Cowboys 08 - Luke (22 page)

Love was never mentioned in her country in connection with marriage. No one expected it. Maybe a man loved his mistress, or a woman her lover, but emotions were fickle, and those arrangements never endured. Marriages lasted forever. The continuation of society, even the survival of the state, depended on them.

"Do you know anybody who married for love?"

"Jake and Isabelle were always crazy about each other, though they came from different backgrounds and fought all the time."

"Do they still fight?"

"Probably. But nothing they argue over is as important as their love for each other. They always manage to find a way around any problem."

"What did they argue about?"

"Everything. How to bring us up, how to run the ranch, where to spend the money."

"And other people do this, too?" It didn't seem possible. In her country, wives did not argue with their husbands. A woman might have an allowance for clothes and personal things, but everything else was taken care of by her husband.

"My brother and his wife," Luke continued. "They each have a ranch which they run together."

"But that's just two couples."

"Not every marriage works out. If it fails, a woman can get a divorce and try again."

"But that would take an act of state."

Luke laughed. "Only in your country. Over here it only takes a judge."

"I could get a divorce from Rudolf?"

"Yes. And your cook could get a divorce. The dancer in the saloon can get a divorce. The farmer's wife, too.
Everybody
can get a divorce. No one has to be stuck in a loveless marriage."

"But how would a divorced woman live?"

"She could get a job, work to support herself. If she were rich, she could live off her own money."

"It really doesn't belong to the husband?"

"Not unless you give it to him. If you work, you can keep your money. If you inherit a fortune, you can keep that, too."

"Suppose he wants it."

"You can refuse to give it to him."

Valeria wasn't sure just how much more she could absorb in one day. It was obvious there was a great deal about this country her uncle hadn't told her. She hadn't read the marriage contract-women in her country weren't supposed to be interested in such things-but she was certain her money passed directly from her uncle's control into Rudolf's. She didn't even know how much money she had, where it came from, whether it was in land or cash. The last thing she could imagine would be refusing to give Rudolf access to it. He wouldn't even ask.

"Not everything's easy," Luke said. "American women have a lot more freedom, but they have to work hard for it."

She couldn't imagine a woman who wouldn't be willing to work for the right to control her life. Immediately she realized she was wrong. She knew many women who would be willing give up any rights they might have for the comfort of knowing they would enjoy luxury and privilege for the rest of their lives. She didn't have a clear idea of what Luke meant when he said American women had to work for their freedom. It was entirely possible she wouldn't be able to do what was required, wouldn't be able to match these seemingly remarkable women.

"Tell me more about these freedoms."

Luke might say he had spent most of his life as a lonely gunfighter, but from all he said, Valeria decided he knew half the women in the West. He came up with dozens of examples. He probably knew more women than she did.

She didn't want to ask how she compared. She knew what he thought. Once a useless princess, always useless, whether she remained a princess or not. But she was not useless. She was determined to be just as good as these American women.

She figured life in America was pretty much what you made of it. There were lots of freedoms and opportunities, but if you didn't work for them, you didn't get them. But while the idea of all these freedoms was exciting, they seemed out of reach. She didn't have any skills. She'd never had to
do
anything. She'd just had to be, and Luke had made it clear that just being wasn't enough.

"You can be almost anything you want," Luke said. "You just have to work at it."

"But how do you learn to work at it? How did Isabelle work at it? How did she start?" He didn't seem to know how to respond.

"She just did it," he said. "She wanted to help some orphans, so she talked the authorities into letting her find homes for us. When that didn't work out, she talked Jake into taking all of us so a few of us could help him with his cattle drive. When that was over, she married him and talked him into adopting us. She said she loved us dearly, but if she had to wash, cook, and clean for eleven men, we had to help. Before she was done, every one of us could do for himself."

Valeria had spent her life talking people into doing what she wanted, so maybe she wasn't completely illequipped to survive on her own. As for the organization, she'd have to start paying attention to Luke. He had the whole train organized and functioning smoothly. Everything seemed to happen without his having to do anything, but she knew it wasn't that simple.

She knew one very important ingredient to success was leadership. People worked hard for Luke because they respected his ability to make them successful. It worked the same way with kings and princesses. She would start on that right away.

But she wanted to get back to this concept of a woman's marrying for love. According to Luke's examples, nearly all the really successful women were single, widowed, or divorced. That didn't appeal to her.

"You said a woman is allowed to marry a man because she loves him," Valeria said. "How does she know when she loves a man enough to want to marry him?"

She wasn't even entirely sure of the feelings involved in falling in love. In her country, adult women considered love a childish emotion. All the women who'd offered her advice had said love was a dangerous state of mind that should be avoided at all costs. "Have you ever loved anybody?" she asked Luke.

"Not the way you mean. Certainly not so I'd want to marry them."

It seemed Luke was better at explaining actions than emotions. He looked like he didn't know the answer any more than she did.

"According to Isabelle, you've got to want to be with that person," he said, "more than anybody else in the world."

"More than family?"

"More than anybody."

She wasn't sure about that. She'd never met anybody who'd made her want to leave her uncle, Hans, and Elvira.

"You've got to want to do things for them, to make them happy."

She understood that. People were always doing things to make her happy. In all honesty, she had to admit she hadn't done much of that herself.

"Isabelle says you've got to want to make them happy even if it makes you unhappy."

That was a bit too much for Valeria. She couldn't understand how it would work. When her uncle was unhappy,
everybody
was unhappy.

"Isabelle says you've got to be happier giving in to someone you love than getting your own way."

She'd spent her whole life giving in to what people wanted her to do, but she wasn't enthusiastic about it. And now it seemed that just as she was on the verge of getting all these freedoms, Rudolf would insist she give them up to make him happy.

"Jake says you've got to love your wife so much you think she's the most beautiful woman in the world, that no matter who you see, she's not as attractive to you as your wife."

That was something else hard to understand. She didn't know a single man who had any difficulty deciding if a woman he was looking at was more beautiful than his wife.

"And you've got to be faithful to her. Always. Jake says nothing destroys love faster than infidelity. Isabelle says she'd kill Jake if he even wanted to touch another woman."

Valeria decided this kind of love was an impossible dream. She'd never heard of a man being faithful to his wife. She'd been told Nature constructed men so they were incapable of limiting themselves to one woman. As long as a man publicly honored his wife, supported his household, and conducted his affairs discreetly, he was considered an ideal husband.

"What else do you have to do to be in love?"

"You have to be willing to change, to give up almost anything to make your husband happy."

"Do men change to make their wives happy?"

"Yes."

But she noticed his answer was a bit less emphatic. That didn't surprise her. Apparently even in America, women were expected to give up more than men. "Could you ever feel this way about a woman?" she asked.

Chapter Fourteen

Luke had assumed every woman knew what love was and was only waiting for the chance to be allowed to express herself. If he interpreted Valeria's questions and blank looks correctly, she didn't have any idea what it was. "No."

"Why not?"

He wasn't about to answer personal questions. Just because she didn't know the answers to things everybody else understood practically from birth that didn't mean he had to expose his inner feelings and secrets. He didn't mind being helpful, but he didn't owe her his life story.

"I just haven't."

"Don't you believe in love?"

"Yes."

"Then you've got to believe you could fall in love."

"Look, love's not for everybody. Just like being faithful to your wife isn't for everybody. Or being a banker, or liking children. Some people can do some things, others do other things. Being in love is just not something I want to do."

The statement was barely out of his mouth before he realized it was a lie. He had cut off his feelings for so long, he didn't think he could love. He didn't think anybody
ought
to love him, but he did
want
somebody to love him. He'd just been telling himself he didn't because it made not being loved easier to take.

"Could you love somebody back if they loved you?" "No."

He didn't need the startled look on Valeria's face to know his answer had come too fast. "Not everybody's made to love."

"You've never met anybody you could love?" "No."

That at least was an honest answer. "Has anybody loved you?"

"I hope not. I wouldn't make a very good husband." "Do women love only good husbands?"

"No. A lot of women, and men, love the worst possible person."

"Then it seems it would be better if their parents arranged marriages for them."

"It probably would, but that's not the way we do it.

Everybody wants a chance at happiness."

"Don't you want to be happy?" "I am happy."

"But you're not married."

"You don't have to be married to be happy." "But I thought you said-"

"I was just talking about the people who want to get married."

He'd let himself wade too far into this murky pool. He didn't know anything about love. He was only repeating things he'd heard. He ought to be talking about horses or guns or traveling through rough country, things he understood.

He suspected men couldn't love as deeply and truly as women, that it just wasn't in them. They were always going back on their word, lying, cheating, catting around, doing all the things they swore on bended knee they'd never do.

And that was another thing. No man would ever have thought to get down on his knees to ask a woman to marry him. That was too humiliating. It was too much like begging. It was obviously something some woman had thought up and talked some weak-minded man into doing, setting a bad example for other men. Like going to church and rocking the baby.

That started him wondering if Chet went to church or rocked his own babies. He remembered when Jake and Isabelle's only child, Erin, was born. Some of the boys couldn't wait to hold her. He'd kept his distance, but he couldn't remember what Chet had done. He wondered if it was different when you had your own babies.

It hadn't been for his parents.

"I think I would like to be married," Valeria said. "That's a good thing, since I'm escorting you to your future husband."

But he could tell from her expression Valeria hadn't been thinking of Rudolf. That didn't surprise him. There was bound to be some young man in her past who had touched her heart. A rich, beautiful, young princess would certainly have been courted by some of the most handsome men in the world.

What did surprise him, and anger him as well, was his own reaction. He could tell from his quickened pulse, his shallow breathing, that he was hoping she'd been thinking of him. He could hardly have done anything more stupid if he'd tried. He'd discovered long ago he couldn't inspire love in the heart of a good woman. He'd accepted that because he didn't know any good woman he could stand to be around for more than a few hours at a time. Yet though he told himself it was impossible, that he wouldn't like being married, that he wouldn't make a good husband, he hadn't given up hope that somewhere, somehow, he'd find a woman who could learn to love him.