more comfortable with each other. Apparently they’d found a way to work out some of the differences between them.

  “Will you play for us again this evening?” Charlotte asked Daphne when they finally got up from the table after dinner.

  “I’m sure Edward is tired of hearing me play.” It sounded like a challenge.

  “Certainly not,” Edward replied. “I’ll even turn your pages.”

  Charlotte smiled, and the viscount looked a little less grim. “I think you should see about having her instrument brought down to Worlege,” he said to Edward. “It’s much superior to ours.”

  “There are other decisions that need to be made first,” Edward replied.

  “What decisions?” the viscount snapped.

  “To begin with, what piece Daphne will play for us this evening.”

  Eden wished she could stuff something in the viscount’s mouth. He seemed to look for opportunities to berate Edward. Jake and the earl took advantage of the move to the music room to disappear. Eden decided she’d had enough of watching Edward dutifully concentrate his attention on Daphne. The falsity of it irritated her. She turned to Patrick. “It’s such a beautiful evening, I’d love to sit on the balcony. If you leave the windows open, we can hear Daphne. Would you join me?”

  Edward looked annoyed, but Charlotte gave Isabelle a wink, and Patrick’s almost imperceptible look of surprise changed into a smile of acceptance.

  “We don’t have anything like this in Texas,” Eden said to Patrick as she moved to the balustrade that overlooked the garden behind the house. “It would burn up from too much heat and not enough water.” The landscape in front of the house was laid out in formal beds of precise dimensions. In contrast, the garden behind the house was filled with shrubberies that formed backdrops for deep borders of flowers, and alleys that directed the eye toward statues or alcoves ideal for passing a quiet summer afternoon.

  Patrick told her how much his mother had enjoyed planning and expanding the garden over the years. “It has become her main interest at Worlege. She misses it when we go to London.”

  “So Edward isn’t the only one who prefers the country.”

  “We all love spending time at Worlege,” Patrick said, “but going to London is like going to a party.”

  “From the way your father complains about Edward’s love of Worlege, you’d think he hated the country. Why does he dislike Edward so?”

  “He doesn’t dislike Edward. He—”

  “Don’t waste your breath. I’ve seen and heard him. I think it’s very courageous of you to defend Edward.”

  Patrick didn’t respond immediately, just gazed out over the garden. “Edward is three years older than I am.” Patrick spoke without turning back to Eden. “Old enough to be a big brother but not so old he wanted nothing to do with his little brother. He took me riding when our father said I was too young. He took me swimming before my mother would let me go near the reflecting pool alone. He told me all the secrets of surviving boarding school, drilled me in the games so I’d never be left off a team, and made sure I knew which boys to trust and which to avoid. The one time I got in debt playing cards, he settled it out of his own allowance. I would do anything for him.”

  “Could you help Edward learn how to handle your father?”

  Patrick shrugged. “Mother and I have tried, even the earl has intervened on occasion, but nothing seems to make any difference. Father’s even said he wished I’d been born first.”

  “I don’t suppose that’s so unexpected. You are more like your father than Edward.”

  “Maybe so, but Edward doesn’t deserve to be ill-used because of it. So he prefers working at Worlege to parties in London. So he wants to make sure he and Daphne can get along comfortably before he asks her to marry him. So he spends his own money on a fête for the village children. Those are all good things. I don’t understand why Father acts like he does.”

  The piano stopped and the sound of polite applause floated out to the balcony.

  “We’d better go inside,” Patrick said.

  She still had a few more questions. “What if Edward thought Daphne was in love with somebody else?”

  “He’d set her free at once.”

  “Even against your father’s wishes?”

  “Nothing could make Edward marry a woman if she loved someone else.”

  Eden wondered if Daphne felt the same way. “What if Edward fell in love with someone else?” “Edward would never allow himself to do that.”

  Maybe, but Eden didn’t think any man had that kind of command over his emotions, not even one of these cool, controlled, and frustratingly stubborn Englishmen.

  Charlotte was doing her best to encourage Daphne to play again after a short rest. Isabelle was less enthusiastic. The viscount’s expression had become almost civil since Edward had devoted himself to Daphne all evening.

  Edward didn’t mind piano music as long as he wasn’t expected to listen to a lot of it, but he was more curious as to what Patrick and Eden were talking about on the terrace. He hadn’t been so involved in turning the pages that he had failed to notice they’d moved beyond earshot. Nor could he ignore his reaction to their being alone on the terrace. He’d been angry. Well, maybe not angry, but he hadn’t been happy when Patrick was so quick to follow her. He hoped Patrick wasn’t developing a soft spot for Eden. She was the wrong kind of woman for his brother. From what her mother had said, Eden had to be at least twenty-one, virtually an old maid by English standards. Patrick had never been strongly attracted to any one woman, but tonight he was showing signs that Eden might have changed that.

  Patrick was a very conservative, very conventional young man, exactly the kind of husband every father would want for his daughter. He would never embarrass her with tactless behavior or by flaunting a mistress, and he wouldn’t run through her money. He would give her several children, a stable home, and a respectable position in society. But as much as Edward liked and admired Eden, he knew she would never make a traditional English wife.

  She would be far better suited for a misfit like himself.

  “What?” He’d been so caught up in his own thoughts, he hadn’t realized Charlotte was speaking to him.

  “Eden’s mother says she has a pretty voice. Why don’t you ask her to sing? Daphne can play for her.”

  “I never play as an accompanist,” Daphne said, clearly annoyed at being moved out of the spotlight, “but I will if Patrick sings, too. He sang for us when he showed us through the house.”

  Edward moved from his position next to the piano. “I’ll tell them the good news.” The bottom had dropped out of his stomach when he’d realized Eden was better suited to him than Patrick. It wasn’t simply a matter of comparison. He liked the notion of being paired with Eden. He could see h
er as the wife of the country squire he wanted to be, riding at his side over his acres, taking an active interest in everyone who worked for them, and offering him the companionship and understanding he’d previously found only in his brother.

  Whereas he couldn’t visualize Daphne as a lover, he had no trouble seeing Eden in that role. The thought made his body swell, a condition that would soon be visible if he didn’t get himself under control.

  “Your mother tells us you have a lovely voice,” he said as he approached Eden and Patrick. He was relieved when nei- ther of them looked uncomfortable at his approach. “So my mother has summoned you to sing.”

  Eden made a wry face. “Doesn’t Charlotte realize she has to make allowances for motherly pride?”

  “And Daphne has requested that Patrick join you. Apparently you were so ill-advised as to perform for Daphne,” he said to his brother.

  “It was just a country ditty,” Patrick objected. “It was funny and I thought she’d enjoy it.”

  “I suppose there’s nothing to do but go inside and get it over with,” Eden said, standing up.

  Edward followed them into the house, irritated they could joke and laugh in a way that was impossible for him and Daphne. The realization cast a pall over him. He didn’t pay much attention to Eden’s spirited assertion that she had an average voice and that only a mother’s partiality would think otherwise. He didn’t hear any of the lively discussion over what song they would sing or who would sing which part. He didn’t care that they would have to wait while Jake and the earl were summoned to hear the performance. Not even his father’s caustic comments penetrated the barrier that had sprung up between him and everybody else. All he could think about was the dreadful, stifling, stultifying formality that would exist between him and Daphne and how it fell so short of the laughing, teasing relationship Eden had with him and with Patrick. He wanted that for himself, and he wanted it with Eden.

  That was an even more shocking thought. When had his interest in Eden grown to such a level and why hadn’t he noticed it? He wasn’t an idiot. He hadn’t thought he was completely out of touch with his feelings, yet he must have been.

  Whether he was infatuated with Eden or with his vision of what his life could be with her, she’d shown him that the kind of life he wanted was possible. In the past, he’d tried to make himself into the kind of man he was supposed to be, to think like that man, to want to be that man.

  In a few short days, Eden had destroyed all of that.

  “Edward, are you going to turn pages, or are you going to stand there like a fence post?”

  Edward snapped out of his reverie to find Eden staring at him with a questioning look. “I was just waiting for you to decide what you are going to sing.”

  “We’ve already decided that. Daphne is waiting for you to turn pages.”

  They had chosen a romantic duet. Edward hadn’t known they had such music in the house. He had to watch as Eden and Patrick sang to each other as two lovers would, smiling and sighing, even holding hands at one point. He wanted to knock their hands down, push them apart.

  Eden jabbed him in the ribs and he woke up enough to turn the page.

  He glanced around the room. Charlotte and Isabelle were watching their children with besotted gazes. Jake and the earl seemed to be enjoying the playacting. Edward couldn’t understand why the viscount looked like he had indigestion. This was exactly the kind of evening they frequently endured in London. Edward was the only one who had a right to be unhappy, because he’d always hated evenings like this. He’d rather talk about rotating crops, repairing fences, even the maintenance of pigpens.

  He had to admit that Eden did have a nice voice. It wasn’t powerful, thank God, just the right size for a salon. He wouldn’t mind Patrick’s singing if he’d stop looking at Eden like a lover mooning over his sweetheart.

  This time he managed to turn the page before anyone poked him in the side.

  How many verses did this song have? It wasn’t an opera, but it seemed to go on forever. No one appeared to mind but him and his father. Something they could finally agree on.

  When Eden and Patrick started on the fourth verse, Edward was tempted to grab the music and rip it to shreds, but this was one of those folk songs that told of a deep yet tragic love. He was going to have to listen to the bitter end whether he liked it or not.

  Finally, at the end of the seventh verse, the lovers were parted, the young woman near death, and the young man ready to join the army so he could die in battle and be joined with his lover in a place where they would never be parted. Charlotte and Isabelle had tears in their eyes. Jake and the earl applauded enthusiastically; the viscount remained stoic in his position by the window. Edward breathed a sigh of relief, grabbed the music and put it away before anyone could ask for a second song.

  “That was a lovely performance,” the viscount said, his expression at odds with his words. “With such an appropriate setting, I think it’s the perfect time for Edward to propose to Miss Bidwell.”

  Chapter Eight

  Edward had known his father would do practically anything to get him to propose to Daphne, but he hadn’t been prepared for something as brazen as this.

  “Cyril!” Charlotte exclaimed. “This is quite improper.”

  “It’s not the usual method,” the viscount virtually snarled, “but Edward seems unable to accomplish it on his own. I hoped he might have more success surrounded by his family.”

  Edward overcame his shock sufficiently to respond to the anger exploding through his body. “You couldn’t wait for me to handle it on my own so you thought you could embarrass me into proposing in public. Well, you’re wrong on that score, as you have been on so many others.”

  “I’m not wrong in thinking you aren’t respectful enough to do your duty.”

  “It’s my duty to protect the woman I ask to be my wife. Daphne and I have been talking about—”

  The viscount interrupted impatiently. “What’s there to talk about? You get married. She has your children and manages your household. You take care of her fortune and see that the family retains its place in society.”

  “You might want to continue this conversation in private,” Isabelle said, beginning to get up.

  “Stay,” the earl said. “You’re part of the family.”

  “Have you ever stopped to consider how this situation might look from Daphne’s viewpoint?” Eden demanded of Cyril.

  Her interruption was so unexpected, the viscount was speechless.

  “You don’t see her as a person with feelings or any right to personal happiness. You talk about her as though she were nothing but a bag of money to be offered to the highest bidder.”

  “This is none of your concern!” the viscount thundered.

  “As my grandfather just pointed out, I’m part of his family.”

  “No daughter of a bastard has any right to an opinion of my actions,” Cyril snarled.

  “Sit down, Jake,” Isabelle said when her husband jumped up from his chair. “If you have a problem with my birth, take it up with the earl,” she said, addressing the viscount. “If you think a title protects you from the scorn of others, you’re a fool. You’re one of the most detestable men I’ve ever known. It’s hard to understand how you could have fathered two such remarkable sons. I can only assume they take entirely after their mothers.”

  Isabelle rose with a calm majesty Edward would have thought couldn’t have been acquired by anyone below a duchess. It was obvious where Eden had gotten her sense of self-worth.

  “Jake and I are going to bed. It’s time we bring our visit to a close. Charlotte has asked me to help with the fête. We’ll head back to Texas after that.”

  Jake rose but he walked over to Cyril. “If you ever insult my wife or daughter again, I’ll knock the words back down your throat. You look down on me because I’m nothing but a Texas cowboy, but not even a lying, thieving, murdering Texan would insult a good woman. For all your fancy clothes, bi
g houses, and holier-than-thou airs, you’re nothing but horse droppings. You’re lower than a snake’s belly.”

  The snake’s belly was a new term to Edward, but he had no doubt what the horse droppings comment meant.

  “See what happens when you bring people like that into the house,” the viscount said to the earl. “I told you they’d—”

  “Shut up, Cyril,” Alastair said. “It’s a sad day when a bunch of Texans show more class than a titled Englishman.”

  Eden was relieved to be out of the house and on her way to visit Edward’s old nurse. After last night’s explosion, breakfast had been uncomfortable even though Edward had eaten before anyone came down and Daphne had asked for breakfast in her room. Eden’s parents had eaten their breakfasts as if this morning were the same as any other. Everyone else was stiff and nearly silent for fear of saying something that would cause tempers to flare again. Charlotte had watched her husband with a fearful eye, while Patrick had barely taken two swallows of his coffee before excusing himself.

  Eden and Patrick had gone for a ride before breakfast, but they’d avoided talking about the previous evening. Instead, Patrick had asked her what she would do when she returned to Texas. It surprised Eden that her future sounded so unexciting. She knew she didn’t want to remain in England. It would be impossible for her to assume the subservient role Englishmen expected of their wives. Even if a rebel like Edward had been willing to give his wife more freedom, society wouldn’t allow it. He’d be better off in Texas.

  That thought had caused her to laugh out loud, prompting Patrick to ask what was funny. She’d told him Edward ought to go to Texas, where he could farm all he wanted. They’d had an amusing half hour imagining Edward trying to become a Texan.

  But now, as she headed alone to the village to visit with his old nurse, she didn’t think those images were funny. She was going to miss Edward. She really liked Patrick, but her feelings for Edward were different. She just couldn’t decide what they were.