Alliance with His Stolen Heiress
Autore
Lydia San Andres
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Capitoli
20
Chapter One
The sky was a pristine, unblemished blue, but something about the clouds hovering in the horizon made Amalia Troncoso think of rain as she alighted from her family’s carriage.
It could not rain—not today of all days. Not after all the trouble she had gone to in planning this outing.
The patch of grass she landed on was still slightly slick with morning dew, so she turned back to offer her younger sister a hand.
“You can stop glaring at the sky,” Lucía said, looking at Amalia with amusement as she grasped her hand. “It won’t rain, you know.”
Amalia cast another threatening look at the clouds in the horizon. “It had better not.”
“As convinced as I generally am of your ability to take control of every situation, I think we’ll have to draw the line at the weather.” Lucía’s giggles were hard to come by these days, and all the more precious for it. Amalia couldn’t help giving the seventeen-year-old’s fingers a brief, fond squeeze as she helped her down from her perch on the upholstered seat.
“That’s what you think,” Amalia answered her sister with a carefree chuckle that was not altogether genuine. For Lucía’s sake, she would do far more daring things than attempt to glare rainclouds into submission.
Lucía joined the other young ladies gathered beneath an ancient anacahuita tree, to a chorus of eager greetings. A dozen lightweight wicker chairs had been arranged in the shade. The young ladies had likewise arranged themselves as picturesquely as if they were expecting their portrait to be taken. Bedecked in white and ivory frocks edged with delicate bands of lace, they looked like flowers among the lush tropical greenery.
Amalia smoothed down her own ivory-colored skirt. The slim column was paired with a square-necked blouse in the same shade, pale brown leather pumps and a straw hat ringed with silk flowers. It was not the ensemble she would have selected for a day spent traipsing around the countryside, but Lucía had been firm on the matter. The Troncoso sisters were not only fabulously wealthy, they were always fashionable, as well.
Given any choice in the matter, though, Amalia would have rather been pragmatic.
She’d also have preferred a nice wander through the narrow dirt paths that led to various sugarcane fields, or even a poke around the crumbling ruins of an eighteenth-or seventeenth-century estate that sprawled behind the tree. Unfortunately, there was no time for any of that today.
The maid that had accompanied them, riding alongside the coachman, was unloading the baskets containing their midday meal. Tucked into buckets filled with rapidly melting ice, the sparkling wine would have to be served quickly, before it grew warm. Amalia gave the young woman her instructions, then went to greet her sister’s guests.
She went around the semicircle of chairs, bending to press her cheek against each of the guests, as was only polite. Though Amalia had been acquainted with them all for years, they really were mostly Lucía’s friends. By the time Amalia dropped into the empty chair next to Paulina de Linares, Lucía had been drawn into the conversation and was chattering away animatedly.
The chairs had been arranged with their backs to the morning sun; the small amber earrings Paulina wore caught the light, looking like live embers. “It’s good to see you, Amalia,” she said. “I thought you would be joining us at yesterday’s garden party, but Lucía said you were under the weather.”
Amalia went blank for a second as she tried to remember the excuse she’d given for not attending. “Oh, yes,” she said after a small pause. “I was so sorry to miss it.”
Paulina smiled. “I hope you’ve recovered enough to attend the dinner I’m hosting tonight.”
Amalia didn’t squirm, but it was a near thing. Paulina had been trying to deepen their acquaintanceship into something more like friendship for weeks now, and though Amalia thought the young mother was very nice, she couldn’t help the little flare of panic that sprang to life in her chest at the thought of getting too close to anyone.
Hoping that her smile didn’t feel too forced, she said, “I was actually—”
The rest of her sentence was cut short by the thunder of approaching hoofbeats. The tangle of vegetation behind them quivered, then parted violently as a horse and rider burst through.
The horse was ordinary enough, brown and sleek with perspiration. Its rider, however...
Amalia stared up at the masked man in the saddle. Bristling with weapons, his sleeves rolled up to exhibit a pair of gleaming, sunbaked arms corded with muscle, he looked like—
“A bandit!” shrieked one of the young ladies.
The man in question inclined his head in acknowledgment, raising his pistol in the direction of the coachman standing on the other side of the clearing.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he drawled, the cockiness in his tone turning the pleasantry into something slightly mocking. Swinging a long leg over his saddle, he dropped easily to the ground, contriving to keep his pistol pointed toward the coachman. “As loath as I am to break up your little party here, I’ve some business to conduct. I should very much appreciate your assistance.”
Amalia’s nerves might have failed her at that moment, if Lucía hadn’t made a frightened whimper.
Brushing off Paulina’s restraining hand, Amalia rose from her seat and took a step that put her between the bandit and the young ladies. “What is it that you want?” she demanded in strident tones.
Over the kerchief covering the bottom half of his face, the bandit directed a look at Amalia that made her knees quiver. “You.”
Something more powerful than a shiver racked Amalia’s body at the simple syllable. Almost without thought, she took a step forward, as if her body was responding to his command. Lucía let out another noise.
Amalia cast a quick look toward her sister. “I’ll be all right, Lu,” she called, making her voice as firm as she could. “Don’t you dare worry about me.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Amalia saw a wild-eyed Paulina reach for a tree branch. Did she really think she could fight off a pistol-wielding bandit with a branch?
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the bandit drawled, lifting his other hand to point a second pistol at Paulina. Even in the dappled shade of the anacahuita tree, the sunlight glinted threateningly off the muzzle.
Amalia’s pulse quickened. “Please don’t. I don’t want any of them hurt.”
Keeping his pistols trained on their targets, the bandit sauntered toward Amalia with infuriating cockiness. He closed the distance between them with two strides of his powerful legs.
A shockingly hard arm came around her midsection, and Amalia almost gasped at the touch as he drew her against an equally solid chest. For the space of several breaths, all Amalia was aware of was the sensation of her body pressed tightly against his—she had never stood this way with a man, not even while dancing. That she couldn’t see his expression made it all the more...
Her brain supplied her with the word exciting, but Amalia refused to consider it. There was nothing exciting about this. She should have been nervous, or at the very least annoyed at this abrupt and unsolicited embrace.
The bandit lowered his head to hers, and Amalia almost shivered as the edge of his kerchief brushed the curve of her ear. “Aren’t you going to struggle?” he asked, his voice rich with amusement.
Surprise followed by irritation swept over Amalia. Before she could give him a swift kick in the knee, the moment was broken in a sudden explosion of violence.
Caught in the frisson running through her, Amalia wasn’t quite sure what had happened. All she knew was that the muscles bulging against her tensed, and suddenly he was whipping around, barely pausing to take aim before he released a shot that sliced through the bottles of champagne her maid had laid out on a table.
Shrieks, screams and the sound of shattering glass pierced the air. The Troncosos’ coachman, who had clearly been attempting to edge toward the spot where Amalia was being held by the bandit, threw up his arms to shield his face from the flying shards.
The bandit took advantage of the commotion to burst into action. Within moments Amalia was on his saddle and he was swinging himself behind her, his thighs and arms making an inescapable cage around her. She couldn’t have gotten away if she wanted to and, well...
She didn’t want to.
It wasn’t only because the bandit had turned his horse toward a path too narrow for the coachman to pursue in their cumbersome carriage—in the time it would take him to unhitch a horse and give chase, Amalia and her captor would be long gone. They were racing at a speed that left Amalia breathless, the path so narrow that branches and vines tugged at Amalia’s hair and clothes. Only the bandit’s unyielding—and not altogether unwelcome—grip around her prevented her from tumbling into the tangle of vegetation.
Amalia supposed she should have found it terrifying, but in truth, it was actually rather...exhilarating.
It was—
Amalia didn’t so much hear as feel the bandit’s roar, gusting at her ear. She glanced back, uncomprehending, and caught a glimpse of a pair of flashing dark eyes before he threw his torso on top of her, making a sheltering cage of his body.
A moment later she felt the overhanging branch they had just narrowly avoided, scraping off her hat. Amalia’s gasp was swallowed by the wind, but she could hear his breathless laughter in her ear as they rushed on, even faster than before.
The thundering of hooves grew more frantic, and Amalia’s heart was galloping to match. Neither slowed until they reached the end of the path and burst out into a clearing. Amalia hardly had time to notice the small wooden shack nestled among the trees before she found herself being unceremoniously dumped from the saddle.
To the detriment of her already damaged ensemble, she landed on her bottom on a patch of dirt. The bandit dismounted with considerably more grace—and without sparing her a glance.
Indignation propelled Amalia to her feet, though her knees felt like they had been replaced with rice pudding.
The wind—not to mention the loss of her hat—had pulled long tendrils of hair out of the confines of her hairpins. Making an ineffective attempt to smooth them back, Amalia drew herself up to her fullest height.
“What the devil was that?” she asked the bandit furiously. “No one pursued us. There was no need to—to imperil our lives in such a way.”
“I thought you would appreciate a little excitement, Your Highness,” the bandit said, flicking a look at her as he finished hitching his horse to a nearby post. With more delicacy than she would have thought him capable of, he plucked a single leaf off her shoulder and let it flutter gently to the ground. “Isn’t that why you hired me?”
Julián Fuentes had made a lot of mistakes in his wretched lifetime, but this surely had to be the worst.
His pulse was roaring in his ears when he removed the kerchief covering the black bristles on his chin and jaw, and used it to mop up the perspiration trickling down his brow.
The ride itself, and even the little interlude in the clearing, had been exciting enough. It had cleared the cobwebs, in any case.
This woman, however...
Barely ten minutes in her presence and already he was certain that he was no match for her.
Her lacy white clothes were littered with leaves and broken twigs, and thanks to his ungentlemanly removal from the saddle—necessary before she realized that it wasn’t in fact his pistol that was digging into the small of her back—she also sported a long smear of dirt down her skirt. Coupled with the glistening flush on her cheeks, and the wild curls tumbling from their pins, she was quite possibly the most striking woman Julián had ever seen.
“In any case, you were supposed to wait until I was away from the group,” she huffed, trying and failing to brush the dirt and grass clinging to her once-pristine skirt. “I wanted witnesses, not potential victims!”
Julián raised an eyebrow. “Victims? No one came to any harm.”
“No thanks to you,” she snapped. “What did you mean by flinging that pistol around? The last thing I wanted was for anyone to get hurt.”
“Someone would have if I hadn’t done what I did—your uncle’s coachman looked like he was about to do something incredibly foolish. Now, when he faces your uncle, he’ll say truthfully that he did try to rescue you from my clutches. That will keep him from getting into trouble, just as my shooting the bottles kept him from getting seriously hurt.”
“I—Oh.” She gave him a grudging nod. “I suppose that was quick thinking on your part.”
“Mmm...” Giving his horse a final scratch between the ears, Julián made sure there was enough water in the trough before marching toward the shack.
It wasn’t home by any stretch of the imagination, but for the past couple of nights, the dilapidated wooden structure had provided him with shelter. Which was more than he could say for his own family.
He had cast off his shirt and had plunged both hands into the full basin before realizing that she had followed him inside. Unbothered by her presence, Julián splashed the lukewarm water on his face, feeling rivulets run down his bare chest when he turned back to her.
He couldn’t help but notice how she tracked them with her gaze, all the way down to where the water pooled on the waistband of his trousers, before biting her lip and flicking her eyes toward his face.
“I’m afraid I don’t think much of your hospitality,” she said, lifting her chin.
“You hired me for a rapto, Your Highness, not hospitality.”
Julián had burst out laughing when she’d approached him with her idea. He’d been lurking in the street outside the large house where she lived with her uncle, wearing borrowed clothing he thought would help hide his identity, when she’d stormed out the front door, almost stumbling over him in her haste. Julián hadn’t said a word, but she’d caught him crouching behind the family carriage and gotten entirely the wrong idea about who he was, and he’d only had a split second to decide whether or not to go along with it.
Julián reached for the tin mug on the shelf above his table and lightly tossed it in her direction, half expecting her to fumble. She caught it neatly, however, and held it out in that imperious way that Julián was still trying to decide was charming or irritating.
Either way, something about the way she seemed so determined to hold on to her composure made him burn to knock her ever so slightly off balance. That may have been why, instead of pouring her water from the clay jug, he unstoppered one of the bottles on the shelf.
She sputtered at the first sip. “What in the world is this?”
“Aguardiente,” he said, hiding a smirk.
“Ardiente is right,” she muttered, before adding with exacting politeness, “Might I trouble you for some agua of the nonburning variety? If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, of course. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you in any way.”
Thriftily disposing of the remains of the alcoholic beverage by knocking back the contents of her cup, Julián grinned at her. “I think I’ve made it clear by now that I am completely at your disposal, señorita.”
She had positioned herself in such a way that he had to reach past her to get anything off the shelf. Her lips parted when his arm brushed the frills on her blouse, a soft intake of breath stirring the heavy, warm air between them.
Although only a moment before, Julián was enjoying teasing her, the sudden, fierce wave of desire that swept over him was disconcerting enough that he almost dropped the water jug. It didn’t break, merely struck the table with a solid thunk.
Forget knocking her off balance—he was making himself unsteady.
“Water,” he said, swirling some around the mug and tossing it out the hole that served as a window before refilling the vessel. He held it out to her with a gentlemanly bow, adding mockingly, “With my compliments to Your Highness.”
Her eyes narrowed, though Julián caught the gleam of humor within them. “That’s Your Majesty to you,” she said, and Julián had to admit that there was something majestic in her bearing, even in her disheveled state.
He obliged her with a booming laugh, which served to dispel some of the tension crowding thickly between them.
She flashed him a smile, then turned to look out the window hole, holding herself slightly less tautly.
“It will probably be a few hours until your uncle receives the ransom note and gathers the money,” Julián pointed out. Belatedly remembering his half-naked state, he pulled his one clean shirt off the nail it hung from and slid it over his shoulders. “You might want to occupy yourself with something more entertaining than looking out the window.”
Why in hell did everything he say today sound so lascivious? Or did it just sound that way to his ears because he was still not quite recovered from the sensation of her lithe body pressed against his, the sweet scent of her hair threatening to overpower all his senses? The temptation to draw her close again and bury his face in the soft skin of her neck was almost more than he could bear.
If Julián knew how to read people—and he did—Miss Amalia Troncoso, eldest niece of Francisco Troncoso and heiress to a fortune so vast it made him dizzy, was also burning with desire.
Before she had a chance to remark on his less than felicitous turn of phrase, Julián elaborated. “Seeing as how I’m fairly new to banditry, I hadn’t really realized how much of an appetite one could work up by snatching maidens. Am I mistaken in thinking that you must be hungry, too?”
“Famished,” she admitted, and Julián would not mistake the faint flutter of her lashes for anything more than a simple change in expression.
“An early lunch it is, then. I think I have some crackers around here...”
Most of the coffee he’d brewed that morning was still in the percolator. Julián peered dubiously into its inky depths, then poured it out anyway, and plucked a large, round cracker from a covered plate.
And then he turned around.
For lack of a better seat, she had perched on the edge of his cot and was removing the few pins that still remained lodged at awkward angles in her dark hair. Julián watched her long, lustrous curls tumble down her shoulders, grasping, for the first time, just what it would mean to share these extremely close quarters with her until her uncle turned up with the ransom.
It had been a long, long time since he’d seen a woman at her toilette. Long enough that the sight of her fingers dragging slowly through her thick locks was doing unspeakable things to his self-control. He didn’t just want to tangle his own fingers through her hair, tugging lightly until he dragged a gasp out of her. He wanted to spread it over her bare shoulders, tracing the soft whorls with his fingertips and—
Julián’s heart was pounding. There was no way he was going to be able to keep from disgracing himself. His only course of action, unbefitting his status as a fearless bandit though it was, was to flee far, far away.
Thrusting the coffee and cracker in her general direction, Julián muttered something and strode to the door, meaning to find a less hazardous occupation outdoors—like standing on his saddle while his horse leaped over fallen logs.
Even before he reached the opening, however, he could see the first few droplets that had begun to darken the patch of dirt in front of the shack. Julián swore under his breath. Two more strides, and the light patter had turned into a proper tropical deluge, trapping the two of them inside.
Together.
