At a sound from the door, Noah glanced up, straightened, and let his gaze trail down the slender figure approaching. Like some Madonna of the prairie, the woman wore a gown of soft blue with a white cotton shawl around her shoulders. Sunlight from the front window framed her, backlighting her golden hair.
“Well, I’ll be.” He shook his head to clear the surprise and let out a low chuckle. “You sure have changed. You look regular now.”
The light in her eyes dimmed as she glanced at the fire. “Susan Gates gave me the dress.”
“It looks fine.” He wanted to rectify his careless comment, but the words came hard. “You look pretty, ma’am. Like you belong here.”
“But I do not belong here.” She crossed the room and seated herself. “I belong at the Hacienda Pascal in Santa Fe. I have been trained as a marquesa—to oversee many servants, host officials of the government, plan fiestas and bear sons and daughters for my husband in accordance with our Spanish tradition.”
“Sounds like a real humdinger of a life.” He sat down opposite her. “Care for some scrambled eggs, marquesa?”
She bristled until he held the frying pan under her nose. “Sí. I suppose I should eat.”
Noah set a spoonful of fluffy yellow eggs on her plate and a slab of crisp bacon beside them. He reached into an iron kettle, pulled out two steaming biscuits and tossed them onto her plate.
Bowing his head, he spoke in a low voice. “God, thanks for this new day and Dick Brewer’s grub. Amen. Whew! Good thing Dick had his chickens penned up. Otherwise, we’d have been scrounging for breakfast.”
At her silence, he glanced up to find her staring at him. “Was that a prayer?”
“Sure. Talking to God like always.” He spread butter on a biscuit. “Tunstall did right making Dick foreman. He’s got education. He can read and keep record books.”
“And you? Have you an education, Buchanan?”
“Name’s Noah.” He took a sip of coffee. “I can read and write. Mrs. Allison taught me.”
“Who is Mrs. Allison?”
“Richard and Jane Allison. He owns land around Fort Worth. English folks.” He smiled, remembering. “Mrs. Allison took a liking to me. She didn’t have children of her own, see. She used to invite me into the library—books from floor to ceiling. She read me all kinds of stories, mostly from the Bible. Taught me to read, too. I reckon I read nearly every book in that library.”
“But where were your mother and aunties to care for you? Why did you live with Señora Allison?
“I didn’t live in the big house. Mr. Allison put me in with the other hired hands when I was six or seven. I worked in the stables. What about you? Are you educated?”
“Of course,” Isobel replied. “I had a tutor. Later, my father sent me to a finishing school in France. I speak six languages, and I am accomplished in painting and embroidery. Arranging homes is my pleasure.”
“Arranging homes?” Noah looked up from his plate and glanced around the cabin with its tin utensils, rickety furnishings and worn rag rug. “What’s to arrange?”
“Chairs, tables, pictures. My fine furniture will arrive with my trunks. You would never understand such things, Buchanan. Yet we are alike in some ways.”
“How’s that?”
“Books. Horses.” She sat back in the chair and studied the fire. “I was away at school when news came of my father’s murder. I wanted to go to America immediately and avenge his death. But my mother was devastated, and she knew nothing of my father’s businesses. So I stayed with her, preparing the books, paying debts, managing the hacienda. Five years passed, and I learned that my greatest love was the land. The cattle. The horses.”
“Then you’re a vaquero yourself.”
“Oh, no!” She laughed. “I am a lady.”
“And the land in Spain? Will you go back one day?”
Her smile faded. “My mother has remarried, and my brother is grown. Now he and my stepfather fight. In Catalonia, we follow the tradition of the hereu-pubilla. Only a firstborn son can inherit. My brother is the hereu, the heir. He will win the legal battle against my mother’s new husband.”
“And what about you, Isobel? What about all that work you did while your little brother was growing up? You ought to get something out of it.”
One eyebrow lifted. “I’m not considered worthy to own land. Nothing is left for me in Spain. I cannot marry there, because my father betrothed me to Don Guillermo of Santa Fe. I’m old now, a soltera, a spinster. So I came here to avenge my father’s death and find the man who stole my land titles.”
“It’s the land, then.” Noah poured himself another mug of coffee. “You want your land a lot more than you want to marry that don in Santa Fe.”
“I do wish to marry Guillermo Pascal, of course. But by law the land is mine. I intend to have it.”
“You won’t have it long if you marry him. The Pascal family is ruthless. They’ll take your property and set you to planning fiestas.”
“That is not how it will be!” She pushed back from the table and stood up. “I shall manage my own land. Those grants have belonged to the familia Matas from the earliest days of Spanish exploration. Don’t presume to predict my future, Buchanan. You are a vaquero. You know nothing. Now, saddle my horse while I prepare for the journey to Lincoln Town.”
“Hold on a minute there.” Noah got to his feet and caught her arm. “A cowboy is as worthy of respect as any land-grubbing don. And I didn’t take an oath to be a servant to the grand marquesa. I’ll see to your horse while you wash dishes, but we’re not going to Lincoln today. We’re headed for Chisum’s South Spring River Ranch until the trouble dies down.”
Nostrils flared, she peeled his hand from her arm. “You may go to the Chisum ranch, Buchanan, but today I speak to Sheriff Brady.” Starting for the bedroom door, she paused and looked back. “And Isobel Matas does not wash dishes.”
Biting back a retort he would regret, Noah banked the fire and set off for the barn. He tried to pray his way through the silence as he saddled his horse, and he had just about calmed down when he heard the woman step outside.
“You finished with those dishes?” he called.
She lifted her chin. “I am not a servant, señor.”
He was silent a moment, his jaw rigid. Then he left the horse and strode to the porch. “Listen, señorita. We have a rule out here in the West. It’s called, ‘I cook, you clean.’ Dick let us use his cabin, and we’ll leave it the way we found it. Got that?”
Her pretty lips tightened. “And in Spain we have a rule also. ‘A woman of property does not wash dishes.’”
“But you don’t have any property, remember? So you’d better—”
Noah stopped speaking when the haughtiness suddenly drained from her face. Her brow furrowed as she focused on the distant ridge, and her lips trembled.
At that moment he saw her as she saw herself: fallen from social class, power, wealth. Linked with a mule-headed cowboy who sassed her and ordered her around. Threatened by a cold-blooded killer. Unsure of her future, maybe even afraid.
“I…I don’t know how to wash dishes.” Her voice was low, soft. “It was never taught to me.”
At her confession, he took off his hat and tossed it onto a stool. “Come on, Isobel. I’m an old hand at this. I’ll teach you how to wash dishes.”
Chapter Three
The sun painted the New Mexico sky a brilliant