Luke stretched and responded sleepily, “Tell you what?”
“What provisions you made for me in your will. You said you’d tell me when we left Valle Verde, and we have. So I want to know now—and I’m warning you, Luke, I don’t care how kind your mother and sister are, I won’t be dependent on them.”
He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and crossed his long, booted legs. “I told Ramón the truth; I left you nothing in my will.”
She narrowed her eyes. His eyes were dancing. She caught a gleam of blue in the darkness and the sight heartened her. “Stop teasing.” She tried to look stern.
“It’s true.”
She threw the doll at him. It bounced off him and hit the carriage floor with a bump.
“Ow,” he said mildly. “That doll packs a wallop.”
She snorted. “It’s a rag doll. I know you’ve done something sneaky about the will, so tell me at once, or worse than a flying doll will befall you.”
Luke said thoughtfully, “For a rag doll it’s quite heavy.”
Bella said impatiently, “Perlita restuffed it when she repaired it. She probably used sawdust or something. Now Luke, don’t be so tedious—tell me.”
Luke picked up the doll and examined it. “It’s not sawdust. It feels like… pebbles or something.” He took out his knife and glanced at her. “Do you mind?”
“No.” She was curious, too.
He pulled back the doll’s skirt and slit the stitching down her middle. He parted the seam, closed it, and tossed her the doll. “See for yourself.”
Bella looked. And gasped. From the doll’s stomach she drew a long string of pearls, South Sea Island pearls. “She stole them back for me.”
She ran the pearls through her fingers. They were even more beautiful than she remembered, glowing with a creamy sheen. Each one was perfect. She slipped them over her head, and they went around twice, with room to spare. “Mama’s pearls.”
“I thought you said you didn’t care about those pearls,” he said grimly.
“I lied. I didn’t want you to fight Ramón.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake—”
She looked up, worried. “They must be priceless. When Ramón finds out…”
“She will handle him,” Luke said. “Your sister has a great deal more character than I thought. You might want to settle something on her.”
“Settle something? What do you mean?”
“Some of your inheritance.”
“But… I don’t have an inheritance. You said—”
“No, I said I’d left you nothing in my will. I don’t need to. You still have the fortune your mother left you.”
She gaped at him, speechless. “But, how? When a bride marries, everything she owns belongs by law to her husband. I know that is true. They taught us that at the convent. Unless the bride’s family negotiates settlements, and I know nobody negotiated anything for me. There wasn’t time.”
Luke grinned, enjoying her amazement. “Ah, but your groom did it for you. I promised to look after you, remember? Some protector I would have been if I gained your fortune through marriage one day, and was killed the next. And in wartime there was every likelihood of that.”
She crossed herself. “Thank God you weren’t. But I still don’t understand.”
“I owned your fortune—whatever it is, I still have no idea—for barely a day. When we got to the convent, I wrote out a document returning to you every penny of your mother’s fortune, and anything else that you owned before the marriage, to be held in trust until you turned twenty-one. I made two copies and left one with your aunt, who witnessed it. She still has one copy. The other one is here.” He drew a packet of papers from the breast pocket of his coat, selected one, and handed it to her. “That’s why I left you nothing of mine in my will. You’re a rich woman, Lady Ripton.”
Stunned, she stared at the document. It was as he said. He’d signed everything back to her almost immediately after the wedding. She swallowed. “That is why my aunt was so sure this marriage was the right thing for me. She knew you were a man of honor. But why did she never tell me?”
Luke said dryly, “Perhaps she thought if you had plenty of money you might run off and abandon me. Any idea why she might think that?”
