Free Cowboys 08 - Luke by Leigh Greenwood

coach. Valeria thrust her head out the window. "I want to stop now."
    He didn't come back toward the coach or even turn around. "Not getting what you want will be good for you," he said. "It'll get you in shape for life on your husband's ranch."
    It took a moment for what he'd said to penetrate. "You can't refuse to do what I ask!"
    He turned toward her. "Look, woman, I know you're not stupid, so don't act like it."
    "Don't you dare address me as woman! I am a princess."
    "We don't have princesses in this country," Luke said. "Fortunately for you, we don't cut their heads off, either. We just strip them of their titles. What do you want me to call you?"
    "You must address her as your highness," Hans said.
    "We don't do that, either. Do you want me to call you Valeria?"
    "You wouldn't presume," Hans said.
    Luke grinned. "You have no idea how much I can presume. How about Miss Badenberg?"
    ""The proper form of address would be Your Highness, the Princess of Badenberg," Hans said.
    "No more argument," Luke snapped. "I'm calling her Valeria. That's the end of it."
    "Then I'll call you Luke."
    "Good. If you're still thirsty, drink some of Hans's water. He was the only one sensible enough to come supplied with a canteen. If you'd looked out your train windows in Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona, you'd have known this place is as dry as a bone."
    "But we're following a river," Valeria objected. "There's plenty of water there."
    "You'd better hope so. With all these animals, we'll need barrels of it."
    He dug his spurs into his horse's flanks and rode off toward the head of the column.
    "He's not going to stop," she reported unnecessarily. "Apparently he doesn't consider our comfort of any importance."
    "It must be even hotter riding in the sun," Hans observed.
    "He's not human," Elvira said. "He can't be and have grown up with those savages."
    "They were adopted," Valeria reminded her maid.
    "I don't care. How could he go to sleep with them in the same room?"
    "I wondered the same thing," Valeria said. "But then I remembered the people we saw in Bonner, all kinds mixed together, and nobody appearing to notice the difference."
    "I would," Elvira insisted.
    "But Mr. Attmore-Luke-wouldn't, not if he'd been raised with Indians and black people." It was a strange notion. That would never have happened in her country, but after giving it some thought, she decided it might not be such a bad idea. It was certainly better than being afraid of everybody who was different.
    She doubted Rudolf would be as willing as Luke to accept people who weren't like him. She was curious to know how different people got along. Did most of them eat the same food, wear the same clothes? The people in Bonner hadn't eaten anything she could recognize. They certainly didn't dress like she did.
    She had heard many different languages from her window. She recognized French, German, and Italian, but there were others. She wondered how people of so many different nationalities had all ended up in Arizona. There must be something here that attracted them, kept them here, but she couldn't see what it was. If she had known what Arizona was like, she'd never have agreed to marry Rudolf.
    But then whom would she have married? There were no other men of suitable rank who weren't old, fat, and greedy for her money. There weren't any men like Luke Attmore in the aristocracy. There must have been back in the days when the ruling dynasties were no more than lusty young men dreaming of wealth and power. Over the centuries, that youthful vigor had been bred out of them, or bored out of them, or just drained away. There were no young men left who caused her heart to race, her blood to warm, her gaze to pause.
    She'd been taught to consider herself part of a special class of people, a class of such pure blood, so privileged, it would be impossible to think of marrying out of its ranks. Those who rebelled were shunned. Those who followed the rules were rewarded with wealth, power,