She wanted to—because she was in love with him.
A jagged pain knifed through her as she sank down on the horsehair sofa. Why hadn’t she seen it? How could she have hidden the truth from herself for so long? She was in love with Ramon, had been since the night he had saved her from Villegas, perhaps even before that.
Maybe she had loved him from the moment she had opened her eyes and seen him praying at the side of her bed.
And if she loved him, perhaps that was the reason she had forced the marriage. At the time, she hadn’t considered it. She’d been certain it was necessary, her only way out of a bad situation. But maybe deep down, in a place she refused to acknowledge, she wanted Ramon so much she was willing to do anything to get him. If that was the case, she was no better than Vincent Bannister. Carly’s heart wrenched at the thought.
Three days passed. At first she was embarrassed. Ramon had left right after their wedding night, and Pedro, the vaqueros, and everyone else at Las Almas knew it. She occupied the hours wandering through the house, then thankfully made a new friend out in the barn—little Bajito, the tiny brown and white spotted dog that had perched on Rey del Sol’s back the day of the horse race.
The dog slept in one of the stalls near his big palomino friend, but he loved to play, and Carly had lured him outside easily for a game of fetch the stick. After that, she had come to the barn every day, carrying a bite of sugar for Rey and some scraps from supper for Bajito.
Then one day as she was sitting on the floor of the barn playing tug-of-war with the scruffy little mutt, Carly clutching one end of a rag while Bajito clung to the other, she overheard a group of vaqueros speaking outside the window of one of the stalls.
Pancho Fernandez, one of the Las Almas vaqueros, had been at del Robles the night of thefandango.He had heard what happened in the barn, how Don Ramon had been trapped into marriage, and carried the tale to the men. Ramon didn’t really want her, he said. That was the reason he had left her alone.
Carly’s throat closed up. It was the truth, but it hurt to hear him say it.
“I do not believe it,” another man said as she started to creep away before any of them could see her. “What sane man would not want her, eh? Besides, I have seen the way he looks at her. There is something in his eyes I have never seen there before.”
Hearing those words, a tiny ray of hope began to glow inside her, a spark that had been all but snuffed out. Perhaps she could learn to please him, somehow win his love. The hope continued to grow, brightening a little every day. Surprisingly, it strengthened when his aunt and mother returned, amazed to find Ramon had gone.
“He—he had to leave on business,” Carly stammered, the color high in her cheeks. “I’m certain he’ll be back as soon as he can.”
His mother frowned, but his frail maiden aunt smiled brightly. “Do not worry,niña.My nephew is new at being a husband. He chafes a little at the bit, but in time, he will come around.”
Carly’s heart swelled with gratitude at the older woman’s kind words. Over the next few days, they spoke often, though his mother practically ignored her. Tia Teresa had a way of sweeping aside the barriers between them. She reminded Carlyof her grandmother, an Irish woman who had lived with the McConnell family in the mine patch, a woman of courage and warmth. Carly had loved everything about her, the stories she told of the grueling journey from her homeland, the feel of her gnarled old hands as they gently braided her hair, even the hint of Irish whiskey that occasionally clung to her breath.
Granny McConnell was gone now, but in a few short days she felt nearly that close to Tia Teresa, a closeness she hadn’t shared with a woman since her mother died.
“Are you busy, Tia?” Carly approached the frail old woman late one evening, after Mother de la Guerra had gone to bed. The older woman was sitting in thesalaembroidering, her veined hands working with a skill that denied her years. Carly had come in from outside in the kitchen, where she’d been helping Blue with the supper dishes.
She didn’t have to help. In fact, Ramon’s mother frowned at the notion of a de la Guerra woman doing such menial tasks, but Blue was old, and Carly didn’t mind. Keeping busy helped distract her.
Tia Teresa set aside her embroidery, resting it carefully beside her on the couch. “What is it,niña?You are worried about Ramon, no?”
“Yes, I suppose I am.” She worried about him every day, prayed that he and his men hadn’t gone off on some dangerous mission. “But that isn’t what I wanted to ask you about.”
“No? Then what is it?”
A spot of warmth crept into her cheeks. “It’s about the night we were married. I-It’s rather embarrassing, but I…” She took a breath to fortify her courage. “You see I didn’t know exactly what to do. Ramon was…”magnificent, incredible, wonderful.“At any rate, I think I might have done something wrong, something to displease him.”
“You believe that is the reason he left?”
“Yes.…”
“It is the man’s place to know these things. What could you possibly have done to displease him?”
“I don’t know. I-I was wondering… how would a Spanish lady behave on her wedding night?”
The old woman smiled, making her wrinkled face look less brittle. “I can only tell you what my mother once told me, and what other women have said. I cannot speak for myself.”
“I know.” Ramon’s aunt had mentioned hernovio,a young man named Esteban. She said that he had been killed, and that she had never married. It was obvious that even after a lifetime without him, Tia Teresa still grieved. In a way, Carly envied her. How fierce their love must have been to survive after all these years.
The old woman picked up her embroidery, her bony fingers moving in rhythm, the needle skimming through the fabric without conscious thought. “When a Spanish man and woman marry, there is always a grand fiesta. The music and dancing begin right after the wedding, and the feasting goes on all night, sometimes as long as a week. Often the bride and groom do not consummate the marriage for several days.”
Carly hated to ask such an intimate question, but there was no one else who could help her. “And when that time finally comes?”
Tia glanced up from her work. “The bride is very nervous, and of course very shy. She awaits her husband in their bed and when he finally joins her, she allows him the husbandly rights she has agreed to by the marriage contract.”
