A Bride for Valentin Read online

  Valentin opened his eyes. His bedroom was clothed in darkness with not even the moon to interrupt the murky black curtain. He sat up and wondered about his dream.

  Ever since her death, Valentin believed he’d been visited by Jacinda’s spirit. Diego had once told him that spirits do not linger but he couldn’t be sure. The dreams were sometimes too vivid, too detailed for them not to be a message.

  Just as this dream was tonight. It had to be Jacinda. She could not find peace.

  He went over the conversation. Instead of the joy he was certain his sister would feel from his revenge, instead, she seemed sad. Those dark, luminous eyes of hers had gazed at him with censure.

  Despite what she said, he knew he was doing this for her.

  Pushing the heavy blankets and covers off, he reached over to the small table next to his bed and lit the candle. The glow of the light cast eerie shadows on the walls but it broke up the oppressive darkness. Reaching into the tiny drawer of the table, he pulled out a key, gripping it as if his life, his very sanity, depended on it.

  Perhaps it does, he thought as he stuffed his feet into his slippers. Taking the candle, he went out of the bedroom and made his way down the silent hall.

  He could hardly see past the glow of the firelight but he didn’t need to. He knew this path very well. Two doors down and then he was inserting the key into the lock. Once he heard the click, he placed the key in the pocket of his night shirt and then pushed the door open.

  A cold draft breezed through, almost blowing out the candle but he protected the flame by cradling it with his palm. Kicking the door shut with his foot, he went over to the mantle where the giant, hearth sat against the wall. Low embers burned their gentle light.

  Grabbing a poker, he worked the hearth until he had a small fire going, enough to ward off the chill of the room.

  Then he glanced up at the large painting residing above the mantle.

  Jacinda’s eyes gazed out from the painting. Unlike many of the portraits of the women he’d seen in his travels, Jacinda’s stood out the best of all of them.

  He remembered the day a traveling artist had come to their village a year before her disastrous encounter with the conte. He’d happened upon them while they were resting during siesta. The artist had taken one look at Jacinda lying outside in a hammock between two trees and had been smitten by her beauty.

  The artist’s words came to mind as he continued to stare in adoration at his sister. “Often, I am commissioned to paint the nobility. A queen, a princess, a lady, a lord, a general. But what of the nobility of the land, not the crown. What of the beauty captured in the coarse features of the peasant such as this woman before me?”

  Both an insult and compliment, Valentin had taken umbrage but one look from Jacinda had silenced his indignation.

  A smile lifted his mouth. She had refused the artist’s request to paint her for three days and then, on the fourth, she acquiesced to the pompous man’s request—provided he pay for the privilege.

  How affronted he’d been! After all, he was highly sought after among Queen Isabella’s court. How could a low-born peasant demand he give her payment. Her beauty would be immortalized by his depiction of her which was sure to be worth more than anything he could give her!

  Jacinda had remained adamant. And for whatever reason, the artist did indeed pay her to sit for him.

  Despite the man’s exaggerated opinion of himself, he had managed to capture the essence of his sister quite well. He had gifted one of the paintings to Jacinda, the one that now rested above the hearth, and had taken the others with him.

  What became of them, he never knew. Perhaps they were part of some nobleman’s collection. What did count was that he had the best of them all.

  “Jacinda,” he asked the painting, “are you really displeased with me?”

  Of course, unlike his nocturnal visits, she did not answer him. Just sat there, surrounded by a field of flowers, a small smile on her face.

  He turned away, suddenly pensive. He’d yet to receive the missive from Spain about the marriage to his enemy’s sister. Had the conte suddenly had an attack of conscience? Did the sister blatantly refuse to marry him?

  No. Valentin rejected the idea. He knew what the man would do. It was only a matter of time. Atilio had never contemplated marriage with any of the single women available to him among the aristocracy. Although more than one woman had been the recipient of his affections. Apparently, he had a devastating charm. The women of Queen Isabella’s court were sophisticated enough to keep their affairs with the conte discreet.

  Barely. Queen Isabella herself hadn’t kept her affairs secret. All of her children were suspected of being sired by someone other than her husband.

  As a peasant, Valentin had seen the marriages between the lower classes last for many years. Among his forays into the nobility, he’d seen marriages which were in name only, or only meant to produce offspring to carry on the family name.

  Jacinda—may God rest her soul—had she been allowed to marry, would have married for love and nothing less.

  What about this woman who he’d bartered with – this Contessa Ysabel Garcia De Alba. Was she similar in nature like the women of Queen Isabella’s court? Used to a life of ease? Used to taking lovers with regularity?

  He hadn’t given much thought to this woman he intended to take from the conte. Valentin only knew she was fifteen years her brother’s junior which made her ten years younger than himself. More than that, he didn’t know.

  Now that he thought about it, the contessa would be used to a lifestyle filled with everything she’d wanted. If she married him, no—when she married him, her circumstances wouldn’t be changing. She’d simply fall into the life of ease she’d always been used to.

  Jacinda never had such a living—why should his wife?

  Unless…

  A sudden idea grew in his head as he stood in Jacinda’s room. After he toyed around with it for more than a half hour, he knew what he would do.

  Blowing out the candle, he went out of the room and locked it again. It was Jacinda’s room and not even the servants were allowed to go into it. It was his and his alone.

  Several hours later, dressed and ready for a two-day trip, he and some of his men, along with a disgruntled Diego, left Jacinda’s Rest.

  When he returned two days later, bedraggled but satisfied with his mission, he was greeted by the manager of his ranchero.

  “Patron, this letter arrived along with the other mail.”

  Valentin took the letter and dismissed him. His heart pounded wildly in his chest although he kept his face from showing that excitement. With a speaking glance to Diego, he sent his other men away and they went to his study.

  He tore open the hated seal of the house of Garcia de Alba and then read through the contents.

  “So, did it go as planned?”

  Valentin lifted his eyes. “You have to get ready.”

  Diego’s satyr eyebrow rose up in his head. “Then it’s true?”

  “Si, just as I said it would be. Listen carefully to what I will tell you.”

  Valentin gave him the itinerary of his trip, including the passage from New Mexico to California where he would have passage on his ship. The ship, loaded with merchandise and goods from the area would take him to several ports, ending in Spain.

  “Here are the documents showing everything you will need for the marriage. All of it official and sanctioned by law.”

  “Val, I still don’t see why you can’t marry the woman on your own. This idea of yours is insane.”

  “But legal,” he answered.

  “Are you afraid she’s ugly, perhaps.”

  “I’ve never thought much about her looks,” Valentin said truthfully, rather surprised at that. Everything he’d done had been geared toward seeking his revenge with the conte. This sister was a means to an end. “Besides, when I bed her, it will be dark. I won’t have to see her then.”

  “But there will c
ome morning, Val,” Diego said. “Come morning, you will have to look your wife in the eye and determine if what you have done is worth it. Did you ever stop to consider how this would affect her? What if she had plans of her own? What if she had an advantageous marriage to fulfil of her own?”

  Looking back, Valentin wondered, if he hadn’t been beset by Jacinda’s presence in his dream, if he would have exploded on his friend as he did. As such, at the word that his friend said, he’d rounded the desk, fire blazing through his body. “Why are you so concerned about this woman? She is nothing! Atilio discarded and used my sister in the same way I will his.

  “Jacinda loved him, Diego! Loved him more than she did me! He knew it and yet he treated her as if she were a harlot. Do you think he cared that she had a life of her own? Do you think he gave one inkling of concern for the life he ruined? No. None of that ever crossed the conte’s mind.

  “Nor will I let anything that matters to her, cross mine. I will use her and then when she’s swollen with child, I’ll send her back to her brother, broken and alone with nothing to show for it.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico

  September 1866

  Ysabel’s birthday was in two weeks. She hoped by that time she was dead.

  She swayed in the horrible stagecoach that made its way to her new home, wondering if she could suffer any more humiliation.

  “Are you all right, Contessa del Bosque?”

  Diego Fernandez Aguado, the man sent to marry her by proxy to her new husband, leaned forward in the stagecoach. He had the strangest eyebrows, satyr-like in nature, which gave him a devilish appearance in more ways than one.

  A Mexican by birth, Diego explained his family had been one of the noble families which had colonized the area when the territory of New Mexico was still under the rule of Spain. Up until 1821, the region had been under the leadership of viceroys that reported to the mother country.

  “I’m well as can be expected, Senor Aguado.”

  She signed her new name as Ysabel Garcia de Alba y del Bosque. How strange it sounded to her ears when she added her husband’s last name to the marriage certificate.

  “New Mexico is a wonderful territory, contessa,” Senor Aguado went on, his eyes feverish and nervous. She’d sense he’d held something back the entire time they had been together. “Although Spain has lost this area, much of its influence still remains.”

  “So you’ve told me,” she answered.

  She tried to look him in the eye but every time their gazes touched, he’d avert his gaze. The trepidation emanating from him was a tangible thing, one that made her own uneasiness grow even as she dealt the blows this marriage had brought upon her.

  Why had her husband insisted on a marriage by proxy? Though she was of noble blood, he very well could have come over to Spain and married her properly.

  When she had discovered she was going to marry Valentin by proxy, she had nearly reneged on her promise. He held her brother ransom with his debts and then, he didn’t have the decency to come to their wedding he insisted they have.

  Was he trying to humiliate her, then? Make it seem apparent to her brother that he had no regard for her as a person? It seemed likely and deep inside it hurt.

  She had taken Mother Superior’s words to heart. She wanted to try to make the best of this marriage, even though she knew it was because of this man’s hatred for her brother and whatever her brother did to his sister.

  What that something was, she could guess and if these were different circumstances, she would have applauded her husband’s desire to gain retribution.

  At least she extracted her brother’s promise that the money that would have been her inheritance would be given to the orphanage and would benefit the children. In order to ensure that it would, Ysabel talked with Mother Superior and requested she write to her to ensure it was being done.

  Of course, her brother would have probably agreed to anything now that she was marrying his enemy. He smiled like a rat when she told him.

  “You’ve made a wise decision, Ysabel.”

  “I did not do this for you, Atilio. I did it for the children. But my assessment of you remains the same. You are truly a disgrace.”

  “You will stop saying that.” He’d loomed over her, his golden-brown eyes hard.

  “No, I won’t. Papa would rather have his name tainted and stained with the truth than glowing with golden lies.”

  “And what is that truth?”

  “You are not an honorable man. It is that reason, and nothing more, which is why you, and all of your Carlists friends will become a mockery. You spout such things such as ‘God, King, and Country’ and yet, you hold yourself above others. Rest assured brother, that whatever is done in darkness, will come to light.”

  “Contessa del Bosque?”

  She blinked and came out of the memories. “Si, Senor Aguado?”

  “Your husband told me to tell you that he will meet you at home. He is out…on business, which is why he could not meet you.”

  “I see.”

  But she really didn’t. How could she?

  Was it ignorant of herself to have put her hopes on the possibility of a bright future? She should have known better. She only had to look at Queen Isabella and her sister, Infanta Luisa Fernanda and how the political powers of France, England, and Spain toyed with the women.

  She had been born on the day that Queen Isabella had married her husband but it was still talked about, especially as the press and tabloids of the country continued to mock the union.

  How high her hopes had been once she got past her rage at her husband. She’d taken Mother Superior’s words to heart. Try to make the best of a bad situation. Try to see the good instead of evil. Try to believe in better and not the worst.

  She’d gotten past the proxy marriage, standing next to Senor Aguado as the priest said the words that would bind them together. When she left the shores of her beloved country, heartsick though she was, she had held out the hope that one day she would look back on this time with fondness, much as Mother Superior had.

  On the ship that crossed the wide ocean, she had fallen prey to seasickness and had spent most of her time in her tiny stateroom, praying for the ocean to stop swaying. Once or twice, when seasickness did not hinder her, she went outside on the deck to peer at the vastness of the ocean.

  What awaited her in the New World with her new husband?

  Nothing, she now answered that question. Nothing at all.

  The stagecoach swayed all the more as it made a turn. Where, she didn’t know or particularly much care. She was hot, dusty, and sure her body odor was unpleasant although Senor Aguado said nothing to indicate that.

  What more could possibly go wrong?

  “You can’t be serious!” Ysabel exclaimed as she stood outside her new home.

  “I assure you, Contessa, this is your new home.” Diego looked as if he wished to be anywhere else besides where he stood next to her.

  The small adobe home with its bleached clay tiles, dingy exterior, and humble appearance spoke nothing of her husband’s supposed wealth. The block steps were crumbling.

  “How can this be my home?”

  “Valentin spent all of his money buying your brother’s debt. It will take time for him to recuperate his fortune so for now, you and he will live here.”

  “Live here! Where is here?”

  Ysabel longed to weep. In fact, she could feel the tears swelling behind her eyes but she must refuse them the freedom to let loose on her cheeks.

  She felt that if she succumbed to that feeling, there would be no stopping the torrent. The torrent at what she had become: a blackmailed wife, a proxy bride, and now the wife of a poor man.

  “I’ve been lied to,” she gritted between her clenched teeth.

  The shadow of the sombrero shielded most of Senor Aguado’s face but she saw how he tugged at the collar of his shirt. If she were a man, she’d take the nearest p
iece of rope she could find and—

  “Valentin is truly going to take care of you. Just not in a set of circumstances you are accustomed to.”

  A manner she was accustomed was right. Though her life with her brother had never been easy, it was nothing to the sort of difficulty that sat before her.

  Castillo Garcia de Alba over-looked the Bay of Biscany. Every morning, she found comfort in the serenity of the water as it lapped against the shoreline.

  The…hovel had a perfect view…of the desolate landscape. When they had been riding in the stagecoach, she vaguely remembered the coach riding past houses on their trek here. She’d paid little attention to them. Now, she wished she had.

  “Would you like to see the inside?”

  “Of course not!” she yelled, all lady-like composure gone, replaced by a shivering, weepy harpy struggling for release from the confines of her body. “I want you to take me back to Santa Fe. Now.”

  “Lo siento. Contessa. I cannot.”

  “My brother told me that Valentin Carrion del Bosque had made his fortune in trade. How is it, then, that this house reflects nothing of that.”

  “Contessa—”

  “I want answers, Senor Aguado. I want them now.”

  She shook with rage, humiliation, and something infinitely sadder. Despair?

  How could her life have taken such a turn?

  Diego sighed, a long, heavy drawn-out thing. “I was the one who gave Valentin the means to entrap the conte. It was my fortune which allowed him to do what he did.”

  “And you knew this?” she asked. “The entire time we were in Spain. While we went over marriage contracts and everything else related to set aside my life, you said nothing to me?”

  In the back of her mind, she had a feeling that something about his statement didn’t ring true. She didn’t know in what capacity but something was niggling at her thoughts. Something vital she was missing but for now, she could not figure it out.

  Not that it mattered anyway.

  “I owe Valentin a great deal. I would do anything for him.

  “I did not harm his sister, whatever my brother did to her. Why am I being punished for—”