Free Ecstasy's Promise (Historical Romance) by Constance O'Banyon Page B

brother.
    "You should see yourself." Dan laughed. "You have got poor Juanita frightened to death."
    Edward waved this aside. "Do you know what has happened?"
    "No, suppose you tell me."
    "No one will admit it, but someone left the gate open and Rafael's pinto got into the corral with my champion mare. I do not have to tell you the consequences."
    Dan threw back his head and laughed. "All this commotion because some stud got to your prize mare."
    Edward glared at him. "I have been waiting to breed her with just the right stud. Now her foal will be worthless. What do you think a foal sired by a common cow pony will produce?"
    "A superior cow pony, I suppose." Dan laughed.
    "Why don't you just stick to your doctoring? It is for sure you don't know anything about horses."
    "I bow to your superior knowledge, Edward. All I know about horses is which end to feed, and which end to shovel."
    Edward's stormy features softened. He even managed to smile. "Dan, I do not know how we have managed to stay friends over the years."
    "It is because you cannot bully me with your bad temper as you do everyone else."
    "Perhaps," Edward said, as he poured a brandy for Dan and one for himself. Dan took the glass Edward offered, took a drink, and placed the glass on the desk. He sat, thoughtful for a moment, and then asked: "Do you apply the same principle to yourself as you do to your thoroughbred stock?"
    "In what way?"
    "When you marry, will your wife have to come from superior stock to mingle with your own?"
    "Are you serious?"
    "Very."
    Edward thought for a moment. "I suppose someday I will have to marry. One needs sons to carry on after one is gone, but the thought of being tied to one woman is very distasteful to me. The woman I marry," he continued, "would have to have a certain elegance and breeding, be of tolerable good looks, and not interfere in my life style."
    "What you mean, Edward, is she would have to stay at home and mind the kids and not object too much if you come home late some nights?"
    "Well, I would not have put it quite so crudely, Dan, but yes. Though I would really rather not marry at all."
    "You have any number of females to choose from," Dan teased him.
    "I am weary of women throwing themselves at me, and of their ambitious mothers trying to snare me in their traps."
    Dan laughed. "I would think you were being egotistical, if I had not witnessed it with my own eyes. A lot of the young men in the country, including myself, would like to see you safely married so you would not whisk all the better looking females away from under our noses." As an afterthought he added, "I pity your wife when you do get married."
    Edward looked at him, his dark eyebrows raised. "Whatever for?"
    "Because it has never occurred to you to marry for love. What has happened to cause you to be so cynical?"
    "It is not a question of cynicism; it is reality. I have yet to meet the woman who can hold my interest for more than a week at a time."
    Dan picked up his glass and studied its dark contents.  "I hope someday you fall hard for a woman, and I hope I am around to see it."
    "Don't hold your breath until that happens, Dan, or you will not be around."
    "What about Clarissa Patterson?" Dan asked him. "You know how she feels about you, and she is very pretty."
    Edward walked over to his desk and sat down. He propped his long legs on its smooth surface. "Clarissa is not the kind of girl you play games with. Her mother would not allow it. I may have to settle for her in the long run."
    Dan laughed. "I can see years of wedded bliss ahead for you."
    "Let us change the subject. This one is beginning to bore me," Edward told him.
    "All right," Dan said, shaking his head. "I was wondering if you are going to the annual spring picnic. It is only two weeks away, you know."
    "I suppose I will have to put in an appearance," Edward said in exasperation, "but I do not intend to stay very long." He shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows, I may not be welcome."
    "In