“Marry Franny?”
The Señor looked as if Felipe were asking to marry one of his horses, rather than his youngest daughter.
Felipe worked his jaw, his ears popping with his discomfort, and hoped that Juan, about twenty paces off, hadn’t heard. He didn’t want an audience for this, given how badly it could turn.
There wasn’t a polite way to say, “You took me in over a decade ago, and now I’ve ruined your favorite daughter on the floor of the very house you suffer me to reside in, so naturally I’m forced to wed her.”
So here, in the walkway between the barns, Felipe had come across the Señor and baldly asked for Franny’s hand. Not the most elegant way to accomplish this business, but nothing better had occurred to him.
“No.” The older man shook his head. “No. Are you mad?”
Felipe’s face grew hot. After all these years, working for this man, caring for his rancho, eating supper at his table, and he wasn’t good enough to marry his daughter?
“Wait,” Juan called from over by the barn, his face set in grim lines. “Why can’t Franny marry him?”
Felipe’s spine went tight. Juan’s temper was certain to make this more difficult.
The Señor frowned at this rebellion from one of his children. “Because he can’t.”
“That’s not a reason.” The edge of Juan’s hand sliced through the air. “Don’t you think the man deserves a reason?”
“Franny couldn’t possibly have agreed to this,” the Señor said.
“Yes, I did!” Her shout came from behind the barn, followed by the pounding of her feet as she raced over.
Felipe closed his eyes for a brief moment. Of course she was eavesdropping.
This was rapidly turning from tragedy to farce.
Last night, he’d managed to hustle Franny back without incident. She’d been mercifully silent, the only time in living memory she’d kept quiet when he’d wanted her to.
But of course she wouldn’t keep quiet now. Of course.
“Francisca, you cannot possibly have done such a thing.” The Señor’s brow drew tight as he looked from Franny to Felipe. “You two don’t even…” A terrible realization moved across his face. “What have you two been doing behind my back? What happened on that hunting trip?”
“Nothing happened on the hunting trip,” Franny assured him. She wasn’t lying, but guilt moved in Felipe’s gut nevertheless.
“About that, Señor,” he began, but the older man wasn’t looking at him.
“Is this about having to work in the house with your mother? My daughter, your mother is correct. As much as it pains me to admit, you’re a young lady. You must comport yourself as one and learn what you’ll need to know when you become a wife.” He swung to Felipe, his fist raised. “And not your wife. Did you think to take advantage of her in her distress and gain yourself some cattle in the process? I know you don’t care for her as a man should care for a wife. I’ve been watching the two of you for years—there’s nothing like that between you.”
Felipe’s stomach tightened. After all these years of watching over Franny, of ensuring that she was safe, that she never broke her neck out here, and the Señor thought Felipe would take advantage of her?
Didn’t you? Certainly what had happened last night had not been the work of a gentleman. It hadn’t been satisfying or pleasurable or any of the other anemic words that described his previous intimate encounters. The experience had been release and intensity and something akin to pain, but not quite. There was enough ambiguity there to puzzle over for the rest of his life.
He pushed the memory aside, darkly engulfing as it was.
“Señor, I care very deeply for your daughter.” That at least was true. He wouldn’t lie and mention the word love, but there was at least… affection between them.
“Papa, I want to marry him!” Her hands were clasped before her heart, the position she always assumed when asking her father for something.
“No.” Bald. Final. “Go back to the house, Francisca.”
She recoiled, her face falling. Felipe’s heart stuttered at the sight.
“Señor,” he tried again, “you don’t understand—”
“What don’t I understand?” he roared as he turned on Felipe.
“Nothing!” Juan shouted. “You understand nothing. You merely order us about and expect us to fall in line.” He made a sweeping motion, as if to knock apart that imagined line. “You tell Franny after years of doing ranch work she’ll now be imprisoned in the house.” The Señor opened his mouth, no doubt to protest, but Juan went on. “And yes, I say imprisoned! You tell Felipe he cannot marry her because he has no affection for her. If you’d been watching as closely as you’ve claimed, you’d have seen he is constantly watching out for her, constantly ensuring her safety. If the look in his eyes isn’t love, it’s close enough.”
Felipe’s face went cold as all the blood drained from it. This was bad, very bad. If Juan revealed what they’d discussed, he was certain to say something they both would regret. Something that could not be taken back.
“Juan, really, it’s all right,” Felipe said, playing the peacekeeper as he always did. If only they would all be quiet for a moment and let him finish. “Let me explain to your father—”
“What will that solve? I’ll still be expected to take your place here. You’ll still have to leave.” Juan faced his father. “Well, I don’t want it. I don’t want to run this ranch.”
There they were, those words that could not be snatched back.
Felipe swallowed hard while Franny and her father stared in shock.
“I will not have my son speak to me so.” But the Señor sounded weary, puzzled; all the fight seemed to have left him.
“This isn’t the old days, when children obeyed without question. It’s a new century for God’s sake! But you won’t admit that.” Juan took a heavy breath, as if the air was suddenly too thick. “So I’m leaving.”
With that, the conversation moved back to tragedy.
“Juan.” A shocked exhale from the Señor. And then a sagging of the man’s entire aspect, as if his legs could no longer hold him.
Felipe wanted to dig his fist into his forehead, but instead he clenched it by his side. He’d wanted to ask for Franny’s hand, not tear the entire family apart. Time to end this the only way he could—by falling on his sword.
“Juan, there’s no need to leave.” He donned his most reasonable, soothing mien. “It is time for me to be back on my parents’ land. And Señor, I must marry Franny.” Now the air felt too thick in his lungs. “I compromised her last night.”
Franny took half a step toward him, as if she meant to come to his side. But her father made a low, strange noise, and she stopped.
The Señor’s face was bone-white as he set a hand over his heart.
Was this was all too much? Had the man’s heart had stopped under the strain? Franny would never forgive Felipe if her father died thanks to his clumsy handling of this.
When Señor Moreno’s voice came again, it was whisper-soft and directed at Felipe. “Go. I want you gone from here.”
Felipe watched with heart full of guilty anger as the Señor shuffled weakly toward the barn, looking as if he had aged a score of years in a moment.
Felipe had deserved that. Had deserved more than that, for what he’d done to Franny last night. And yet… All those years of service for the man, and this was how he was repaid?
“Well, that went terribly,” Franny said, her eyes focused on nothing.
They all three stared at nothingness for a moment.
“I’m still leaving,” Juan said into the silence. “I don’t want to wake up three decades from now and realize that all I’ve seen of this world is Cabrillo and the valley.”
Franny swallowed hard. Felipe waited to see if she would acknowledge her brother’s words. But she didn’t. “I’d best go see to Papa.” She loped off to the barn.
Felipe felt as if the entire world were sitting on his chest, his knees aching with the weight of it.
“I’ve been thinking on it for a while.” Juan’s voice was firm, resolved. “It wasn’t anything to do with you or Franny. I’d decided well before this.”
Felipe searched for something to say to his oldest friend. Good luck on your travels? Sorry about your sister?
Don’t leave?
No, he wouldn’t say that. But he could apologize. “About Franny, I—”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to punch you.” Juan summoned a weak smile. “Knowing Franny, she likely had an equal, if not greater, hand in it. Congratulations on your engagement. Better get the wedding off soon, before I leave.”
“Yes,” Felipe said dully. “We’ll do that. You must be at the wedding.”
“I wish you luck of her. You’ll likely be entirely gray-headed in a month.”
Felipe sighed. Yes, he likely would be.