Too Damn Rich (53 page)

Alidad was in his element. No stable horse,
he. His long straight hocks proved themselves with lengthy
strides.

Nor did fences stand in his way. He sailed
over them superbly, with plenty of room to, spare.

It was a perfect day for riding. The sky
cloudless, the air frigid but windless, the sun warm. Snowy meadows
and fenced paddocks undulated gently toward distant forests.

Cresting a hill, Karl-Heinz abruptly reined
Alidad in. There she was, one furlong ahead. Zandra on Amethyst
Dream, moving at a sedate trot.

Karl-Heinz stood up on the stirrups.
"Zandra!" he called out.

Hearing her name, she turned Amethyst Dream
around and halted, shielding her eyes with an arm as she faced into
the sun.

Karl-Heinz waved at her. Then, jerking on the
reins, he bent low over Alidad's neck and sent him flying.

The distance between himself and Zandra
closed rapidly, and he galloped up beside her, stopping in a spray
of snow.

She lowered her arm. "Gosh, Heinzie. What an
absolutely magnificent horse!"

The cold, he noticed, had turned her face
rosy, the sun brought out the highlights of red in her orange
marmalade hair, and she literally glowed with a healthy
vitality.

He thought, She looks, if that's possible,
more splendid than ever.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked.

"Oh, not at all. I mean, why should I?" She
smiled ravishingly. "But I'm only out for a short ride," she
warned. "Temperature's dropping rapidly. Another hour or so, and
it'll start getting dark."

She moved the reins and Amethyst Dream
obediently began walking at a sedate pace. Karl-Heinz fell in
beside her, keeping Alidad, who itched to accelerate, tightly
reined in.

"Haven't ridden in eons," she told him.
"That's why they gave me Amethyst here. Tamest of the bunch, I
gather. But I mean, there is something to be said for being too
tame, isn't there?"

"Definitely," he smiled.

They were climbing up a slight incline
through virgin snow. In the stillness, they could hear the crunch
as the crusty surface broke under the weight of the hooves. Up
ahead, the snow-laden trees thickened into dark, bluish-black
pines.

When they reached the edge of the forest,
they turned around and looked back the way they had come.

"Oh, Heinzie!" Zandra exclaimed. "Look! Isn't
it Christmas-card perfect? And so unspoiled."

"Then why don't we stretch our legs, give the
horses a rest, and enjoy the view?" he suggested.

"Splendid!" She dismounted, tethered Amethyst
to a branch, and tramped happily through a snowdrift.

"You'll get your feet wet," he warned,
tethering Alidad.

She glanced over her shoulder at him.
"So?"

"You might get pneumonia."

"Like going outside with wet hair?" she
scoffed, laughing. "That old wives' tale! Long as I change when we
get back, I'll be fine."

She bent down, scooped up a handful of snow,
and made a snowball. Then she half turned. "Heinzie?"

"Yes?"

And she flung it at him.

It hit him squarely in the chest. "What
the—!" he began angrily, looking down at himself.

She laughed gaily and quickly scooped up more
snow.

"Zandra!" he called. "Now stop that!"

"Oh, Heinzie. Must you be such an old
fart?"

She pitched the second ball at him, which he
deflected with his arm. Nevertheless, sprays of snow flew all over
him.

"Zandra, I'm warning you ... "

She laughed with delight and quickly made
another. Started to toss it when—

—a ball hit her hard on the shoulder.

"Shit!" she cried. "Now you're really going
to get it!"

She flung back her arm and launched her snowy
missile. He saw it coming and ducked, and it sailed harmlessly
on.

Then another one came hurtling toward hei;
connecting with her thigh.

"Goddammit! Now stop it, Heinzie. That
hurt!"

Seeing him scoop up more snow, she screamed
happily and began to run.

Grinning, he flung his ball, but it went wide
of its mark. Then he merrily gave chase.

Zandra, glancing over her shoulder, saw him
coming, and quickly launched another snowball. It hit, but did not
deter.

Pretending terror, she scrambled through the
calf-high snow, but he tackled her from behind and down they both
went, rolling over and over. Giggling and screeching like
five-year-olds.

When they stopped rolling, she found herself
pinned underneath him. Staring up into his face, which was but
inches from hers.

She caught her breath. Her heart was skipping
and her head felt light. And still she stared, unable to take her
eyes off him.

Even as she stared at him, so, too, did he
stare at her, and with no less intensity. A great heat seemed to
engulf him, and he could feel his heart pounding thickly in his
chest.

The moment seemed to stretch into
eternity.

She was acutely aware of his long, leanly
muscled physique, the impertinent azure of his eyes, and above all,
his unpardonably alluring and seductive mouth, the lips of which
seemed to have been sculpted for one purpose, to invite kisses.

He was acutely aware of the warmth of her
body, the crystals of snow, like fragile moist jewels, sparkling on
her lashes, the triangle of freckles on her nose, the glowing
mermaid green of her irises, and the pre- Raphaelite haze of her
bright marmalade hair.

And still the moment stretched elastically,
seemingly without beginning or end.

But it did end, for Karl-Heinz gave a start
and abruptly came to. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he rolled
off her, realizing he still had a snowball clenched in his fist. He
tossed it absently backward, into the trees.

It flushed out a brace of birds, which burst,
screeching, from between the branches behind them.

They both looked up and watched, as overhead,
the winged creatures chased each other, flew elaborate loops,
fluttered momentarily in place, and then made a dash downhill,
where they did an aerial ballet before streaking off.

"Aren't they darling?" Zandra mused. "I do
believe those birds are in love."

Smiling enchantingly, she turned to
Karl-Heinz, her elbow in deep snow, her head resting on the palm of
her hand.

"What do you think, Heinzie?"

He thought it the perfect opening. "I think
I'm in love with you," he said quietly.

It came as such a shock that she couldn't
contain herself: she burst out in giggles. How preposterous! she
thought. He, who she'd known since early childhood, he was
professing his love for her?

Of course, she thought, he's only joking.

But if so, why were his eyes so smolderingly
intense? And why had his voice turned so husky with sincerity?

Holy Mother of God! she thought. He's not
joking! He is serious!

All she could do was stare stupidly at him,
like some tongue-tied idiot.

He was saying, "I know this must come as
something of a shock to you, but you do things to me, Zandra. You
really do. Around you, life seems so ... different. Rosy and
innocent."

Fun and exciting. Worth living. He could have
named dozens of such things.

"You're positively certifiable," she said
fondly, "you do know that, don't you?"

"Zandra," he said softly, hesitantly.
"Darling, I'm serious."

This is crazy! she thought. We might be
distantly related, and I have known him since God only knows when,
but in some ways, we really know nothing about each other!

She wondered if, somewhere along the way, she
hadn't somehow led him on? Perhaps given him the wrong impression?
She didn't think so ...

She was startled when he took her hand in
both of his and lifted it to his lips.

Her throat was suddenly dry. "Heinzie," she
protested, but his name seemed to stick in her gullet; came out as
a garbled croak. She had to clear her throat.

"Heinzie," she said again, louder, clearer,
more assertively.

"Zandra."

He kissed her fingertips, his eyes reaching
out and drowning in hers.

"Sweet, sweet Zandra. Don't you know what you
are to me?"

"Oh, Heinzie, course I do. I'm your
cousin."

"No." He shook his head and kissed her
fingertips again. "You're much, much more than that."

She stared at him.

"I want to marry you," he said. "I want you
to be my wife."

"You ... marry ... me?" She burst into a
fresh round of giggles. "But, darling, honestly! I can't even sew
on a button, let alone cook without burning down an entire
house."

His eyes never wavered. "Zandra, sweet
Zandra, will you take me in holy matrimony? Will you let me love
and cherish and honor you until the day that I die?"

Oh, shit! she thought. He's serious! He's
really dead serious!

"I ... I'm sorry, Heinzie," she said shakily,
and withdrew her hand from his. "It ... it just wouldn't ... I
mean, I don't ... What I'm trying to say is ... "

She was so flustered that she had to take a
deep breath.

"I'm just not ready for marriage," she said.
"Not to you. Not to anybody."

"Then you don't love me?"

"God, of course I love you. That goes without
saying. But I mean, it's beside the point, isn't it? Doesn't mean
we have to take the plunge and get married."

"Why not? Because we're cousins?"

"Yes. No. Oh, hell, I don't know." She made
fluttering motions with her fingers. "Honestly, you caught me
totally off guard."

"If it's genetics you're worried about, I had
a scientist look over our genealogy. He says there shouldn't be any
problem."

She sighed. "Heinzie, even if that's the
case" —Zandra, having had the unexpected popped upon her, had to
think carefully before she spoke— "I need to be certain of my
emotions and not make a mistake we might both end up
regretting."

"I know I wouldn't regret it."

Her face underwent a subtle change, as though
a shadow had slipped under her skin. "But I might, Heinzie," she
said as gently as possible, praying the words wouldn't wound. "I'm
not sure I love you enough."

He did not speak.

She compressed her lips and forced herself to
go full steam ahead. "You do understand, don't you, darling? I love
you as a cousin, and for absolutely ever. You're a perfect marvel,
and you'll make some very lucky girl a super husband and very, very
happy. But I'm just not sure whether I can love you that way—"

His eyes had dimmed and gone flat, and he was
looking at her with a freeze-dried kind of smile.

She winced inwardly, thinking: Oh, God. Now I
have wounded him! I really didn't mean to.

"I ... I think we'd better start heading
back," she said, getting to her feet and starting to brush snow off
her coat.

He rose also, feeling awkward, standing there
like a supplicant, hands at his sides.

"And if love's got nothing to do with it?" he
whispered hoarsely, unable to look at her, his thumbs twitching
against his thighs.

The hand brushing at her coat sleeve froze,
and her eyes slowly came up. "Heinzie," she said. "Whatever are you
trying to say?"

He exhaled a strangled breath, an arid, raspy
sound like the scraping of rusty metal. "I'm asking if—even though
you say you don't love me— whether you could ... could find it in
your heart to marry me anyway?"

"Heinzie, but what utter nonsense! Whatever
would we be marrying for?"

"Convenience's sake?" He loathed himself for
the taut desperation in his voice.

"But, darling, I don't understand."

He gave a sickly sort of smile. "Surely you
know about the von und zu Engelwiesen criteria for
inheritance?"

Everything inside Zandra suddenly ground to a
dead stop. "My God," she exclaimed softly. "I don't believe
this."

He tightened his lips miserably.

"You hypocrite! You goddamn hypocrite!"

The accusation came now, loosened like a
small avalanche.

"You don't really love me at all! The only
reason you're proposing to me is to help you secure that damn
inheritance! That's all you actually give a fart about, isn't
it?"

He flinched, as though from a physical
blow.

"Well, isn't it?"

He didn't speak.

"Oh, this is rich!" Her boot blurred as she
kicked savagely at snow. "Christ, this is really rich—"

"Zandra, listen to me!"

"What do you think I've been doing? And what
did you expect? That I'd drop to my knees in gratitude for being
used as any port in a storm?"

With a toss of her head, she stalked angrily
over to where the horses were tethered.

"Zandra!" He caught up with her and seized
her by the wrist. "For Christ's sake! Won't you please hear me
out?"

She whirled around, a blaze of teeth and
nails, magnificent in her fury. "Let go of me!" she said coldly,
trying, in vain, to wrench her wrist loose. "I have nothing more to
say to you."

"Look, I can appreciate your anger—"

"Oh, can you, now?"

"If you'll only let me explain! You're taking
this entirely the wrong way—"

"Oh, I don't think so." Her eyes drilled
right into his. "You're one hell of a cheeky bastard, and you've
bloody well proved it."

"I love you, dammit!" The declaration burst
from his mouth on its own accord. "Inheritance or not, sooner or
later I'd have proposed to you anyway. Can't you see that?"

She laughed bitterly. "And I suppose these
woods—" she gestured at the forest behind them "—are inhabited by
elves, fairies, and trolls?"

He took a deep breath. "Zandra, whether you
choose to believe this or not, you're the only woman I've ever
really wanted."

"Oh! You want me, do you? Well, how nice. I
gather you're waiting for me to drop on my knees and kiss your
bloody feet in gratitude?"