Her Dearest Sin
Her Dearest Sin
Gayle Wilson
Sebastian Sinclair mirrored his notable brothers in every way, even when it came to pursuing an intense, impossible love. Surely the flame in his heart could be nothing else, for it drove him to rescue a brave and beautiful Spanish noblewoman–held prisoner to another man's dangerous desires!Doña Pilar tasted the sweetness of the epithet upon her lips and knew she'd named Sebastian Sinclair well. For the fearless Englishman had dared to snatch her from the grip of monstrous evil, had wed her to preserve her honor and had now become Her Dearest Sin.…
His hands and his mouth moved possessively against her body.
Sebastian lifted his head. Pilar felt the slow breath he released, sighing out over the moisture his lips had left on her skin. She shivered again, uncontrollably, and his hand soothed across her back, holding her gently against his chest.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he whispered, his mouth moving now against the thin, fragile skin of her temple. The words were as soft as the breath he had taken.
“I’m not afraid,” she said. “Not of you. Not of this.”
He held her a moment more. And then, putting his hands on her shoulders, he set her away from him so that he could look down into her face. In his eyes were promise and hunger. And she wanted them both.
Acclaim for RITA® Award winner Gayle Wilson
“Rich historical detail, intriguing mystery, romance that touches the heart. These are the elements that keep me waiting impatiently for Gayle Wilson’s next book.”
—USA Today bestselling author BJ James
Anne’s Perfect Husband
“The author excels in creating compelling characters who behave intelligently and honorably. Gayle Wilson never disappoints.”
—The Romance Reader (theromancereader.com)
My Lady’s Dare
“…three-dimensional characters and intriguing plot twists kept this reader glued to the pages.”
—Romantic Times
Lady Sarah’s Son
“…a moving tale of love overcoming great obstacles, of promises kept and trust restored.”
—Romantic Times
#608 NAVAJO SUNRISE
Elizabeth Lane
#609 BRIDE OF THE ISLE
Margo Maguire
#610 CHASE WHEELER’S WOMAN
Charlene Sands
Her Dearest Sin
Gayle Wilson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Available from Harlequin Historicals and
GAYLE WILSON
The Heart’s Desire #211
The Heart’s Wager #263
The Gambler’s Heart #299
Raven’s Vow #349
His Secret Duchess #393
Honor’s Bride #432
Lady Sarah’s Son #483
My Lady’s Dare #516
Anne’s Perfect Husband #552
Her Dearest Sin #607
Other works include:
Harlequin Intrigue
Echoes in the Dark #344
Only a Whisper #376
The Redemption of Deke Summers #414
Heart of the Night #442
* (#litres_trial_promo)Ransom My Heart #461
* (#litres_trial_promo)Whisper My Love #466
* (#litres_trial_promo)Remember My Touch #469
Never Let Her Go #490
** (#litres_trial_promo)The Bride’s Protector #509
** (#litres_trial_promo)The Stranger She Knew #513
** (#litres_trial_promo)Her Baby, His Secret #517
Each Precious Hour #541
† (#litres_trial_promo)Her Private Bodyguard #561
† (#litres_trial_promo)Renegade Heart #578
† (#litres_trial_promo)Midnight Remembered #591
Dedication
To Melissa, with my admiration and affection
Acknowledgment
A multitude of thanks to Olivia Ouijano for answering innumerable questions concerning names and titles for this book. Any mistakes are mine or were deliberately written to be made by my English-speaking characters.
Olivia, I love you!
Contents
Prologue (#u37bc7a5d-9f86-5a3c-91bc-28a288c25a63)
Chapter One (#udcb61410-883a-5473-827e-e2cc51ad2e84)
Chapter Two (#u5df7b0e0-0fe8-5ec3-8072-7a2f98e30490)
Chapter Three (#u9727b699-9f18-57e9-9e3b-f5ca1c332760)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Spain, 1813
“Did you say bathe?” Lord Wetherly drawled, never stirring from his comfortable occupancy of his host’s only chair. His booted feet, dusty of course, but elegantly crossed at the ankle, were propped on the edge of the cot, the other major furnishing of the tent.
“Bathe,” Captain the Honorable Sebastian Sinclair reiterated. “As in to become clean again.”
“I think you’ve had too much sun, my dear. Likely prove fatal to venture out in your condition. Best lie down and rest until the fit passes.”
“Would you care to be seen in London in our present state?”
“The thing of it is, Sin, we ain’t in London,” the viscount remonstrated with a grin. “Just in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed,” Sinclair said shortly.
With his knee, he pushed Wetherly’s boots off the cot to allow himself passage across the tent. Once there Sebastian began to rummage in the trunk he’d brought out from England two years ago.
“Frankly, it’s damned impossible not to notice,” Sinclair went on, “when one is forced to sit down to dinner with gentlemen who haven’t had more than a rudimentary spit and polish in months. And in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a perfectly good river within a quarter mile of camp. I see no reason not to avail ourselves of the opportunity.”
“The Beau’s orders seem reason enough for me,” the viscount said mildly, watching his friend lay clean clothes on the end of the cot. “The presence of a few bands of French deserters and the occasional Spanish bandit in the area might provide another. Not that I expect either to make the slightest difference to your plans, of course.”
“Good,” Sinclair said, lifting the breeches of his spare uniform out of the trunk and holding them up for inspection. “What the hell did they clean these with?” he muttered. “Mud, do you suppose?”
Wetherly recognized the observation as rhetorical and not requiring an answer.
“Boredom,” the viscount said instead. “That’s all that’s wrong with you. Our collective stench hasn’t bothered you before. Now, all of a sudden things have quieted down, no Frenchies to kill, and you damn well can’t stand it. So you plan this little adventure into enemy territory—”
“The enemy is a dozen miles away,” Sinclair said absently, brushing at the suspicious brown smear on the otherwise spotless white linen. “The rabble that’s out there…” He gestured outside the tent with a tilt of his head. “They want nothing to do with soldiers. Attacking old men and girls is more their style.”
“If you’re taken, and they demand ransom, Wellington won’t pay it,” Wetherly warned. “Not after that last harebrained episode he was forced to extricate you from. And if no one pays the ransom, Sin, my lad, you’ll be sold to the highest bidder. Probably end up in a harem somewhere. Spend the rest of your days as a rich old woman’s lapdog.”
The famous Sinclair eyes, deep blue and surrounded by a sweep of long black lashes, lifted from their consideration of the uniform.
“Do you think so?” Sinclair asked. For the first time he seemed genuinely interested in his friend’s opinion. “How exciting. Of course, Dare would be displeased to have me disappear into Spain. Family feeling and all that. Never forgive me, I suspect. Or the Beau.”
Despite the seeming arrogance of that last phrase, everyone in camp was aware that Sebastian Sinclair, who had been affectionately and rather accurately known as Sin since his school days, never sought to trade on Wellington’s well-known friendship with his oldest brother. And because the viscount knew him so well, he understood that Sebastian would never dream of doing so. To Sinclair that would be a far worse offense than sneaking off for a dip in the nearby river.
After all, Wellington’s order hadn’t applied to his officers. They were simply charged with seeing that it was carried out. In leaving camp Sebastian would not be disobeying the letter of his commander’s directive, only its spirit. That was exactly the kind of moral hair-splitting at which the youngest Sinclair had always excelled.
“Oh, yes. Lapdog or a harem. I have it on the best authority,” Wetherly said solemnly. “And if your reputation with the ladies has in the least preceded you, I can guarantee there will be a spirited bidding for your services.”
Laughing, Sinclair aimed one of his extra pair of boots at his friend, who warded it off with a practiced twist of his wrist.
“There are, I suppose, worse fates than becoming a love slave,” Sebastian said.
“I’m not sure. Have you seen the women in the market?”
The long war had caused endless deprivations among the civilian populations of the Peninsula. The Spanish were as determined as the English to free their country from the domination of the French puppet who occupied the throne. Unhappily, however, it was the women and children who had seemingly borne the brunt of those efforts.
“Poor creatures,” Sebastian agreed. “However, they don’t represent the aristocratic women of this country. Anyone capable of joining in your ‘spirited bidding’ would surely be one of those. Beautifully pampered and cosseted.”
“Thank God,” Wetherly said. And then, his tone changing from the familiar raillery in which they had been conversing, he added, “Still have to say you’re making a mistake, Sin. Too dangerous, my boy, even for you.”
“You may be right, Harry, but at least I shall meet my fate smelling like a man and not a horse.”
“Is that what that is? Been trying to identify exactly what it is you smell like for a month or more. Glad to have the riddle solved.”
The other boot followed, thrown over Sebastian’s shoulder at a target he could not see. It was characteristic of Sinclair’s luck that this careless toss accomplished what the first had not. In spite of the viscount’s belated attempt to knock it away, the boot landed squarely on top of Wetherly’s head.
Laughing, he threw it back, striking his friend on the shoulder. Sinclair ignored the blow, continuing to arrange his selected change of clothing into a neat bundle.
On his way to the opening of the tent, he bent to pick up both boots, rolling the supple leather of their high tops around the clothes. When he reached the tent flap, he stopped to sketch the viscount a quick salute.
“Tell my brothers I not only died bravely, but cleanly. More than any of you will be able to say.”
“Never had any desire to become a love slave,” Wetherly retorted. “You run along now, Sin, and have your bath. But if you get into trouble out there, don’t expect any gallant rescues. Quite beyond my skills. You’re the damned dashing one.”
“If I go missing, just send for the cavalry. They never met a fight they didn’t like.”
“Now if that don’t sound familiar,” Wetherly said. “Always wondered why you wasn’t cavalry.”
“Dare couldn’t afford the commission,” Sinclair said cheerfully.
Which, as the viscount was certainly aware, was blatantly ridiculous. There were few fortunes in England larger than that of the Sinclairs. And despite the long war, the present earl had, unlike so many of his fellow peers, managed to increase the vast sums he had inherited.
“Saving it for the ransom?” the viscount suggested.
“No doubt. See that Dare pays up, will you? While I may be perfectly willing to bleed in the service of my country—”
The rest was cut off as Sinclair let the flap of the tent fall. Left alone and still smiling, Viscount Wetherly rose, the movement characteristically languid, and walked over to the opening. He lifted the edge of the canvas and watched the figure of his friend cross the compound.
His were not the only eyes that followed the captain’s progress through camp. Sinclair’s dark good looks were compelling enough that they always garnered attention. Among the troops, however, it was his reputation for a reckless and selfless bravery that had won their admiration. More than one trooper’s eyes also lifted to watch the passage of the most popular officer on Wellington’s staff.
As was his custom, Sin stopped to exchange greetings with those who spoke to him. Although the distance between them was now too great for Wetherly to be sure, perhaps he even chose to disclose to a few his destination.
What was certain was that none of those who watched that charming and graceful progression through camp could possibly imagine how this day’s adventure would irrevocably, and forever, change the man they had grown to love.
Sebastian Sinclair had already finished his bath. He had even managed to coax enough lather from the sliver of lye soap he’d bought from one of the women in the village to allow him to wash his hair. Now he was floating lazily on his back, enjoying the warmth of the water and remembering long summer days back in the peaceful England of his boyhood.
Then, in the midst of those pleasant daydreams, he felt an indefinable prickle of unease along the back of his neck. Too long accustomed to living with danger to ignore such a premonition, he raised his head, slowly allowing his feet to sink until they touched the sandy bottom.
His eyes scanned the rock-cluttered slope he had descended. Finding nothing there to alarm him, he turned to consider the opposite bank of the river, the slope there far steeper and more treacherous than the side held by the English.
There were a dozen places among its ledges and escarpments where someone might hide. Given the loose rock, he believed he would surely have heard them moving into position. His gaze traveled the length of the ridge overlooking the river before he turned his head, again focusing on the English-held side. There was nothing there. No movement. No noise. And yet…
Moving carefully so that no telltale splash would be created by his passage, Sinclair began to make his way back to the spot where he had laid his clothing and his weapons. He could see the small pile they made, its color darker than the tans and yellows of the surrounding rocks.
He had hidden his pistol at the bottom of the stack of garments, but he had placed his sword in the open beside his boots. And he would feel infinitely better when one—or both—was in his hands.
He stepped onto the bank, water streaming down his calves and ankles from the knit drawers he wore. He had debated taking them off during his bath, but in the end he had decided he would feel too vulnerable if completely nude. He was perfectly willing to fight his way out of any manner of tricky situations, but he preferred to do so at least partially clothed.
Which was why, as soon as he reached the heap of clothing, the first thing he reached for was the clean pair of breeches he had taken from the trunk. As his fingers closed around them, something sharp was pressed against the side of his throat, right above the pulsing artery.
Obeying that unspoken command, Sinclair froze. Bent forward in order to reach for his clothing, he was in the perfect position to examine his possessions—the ones that were where he had left them. As well as the one that wasn’t.
It took him less than a fraction of a second to conclude that he was being held captive with his own sword. Out of the corner of his eye, he followed the length of it to the hand on the hilt. And beyond that—
“Stand back, if you please.”
The voice was soft. And it was unmistakably feminine. Although the English in which the order had been given was impeccable, it was also accented.
Sebastian hesitated a heartbeat, wondering what would happen if he allowed his hand to close around the blade and tried to wrest it away from his throat. Since he was aware how fine an edge the tempered steel held, he understood what the immediate consequence of that action would be. If his assailant were quick enough, and courageous enough, that particular consequence might well be followed by other, more serious ones.
Besides, Harry was right. He was bored. And this attempt to rob him—for he had no doubt that’s what was afoot—was less dangerous than the other scenarios that had been running through his brain when he’d left the water.
Despite the fact that the woman was pressing the point of his sword against his throat, he believed that at any time he chose he could take the weapon away from her. And, more important, that he could do it before she managed to inflict any lasting harm.
The desire to see how this played out, or perhaps the urge to get a look at the face that went with that intriguing voice, won out over his first inclination. Moving very slowly, he began to straighten.
The blade followed. As it did, the woman who held it moved in front of him, so that by the time Sebastian was upright, the point of the sword was firmly lodged against his larynx. The line it had traced over his skin burned as if his valet had shaved him too closely.
Face-to-face with his captor, awareness of that discomfort faded to a secondary consideration. Extremely secondary.
In spite of the unusual timbre of her voice, he could never have imagined anyone like the girl—for she seemed little more than that—who stood before him. She was dressed very simply, in the same garments worn by every peasant woman he had encountered in the district. On her, their effect was nothing short of remarkable.
The tail of the dark skirt had been caught up in its own waistband, revealing a froth of embroidered petticoats, two slender ankles covered with white stockings and neat black slippers. An embroidery pattern, which matched that on the petticoats, had been stitched along the neckline of her off-the-shoulder blouse, its fabric only a shade or two lighter than the cream of her skin. Its paleness was in marked contrast to the midnight hair, held away from an oval face by two silver combs.
Her eyes were as black as the curls that tangled over her shoulders. And they were deadly serious.
“In fairness I should warn you that my comrades are just beyond that hill,” Sebastian began.
“But your comrades don’t bathe. You would have been wiser had you followed their example.”
Sebastian controlled his amusement, meeting the dark eyes steadily. “I’m afraid I don’t have much of value.”
She made a quick downward survey. The point of the blade, pressed hard against his throat, never wavered. When her eyes lifted again, they were amused.
“So I see,” she said.
As his gaze followed hers, Sebastian discovered that the wet knit underdrawers clung revealingly to his anatomy, exposing his body as clearly as if he had been wearing nothing at all. And incredibly, Sebastian Sinclair, who had bedded more than his share of opera dancers and actresses, felt a rush of blood stain his cheeks.
The women he knew would have been embarrassed by his state of undress. Or they would have pretended to be. Certainly none of them would have been able to deliver that set-down with such poise.
“Don’t worry,” she went on. “I’m interested only in your clothes.”
“My clothes,” he repeated, feeling at a distinct disadvantage as the exchange unfolded.
“The clean ones,” she clarified. “If you would be so kind as to lay them out for me in a separate stack…”
“Perhaps you believe that I have an unlimited wardrobe,” he said, thinking that this demand was outside of enough.
She was welcome to his money, but he’d be damned if he’d hand over his only decent change of clothing. Even as he reached that decision, he acknowledged that his reluctance to do so was probably as much a matter of pride as necessity.
“But I assure you I do not,” he continued before she had a chance to speak. “Everything that has not been lost to swollen rivers, thieves or bloodstains during the last two years lies before you.”
“And I wish it to be in a separate stack, if you please,” she said again, obviously unmoved by that recital of disaster.
It seemed to Sebastian that as she said it, the point of the blade bit more deeply into the small dimpled depression it was creating at the base of his throat.
“I assure you,” she went on, “that I have more need of them than you. If you will give me your name and your regiment, perhaps I can arrange to have them returned to you when I have finished with them. Would that be satisfactory?”
He was struck again by her command of the language. Despite the accent, the words themselves might have been exchanged in any London drawing room. If one were to divorce them, of course, from the highly unusual nature of the subject they were discussing.
“I believe I prefer to keep them with me. It’s so difficult to know where one will be in…?” He hesitated, inviting her confidence about when she believed she would be finished with his clothing.
The smile that had almost broken through her control before twitched again at her lips. “Perhaps you are right. My plans are unsettled as well, so I should not lead you to expect the return of your garments. And now, if you please…”
There was no doubt about the increased pressure of the point this time. He felt the tip pierce the skin of his throat. Warm blood trickled downward over flesh chilled by his recent immersion in the water.
Clearly that prick was a warning. One he stubbornly didn’t heed. For several long seconds they continued to stand, frozen in their adversarial positions, eyes locked in challenge, each refusing to give in.
And then, the sound distinct above the rush of the river, they heard the ring of horses’ hooves on the rocks high above them. She glanced up, her eyes widening. Whether from shock or by design, the point of the sword was moved back a fraction of an inch. Away from his throat. Freed from its imprisonment, he turned his head, moving very slowly so as not to provoke retaliation.
His eyes were drawn to the top of the ridge behind him. He was hoping Wetherly or one of the others he had spoken to about his intent to bathe had finally realized how long he’d been gone and mounted a search party. Although why they should approach from the opposite bank…
And of course, they were not. Search party this might be, but the men lining the top of that slope were not looking for him.
He estimated that the man riding at their head was perhaps a decade older than his own twenty-nine years. Old enough, then, to be the girl’s father. Or her husband.
He had time to feel an inexplicable jolt of disappointment at that thought. Then the rider gave a sharp command to the others and sent his horse down the incline, seemingly without regard for its safety. Or for his own.
As skilled a horseman as Sebastian was acknowledged to be, he would have been reluctant to try his mount on that precipitous descent. He would certainly not have dared it at this speed.
Apparently the other riders in the party felt the same way. They remained along the crest of the ridge, their horses held near the edge as they watched their comrade’s headlong plunge. And whoever the horseman was, Sebastian thought in quick admiration, he was a superb rider.
“Run,” the girl said.
Surprised, Sebastian pulled his eyes from that astonishing feat of horsemanship and back to her face. It was absolutely colorless. The dark eyes were still wide and, although there had been not a trace of fear in them when she had held him prisoner with his own sword, it was there now. For some reason, he found he didn’t like seeing it.
“Your husband?” he asked, his gaze flicking back to the madman, who was now almost halfway down the slope.
“No.”
She had managed to inject bitterness into the single syllable, the emotion strong enough that it brought his eyes again to her face.
“But he is coming down here for you?”
“He’ll kill you,” she warned. “I never meant for this to happen.” Her eyes considered horse and rider briefly before they focused earnestly on his face. “If you run, I’ll try to distract him long enough to give you a chance to get away.”
Not surprisingly, Sebastian found he didn’t relish the idea of running back into camp clad only in his drawers. If he were killed here, no one would ever know exactly what had happened to him. If he fled in his underwear, like some hotly pursued virgin, he might live, but his fellow officers would dine out on the story for the next twenty years. Not only here, but in London as well.
He could imagine Dare’s face when he heard the tale. The thought of his older brother’s sardonic enjoyment of his predicament was quite enough to ensure the choice Sebastian Sinclair would ultimately make.
He dove toward the pile of garments, throwing articles of his clothing aside until his fingers closed around the pistol he’d concealed beneath them. At any moment, he expected shots to rain down around him. After all, the muskets that the horsemen carried had been in plain sight the entire time.
He rolled away from the scattered clothing and then scrambled, crouching, to his feet, his gaze sweeping the top of the ridge. The men who had lined it seconds before had disappeared. Only the leader was still visible, now guiding his horse into the river on the opposite bank.
Sebastian closed the distance between him and the girl, his fingers fastening around her upper arm. He drew her with him toward the pile of boulders she must have hidden behind to launch her ambush. They would offer some protection until he could figure out where the other riders had gone.
Still holding his sword, she allowed herself to be carried along with him for a few feet. Then, with a twist of her arm, she jerked away from his hold. He had already taken a step toward her when he realized what she was doing.
She ran back to the scattered pile of clothing, stooping to grab the pair of breeches he had been reaching for when she’d stopped him. And then she turned, hurrying toward him.
She threw them over his arm, the one that was outstretched to hold the pistol pointed at the horse and rider, who were now swimming across the current. In a matter of seconds—
“Go,” she demanded.
“Not bloody likely,” Sebastian said.
He threw the breeches over his shoulder and took her arm again. He dragged her with him as he retreated, never taking his eyes off the approaching horseman. As far as he could tell, the man wasn’t armed, which made her repeated requests that he run ridiculous. Armed and with sufficient cover—
“You fool,” she said, the words low and intense.
Surprised by the vehemence of her tone, which had been almost as bitter as that with which she’d answered his inquiry about the identity of her pursuer, he glanced toward her. And saw what she must have known from the beginning.
The line of horsemen who had disappeared from the top of the opposite ridge were now riding at a canter along the bank on this side. Obviously, they had crossed the river at some nearby ford, which they must have been aware of all along. As had the girl, he realized. That knowledge made the action of their leader in risking life and limb in that treacherous plunge even less fathomable.
It hardly mattered now. Both methods of reaching this side of the river had been successful. Too damn successful from Sebastian’s point of view, since they were closing in on him from two directions. A highly efficient tactic that had afforded Wellington’s forces more victories than Sinclair cared to remember.
The rapidly dwindling options ran through his mind like lightning. His soldier’s instinct, honed by two years of hard fighting, discarded them all.
Of course, the first shot in would arouse the camp. Whether his friends would understand its significance and respond in time was another question.
“Release her.”
The command was in Spanish. Sebastian had picked up the language quickly in his time on the Peninsula, certainly enough to understand the order he’d just been given. Instead of obeying it, he leveled his pistol at the chest of the man who had pulled up his exhausted mount, its heaving sides still streaming water, in front of them.
Close enough that Sebastian could see the rider’s features quite clearly, despite the wide-brimmed black hat he wore pulled low over his eyes. They were as dark as the girl’s, but somehow this was a different black, cold and opaque. Almost soulless.
Looking into them, Sebastian Sinclair, who had been said to possess the steadiest nerve on the staff, shivered involuntarily. A chill from his recent swim, he told himself, denying that uncanny wave of apprehension.
“She’s under my protection,” Sebastian said in English, hoping that something of the claim would translate.
For an instant, the rage in those black eyes was clearly visible. And then the man on the back of the trembling, exhausted steed laughed, the sound far more chilling than his anger had been.
“Your protection?” he mocked in the language Sebastian had used, his gaze raking the Englishman from head to toe. “Then she is more foolish than I had imagined.”
“Let him go,” the girl said. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“And I wonder why I don’t believe you, my dear?” the man on horseback said.
Behind them, Sebastian could hear the other riders beginning to descend the slope. He held his pistol high so the fact that the muzzle was pointed at their leader’s heart would be obvious. Its warning didn’t slow their approach. The man before him had never glanced their way.
“I was stealing his clothes,” the girl said. “He knows nothing, I tell you.”
“He knows enough to recognize that he is in danger.”
“He’s no threat to you,” she said, pulling her arm from Sebastian’s hold.
She held out the sword so he could take it from her hand. Holding both the sword and the pistol would, however, leave him without any way to control her if she tried to surrender to the horsemen. It had become clear she believed it was her duty to save Sebastian rather than the other way around. Since he had never before been in the position of hiding behind a woman’s skirts, however, he was unwilling to begin that practice now.
“Despite her opinion of the situation,” Sebastian said. “I assure you that I fully intend to be a threat, sir. This lady is under my protection. She has no wish to go with you.”
“Do not make yourself more foolish than you already are,” the man said. “What she wishes is of no concern to me. Nor are you. Come, Pilar. You have wasted enough of my time.”
There was a long hesitation. No one moved, but it seemed to Sebastian that he could feel the muskets behind him drawing a bead on his naked back. There was an unpleasant crawling sensation along his spine, as if the nerves were preparing themselves for the impact of a ball.
He was near enough that he could hear the breath she drew before the girl said, “Your sword, sir.” Again she offered him the hilt.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I won’t let him take you.”
He was well aware that claim was sheer bravado. He was outnumbered and outgunned. However, it was not in his training nor his background, and decidedly not in his nature, to do less than try to make good on the vow he’d just given, no matter the odds.
“A dozen of the best marksmen in Spain are behind you,” the horseman said. “Their guns are trained on your back. I should hate for one of them to miss and hit the girl you are trying to protect.”
“I think you should remind them that my gun is trained on your heart. If they shoot me, my finger will still apply enough pressure to this particularly sensitive trigger to cause it to fire. It seems we have reached checkmate, my friend.”
The man laughed, and Sebastian again felt that cold finger of apprehension along his spine. He had known innumerable men who were willing to face death on a daily basis for love of their country. Few of them laughed at its threat. Few who were sane, he qualified.
“I want your word,” the girl said unexpectedly.
His word? In the context of his exchange with the horseman, the phrase made no sense. Sebastian resisted the urge to look at her, unwilling to take his attention, even briefly, from the commander of those men at his back.
“Of course,” the horseman said, his voice still mocking.
His gaze lifted to some spot over Sebastian’s head, and the English soldier knew in that instant the signal for whatever was about to happen had just been given. Almost before the thought could form, the girl beside him brought the hilt of the sword she’d offered him down on top of his wrist. The heavy guard cracked audibly against bone, knocking his hand and the pistol it held downward. Just as he’d threatened, the hair trigger caused the gun to discharge.
When it did, it was no longer pointed at the chest of the horseman. The horse reared instead, screaming in pain and fear. Then it sank on its withers, staggering sideways before it toppled to the ground. The rider leaped away from the stricken animal, realizing even before Sebastian had, what was happening.
Shocked, Sinclair turned toward the girl who had betrayed him. Her eyes, washed with moisture, held on his for the split second before he was struck on the back of the head from behind. And her face was the last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness.
He would realize only later that it had been the shot that awakened him. At the time, he was aware of little beyond the warmth of the rock beneath his cheek and the ache at the back of his skull. He tried to open his eyes, but the sunlight reflected off the water dazzled them, creating dancing spots that obscured his vision.
When it began to clear, the first thing he saw was a pair of boots, directly in front of his nose. Their fine-grained leather was polished to a high gloss that rivaled that reflected off the surface of the water.
Too disoriented at first to understand what was going on, Sebastian gradually became aware that he was lying on the ground, his hands bound together at the wrists. The leather thong with which they had been tied was tight enough that his fingers were growing numb.
A number of men and horses seemed to be milling around him. He watched with disinterest as one of the men crossed his limited field of vision carrying a smoking musket. It was only then that Sebastian realized what had awakened him.
They had killed the horse he’d shot, putting the animal out of its agony. The noise the dying stallion had been making seemed to echo still off the rocky slopes. Although Sebastian had not been conscious of what had caused those sounds as he came awake, the resulting silence was a relief.
Before he had time to relish it, the point of his own sword was again pressed against his throat. This time the tip had been placed just beneath his chin, the point exerting an upward pressure.
“Look at me, you English bastard.”
More in obedience to the urging of the blade than to the command, Sebastian turned his head, looking up into the eyes of the man standing over him. The man whose boots he’d been facing when he’d awakened. The man who’d ridden the stallion down that rocky incline and then jumped agilely from the dying animal’s back.
Sebastian had thought before how soulless these eyes were. Now they were filled with a hatred that was palpable, and for the first time he was truly afraid.
Not to die. He had never really been afraid of dying. Not if the death were clean and honorable. In the two long years he had spent at war, however, he had become aware that there were many things worse than dying. All of them were reflected in this man’s eyes.
“You killed my stallion,” the Spaniard said.
If Sebastian had believed an apology might make a difference, he would willingly have framed one. He had never intended to harm the horse, of course. This bastard, on the other hand—
“With my own hands, I pulled him from his mother and blew into his nostrils,” the horseman continued, his voice low, each word intense. “And you, you worthless piece of offal, have slaughtered him.”
The milling men and their horses had stilled. Only the rush of the river and the malice of the horseman’s voice disturbed the afternoon heat. And the same ominous quiet that settles over the countryside before a storm seemed to surround them.
“You gave me your word,” the girl reminded.
Pilar.
She had been the one who had knocked his hand aside. With that gesture, she had delivered him into the hands of his enemy.
The black eyes of the horseman lifted from their focus on his face to find that of the girl, and Sebastian realized she was standing on the other side of him. Despite the threat of the sword, he turned his head far enough that he could see her. Her eyes were on the man who held the sword against his throat—and with it, held his life.
“My word?” the Spaniard questioned, mocking the soft determination of her reminder. “And what do you suppose that is worth now, considering what he has done?”
“Your word was once worth a great deal. Is it no longer?”
“The situation has changed.”
“And so your word is no longer your word?”
“He killed El Cid.”
“That was not his intent. If you wish to blame someone for the death of the stallion, then you must blame me,” she said.
Sebastian opened his mouth to protest and a sudden pressure of the sword against the thin skin under his chin pushed it closed. The eyes of the horseman had never moved from the girl’s face.
As it had been from the first, the real struggle of will was between the two of them. Sebastian had simply gotten in the way. He was someone who had no part in this quarrel, but who might very well pay the price of it with his blood.
“I wonder why you are so interested in saving the life of an English soldier. A man you profess not to know.”
“I don’t know him. I never saw him before today. I needed his clothing, and so I tried to steal it.”
“His clothing?”
The sword moved away from his chin, but before Sebastian could react to its release, the point lowered again, this time to score quickly down his breastbone. The pressure was enough to split the skin, leaving a thin line of welling blood from his collarbone to his navel.
The shock of what the horseman had just done was enough that he didn’t feel the sting from the shallow cut. Not immediately.
“He doesn’t seem to be wearing any,” his captor gibed.
“Exactly,” said the girl, her voice perfectly calm. “Making that which he’d taken off in order to bathe available.”
“Clothing,” the horseman mused as if he were considering the possibility. “Your only interest was in his clothing. You had none in the man himself, I take it?”
The sword had moved again. The point rested now on the most vulnerable part of Sebastian’s masculinity. The threat was as effective as when the tip had been placed at his throat. Furious—and helpless—he tried to express his rage with his eyes, but neither of them was looking at him.
“I had no use for the man,” she said.
The thin lips of the Spaniard curved, the expression more sneer than smile. “Then I take it you would have no objection if he were…no longer a man,” he suggested.
Sebastian’s blood ran cold through his veins, but he fought to control any outward revelation of that. He had known men like this, men who enjoyed inflicting pain, either mentally or physically. Their cruelty always fed on their victim’s terror.
“You gave me your word that he would be unharmed,” Pilar said again.
Her voice had not changed, despite the nature of that threat. Sebastian found himself clinging to the hope represented by her calmness. She knew this man, far better than he could. It was evident that she believed this argument would have some weight on his decision.
“I promised you his life,” the man said.
“That was not the promise I sought.”
“It was the one you were given.”
There was a small pause, and Sebastian held his breath as it lengthened.
“You have won,” she said. “You can afford to be magnanimous.”
“I can afford a great number of things. I value only those that give me pleasure.”
Sebastian wondered if she gave him pleasure, and again the unpleasantness of the thought disturbed even the fear and the fury at his helplessness.
The girl said nothing in response, but her chin lifted. An unspoken challenge? Or simply an expression of pride?
“I hold you to your word, Julián. You are bound by the oath you gave me, no matter the circumstances.”
The Spaniard’s smile was as soulless as his eyes. Almost before it formed, the sword moved—one flick of his wrist and then another. With the point, he had drawn an X on Sebastian’s chest, directly over his heart.
Before the Englishman could think of trying to respond, the point of the blade was pressed against the very center of that mark. All the horseman needed to do was lean forward, putting a downward pressure on the hilt…
“I hope you are telling me the truth, my dear. I do so hate liars and cheats.”
“I never saw him before today,” she affirmed.
“And you care nothing for him.”
“Only as I care for any fellow creature. I do not wish to see him hurt for some groundless suspicion that he has given me aid. Or for your jealousy.”
The point of the sword lifted again, settling this time very near the place where it had been resting when Sebastian had regained consciousness. The horseman’s eyes fell to his face. Lips pursed, he seemed to study Sebastian’s features as if he were memorizing them.
“Very well,” the Spaniard said finally. “Since I gave you my word…”
Again his lips tilted upward and, with another flick of his wrist, so did the sword. It slashed across Sebastian Sinclair’s face, a much deeper cut than the one it had drawn along his chest.
The blade had sliced diagonally, moving across the flesh of his chin and missing the corner of his mouth by a hair’s breadth. Then it had continued on that same path, straight as a die, laying open his cheek. The point lifted only when it reached the hairline at his temple.
The horseman’s eyes had followed the lightning-quick movement of the sword. When it reached its apex, his strong swordsman’s wrist straightened, snapping the tip of the blade upward, straight at the girl’s face. A droplet of blood was flung from the flexing steel onto her cheek.
“Unharmed. As promised,” the horseman said, smiling. And then, as he turned to mount one of the other horses, which was being held for him by its rider, he threw a brusque order over his shoulder. “Bring her.”
Two of the men stepped forward and took the girl by the elbows. She offered no resistance, but before she moved, she looked down into Sebastian’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Then, with one quick, decisive movement she freed her arms. As if she were a queen approaching her courtier, she walked across the rocks to the man who had slashed open Sebastian’s face. When she reached the horseman, who had already vaulted into the saddle, he lowered his hand, holding it out to her.
She put her fingers in his and her foot on the toe of the boot he offered. With a movement as smooth as that with which he had mounted, she was pulled up onto the horse and settled behind the Spaniard.
Without looking at Sebastian again, the horseman put his booted foot back into the stirrup and used his heels to urge the gelding up the slope that led to the English-held side of the river. The other riders streamed behind them, heading back toward the ford they had crossed before.
Stunned by what had just occurred, Sinclair lifted his bound hands, trembling fingers touching the cut that marred his face. His eyes filled with tears, not of pain or anguish, but of sheer, unadulterated rage as he listened to the sound of their horses’ hooves fade away on the rocks.
He lay where they had left him. And looking up blindly into the heat of the summer sky, he swore that he would find and kill the Spanish bastard who had ruined his face if it were the last thing he ever did in this life.
Chapter One
Madrid, 1814
“And finally, I would remind you that we are here as representatives of the Prince Regent,” the Duke of Wellington concluded, his piercing eyes examining each of his officers in turn. “I need not tell you what an honor—and a responsibility—that is.”
He inclined his head, almost a bow, before he turned. As if on parade, his staff followed him through the massive doors and down the steps of the residence that had graciously been made available to the former commander of the British forces in Iberia, now special envoy to the Spanish court. Waiting below were the carriages that would take Wellington and his party to the reception at the royal palace.
Some of the men who accompanied the duke tonight had been with him the last time he had entered Madrid—under far different circumstances than these. There was very little he could tell them about duty or responsibility they didn’t already know. And he, more than anyone, understood that.
“He’d rather be hanged, I venture,” Viscount Wetherly confided sotto voce to Sebastian as they followed their commander.
“He’d rather be charging an enemy,” Sinclair responded more accurately.
“He’ll find enough of those tonight. Not the sort one can take satisfaction in charging, of course. A gaggle of Spanish nobles determined to turn the clock back on the past five years. Can’t be done, if you ask me.”
“No one will,” Sebastian assured his friend with a grin. “Politics isn’t your forte, Harry. Leave the maneuvering to the Beau. At least he knows what message it is we’re supposed to convey to Ferdinand and his advisors.”
“That they shouldn’t let the Inquisition start burning people at the stake again, I should think,” Harry said. “Seems reasonable to me.”
And not so far from the truth of the matter, Sebastian acknowledged ruefully, despite his comment about the viscount’s lack of political understanding.
Wellington had been sent by the English government to advise the Spanish court that it would be the height of folly to attempt to undo the reforms instituted in the country while its rightful king had been in exile. No one, least of all His Majesty’s envoy, expected that mission to be a success.
“But will it seem reasonable to them?” Sebastian asked. “That’s the question. Not that Wellington gives a damn. He’ll deliver the prime minister’s warning because that’s what he’s been asked to do. What they do in response will be up to them.”
They were aware from bitter experience that Arthur Wellesley, now Duke of Wellington, had never suffered fools gladly. Riding a crest of unbelievable popularity due to his role in the defeat of Napoleon, he would have little reason to change that habitual attitude now.
“Have to confess,” Harry went on as they settled into the last of the line of carriages, “I’m not nostalgic about being back in Madrid. Can’t compare to the glories of Paris in the spring.”
“To the glories of the dancers at the Opera, you mean.”
“You’re simply jealous, my dear. I can’t be blamed that the loveliest preferred me,” Harry chided.
It was the kind of repartee they had engaged in a thousand times through the long years of their friendship—bragging about their exploits with the fairer sex or their ability to drink or to fight, each claiming superiority. This time, however, there was a small silence after the viscount’s unfortunate choice of words. And then the situation became even more awkward when Wetherly attempted to apologize for them.
“You know that ain’t the truth, Sin,” Harry said, his voice subdued. “No woman has ever preferred me to you. Not even after…”
The hesitation provided an opportunity for Sinclair to break into that nearly stuttering explanation, one which he gratefully took. “Not even after they’ve gotten a good look at my face?” he asked with a laugh, putting a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“I didn’t mean that,” Harry said stiffly.
“Just because the lot of you pretend this doesn’t exist,” Sinclair said, touching the still-reddened scar that traversed his cheek, “doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Plain as the nose on Wellington’s face,” he said.
Sinclair never referred to the scar except mockingly, as he had done tonight and, then only in response to another’s comment about it. Most people assumed it to be the result of an injury received in battle. The few friends who knew the truth of the incident said nothing to disabuse others of that notion.
“You’re still the most dashing officer on the staff,” Harry avowed gallantly.
“And you, sir, are its greatest liar. I wonder Wellington puts up with you.”
“Keeps me around for my entertainment value.”
“And me for the unquestioned beauty of my countenance,” Sebastian said, grinning at him again.
“He’d be lost without us,” the viscount declared, sounding relieved that his faux pas had been so gracefully handled. “Should never have won the war if we hadn’t been here.”
“Undoubtedly,” Sebastian said, leaning back in the comfortable leather seat and closing his eyes. “Wake me when we arrive at the palace. It will be the one with all the torches.”
“Arrogant English bastard,” Julián Delgado said as he watched his king greet the special emissary from the Court of St. James’s, “flaunting his victories and his drummed-up titles.”
“Jealous, Julián?” Pilar asked.
“Of Wellesley? Hardly. I simply hate to see him lauded like some conquering hero.”
“He shall make his government’s request and be gone within the week. Why let his presence upset you? After all, everyone knows where the real power in Spain resides.”
He turned to look at her then, perhaps in an attempt to judge if the last had been mockery. It had been, of course, but she had become extremely skilled during the past year in hiding her true feelings from her guardian. She smiled at him before she turned back to watch the English duke present the members of his small party to the king.
“I’m not sure Fernando is as convinced of that as you,” Julián said, his gaze returning to the dais as well.
“I’m sure you’ll take the necessary steps to see to it that he soon will be.”
“As soon as possible,” he agreed, not bothering to deny what she had just suggested. “The quicker he recognizes his proper place in the scheme of things, the better it will be for all of us.”
“There are those who might think that smacks of treason. I should be careful where I voice that intent, if I were you.”
She didn’t look at him this time, knowing she was treading on very dangerous ground. Her guardian had no patience with any dissension with his opinions. Certainly not from her.
“And are you one of those, my dear?”
“On the contrary,” she said. “As always, I am your most ardent admirer.”
There was a prolonged silence after her lie. Through it Pilar’s eyes remained focused on the ceremony taking place, as if she were unaware of the perilous undercurrents of their conversation.
“Your tongue will get you into trouble if you don’t learn to control it,” Julián warned, his tone softer than that in which they had been conversing. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe His Majesty requires my attendance.”
He bowed to her formally before he turned, strolling to the front of the room. Her gibe had struck home, and Pilar’s lips curved into a slight smile of satisfaction as she watched him walk away.
The rather grandiose style of his evening attire was in marked contrast to the almost severe tailoring favored by the English party. Surrounded by the sea of blazing colors that represented the court dress of the Spanish nobility, the knot of black jackets, no longer clustered around the king, again drew her eye.
The somber hue of their clothing was not the only discernible difference in the appearance of Wellington and his officers. The fine cloth of their coats stretched across shoulders broadened by years of campaigning. Knee breeches and silk stockings revealed the long, muscled thighs and shapely calves of men who had spent countless hours in the saddle.
Pilar pulled her gaze away, unwillingly reminded of another English soldier. And of the price he had paid for her foolish attempt to escape her fate. A bitter lesson, especially for someone as headstrong as she had always been.
It was one she had not forgotten, however. Nor would she, she had vowed. Never again would she embroil someone else in her troubles. It was too costly.
Grateful that Julián had been called away, providing her a few moments of freedom from the facade she maintained in his company, she began to thread her way through the close-packed throng. The doors that led to the nearby palace gardens had been left enticingly open in a fruitless attempt to permit the cooler outside air to circulate through the crowded ballroom. Her progress toward them was interrupted a few times to return greetings from those who had known her father or who were friends of her guardian.
It had been a very long time since she had been required to attend such a gathering. She knew that Julián would never have brought her tonight if he had not believed her absence might cause comment.
When she eventually reached the balcony, she was surprised to find it deserted, perhaps because the official presentations had ended such a brief time before and the dancing was to begin shortly. Julián seldom danced, so it would be some time before he would look for her.
The king’s gardens lay enticingly below, free of crowds and clamor. If only she dared…
She glanced back at the ballroom, her eyes easily locating Julián’s dark head. He was engaged in conversation with several others of the king’s advisors. Such discussions normally occupied several hours. Surely this one would last long enough for her to escape for a few minutes that unaccustomed tumult.
Unable to resist the temptation, she hurried down the steps that led to the grounds below. It was not until she had entered the sheltering darkness under the ornamental trees, beyond the reach of the flambeaux that lined the palace walls, that she slowed, lifting her face to the breeze.
The scent of almond blossoms was heavy on the night air. If she closed her eyes she could pretend she was back on her father’s estate, far from the sights and sounds and smells of the city.
Drifting out from the ballroom came the strains of the seguidilla. She smiled unconsciously, remembering the first time her dancing master had led her though its intricate patterns. Lifting the hem of her gown with her left hand, she began to parody the steps as they would be performed inside.
As she danced, she circled in and out between the slender trunks along the avenue of trees. Her outstretched fingers trailed over their bark as she moved from one to another, keeping time to the melody that floated out into the garden.
So far from the lights of the palace, she had no fear she would be seen, and only an occasional welling of anxiety that she might be missed. Surely Julián would be more concerned tonight with keeping the king in line than he would be in keeping her in line. After all—
Her fingers brushed across an unexpected texture, one that was definitely not wood or bark. Despite the brevity of the contact, she knew at once that what she had touched was flesh and bone. A living, breathing body—here, where none should be.
Her involuntary gasp broke the stillness. She stumbled backward, putting a protective distance between herself and whoever was leaning against the tree.
“I do beg your pardon,” a deep voice said in English.
Her eyes found the small, glowing tip of the cigar he held. She wondered that she hadn’t been aware of its pungent smell. Of course, the heady fragrance of the flowering trees and her own childish masquerade had been convenient distractions.
“Who are you?” Pilar asked, taking another step back.
Had the man not addressed her in English, she might have been more frightened, convinced she had encountered some trespasser on the palace grounds. Given her previous interest in the Duke of Wellington’s party, however, she found herself more intrigued than apprehensive.
“Merely the victim of an unfortunate vice,” he said, his voice tinged with amused self-deprecation.
Her eyes followed the unhurried rise of the end of the cigarillo as he brought it to his lips. The tip flared briefly in the darkness as he inhaled, and then it was lowered again. This time the smoke wafted toward her, its scent as faint as the music.
Her father had smoked these same small, tightly rolled cigars, and their fragrance had lingered in his clothing. When she was a little girl, and her papa had been away too long, she would sneak into his chamber and open the door of the enormous wardrobe to breathe in the wonderful variety of smells she would always associate with him. These cigars. The oiled leather of his boots. Sandalwood and cedar. Horses. The aromas of home.
“Shall I put it out?” the Englishman asked.
She swallowed against the force of those crowding memories and shook her head before she realized he would no more be able to see that gesture than she could see him. All she could discern was his shape, black against the lesser darkness of the night, his chest centered by the pale gleam of his cravat. And, of course, the small glowing tip of the cigarillo.
“No,” she said, the word little more than a whisper.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Hearing the unfamiliar—and unmistakable—concern in his voice, her eyes stung with tears. She blinked, denying them.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here,” she confessed.
“Escaping?”
The word reverberated in her consciousness. Another memory.
“For the moment,” she said.
“Then we can be conspirators together.”
There was a heartbeat of silence.
“You’re with the English envoy.”
“The Duke of Wellington. Have you met him?”
“Not yet. He seems…” She hesitated, searching for a word that would not give offense.
“Ordinary,” the deep voice supplied, touched again with amusement.
Which made it even more attractive, Pilar decided. Confronted with his ease of manner, she was beginning to relax. Despite the fact that she shouldn’t be here, despite the fact that he was a stranger in a dark garden, she felt no sense of foreboding in staying to talk to him.
Even if someone came looking for her, it would be easy enough to fade into the shadows. No one would ever know she had been here. With the constraints under which she was now forced to live her life, this small, harmless adventure had suddenly become unbelievably precious.
Of course, whatever interpretation she chose to put on this clandestine encounter, she had no doubt what Julián’s reaction to it would be. Then she reminded herself again, almost fiercely, that he need never know. What were a few moments in a garden compared to a lifetime—
“It’s all right,” the Englishman went on. “Most people think him to be far less…extraordinary, somehow, than they had expected.”
Wellington, she realized. He had asked her what she thought of the duke.
“I don’t believe I have yet had time to form an impression,” she said.
“I see,” he said, the amusement in his voice still evident. “I should imagine that a lady like you has heard little about his military exploits.”
“Only that they were successful,” she lied.
And was rewarded by his laughter. Like his voice, it was rich and pleasing, clearly masculine, and yet, unlike her guardian’s, free of mockery.
“Somewhat,” he agreed after a moment.
“Did you fight under his command?”
“I was a member of his staff.”
“Then I am sure you must have the greatest admiration for him.”
“Of course,” he agreed readily, that tantalizing hint of amusement lurking.
“And as a member of his staff, what were your duties?”
“Primarily to dance attendance.”
“On the duke?”
“On whomever or whatever needed attending to. The role of staff is to make things run as smoothly as possible. The variety of tasks we undertake to accomplish that would probably amaze you.”
“I think I should like to be amazed,” she said promptly, realizing how much she was enjoying this.
There was no need to guard her tongue or to watch her back. She was simply a woman engaging in light flirtation with a gentleman who seemed skilled in the art.
“Carrying dispatches on the battlefield. Scouting. Procuring provisions when need be. Dancing.”
“Dancing?” she repeated, allowing her own amusement at what seemed to be a ridiculous non sequitur.
“Oh, quite the most important requirement in a staff officer, I assure you.”
Like his laugh, like the heady sense of freedom the darkness provided, his teasing was exciting.
“The ability to dance?” she mocked.
“And to be enormously charming while doing so.”
“I’m sure you excel at all of them,” she said.
“Would you care to put that to the test?”
“Here?”
“Or inside, if you prefer.”
“Not inside,” she said, the laughter wiped from her voice.
“Then…”
With the word, he threw the cigarillo away. Her eyes followed the glowing arc of its short flight, and when they came back, he was holding out his hand. It was close enough that she could see it, despite the darkness that obscured his face. Hesitating only long enough to draw a fortifying breath, she placed her fingers over his.
Even through the supple kid gloves she wore, she could feel its strength. A horseman’s hand, she thought, remembering the muscled contours of the Englishmen’s bodies, their strength more revealed than concealed by the superb cut of their clothing.
His fingers were perfectly steady, although she was aware that hers betrayed a small vibration. Anxiety or excitement? she wondered.
Then, as he moved, drawing her with him into the center of the arbor walkway, she decided it made no difference. One dance in the concealing darkness. And she was determined to make the most of it.
He turned to face her, bowing from the waist. She dropped a deep curtsy in return, and then, once more, they faced one another.
Here, away from the shadow of the trees, she could almost see his face. And her heart began to beat too quickly.
In perfect time to the measures drifting out from the ballroom, he began to lead her through the seguidilla. And she found that what he had told her was nothing but the truth. Despite the fact that the dance had never, so far as she was aware, traveled beyond her native country, his performance of the steps she had learned in childhood was faultless.
Under the spell of their perfection and the music, she began to relax again, perhaps even relishing the sense of danger in what they were doing. From that exhilaration or from the exertion of the dance, the blood in her veins began to flow more quickly, making her feel more alive than she had felt in months.
They moved together in exquisite union. His ability to anticipate the familiar rhythms of the ancient dance seemed no less than hers. She, who had been bred to feel them.
And then, as she made a turn, her eyes inadvertently found the lights of the palace. Someone was standing on the balcony, looking out into the garden. Without being able to discern anything beyond the shape and size of the figure, she knew in an instant who was there.
Like some faceless nemesis, her guardian was peering out into the shrouded darkness beneath the trees. And he was looking for her. Her fingers fell away from those of her partner, as her feet came to an abrupt stop, disrupting the pattern of the dance.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
The tone was probably no different than that of a normal conversation. To her, the question, and especially its masculine intonation, seemed magnified in the nighttime stillness. Loud enough for Julián to hear?
“I have to go,” she said.
She began to turn, and his fingers closed around her wrist. Her attempt to flee was effectively halted, not only by his hold, but by her shock that he would dare detain her.
She twisted her arm, trying to wrench it free. Instead, his fingers tightened over the bone of her wrist, gripping hard enough to be painful.
“You’re hurting me,” she said, twisting her arm again. “Please let me go.”
His hold was implacable, his determination seemingly unmoved by her plea. Heart hammering, she wondered what she could say that would make him release her before Julián found them.
As she tried to decide, her eyes again sought the figure of her guardian. He had left his position beside the balustrade and had started down the steps that led into the garden.
She wondered briefly, ridiculously, if the Englishman might be armed. But of course, no one would dare bring a weapon into the royal palace, certainly not a representative of a foreign government.
He was therefore defenseless. And Julián…
“You don’t understand,” she said, panic coloring her voice. “He’s coming.”
“Who’s coming?” he asked. His tone betrayed nothing except a calm curiosity.
“My guardian. Please. He can’t find me here with you.”
“Of course,” he said agreeably.
Rather than releasing her, he used the hand he had wrapped around her wrist to draw her into the shadows. Back under the obscuring canopy of trees they had forsaken to indulge in that dangerously exposed dance.
What had she been thinking to allow this? And the answer, when she was forced to acknowledge it, did not begin to excuse what she had done. If anything…
“You don’t understand,” she said again, still struggling to free her wrist.
“You don’t want your guardian to find you in a dark garden with a man. Believe me, even we English can understand that concern.”
“Then let me go,” she demanded, her fear producing a rush of anger.
She raised her free hand, trying to pry apart his restraining fingers. It was no use. His hold, tight enough that the fingers of the hand it controlled were beginning to grow numb, didn’t loosen.
“If he finds me here with you, he’ll kill you,” she warned. She could hear the sound of her own breathing, ragged in the darkness.
“He may certainly try,” he agreed, his voice too soft.
His other hand fastened around the one she had been using to pry at his fingers. As it did, he shoved her back against the trunk of one of the trees that lined the walkway. Positioning her arms at her sides and still gripping her wrists, he held her there.
Before she could protest, his body was pressed tightly against hers, the wall of his chest painfully flattening her breasts. She had time to turn her face, so that her check lay against his shoulder rather than be crushed under it.
His heart was under her ear. Despite his calm refusal to heed her warnings, it was beating as rapidly as hers.
“Shh,” he said.
In unthinking response to that command, she listened, straining to hear above the pulse of his blood.
“Pilar?”
Julián’s voice. But of course, she had known it was he since she had seen that figure on the balcony.
“Shh,” the Englishman warned again, the sibilance no louder than the sound of his heartbeat.
Because she had no choice, she obeyed, holding her breath so that nothing would betray their presence to the man who was hunting her. She could hear his footsteps now. Too near and far too dangerous.
Their bodies hidden from the walkway by the trunk of the tree, the Englishman released her hands. Terrified to breathe with Julián so close, much less to move, she closed her eyes, her lips trembling in a silent prayer.
The Englishman leaned back slightly, far enough that her sense of being held captive eased. She drew a careful breath, wishing she could warn him to stillness, but Julián was too close to risk even a whisper.
Then, unexpectedly, the Englishman’s palms encircled her face. He tilted it upward with pressure from his thumbs, which were beneath her chin. Startled, her eyes opened in time to watch his mouth descend toward hers.
She was too shocked to close her lips, so that his tongue had invaded before she realized his intent. His breath mingled with hers, the smoky warmth of the cigarillo pleasant.
She didn’t dare protest. Not with those footsteps coming closer and closer to where their bodies, entwined like lovers, were sheltered by the tree.
That was a lesson she had learned too well. Julián did not listen to explanations. He wouldn’t now. He would kill the man whose mouth was fastened over hers, his lips ravishing them expertly.
All she could hope was that the darkness would not betray them. And that what had happened before…
His mouth lifted, allowing her to draw another breath. During the past few seconds, she had forgotten how necessary that was to life. She had forgotten everything but her fear and the feel of this man’s lips moving over hers.
Warm and firm and knowing. So knowing.
Belatedly she realized the footsteps that had terrorized her were fading. Julián was returning to the lights and the crowded ballroom, while they…
Their breathing—his as ragged as hers—was still mingled. Just as his body was still intimately pressed against hers.
As the danger that Julián would discover them lessened, she gradually became conscious of other things. Sensations she had not been aware of before. The muscles of the Englishman’s chest moving against the tightening nipples of her breasts as he breathed. The strength of his erection, obvious through the silk of his knee breeches, which offered no more barrier between their bodies than the thin silk of her gown. And of long callused fingers that trembled as they touched her face.
“Why?” she whispered, finally daring that one word. “Why would you take this risk?”
“All life is risk,” he said. “Nothing makes it sweeter.”
“You risked death for a kiss?” she accused, her anger with his recklessness building again, now that the immediate danger had passed.
She raised her hands and forced his wrists apart, freeing her face. She put her palms against his chest, trying to push him away, but he refused to move.
With each passing second she had become more aware of the intimacy of their position. And for the first time, her fear of his intent was almost as great as her concern for his safety.
“Aren’t your kisses worth dying for, señorita?” he mocked.
“You’re a fool,” she said, pushing more strongly against his chest.
Suddenly his hands closed over her wrists once more, and he pulled her roughly away from the tree. Then, maintaining his hold with only his right hand, he began to drag her along behind him. Again she twisted and turned her captured arm, finally using her free hand to strike at his shoulder. He ignored the repeated blows.
“If I had a weapon, I swear I would kill you,” she said.
“Steal one,” he suggested. “You seem to be very good at that.”
At that same moment she realized he had been dragging her toward the palace rather than away from it. She stopped the barrage of ineffectual blows, trying to make sense of both that destination and his words.
By the time she had realized they were too reminiscent of that terrible reality to be coincidental, he had already accomplished what he had brought her so dangerously near the palace to do. The light from the torches on the balcony above them flickered over his face, revealing the scar Julián had slashed there almost a year ago.
“We meet again, señorita,” he said. “And this time, I believe the advantage is mine.”
Chapter Two
There was a definite satisfaction in watching the slow dilation of her eyes as she recognized him, Sebastian decided. It was not enough to make up for what she had done, but it was something.
“Who are you?” she whispered, her tongue moistening lips that had not seemed dry as they responded to his kiss only seconds before.
Kissing her had been a mistake. One he freely admitted. He had never been able to determine in his own mind what he would do if he found this girl. After the sensation of her mouth trembling beneath his, carrying out any of the punishments he’d devised during the past eleven months would be an impossibility.
“Sebastian Sinclair, señorita. I would add ‘at your service,’ but considering what happened the last time I attempted that…”
He deliberately let the sentence trail. Her eyes again traced the line of the scar, and he felt the muscles of his stomach tighten as he was forced to endure their scrutiny.
“I never meant that to happen,” she said.
“His name,” Sebastian demanded.
Her eyes found his, searching them.
“No,” she whispered.
“Someone will tell me.”
“Let them. Then, if you aren’t a fool, you’ll hear the name and let it disappear from your memory. What he did—”
“Requires retribution,” he interrupted softly.
“If you attack him, you’ll disgrace your king, and Julián will still kill you.”
“Julián?”
“Colonel Julián Delgado.” Despite her avowal that she wouldn’t tell him, she enunciated the name deliberately, almost defiantly, as if it had weight and substance. “A man more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
“A man,” Sebastian mocked. “Nothing more and nothing less. He’ll bleed and then he will die. Like any other man.
He fought to control the same rage he had had to conquer when he’d seen her making her way across the ballroom. He had followed her out into the darkness because, once he had found her, this confrontation was inevitable.
He had sworn he would know the name of the man who had disfigured him. Now that he did…
“He isn’t a man,” she said, the words low enough that for a moment he believed he must have misheard them.
The silence, broken only by the music from the palace above them, expanded as he considered what she had said. And, far more troubling, the tone in which she had said it.
“Then…what is he?” he asked, touched, in spite of his long-held anger, by an almost superstitious dread.
A sudden noise from the balcony above their heads caused them both to turn. Three men, one carrying a torch, were descending the steps that led out into the garden. The flame streamed behind them like a banner. At the sight, the girl shrank back into the shadows of the building, drawing Sebastian with her.
“You mustn’t be found here. Not with me.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Sebastian said.
He wasn’t, despite that almost preternatural chill her characterization had created. Finding this man was something he had thought about every day since the bastard had laid open his cheek.
“You should be,” she said. “If nothing else, be afraid of what he will do to me if he finds you here.”
“Whatever tenderness I once harbored for damsels in distress was destroyed the day you allowed him to do this,” he said, touching his cheek with the tips of his finger. He could feel the rough texture of the scar beneath them.
“I allowed?”
“Your intervention made it possible.”
“My intervention allowed you to escape with your life.” She corrected his version of those events vehemently.
“Your intervention allowed him to escape.”
His eyes tracked the path of the torch as it was carried through the garden. Although what he had told her was true—he wasn’t afraid of the man she called Julián—he also wasn’t stupid enough to be caught off guard by him.
Occasionally the searchers would call her name, but they were careful to keep their voices low so that the sound wouldn’t carry to the palace. Apparently, her guardian had no desire to call attention to her disappearance.
“Whatever you choose to believe about that day…” she began.
The pause brought his eyes back to her face, long enough to realize that hers were again examining the scar.
“Whatever I believe?” he prompted caustically.
“You must never doubt that Julián would have had no compunction about killing you. To him, you are far less important than the stallion you shot.”
“And what are you to him?”
“He is my guardian. And soon…soon he will become my fiancé.”
For some reason, the word created a sickness in the pit of his stomach. Almost the same reaction he had felt that day by the river when he’d considered the possibility that the horseman might be her husband.
“Do you love him?”
“What a child you are,” she said, her voice touched with the same bitterness he had heard then.
“Does he love you?”
She turned her head, watching the flame from the torch move in and out among the trees.
“Marriages like ours seldom have their basis in love. Nor do they in England,” she added.
“So his actions that day were the result of…jealousy?” he asked. “Pride of possession?”
“Does it matter?”
“I find that it matters a great deal to me.”
“He’s a proud man. I had humiliated him by running away. At first, he believed you’d helped me.”
“At first?”
“If he had really believed that, he would have killed you no matter what I said.”
“And I have you to thank for convincing him otherwise? Are you expecting my gratitude?” he mocked.
“I’m expecting you will continue to play whatever game you are playing until he finds us here and kills you. Other than that, I assure you I have very little expectation of anything.”
The bitterness was there again, more open than before. Despite the anger he had cherished toward this girl during those long months, something about her claim touched a nearly forgotten chord of chivalry.
The same emotion he’d felt the first time he had encountered her, he reminded himself. It had proven to be misplaced.
“No one can force you to marry him,” he found himself saying, despite the too-clear remembrance of the last time he had attempted to intervene on her behalf. And of the price he had paid, a price he would carry to his grave, for that attempt.
She laughed, the sound abruptly cut off. She turned, again watching the flame stream through the darkness.
“You are a child,” she said again, her voice carefully lowered. “And now, you and I will return separately to the palace, and we will act as if none of what happened tonight has occurred. If you see me or Julián again while you are in Madrid, I would advise you to pretend that you don’t.”
Before he could react, she slipped past him. Staying within the shadows cast by the building, she made her way to the foot of the stairs leading up to the balcony. As she stepped onto the bottom one, she turned her head, looking back to where he was standing, hidden by the shadows. One hand on the balustrade, she hesitated, her face illuminated by the flambeaux above her.
Their light glinted off the track of tears on her cheek. Then, lifting the hem of her gown, she began to climb, eventually disappearing from his sight.
“You’re sure it was the same girl,” Harry asked when they had finally achieved the privacy of the coach and could talk openly.
Sebastian had returned to the ballroom only a short time after the torchbearer and his helpers had left the garden, but he hadn’t seen the girl again. His eyes had searched the perspiring mob gathered under the glow of a thousand candles, but neither of the faces he sought had been among them.
“The instant I saw her.”
“It’s been nearly a year,” the viscount reminded him hopefully.
“I’m not likely to have forgotten either of them. Besides, she didn’t bother to deny it.”
He hadn’t told Harry the whole. There was no reason to repeat everything that had been said—and done—during those few moments he and the girl had spent together in the garden.
Sebastian couldn’t explain to his own satisfaction why he had kissed her. He was unwilling to try to produce an answer to his friend’s inevitable questions about his motives in doing so.
“It wasn’t the girl who cut your face, Sin,” Harry reminded him. “Actually, from what you said—”
“She knocked my pistol aside. If she hadn’t—”
“If she hadn’t,” Wetherly interrupted reasonably, “we would more than likely have found you dead with a ball in your back.”
“And you believe I prefer this?” Sebastian asked savagely, touching the mark on his face.
The resulting silence lasted long enough that he knew with regret there could no longer be any pretense after tonight that he didn’t care about the scar. Of course, this was Harry, who knew him well enough to understand the purpose behind that long charade.
“It was checkmate,” Sebastian said stubbornly, trying to cling to his anger, “until she interfered. He could have ordered them to shoot me, but I would still have taken the whoreson to hell with me.”
“Let it go, Sin,” Harry advised gently. “Pursuing him won’t change what happened. It won’t change anything at all. You must know how Wellington will feel about your carrying out some personal vendetta while we’re here. Especially with the delicacy of his mission.”
“Which everyone knows is doomed to failure. I know his name, Harry. I can hunt the bastard down and—
“And do what?” Wetherly interrupted. “Kill him? What will that change?”
“At least it will free her,” Sebastian said.
And it was only when he heard the words spoken aloud that he realized their implications. As did the viscount, of course.
“Bloody hell, Sin. Is that what this is about?” Harry asked incredulously. “You’re still playing knight errant?”
“I knew then there was something wrong. She was running away because she’s terrified of him. I saw it in her eyes when that bastard sent his horse down the incline. But still she stood up to him. And then tonight…it was as if she were someone completely different. All the life and fire and spirit had been sucked out of her. And she was even more terrified of him.”
“I’m not saying she isn’t, Sin, but…he’s her guardian. Soon to be her fiancé. They have some peculiar notions here about the sanctity of that pledge. My God, man, if they’re betrothed, she’s as good as married to him. Nothing you do can change that.”
“If they’re betrothed. They aren’t. Besides, she’s only marrying him because he’s threatening her. She as much as told me that he’s holding something over her head.”
“Her family, maybe. If it’s an arranged match, they would suffer if she cried off.”
“They deserve to suffer if they’re forcing her to marry a man she’s afraid of.”
“That’s nothing to you. Let it go. There’s not a thing you can do for her. Best for everyone concerned if you forget any of this ever happened.”
“Except I’m reminded every time I look into a mirror,” Sebastian said, his voice intense.
“Did she ask you to intervene?”
She hadn’t, of course. Her advice had been the same as Harry’s. The same Wellington would give, if Sebastian were to lay the situation before the duke.
They were guests in a foreign country, one whose customs were very different from their own. Even in England, women were compelled to marry against their wishes. Some of them managed to make a success of their arranged matches, and the others, he supposed, eventually learned to be content with their lot. He had never before thought about the role of a woman bound in marriage to a man she not only didn’t love but was frightened of.
He isn’t a man.
For some reason the words and the bitterness with which they had been uttered echoed in his brain. There were so many possible connotations for them he couldn’t possibly know what she had meant.
All he knew was that she wasn’t in love with the man to whom she was about to be betrothed. And that he was her guardian and she was afraid of him.
“Sin?”
“She didn’t ask,” he admitted shortly. “She didn’t ask me to do anything.”
There was a small silence, unbroken except for the sound of the carriage wheels on the cobblestone street.
“Leave it,” Harry urged again, his voice serious as it rarely was. “For all our sakes. This isn’t the time or the place for your damned heroics. Besides, if she don’t want rescuing—”
“Then I suppose I must leave her to her fate.”
“Exactly,” Harry said, obviously missing the sarcasm. He sounded relieved that Sebastian had been so easily persuaded to see reason. “Not really our affair, you know.”
It wasn’t. And it was always possible that in dwelling on what he thought he had seen in her eyes, Sebastian was simply looking for an excuse to seek out the man who had marked his face, despite the delicacy of their mission. A reason for doing so that would carry more weight with his conscience and his commander than his thirst for revenge.
Besides, Harry was right about Wellington’s probable reaction. Dare’s, too, he supposed. Considering the distance between them, his brother’s disapproval seemed less meaningful than it had while he was growing up.
Of course, despite Dare’s carefully cultivated cynicism, he and Ian had been the ones who had taught him the values by which he had lived his life. Honor. Love of country. Courage in battle and in sport. And a willingness to offer his strength and his skills in defense of those who were unable to defend themselves.
You have only yourselves to blame, he mentally apprised his absent brothers. And then, in spite of the depths of his genuine, almost murderous rage, his lips curved into a small, secret smile at the thought of their probable reactions to that assertion.
“I told you,” Pilar said, drawing her hairbrush slowly through the entire length of the strand of hair she held. As she did, she held her guardian’s eyes in the mirror above the dressing table, assessing the depth of his rage.
She had dismissed her maid as soon as Julián opened the door to her chamber. She had understood very well what was about to happen. There was no need to try to delay the inevitable.
“Tell me again,” he demanded.
“My head was aching from the heat and the crowd and the music,” she went on. “I sought out an anteroom for a few minutes of peace and quiet. Someplace where the smell of a hundred perspiring bodies covered in stale scent wouldn’t sicken me.”
“But you didn’t think to inform me.”
“You were attending the king. I thought it best not to disturb you.”
He caught the hairbrush on its downward stroke and wrenched it from her hand. In the same movement, he put the fingers of his other hand on her shoulder, pulling her upper body around so that she was facing him.
His thumb and forefinger fastened around her chin, lifting her face to him. And then, the brush raised menacingly in his right hand, he looked down into her eyes for a long, silent moment.
She concentrated on letting nothing of what she was feeling be reflected in her eyes or in her expression. No fear. And no defiance.
She had learned that the best—indeed, the safest—way to deal with Julián, no matter his mood, was to present him with a facade of absolute calm. She made no further attempt, therefore, to convince him that what she had told him was the truth.
“Where were you?” he asked again.
“I have told you where I was,” she said evenly. “And I have told you why I had taken refuge there. Do you wish to hear the explanation again?”
“What I wish to hear is the truth.”
He did not raise his voice, but after all these months in his control, she could no longer be lulled by the fact that he might appear to be reasonable.
He wasn’t. There was nothing at all reasonable about his anger.
She eased a breath, swallowing carefully before she opened her mouth again. “The heat and the stench in the ballroom—”
He released her chin, and then, without releasing her eyes, he hurled the hairbrush at the mirror. Not heavy enough to shatter the glass, it fell onto the dressing table, overturning several of the pots and bottles arrayed there.
One of them was a perfume, the same scent she had worn to the palace tonight. As the smell permeated the heavy air, he paced away from her, his angry stride carrying him halfway across the room before he turned.
“Was your English friend there tonight?”
Her heart leapt into her throat, beating strongly enough that she prayed he wouldn’t see it pulse beneath the thin silk of her robe de chambre.
“Was he one of those bastards with Wellington?” he demanded.
He doesn’t know, she realized in relief. If he had seen the English soldier whose face he’d ruined, the tenor of this questioning would have been very different.
If Julián had known with certainty that man had been in attendance at the ball, he would not have waited until they’d reached the house. He would have dragged her from the carriage as soon as they had left the lights of the palace behind. This confrontation would have taken place in the street and not in the privacy of her bedroom.
“My…friend?” she repeated as if puzzled by the reference.
“The gallant Englishman you met by the river.”
“You think…you think that a common soldier would be invited to the king’s reception?”
She was pleased with the tone of her disclaimer. Disbelieving. Holding almost a note of ridicule.
“Hardly a common soldier,” he said, closing the distance he had opened between them.
At his approach, her heart began to pound again. She knew it would be disastrous to let her fear gain control. Julián delighted in making people afraid. Then he delighted in using that fear to destroy them.
That was something she had sworn on her father’s grave she would never let him do to her. With the thought of her father, it seemed that she could smell the acrid richness of the cigarillo the Englishman had been smoking in the garden.
The taste of it was suddenly on her tongue and her lips, along with the memory of his kiss. No one had ever kissed her like that before. No one had ever kissed her at all except Julián. And his kisses were nothing like the Englishman’s.
“What is it?” Julián asked, his voice sharpening with suspicion.
He crossed the few feet that separated them and caught her chin in his fingers again, gripping hard enough that she flinched from the pain.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded.
She had let down her guard, something she could never afford to do. No mental excursions into more pleasant circumstances. Especially when he was like this.
“The scent is bringing back my headache,” she lied.
“I saw something in your eyes,” he said.
She shook her head, brow furrowed as if in confusion.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“There was something in your face when I mentioned the Englishman.”
Deliberately she widened her eyes, shaking her head again. “You’re imagining things,” she said.
“It should be easy enough to ascertain if you’re lying.”
His voice was no longer threatening. It was almost caressing, instead. And she knew from bitter experience that this was when he was most dangerous.
It would be easy for him to procure a list of the officers who had accompanied Wellington to Madrid. Those would be only names, however, and unless he saw the Englishman’s face—
“Tonight’s isn’t the only entertainment planned for the English envoy,” he went on, destroying that comforting hope. “There will be half a dozen activities at which Wellington and his staff will be expected to make an appearance. It’s so fortunate I was wise enough to arrange it so that I should instantly know that particular officer again.”
Hearing his mockery, she hated him with a renewed swell of emotion, an indulgence she had not allowed herself in a long time. The memory of the thick, reddened scar with which he had marred the visage of the man who had tried to help her was too clear. As was the pain that had been in the Englishman’s eyes as he had watched her examine it.
“If I find you have lied to me about his presence in the envoy’s party,” Julián warned, “you know what will happen.”
Despite the threat, she said nothing. She had learned that with Julián the truth often served her no better than a lie. His punishments were as capricious as his rages.
If she confessed what had happened in the garden tonight, the punishment he threatened might still be carried out in retaliation for the clandestine meeting. Just as swiftly as it would be when he discovered she was lying. And it was always possible that he would never discover that.
Anything is possible, she thought, clinging to the thinnest thread of hope. Maybe the Englishman would take to heart what she had told him. Maybe he would heed her warning and avoid the entertainments Julián had mentioned. Maybe—
“The truth,” Julián demanded again.
Without a heartbeat of hesitation, her choice made for her by her previous experiences with his sense of fair play, she lied to him once more, “I have told you the truth.”
His lips lifted into one of his rare smiles.
“Have you, my dear?” he asked softly. His thumb released her chin to trace across her mouth. “I wonder.” His smile widened, his thumb moving along a line that matched the one he had carved in the English soldier’s cheek.
“Shall I send for your maid?”
Her heart stopped, but she controlled her face, fighting that fear. “There is no reason for that,” she said. “Please, Julián, I swear on my father’s grave that I have told you the truth.”
Perhaps she would go to hell for that, but it was better than sending someone else.
His eyes held hers a long moment. “Almost I wish…”
She didn’t ask, because she knew what he wished for—some excuse to vent his rage at her. Now he would have to try to suppress it at least until he had proved her a liar. And when he had—
He bent, putting one hand on the top of the littered vanity and slipping the other beneath the fall of her hair. With that one, he gripped her neck strongly enough that even had she dared, she would not have been able to turn her head. His mouth fastened over hers, his tongue demanding entrance.
She didn’t respond. She never did, because it made no difference to him. He preferred her impassivity. Or even, as she had learned very early in their relationship, her resistance. That was a mistake she had never made again.
As her guardian kissed her, the movement of his mouth hard, almost brutal, tears burned at the back of her eyes. Unwillingly she remembered the touch of another man’s lips. Another man’s kiss. Another man.
He isn’t a man, she had warned the Englishman. She had known from what she had seen in his eyes that he didn’t believe her. And so, even as Julián’s mouth moved against hers, her mind raced, frantic to find before it was too late, some way to prevent what was about to happen to him.
Chapter Three
“My lord?” the Viscount Wetherly’s batman called hesitantly.
Harry opened one bloodshot eye, briefly assessing his man’s face. He was standing in the doorway to the viscount’s bedroom, carefully out of range of whatever could be reached and thrown at him from the bed.
“Go away,” Wetherly said, closing the eye again.
He had found nothing in those open Yorkshire features to alarm him. If Sin had gotten into serious trouble, there would surely have been some hint of it in Malford’s revealing countenance.
“There’s a fishmonger in the kitchen, my lord…”
The viscount’s eyes opened again, very wide this time, despite the dull ache in the back of his skull. He should know better than to try to drink a Sinclair under the table, Harry acknowledged, even if that were the only way to guarantee he would know where to find him come morning.
“A fishmonger?” he repeated, imbuing his tone with every ounce of aristocratic outrage he could muster. “What the hell should I have to do with a fishmonger? Do I look like the cook, you bloody fool?”
“Indeed, no, my lord, but—”
“Go to hell and take your bleeding peddler with you,” Wetherly ordered. “You’re interrupting my sleep.”
There were a few blessed minutes of silence, during which the viscount tried to relax the muscles that had been tightened with his unaccustomed anger. Just as it seemed he might succeed, his man spoke again.
“He is really quite insistent, my lord. Otherwise, I should never have dreamed of awakening you. Your instructions concerning Captain Sinclair seemed so urgent, however—”
“Sin? Good God, man, have you let Sin leave the house without arousing me?”
With the question, the viscount had tried to sit up—much too quickly. The aborted maneuver reminded him of exactly how much wine he had consumed last night. And now it seemed that through the incompetence of this idiot, that valiant effort might well have been in vain.
Clutching his head with both hands to keep it from flying off his shoulders, and moving far more prudently, Harry finally achieved an upright position, sitting on the edge of the mattress. From there he glared banefully at his servant.
“Oh, no, my lord!” the batman hastened to assure him, apparently horrified that the viscount thought him so lax in his duty. “Captain Sinclair hasn’t stirred since we rolled him into bed. I looked in on him before I came to wake you.”
“Then why in perdition do you keep yammering on about him?”
Harry knew there must be some point to his batman’s actions because, despite his accusation, the man wasn’t a fool. He’d be damned, however, if he could figure out what this was about.
“Because the fishmonger’s message is for him, my lord. At least…” The servant hesitated again, seeming determined to make him beg for every scrap of information.
“What message?” Harry asked, trying to keep his attention to the problem at hand, despite his aching head and the increasingly urgent need for the chamber pot.
He eased off the edge of the bed, staggering slightly when his stockinged feet hit the floor. The room swam sickeningly until his batman rushed forward to put a steadying hand under his arm.
Wetherly shook it off impatiently, beginning to unfasten the flap on his evening britches. At the signal Malford bent, pulling the chamber pot from beneath the bed. He arranged it at the proper position, and they both waited, their silence almost respectful, as Harry relieved himself.
“A message for the man with the scarred face,” the servant said, when it seemed that objective had at last been achieved.
The viscount’s hands hesitated in the act of straightening his clothing. His eyes fastened on his valet’s face with the first glimmer of understanding.
“Are you telling me there’s a peddler downstairs with a message for…Sin.”
He had breathed the name separately, as if it had not been part of the original question. Any message intended for the man with the scarred face, Harry reasoned, would have to be for Sebastian. And a message delivered this particular morning—
“Where is he?” Harry demanded, his voice for the first time holding the authoritative tone one might expect from an officer and a gentleman.
“Still abed, my lord,” Malford said, sounding puzzled.
“Not Captain Sinclair, you idiot. The fishmonger. Where’s the bloody fishmonger?”
“In the kitchen, my lord. I’ve asked him to wait.”
“Good man,” Harry said, clapping him on the back and pushing him toward the door. “Now go back down and bring him up. And, Malford…”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Make sure that no one, especially not Captain Sinclair, sees him.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Harry sat down on the bed again, putting his head back in his hands. After a moment he spread his fingers and pushed his hair away from his eyes.
Given the mood Sin had been in after the reception last night, there was no telling how he might react to a message from the woman he’d seen there. And no telling what message she might have sent, Wetherly decided.
It would be better for all concerned if he intercepted this communication. Then, after he had the gist of it, he would be able to judge if it were one he should pass on to Sinclair. Or, and he strongly suspected this might be the case, one that should never be allowed to reach his friend.
After all, Sin wasn’t thinking straight about all this. His penchant for letting his emotions embroil him in situations his intellect had a hard time extracting him from was well-known to the viscount.
Far better, Harry decided with a nod, if he handled this himself. After all, he wasn’t emotionally involved with the chit. And knowing Sin, he had a good notion that more had gone on in that dark garden than his friend, as a gentleman, had revealed. If the girl were already seeking another meeting—
Far better left to me, he reiterated mentally. As a friend, his job was to make sure Sinclair’s recklessness didn’t get him into trouble with the Beau. Not while they were in Madrid, at any rate. Some day, when all this seeking revenge business had been forgotten, he would tell Sin what he’d done and receive his grateful thanks for keeping him out of a situation that was fraught with danger for his career.
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Gayle Wilson
Sebastian Sinclair mirrored his notable brothers in every way, even when it came to pursuing an intense, impossible love. Surely the flame in his heart could be nothing else, for it drove him to rescue a brave and beautiful Spanish noblewoman–held prisoner to another man's dangerous desires!Doña Pilar tasted the sweetness of the epithet upon her lips and knew she'd named Sebastian Sinclair well. For the fearless Englishman had dared to snatch her from the grip of monstrous evil, had wed her to preserve her honor and had now become Her Dearest Sin.…
His hands and his mouth moved possessively against her body.
Sebastian lifted his head. Pilar felt the slow breath he released, sighing out over the moisture his lips had left on her skin. She shivered again, uncontrollably, and his hand soothed across her back, holding her gently against his chest.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he whispered, his mouth moving now against the thin, fragile skin of her temple. The words were as soft as the breath he had taken.
“I’m not afraid,” she said. “Not of you. Not of this.”
He held her a moment more. And then, putting his hands on her shoulders, he set her away from him so that he could look down into her face. In his eyes were promise and hunger. And she wanted them both.
Acclaim for RITA® Award winner Gayle Wilson
“Rich historical detail, intriguing mystery, romance that touches the heart. These are the elements that keep me waiting impatiently for Gayle Wilson’s next book.”
—USA Today bestselling author BJ James
Anne’s Perfect Husband
“The author excels in creating compelling characters who behave intelligently and honorably. Gayle Wilson never disappoints.”
—The Romance Reader (theromancereader.com)
My Lady’s Dare
“…three-dimensional characters and intriguing plot twists kept this reader glued to the pages.”
—Romantic Times
Lady Sarah’s Son
“…a moving tale of love overcoming great obstacles, of promises kept and trust restored.”
—Romantic Times
#608 NAVAJO SUNRISE
Elizabeth Lane
#609 BRIDE OF THE ISLE
Margo Maguire
#610 CHASE WHEELER’S WOMAN
Charlene Sands
Her Dearest Sin
Gayle Wilson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Available from Harlequin Historicals and
GAYLE WILSON
The Heart’s Desire #211
The Heart’s Wager #263
The Gambler’s Heart #299
Raven’s Vow #349
His Secret Duchess #393
Honor’s Bride #432
Lady Sarah’s Son #483
My Lady’s Dare #516
Anne’s Perfect Husband #552
Her Dearest Sin #607
Other works include:
Harlequin Intrigue
Echoes in the Dark #344
Only a Whisper #376
The Redemption of Deke Summers #414
Heart of the Night #442
* (#litres_trial_promo)Ransom My Heart #461
* (#litres_trial_promo)Whisper My Love #466
* (#litres_trial_promo)Remember My Touch #469
Never Let Her Go #490
** (#litres_trial_promo)The Bride’s Protector #509
** (#litres_trial_promo)The Stranger She Knew #513
** (#litres_trial_promo)Her Baby, His Secret #517
Each Precious Hour #541
† (#litres_trial_promo)Her Private Bodyguard #561
† (#litres_trial_promo)Renegade Heart #578
† (#litres_trial_promo)Midnight Remembered #591
Dedication
To Melissa, with my admiration and affection
Acknowledgment
A multitude of thanks to Olivia Ouijano for answering innumerable questions concerning names and titles for this book. Any mistakes are mine or were deliberately written to be made by my English-speaking characters.
Olivia, I love you!
Contents
Prologue (#u37bc7a5d-9f86-5a3c-91bc-28a288c25a63)
Chapter One (#udcb61410-883a-5473-827e-e2cc51ad2e84)
Chapter Two (#u5df7b0e0-0fe8-5ec3-8072-7a2f98e30490)
Chapter Three (#u9727b699-9f18-57e9-9e3b-f5ca1c332760)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Spain, 1813
“Did you say bathe?” Lord Wetherly drawled, never stirring from his comfortable occupancy of his host’s only chair. His booted feet, dusty of course, but elegantly crossed at the ankle, were propped on the edge of the cot, the other major furnishing of the tent.
“Bathe,” Captain the Honorable Sebastian Sinclair reiterated. “As in to become clean again.”
“I think you’ve had too much sun, my dear. Likely prove fatal to venture out in your condition. Best lie down and rest until the fit passes.”
“Would you care to be seen in London in our present state?”
“The thing of it is, Sin, we ain’t in London,” the viscount remonstrated with a grin. “Just in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed,” Sinclair said shortly.
With his knee, he pushed Wetherly’s boots off the cot to allow himself passage across the tent. Once there Sebastian began to rummage in the trunk he’d brought out from England two years ago.
“Frankly, it’s damned impossible not to notice,” Sinclair went on, “when one is forced to sit down to dinner with gentlemen who haven’t had more than a rudimentary spit and polish in months. And in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a perfectly good river within a quarter mile of camp. I see no reason not to avail ourselves of the opportunity.”
“The Beau’s orders seem reason enough for me,” the viscount said mildly, watching his friend lay clean clothes on the end of the cot. “The presence of a few bands of French deserters and the occasional Spanish bandit in the area might provide another. Not that I expect either to make the slightest difference to your plans, of course.”
“Good,” Sinclair said, lifting the breeches of his spare uniform out of the trunk and holding them up for inspection. “What the hell did they clean these with?” he muttered. “Mud, do you suppose?”
Wetherly recognized the observation as rhetorical and not requiring an answer.
“Boredom,” the viscount said instead. “That’s all that’s wrong with you. Our collective stench hasn’t bothered you before. Now, all of a sudden things have quieted down, no Frenchies to kill, and you damn well can’t stand it. So you plan this little adventure into enemy territory—”
“The enemy is a dozen miles away,” Sinclair said absently, brushing at the suspicious brown smear on the otherwise spotless white linen. “The rabble that’s out there…” He gestured outside the tent with a tilt of his head. “They want nothing to do with soldiers. Attacking old men and girls is more their style.”
“If you’re taken, and they demand ransom, Wellington won’t pay it,” Wetherly warned. “Not after that last harebrained episode he was forced to extricate you from. And if no one pays the ransom, Sin, my lad, you’ll be sold to the highest bidder. Probably end up in a harem somewhere. Spend the rest of your days as a rich old woman’s lapdog.”
The famous Sinclair eyes, deep blue and surrounded by a sweep of long black lashes, lifted from their consideration of the uniform.
“Do you think so?” Sinclair asked. For the first time he seemed genuinely interested in his friend’s opinion. “How exciting. Of course, Dare would be displeased to have me disappear into Spain. Family feeling and all that. Never forgive me, I suspect. Or the Beau.”
Despite the seeming arrogance of that last phrase, everyone in camp was aware that Sebastian Sinclair, who had been affectionately and rather accurately known as Sin since his school days, never sought to trade on Wellington’s well-known friendship with his oldest brother. And because the viscount knew him so well, he understood that Sebastian would never dream of doing so. To Sinclair that would be a far worse offense than sneaking off for a dip in the nearby river.
After all, Wellington’s order hadn’t applied to his officers. They were simply charged with seeing that it was carried out. In leaving camp Sebastian would not be disobeying the letter of his commander’s directive, only its spirit. That was exactly the kind of moral hair-splitting at which the youngest Sinclair had always excelled.
“Oh, yes. Lapdog or a harem. I have it on the best authority,” Wetherly said solemnly. “And if your reputation with the ladies has in the least preceded you, I can guarantee there will be a spirited bidding for your services.”
Laughing, Sinclair aimed one of his extra pair of boots at his friend, who warded it off with a practiced twist of his wrist.
“There are, I suppose, worse fates than becoming a love slave,” Sebastian said.
“I’m not sure. Have you seen the women in the market?”
The long war had caused endless deprivations among the civilian populations of the Peninsula. The Spanish were as determined as the English to free their country from the domination of the French puppet who occupied the throne. Unhappily, however, it was the women and children who had seemingly borne the brunt of those efforts.
“Poor creatures,” Sebastian agreed. “However, they don’t represent the aristocratic women of this country. Anyone capable of joining in your ‘spirited bidding’ would surely be one of those. Beautifully pampered and cosseted.”
“Thank God,” Wetherly said. And then, his tone changing from the familiar raillery in which they had been conversing, he added, “Still have to say you’re making a mistake, Sin. Too dangerous, my boy, even for you.”
“You may be right, Harry, but at least I shall meet my fate smelling like a man and not a horse.”
“Is that what that is? Been trying to identify exactly what it is you smell like for a month or more. Glad to have the riddle solved.”
The other boot followed, thrown over Sebastian’s shoulder at a target he could not see. It was characteristic of Sinclair’s luck that this careless toss accomplished what the first had not. In spite of the viscount’s belated attempt to knock it away, the boot landed squarely on top of Wetherly’s head.
Laughing, he threw it back, striking his friend on the shoulder. Sinclair ignored the blow, continuing to arrange his selected change of clothing into a neat bundle.
On his way to the opening of the tent, he bent to pick up both boots, rolling the supple leather of their high tops around the clothes. When he reached the tent flap, he stopped to sketch the viscount a quick salute.
“Tell my brothers I not only died bravely, but cleanly. More than any of you will be able to say.”
“Never had any desire to become a love slave,” Wetherly retorted. “You run along now, Sin, and have your bath. But if you get into trouble out there, don’t expect any gallant rescues. Quite beyond my skills. You’re the damned dashing one.”
“If I go missing, just send for the cavalry. They never met a fight they didn’t like.”
“Now if that don’t sound familiar,” Wetherly said. “Always wondered why you wasn’t cavalry.”
“Dare couldn’t afford the commission,” Sinclair said cheerfully.
Which, as the viscount was certainly aware, was blatantly ridiculous. There were few fortunes in England larger than that of the Sinclairs. And despite the long war, the present earl had, unlike so many of his fellow peers, managed to increase the vast sums he had inherited.
“Saving it for the ransom?” the viscount suggested.
“No doubt. See that Dare pays up, will you? While I may be perfectly willing to bleed in the service of my country—”
The rest was cut off as Sinclair let the flap of the tent fall. Left alone and still smiling, Viscount Wetherly rose, the movement characteristically languid, and walked over to the opening. He lifted the edge of the canvas and watched the figure of his friend cross the compound.
His were not the only eyes that followed the captain’s progress through camp. Sinclair’s dark good looks were compelling enough that they always garnered attention. Among the troops, however, it was his reputation for a reckless and selfless bravery that had won their admiration. More than one trooper’s eyes also lifted to watch the passage of the most popular officer on Wellington’s staff.
As was his custom, Sin stopped to exchange greetings with those who spoke to him. Although the distance between them was now too great for Wetherly to be sure, perhaps he even chose to disclose to a few his destination.
What was certain was that none of those who watched that charming and graceful progression through camp could possibly imagine how this day’s adventure would irrevocably, and forever, change the man they had grown to love.
Sebastian Sinclair had already finished his bath. He had even managed to coax enough lather from the sliver of lye soap he’d bought from one of the women in the village to allow him to wash his hair. Now he was floating lazily on his back, enjoying the warmth of the water and remembering long summer days back in the peaceful England of his boyhood.
Then, in the midst of those pleasant daydreams, he felt an indefinable prickle of unease along the back of his neck. Too long accustomed to living with danger to ignore such a premonition, he raised his head, slowly allowing his feet to sink until they touched the sandy bottom.
His eyes scanned the rock-cluttered slope he had descended. Finding nothing there to alarm him, he turned to consider the opposite bank of the river, the slope there far steeper and more treacherous than the side held by the English.
There were a dozen places among its ledges and escarpments where someone might hide. Given the loose rock, he believed he would surely have heard them moving into position. His gaze traveled the length of the ridge overlooking the river before he turned his head, again focusing on the English-held side. There was nothing there. No movement. No noise. And yet…
Moving carefully so that no telltale splash would be created by his passage, Sinclair began to make his way back to the spot where he had laid his clothing and his weapons. He could see the small pile they made, its color darker than the tans and yellows of the surrounding rocks.
He had hidden his pistol at the bottom of the stack of garments, but he had placed his sword in the open beside his boots. And he would feel infinitely better when one—or both—was in his hands.
He stepped onto the bank, water streaming down his calves and ankles from the knit drawers he wore. He had debated taking them off during his bath, but in the end he had decided he would feel too vulnerable if completely nude. He was perfectly willing to fight his way out of any manner of tricky situations, but he preferred to do so at least partially clothed.
Which was why, as soon as he reached the heap of clothing, the first thing he reached for was the clean pair of breeches he had taken from the trunk. As his fingers closed around them, something sharp was pressed against the side of his throat, right above the pulsing artery.
Obeying that unspoken command, Sinclair froze. Bent forward in order to reach for his clothing, he was in the perfect position to examine his possessions—the ones that were where he had left them. As well as the one that wasn’t.
It took him less than a fraction of a second to conclude that he was being held captive with his own sword. Out of the corner of his eye, he followed the length of it to the hand on the hilt. And beyond that—
“Stand back, if you please.”
The voice was soft. And it was unmistakably feminine. Although the English in which the order had been given was impeccable, it was also accented.
Sebastian hesitated a heartbeat, wondering what would happen if he allowed his hand to close around the blade and tried to wrest it away from his throat. Since he was aware how fine an edge the tempered steel held, he understood what the immediate consequence of that action would be. If his assailant were quick enough, and courageous enough, that particular consequence might well be followed by other, more serious ones.
Besides, Harry was right. He was bored. And this attempt to rob him—for he had no doubt that’s what was afoot—was less dangerous than the other scenarios that had been running through his brain when he’d left the water.
Despite the fact that the woman was pressing the point of his sword against his throat, he believed that at any time he chose he could take the weapon away from her. And, more important, that he could do it before she managed to inflict any lasting harm.
The desire to see how this played out, or perhaps the urge to get a look at the face that went with that intriguing voice, won out over his first inclination. Moving very slowly, he began to straighten.
The blade followed. As it did, the woman who held it moved in front of him, so that by the time Sebastian was upright, the point of the sword was firmly lodged against his larynx. The line it had traced over his skin burned as if his valet had shaved him too closely.
Face-to-face with his captor, awareness of that discomfort faded to a secondary consideration. Extremely secondary.
In spite of the unusual timbre of her voice, he could never have imagined anyone like the girl—for she seemed little more than that—who stood before him. She was dressed very simply, in the same garments worn by every peasant woman he had encountered in the district. On her, their effect was nothing short of remarkable.
The tail of the dark skirt had been caught up in its own waistband, revealing a froth of embroidered petticoats, two slender ankles covered with white stockings and neat black slippers. An embroidery pattern, which matched that on the petticoats, had been stitched along the neckline of her off-the-shoulder blouse, its fabric only a shade or two lighter than the cream of her skin. Its paleness was in marked contrast to the midnight hair, held away from an oval face by two silver combs.
Her eyes were as black as the curls that tangled over her shoulders. And they were deadly serious.
“In fairness I should warn you that my comrades are just beyond that hill,” Sebastian began.
“But your comrades don’t bathe. You would have been wiser had you followed their example.”
Sebastian controlled his amusement, meeting the dark eyes steadily. “I’m afraid I don’t have much of value.”
She made a quick downward survey. The point of the blade, pressed hard against his throat, never wavered. When her eyes lifted again, they were amused.
“So I see,” she said.
As his gaze followed hers, Sebastian discovered that the wet knit underdrawers clung revealingly to his anatomy, exposing his body as clearly as if he had been wearing nothing at all. And incredibly, Sebastian Sinclair, who had bedded more than his share of opera dancers and actresses, felt a rush of blood stain his cheeks.
The women he knew would have been embarrassed by his state of undress. Or they would have pretended to be. Certainly none of them would have been able to deliver that set-down with such poise.
“Don’t worry,” she went on. “I’m interested only in your clothes.”
“My clothes,” he repeated, feeling at a distinct disadvantage as the exchange unfolded.
“The clean ones,” she clarified. “If you would be so kind as to lay them out for me in a separate stack…”
“Perhaps you believe that I have an unlimited wardrobe,” he said, thinking that this demand was outside of enough.
She was welcome to his money, but he’d be damned if he’d hand over his only decent change of clothing. Even as he reached that decision, he acknowledged that his reluctance to do so was probably as much a matter of pride as necessity.
“But I assure you I do not,” he continued before she had a chance to speak. “Everything that has not been lost to swollen rivers, thieves or bloodstains during the last two years lies before you.”
“And I wish it to be in a separate stack, if you please,” she said again, obviously unmoved by that recital of disaster.
It seemed to Sebastian that as she said it, the point of the blade bit more deeply into the small dimpled depression it was creating at the base of his throat.
“I assure you,” she went on, “that I have more need of them than you. If you will give me your name and your regiment, perhaps I can arrange to have them returned to you when I have finished with them. Would that be satisfactory?”
He was struck again by her command of the language. Despite the accent, the words themselves might have been exchanged in any London drawing room. If one were to divorce them, of course, from the highly unusual nature of the subject they were discussing.
“I believe I prefer to keep them with me. It’s so difficult to know where one will be in…?” He hesitated, inviting her confidence about when she believed she would be finished with his clothing.
The smile that had almost broken through her control before twitched again at her lips. “Perhaps you are right. My plans are unsettled as well, so I should not lead you to expect the return of your garments. And now, if you please…”
There was no doubt about the increased pressure of the point this time. He felt the tip pierce the skin of his throat. Warm blood trickled downward over flesh chilled by his recent immersion in the water.
Clearly that prick was a warning. One he stubbornly didn’t heed. For several long seconds they continued to stand, frozen in their adversarial positions, eyes locked in challenge, each refusing to give in.
And then, the sound distinct above the rush of the river, they heard the ring of horses’ hooves on the rocks high above them. She glanced up, her eyes widening. Whether from shock or by design, the point of the sword was moved back a fraction of an inch. Away from his throat. Freed from its imprisonment, he turned his head, moving very slowly so as not to provoke retaliation.
His eyes were drawn to the top of the ridge behind him. He was hoping Wetherly or one of the others he had spoken to about his intent to bathe had finally realized how long he’d been gone and mounted a search party. Although why they should approach from the opposite bank…
And of course, they were not. Search party this might be, but the men lining the top of that slope were not looking for him.
He estimated that the man riding at their head was perhaps a decade older than his own twenty-nine years. Old enough, then, to be the girl’s father. Or her husband.
He had time to feel an inexplicable jolt of disappointment at that thought. Then the rider gave a sharp command to the others and sent his horse down the incline, seemingly without regard for its safety. Or for his own.
As skilled a horseman as Sebastian was acknowledged to be, he would have been reluctant to try his mount on that precipitous descent. He would certainly not have dared it at this speed.
Apparently the other riders in the party felt the same way. They remained along the crest of the ridge, their horses held near the edge as they watched their comrade’s headlong plunge. And whoever the horseman was, Sebastian thought in quick admiration, he was a superb rider.
“Run,” the girl said.
Surprised, Sebastian pulled his eyes from that astonishing feat of horsemanship and back to her face. It was absolutely colorless. The dark eyes were still wide and, although there had been not a trace of fear in them when she had held him prisoner with his own sword, it was there now. For some reason, he found he didn’t like seeing it.
“Your husband?” he asked, his gaze flicking back to the madman, who was now almost halfway down the slope.
“No.”
She had managed to inject bitterness into the single syllable, the emotion strong enough that it brought his eyes again to her face.
“But he is coming down here for you?”
“He’ll kill you,” she warned. “I never meant for this to happen.” Her eyes considered horse and rider briefly before they focused earnestly on his face. “If you run, I’ll try to distract him long enough to give you a chance to get away.”
Not surprisingly, Sebastian found he didn’t relish the idea of running back into camp clad only in his drawers. If he were killed here, no one would ever know exactly what had happened to him. If he fled in his underwear, like some hotly pursued virgin, he might live, but his fellow officers would dine out on the story for the next twenty years. Not only here, but in London as well.
He could imagine Dare’s face when he heard the tale. The thought of his older brother’s sardonic enjoyment of his predicament was quite enough to ensure the choice Sebastian Sinclair would ultimately make.
He dove toward the pile of garments, throwing articles of his clothing aside until his fingers closed around the pistol he’d concealed beneath them. At any moment, he expected shots to rain down around him. After all, the muskets that the horsemen carried had been in plain sight the entire time.
He rolled away from the scattered clothing and then scrambled, crouching, to his feet, his gaze sweeping the top of the ridge. The men who had lined it seconds before had disappeared. Only the leader was still visible, now guiding his horse into the river on the opposite bank.
Sebastian closed the distance between him and the girl, his fingers fastening around her upper arm. He drew her with him toward the pile of boulders she must have hidden behind to launch her ambush. They would offer some protection until he could figure out where the other riders had gone.
Still holding his sword, she allowed herself to be carried along with him for a few feet. Then, with a twist of her arm, she jerked away from his hold. He had already taken a step toward her when he realized what she was doing.
She ran back to the scattered pile of clothing, stooping to grab the pair of breeches he had been reaching for when she’d stopped him. And then she turned, hurrying toward him.
She threw them over his arm, the one that was outstretched to hold the pistol pointed at the horse and rider, who were now swimming across the current. In a matter of seconds—
“Go,” she demanded.
“Not bloody likely,” Sebastian said.
He threw the breeches over his shoulder and took her arm again. He dragged her with him as he retreated, never taking his eyes off the approaching horseman. As far as he could tell, the man wasn’t armed, which made her repeated requests that he run ridiculous. Armed and with sufficient cover—
“You fool,” she said, the words low and intense.
Surprised by the vehemence of her tone, which had been almost as bitter as that with which she’d answered his inquiry about the identity of her pursuer, he glanced toward her. And saw what she must have known from the beginning.
The line of horsemen who had disappeared from the top of the opposite ridge were now riding at a canter along the bank on this side. Obviously, they had crossed the river at some nearby ford, which they must have been aware of all along. As had the girl, he realized. That knowledge made the action of their leader in risking life and limb in that treacherous plunge even less fathomable.
It hardly mattered now. Both methods of reaching this side of the river had been successful. Too damn successful from Sebastian’s point of view, since they were closing in on him from two directions. A highly efficient tactic that had afforded Wellington’s forces more victories than Sinclair cared to remember.
The rapidly dwindling options ran through his mind like lightning. His soldier’s instinct, honed by two years of hard fighting, discarded them all.
Of course, the first shot in would arouse the camp. Whether his friends would understand its significance and respond in time was another question.
“Release her.”
The command was in Spanish. Sebastian had picked up the language quickly in his time on the Peninsula, certainly enough to understand the order he’d just been given. Instead of obeying it, he leveled his pistol at the chest of the man who had pulled up his exhausted mount, its heaving sides still streaming water, in front of them.
Close enough that Sebastian could see the rider’s features quite clearly, despite the wide-brimmed black hat he wore pulled low over his eyes. They were as dark as the girl’s, but somehow this was a different black, cold and opaque. Almost soulless.
Looking into them, Sebastian Sinclair, who had been said to possess the steadiest nerve on the staff, shivered involuntarily. A chill from his recent swim, he told himself, denying that uncanny wave of apprehension.
“She’s under my protection,” Sebastian said in English, hoping that something of the claim would translate.
For an instant, the rage in those black eyes was clearly visible. And then the man on the back of the trembling, exhausted steed laughed, the sound far more chilling than his anger had been.
“Your protection?” he mocked in the language Sebastian had used, his gaze raking the Englishman from head to toe. “Then she is more foolish than I had imagined.”
“Let him go,” the girl said. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“And I wonder why I don’t believe you, my dear?” the man on horseback said.
Behind them, Sebastian could hear the other riders beginning to descend the slope. He held his pistol high so the fact that the muzzle was pointed at their leader’s heart would be obvious. Its warning didn’t slow their approach. The man before him had never glanced their way.
“I was stealing his clothes,” the girl said. “He knows nothing, I tell you.”
“He knows enough to recognize that he is in danger.”
“He’s no threat to you,” she said, pulling her arm from Sebastian’s hold.
She held out the sword so he could take it from her hand. Holding both the sword and the pistol would, however, leave him without any way to control her if she tried to surrender to the horsemen. It had become clear she believed it was her duty to save Sebastian rather than the other way around. Since he had never before been in the position of hiding behind a woman’s skirts, however, he was unwilling to begin that practice now.
“Despite her opinion of the situation,” Sebastian said. “I assure you that I fully intend to be a threat, sir. This lady is under my protection. She has no wish to go with you.”
“Do not make yourself more foolish than you already are,” the man said. “What she wishes is of no concern to me. Nor are you. Come, Pilar. You have wasted enough of my time.”
There was a long hesitation. No one moved, but it seemed to Sebastian that he could feel the muskets behind him drawing a bead on his naked back. There was an unpleasant crawling sensation along his spine, as if the nerves were preparing themselves for the impact of a ball.
He was near enough that he could hear the breath she drew before the girl said, “Your sword, sir.” Again she offered him the hilt.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I won’t let him take you.”
He was well aware that claim was sheer bravado. He was outnumbered and outgunned. However, it was not in his training nor his background, and decidedly not in his nature, to do less than try to make good on the vow he’d just given, no matter the odds.
“A dozen of the best marksmen in Spain are behind you,” the horseman said. “Their guns are trained on your back. I should hate for one of them to miss and hit the girl you are trying to protect.”
“I think you should remind them that my gun is trained on your heart. If they shoot me, my finger will still apply enough pressure to this particularly sensitive trigger to cause it to fire. It seems we have reached checkmate, my friend.”
The man laughed, and Sebastian again felt that cold finger of apprehension along his spine. He had known innumerable men who were willing to face death on a daily basis for love of their country. Few of them laughed at its threat. Few who were sane, he qualified.
“I want your word,” the girl said unexpectedly.
His word? In the context of his exchange with the horseman, the phrase made no sense. Sebastian resisted the urge to look at her, unwilling to take his attention, even briefly, from the commander of those men at his back.
“Of course,” the horseman said, his voice still mocking.
His gaze lifted to some spot over Sebastian’s head, and the English soldier knew in that instant the signal for whatever was about to happen had just been given. Almost before the thought could form, the girl beside him brought the hilt of the sword she’d offered him down on top of his wrist. The heavy guard cracked audibly against bone, knocking his hand and the pistol it held downward. Just as he’d threatened, the hair trigger caused the gun to discharge.
When it did, it was no longer pointed at the chest of the horseman. The horse reared instead, screaming in pain and fear. Then it sank on its withers, staggering sideways before it toppled to the ground. The rider leaped away from the stricken animal, realizing even before Sebastian had, what was happening.
Shocked, Sinclair turned toward the girl who had betrayed him. Her eyes, washed with moisture, held on his for the split second before he was struck on the back of the head from behind. And her face was the last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness.
He would realize only later that it had been the shot that awakened him. At the time, he was aware of little beyond the warmth of the rock beneath his cheek and the ache at the back of his skull. He tried to open his eyes, but the sunlight reflected off the water dazzled them, creating dancing spots that obscured his vision.
When it began to clear, the first thing he saw was a pair of boots, directly in front of his nose. Their fine-grained leather was polished to a high gloss that rivaled that reflected off the surface of the water.
Too disoriented at first to understand what was going on, Sebastian gradually became aware that he was lying on the ground, his hands bound together at the wrists. The leather thong with which they had been tied was tight enough that his fingers were growing numb.
A number of men and horses seemed to be milling around him. He watched with disinterest as one of the men crossed his limited field of vision carrying a smoking musket. It was only then that Sebastian realized what had awakened him.
They had killed the horse he’d shot, putting the animal out of its agony. The noise the dying stallion had been making seemed to echo still off the rocky slopes. Although Sebastian had not been conscious of what had caused those sounds as he came awake, the resulting silence was a relief.
Before he had time to relish it, the point of his own sword was again pressed against his throat. This time the tip had been placed just beneath his chin, the point exerting an upward pressure.
“Look at me, you English bastard.”
More in obedience to the urging of the blade than to the command, Sebastian turned his head, looking up into the eyes of the man standing over him. The man whose boots he’d been facing when he’d awakened. The man who’d ridden the stallion down that rocky incline and then jumped agilely from the dying animal’s back.
Sebastian had thought before how soulless these eyes were. Now they were filled with a hatred that was palpable, and for the first time he was truly afraid.
Not to die. He had never really been afraid of dying. Not if the death were clean and honorable. In the two long years he had spent at war, however, he had become aware that there were many things worse than dying. All of them were reflected in this man’s eyes.
“You killed my stallion,” the Spaniard said.
If Sebastian had believed an apology might make a difference, he would willingly have framed one. He had never intended to harm the horse, of course. This bastard, on the other hand—
“With my own hands, I pulled him from his mother and blew into his nostrils,” the horseman continued, his voice low, each word intense. “And you, you worthless piece of offal, have slaughtered him.”
The milling men and their horses had stilled. Only the rush of the river and the malice of the horseman’s voice disturbed the afternoon heat. And the same ominous quiet that settles over the countryside before a storm seemed to surround them.
“You gave me your word,” the girl reminded.
Pilar.
She had been the one who had knocked his hand aside. With that gesture, she had delivered him into the hands of his enemy.
The black eyes of the horseman lifted from their focus on his face to find that of the girl, and Sebastian realized she was standing on the other side of him. Despite the threat of the sword, he turned his head far enough that he could see her. Her eyes were on the man who held the sword against his throat—and with it, held his life.
“My word?” the Spaniard questioned, mocking the soft determination of her reminder. “And what do you suppose that is worth now, considering what he has done?”
“Your word was once worth a great deal. Is it no longer?”
“The situation has changed.”
“And so your word is no longer your word?”
“He killed El Cid.”
“That was not his intent. If you wish to blame someone for the death of the stallion, then you must blame me,” she said.
Sebastian opened his mouth to protest and a sudden pressure of the sword against the thin skin under his chin pushed it closed. The eyes of the horseman had never moved from the girl’s face.
As it had been from the first, the real struggle of will was between the two of them. Sebastian had simply gotten in the way. He was someone who had no part in this quarrel, but who might very well pay the price of it with his blood.
“I wonder why you are so interested in saving the life of an English soldier. A man you profess not to know.”
“I don’t know him. I never saw him before today. I needed his clothing, and so I tried to steal it.”
“His clothing?”
The sword moved away from his chin, but before Sebastian could react to its release, the point lowered again, this time to score quickly down his breastbone. The pressure was enough to split the skin, leaving a thin line of welling blood from his collarbone to his navel.
The shock of what the horseman had just done was enough that he didn’t feel the sting from the shallow cut. Not immediately.
“He doesn’t seem to be wearing any,” his captor gibed.
“Exactly,” said the girl, her voice perfectly calm. “Making that which he’d taken off in order to bathe available.”
“Clothing,” the horseman mused as if he were considering the possibility. “Your only interest was in his clothing. You had none in the man himself, I take it?”
The sword had moved again. The point rested now on the most vulnerable part of Sebastian’s masculinity. The threat was as effective as when the tip had been placed at his throat. Furious—and helpless—he tried to express his rage with his eyes, but neither of them was looking at him.
“I had no use for the man,” she said.
The thin lips of the Spaniard curved, the expression more sneer than smile. “Then I take it you would have no objection if he were…no longer a man,” he suggested.
Sebastian’s blood ran cold through his veins, but he fought to control any outward revelation of that. He had known men like this, men who enjoyed inflicting pain, either mentally or physically. Their cruelty always fed on their victim’s terror.
“You gave me your word that he would be unharmed,” Pilar said again.
Her voice had not changed, despite the nature of that threat. Sebastian found himself clinging to the hope represented by her calmness. She knew this man, far better than he could. It was evident that she believed this argument would have some weight on his decision.
“I promised you his life,” the man said.
“That was not the promise I sought.”
“It was the one you were given.”
There was a small pause, and Sebastian held his breath as it lengthened.
“You have won,” she said. “You can afford to be magnanimous.”
“I can afford a great number of things. I value only those that give me pleasure.”
Sebastian wondered if she gave him pleasure, and again the unpleasantness of the thought disturbed even the fear and the fury at his helplessness.
The girl said nothing in response, but her chin lifted. An unspoken challenge? Or simply an expression of pride?
“I hold you to your word, Julián. You are bound by the oath you gave me, no matter the circumstances.”
The Spaniard’s smile was as soulless as his eyes. Almost before it formed, the sword moved—one flick of his wrist and then another. With the point, he had drawn an X on Sebastian’s chest, directly over his heart.
Before the Englishman could think of trying to respond, the point of the blade was pressed against the very center of that mark. All the horseman needed to do was lean forward, putting a downward pressure on the hilt…
“I hope you are telling me the truth, my dear. I do so hate liars and cheats.”
“I never saw him before today,” she affirmed.
“And you care nothing for him.”
“Only as I care for any fellow creature. I do not wish to see him hurt for some groundless suspicion that he has given me aid. Or for your jealousy.”
The point of the sword lifted again, settling this time very near the place where it had been resting when Sebastian had regained consciousness. The horseman’s eyes fell to his face. Lips pursed, he seemed to study Sebastian’s features as if he were memorizing them.
“Very well,” the Spaniard said finally. “Since I gave you my word…”
Again his lips tilted upward and, with another flick of his wrist, so did the sword. It slashed across Sebastian Sinclair’s face, a much deeper cut than the one it had drawn along his chest.
The blade had sliced diagonally, moving across the flesh of his chin and missing the corner of his mouth by a hair’s breadth. Then it had continued on that same path, straight as a die, laying open his cheek. The point lifted only when it reached the hairline at his temple.
The horseman’s eyes had followed the lightning-quick movement of the sword. When it reached its apex, his strong swordsman’s wrist straightened, snapping the tip of the blade upward, straight at the girl’s face. A droplet of blood was flung from the flexing steel onto her cheek.
“Unharmed. As promised,” the horseman said, smiling. And then, as he turned to mount one of the other horses, which was being held for him by its rider, he threw a brusque order over his shoulder. “Bring her.”
Two of the men stepped forward and took the girl by the elbows. She offered no resistance, but before she moved, she looked down into Sebastian’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Then, with one quick, decisive movement she freed her arms. As if she were a queen approaching her courtier, she walked across the rocks to the man who had slashed open Sebastian’s face. When she reached the horseman, who had already vaulted into the saddle, he lowered his hand, holding it out to her.
She put her fingers in his and her foot on the toe of the boot he offered. With a movement as smooth as that with which he had mounted, she was pulled up onto the horse and settled behind the Spaniard.
Without looking at Sebastian again, the horseman put his booted foot back into the stirrup and used his heels to urge the gelding up the slope that led to the English-held side of the river. The other riders streamed behind them, heading back toward the ford they had crossed before.
Stunned by what had just occurred, Sinclair lifted his bound hands, trembling fingers touching the cut that marred his face. His eyes filled with tears, not of pain or anguish, but of sheer, unadulterated rage as he listened to the sound of their horses’ hooves fade away on the rocks.
He lay where they had left him. And looking up blindly into the heat of the summer sky, he swore that he would find and kill the Spanish bastard who had ruined his face if it were the last thing he ever did in this life.
Chapter One
Madrid, 1814
“And finally, I would remind you that we are here as representatives of the Prince Regent,” the Duke of Wellington concluded, his piercing eyes examining each of his officers in turn. “I need not tell you what an honor—and a responsibility—that is.”
He inclined his head, almost a bow, before he turned. As if on parade, his staff followed him through the massive doors and down the steps of the residence that had graciously been made available to the former commander of the British forces in Iberia, now special envoy to the Spanish court. Waiting below were the carriages that would take Wellington and his party to the reception at the royal palace.
Some of the men who accompanied the duke tonight had been with him the last time he had entered Madrid—under far different circumstances than these. There was very little he could tell them about duty or responsibility they didn’t already know. And he, more than anyone, understood that.
“He’d rather be hanged, I venture,” Viscount Wetherly confided sotto voce to Sebastian as they followed their commander.
“He’d rather be charging an enemy,” Sinclair responded more accurately.
“He’ll find enough of those tonight. Not the sort one can take satisfaction in charging, of course. A gaggle of Spanish nobles determined to turn the clock back on the past five years. Can’t be done, if you ask me.”
“No one will,” Sebastian assured his friend with a grin. “Politics isn’t your forte, Harry. Leave the maneuvering to the Beau. At least he knows what message it is we’re supposed to convey to Ferdinand and his advisors.”
“That they shouldn’t let the Inquisition start burning people at the stake again, I should think,” Harry said. “Seems reasonable to me.”
And not so far from the truth of the matter, Sebastian acknowledged ruefully, despite his comment about the viscount’s lack of political understanding.
Wellington had been sent by the English government to advise the Spanish court that it would be the height of folly to attempt to undo the reforms instituted in the country while its rightful king had been in exile. No one, least of all His Majesty’s envoy, expected that mission to be a success.
“But will it seem reasonable to them?” Sebastian asked. “That’s the question. Not that Wellington gives a damn. He’ll deliver the prime minister’s warning because that’s what he’s been asked to do. What they do in response will be up to them.”
They were aware from bitter experience that Arthur Wellesley, now Duke of Wellington, had never suffered fools gladly. Riding a crest of unbelievable popularity due to his role in the defeat of Napoleon, he would have little reason to change that habitual attitude now.
“Have to confess,” Harry went on as they settled into the last of the line of carriages, “I’m not nostalgic about being back in Madrid. Can’t compare to the glories of Paris in the spring.”
“To the glories of the dancers at the Opera, you mean.”
“You’re simply jealous, my dear. I can’t be blamed that the loveliest preferred me,” Harry chided.
It was the kind of repartee they had engaged in a thousand times through the long years of their friendship—bragging about their exploits with the fairer sex or their ability to drink or to fight, each claiming superiority. This time, however, there was a small silence after the viscount’s unfortunate choice of words. And then the situation became even more awkward when Wetherly attempted to apologize for them.
“You know that ain’t the truth, Sin,” Harry said, his voice subdued. “No woman has ever preferred me to you. Not even after…”
The hesitation provided an opportunity for Sinclair to break into that nearly stuttering explanation, one which he gratefully took. “Not even after they’ve gotten a good look at my face?” he asked with a laugh, putting a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“I didn’t mean that,” Harry said stiffly.
“Just because the lot of you pretend this doesn’t exist,” Sinclair said, touching the still-reddened scar that traversed his cheek, “doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Plain as the nose on Wellington’s face,” he said.
Sinclair never referred to the scar except mockingly, as he had done tonight and, then only in response to another’s comment about it. Most people assumed it to be the result of an injury received in battle. The few friends who knew the truth of the incident said nothing to disabuse others of that notion.
“You’re still the most dashing officer on the staff,” Harry avowed gallantly.
“And you, sir, are its greatest liar. I wonder Wellington puts up with you.”
“Keeps me around for my entertainment value.”
“And me for the unquestioned beauty of my countenance,” Sebastian said, grinning at him again.
“He’d be lost without us,” the viscount declared, sounding relieved that his faux pas had been so gracefully handled. “Should never have won the war if we hadn’t been here.”
“Undoubtedly,” Sebastian said, leaning back in the comfortable leather seat and closing his eyes. “Wake me when we arrive at the palace. It will be the one with all the torches.”
“Arrogant English bastard,” Julián Delgado said as he watched his king greet the special emissary from the Court of St. James’s, “flaunting his victories and his drummed-up titles.”
“Jealous, Julián?” Pilar asked.
“Of Wellesley? Hardly. I simply hate to see him lauded like some conquering hero.”
“He shall make his government’s request and be gone within the week. Why let his presence upset you? After all, everyone knows where the real power in Spain resides.”
He turned to look at her then, perhaps in an attempt to judge if the last had been mockery. It had been, of course, but she had become extremely skilled during the past year in hiding her true feelings from her guardian. She smiled at him before she turned back to watch the English duke present the members of his small party to the king.
“I’m not sure Fernando is as convinced of that as you,” Julián said, his gaze returning to the dais as well.
“I’m sure you’ll take the necessary steps to see to it that he soon will be.”
“As soon as possible,” he agreed, not bothering to deny what she had just suggested. “The quicker he recognizes his proper place in the scheme of things, the better it will be for all of us.”
“There are those who might think that smacks of treason. I should be careful where I voice that intent, if I were you.”
She didn’t look at him this time, knowing she was treading on very dangerous ground. Her guardian had no patience with any dissension with his opinions. Certainly not from her.
“And are you one of those, my dear?”
“On the contrary,” she said. “As always, I am your most ardent admirer.”
There was a prolonged silence after her lie. Through it Pilar’s eyes remained focused on the ceremony taking place, as if she were unaware of the perilous undercurrents of their conversation.
“Your tongue will get you into trouble if you don’t learn to control it,” Julián warned, his tone softer than that in which they had been conversing. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe His Majesty requires my attendance.”
He bowed to her formally before he turned, strolling to the front of the room. Her gibe had struck home, and Pilar’s lips curved into a slight smile of satisfaction as she watched him walk away.
The rather grandiose style of his evening attire was in marked contrast to the almost severe tailoring favored by the English party. Surrounded by the sea of blazing colors that represented the court dress of the Spanish nobility, the knot of black jackets, no longer clustered around the king, again drew her eye.
The somber hue of their clothing was not the only discernible difference in the appearance of Wellington and his officers. The fine cloth of their coats stretched across shoulders broadened by years of campaigning. Knee breeches and silk stockings revealed the long, muscled thighs and shapely calves of men who had spent countless hours in the saddle.
Pilar pulled her gaze away, unwillingly reminded of another English soldier. And of the price he had paid for her foolish attempt to escape her fate. A bitter lesson, especially for someone as headstrong as she had always been.
It was one she had not forgotten, however. Nor would she, she had vowed. Never again would she embroil someone else in her troubles. It was too costly.
Grateful that Julián had been called away, providing her a few moments of freedom from the facade she maintained in his company, she began to thread her way through the close-packed throng. The doors that led to the nearby palace gardens had been left enticingly open in a fruitless attempt to permit the cooler outside air to circulate through the crowded ballroom. Her progress toward them was interrupted a few times to return greetings from those who had known her father or who were friends of her guardian.
It had been a very long time since she had been required to attend such a gathering. She knew that Julián would never have brought her tonight if he had not believed her absence might cause comment.
When she eventually reached the balcony, she was surprised to find it deserted, perhaps because the official presentations had ended such a brief time before and the dancing was to begin shortly. Julián seldom danced, so it would be some time before he would look for her.
The king’s gardens lay enticingly below, free of crowds and clamor. If only she dared…
She glanced back at the ballroom, her eyes easily locating Julián’s dark head. He was engaged in conversation with several others of the king’s advisors. Such discussions normally occupied several hours. Surely this one would last long enough for her to escape for a few minutes that unaccustomed tumult.
Unable to resist the temptation, she hurried down the steps that led to the grounds below. It was not until she had entered the sheltering darkness under the ornamental trees, beyond the reach of the flambeaux that lined the palace walls, that she slowed, lifting her face to the breeze.
The scent of almond blossoms was heavy on the night air. If she closed her eyes she could pretend she was back on her father’s estate, far from the sights and sounds and smells of the city.
Drifting out from the ballroom came the strains of the seguidilla. She smiled unconsciously, remembering the first time her dancing master had led her though its intricate patterns. Lifting the hem of her gown with her left hand, she began to parody the steps as they would be performed inside.
As she danced, she circled in and out between the slender trunks along the avenue of trees. Her outstretched fingers trailed over their bark as she moved from one to another, keeping time to the melody that floated out into the garden.
So far from the lights of the palace, she had no fear she would be seen, and only an occasional welling of anxiety that she might be missed. Surely Julián would be more concerned tonight with keeping the king in line than he would be in keeping her in line. After all—
Her fingers brushed across an unexpected texture, one that was definitely not wood or bark. Despite the brevity of the contact, she knew at once that what she had touched was flesh and bone. A living, breathing body—here, where none should be.
Her involuntary gasp broke the stillness. She stumbled backward, putting a protective distance between herself and whoever was leaning against the tree.
“I do beg your pardon,” a deep voice said in English.
Her eyes found the small, glowing tip of the cigar he held. She wondered that she hadn’t been aware of its pungent smell. Of course, the heady fragrance of the flowering trees and her own childish masquerade had been convenient distractions.
“Who are you?” Pilar asked, taking another step back.
Had the man not addressed her in English, she might have been more frightened, convinced she had encountered some trespasser on the palace grounds. Given her previous interest in the Duke of Wellington’s party, however, she found herself more intrigued than apprehensive.
“Merely the victim of an unfortunate vice,” he said, his voice tinged with amused self-deprecation.
Her eyes followed the unhurried rise of the end of the cigarillo as he brought it to his lips. The tip flared briefly in the darkness as he inhaled, and then it was lowered again. This time the smoke wafted toward her, its scent as faint as the music.
Her father had smoked these same small, tightly rolled cigars, and their fragrance had lingered in his clothing. When she was a little girl, and her papa had been away too long, she would sneak into his chamber and open the door of the enormous wardrobe to breathe in the wonderful variety of smells she would always associate with him. These cigars. The oiled leather of his boots. Sandalwood and cedar. Horses. The aromas of home.
“Shall I put it out?” the Englishman asked.
She swallowed against the force of those crowding memories and shook her head before she realized he would no more be able to see that gesture than she could see him. All she could discern was his shape, black against the lesser darkness of the night, his chest centered by the pale gleam of his cravat. And, of course, the small glowing tip of the cigarillo.
“No,” she said, the word little more than a whisper.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Hearing the unfamiliar—and unmistakable—concern in his voice, her eyes stung with tears. She blinked, denying them.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here,” she confessed.
“Escaping?”
The word reverberated in her consciousness. Another memory.
“For the moment,” she said.
“Then we can be conspirators together.”
There was a heartbeat of silence.
“You’re with the English envoy.”
“The Duke of Wellington. Have you met him?”
“Not yet. He seems…” She hesitated, searching for a word that would not give offense.
“Ordinary,” the deep voice supplied, touched again with amusement.
Which made it even more attractive, Pilar decided. Confronted with his ease of manner, she was beginning to relax. Despite the fact that she shouldn’t be here, despite the fact that he was a stranger in a dark garden, she felt no sense of foreboding in staying to talk to him.
Even if someone came looking for her, it would be easy enough to fade into the shadows. No one would ever know she had been here. With the constraints under which she was now forced to live her life, this small, harmless adventure had suddenly become unbelievably precious.
Of course, whatever interpretation she chose to put on this clandestine encounter, she had no doubt what Julián’s reaction to it would be. Then she reminded herself again, almost fiercely, that he need never know. What were a few moments in a garden compared to a lifetime—
“It’s all right,” the Englishman went on. “Most people think him to be far less…extraordinary, somehow, than they had expected.”
Wellington, she realized. He had asked her what she thought of the duke.
“I don’t believe I have yet had time to form an impression,” she said.
“I see,” he said, the amusement in his voice still evident. “I should imagine that a lady like you has heard little about his military exploits.”
“Only that they were successful,” she lied.
And was rewarded by his laughter. Like his voice, it was rich and pleasing, clearly masculine, and yet, unlike her guardian’s, free of mockery.
“Somewhat,” he agreed after a moment.
“Did you fight under his command?”
“I was a member of his staff.”
“Then I am sure you must have the greatest admiration for him.”
“Of course,” he agreed readily, that tantalizing hint of amusement lurking.
“And as a member of his staff, what were your duties?”
“Primarily to dance attendance.”
“On the duke?”
“On whomever or whatever needed attending to. The role of staff is to make things run as smoothly as possible. The variety of tasks we undertake to accomplish that would probably amaze you.”
“I think I should like to be amazed,” she said promptly, realizing how much she was enjoying this.
There was no need to guard her tongue or to watch her back. She was simply a woman engaging in light flirtation with a gentleman who seemed skilled in the art.
“Carrying dispatches on the battlefield. Scouting. Procuring provisions when need be. Dancing.”
“Dancing?” she repeated, allowing her own amusement at what seemed to be a ridiculous non sequitur.
“Oh, quite the most important requirement in a staff officer, I assure you.”
Like his laugh, like the heady sense of freedom the darkness provided, his teasing was exciting.
“The ability to dance?” she mocked.
“And to be enormously charming while doing so.”
“I’m sure you excel at all of them,” she said.
“Would you care to put that to the test?”
“Here?”
“Or inside, if you prefer.”
“Not inside,” she said, the laughter wiped from her voice.
“Then…”
With the word, he threw the cigarillo away. Her eyes followed the glowing arc of its short flight, and when they came back, he was holding out his hand. It was close enough that she could see it, despite the darkness that obscured his face. Hesitating only long enough to draw a fortifying breath, she placed her fingers over his.
Even through the supple kid gloves she wore, she could feel its strength. A horseman’s hand, she thought, remembering the muscled contours of the Englishmen’s bodies, their strength more revealed than concealed by the superb cut of their clothing.
His fingers were perfectly steady, although she was aware that hers betrayed a small vibration. Anxiety or excitement? she wondered.
Then, as he moved, drawing her with him into the center of the arbor walkway, she decided it made no difference. One dance in the concealing darkness. And she was determined to make the most of it.
He turned to face her, bowing from the waist. She dropped a deep curtsy in return, and then, once more, they faced one another.
Here, away from the shadow of the trees, she could almost see his face. And her heart began to beat too quickly.
In perfect time to the measures drifting out from the ballroom, he began to lead her through the seguidilla. And she found that what he had told her was nothing but the truth. Despite the fact that the dance had never, so far as she was aware, traveled beyond her native country, his performance of the steps she had learned in childhood was faultless.
Under the spell of their perfection and the music, she began to relax again, perhaps even relishing the sense of danger in what they were doing. From that exhilaration or from the exertion of the dance, the blood in her veins began to flow more quickly, making her feel more alive than she had felt in months.
They moved together in exquisite union. His ability to anticipate the familiar rhythms of the ancient dance seemed no less than hers. She, who had been bred to feel them.
And then, as she made a turn, her eyes inadvertently found the lights of the palace. Someone was standing on the balcony, looking out into the garden. Without being able to discern anything beyond the shape and size of the figure, she knew in an instant who was there.
Like some faceless nemesis, her guardian was peering out into the shrouded darkness beneath the trees. And he was looking for her. Her fingers fell away from those of her partner, as her feet came to an abrupt stop, disrupting the pattern of the dance.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
The tone was probably no different than that of a normal conversation. To her, the question, and especially its masculine intonation, seemed magnified in the nighttime stillness. Loud enough for Julián to hear?
“I have to go,” she said.
She began to turn, and his fingers closed around her wrist. Her attempt to flee was effectively halted, not only by his hold, but by her shock that he would dare detain her.
She twisted her arm, trying to wrench it free. Instead, his fingers tightened over the bone of her wrist, gripping hard enough to be painful.
“You’re hurting me,” she said, twisting her arm again. “Please let me go.”
His hold was implacable, his determination seemingly unmoved by her plea. Heart hammering, she wondered what she could say that would make him release her before Julián found them.
As she tried to decide, her eyes again sought the figure of her guardian. He had left his position beside the balustrade and had started down the steps that led into the garden.
She wondered briefly, ridiculously, if the Englishman might be armed. But of course, no one would dare bring a weapon into the royal palace, certainly not a representative of a foreign government.
He was therefore defenseless. And Julián…
“You don’t understand,” she said, panic coloring her voice. “He’s coming.”
“Who’s coming?” he asked. His tone betrayed nothing except a calm curiosity.
“My guardian. Please. He can’t find me here with you.”
“Of course,” he said agreeably.
Rather than releasing her, he used the hand he had wrapped around her wrist to draw her into the shadows. Back under the obscuring canopy of trees they had forsaken to indulge in that dangerously exposed dance.
What had she been thinking to allow this? And the answer, when she was forced to acknowledge it, did not begin to excuse what she had done. If anything…
“You don’t understand,” she said again, still struggling to free her wrist.
“You don’t want your guardian to find you in a dark garden with a man. Believe me, even we English can understand that concern.”
“Then let me go,” she demanded, her fear producing a rush of anger.
She raised her free hand, trying to pry apart his restraining fingers. It was no use. His hold, tight enough that the fingers of the hand it controlled were beginning to grow numb, didn’t loosen.
“If he finds me here with you, he’ll kill you,” she warned. She could hear the sound of her own breathing, ragged in the darkness.
“He may certainly try,” he agreed, his voice too soft.
His other hand fastened around the one she had been using to pry at his fingers. As it did, he shoved her back against the trunk of one of the trees that lined the walkway. Positioning her arms at her sides and still gripping her wrists, he held her there.
Before she could protest, his body was pressed tightly against hers, the wall of his chest painfully flattening her breasts. She had time to turn her face, so that her check lay against his shoulder rather than be crushed under it.
His heart was under her ear. Despite his calm refusal to heed her warnings, it was beating as rapidly as hers.
“Shh,” he said.
In unthinking response to that command, she listened, straining to hear above the pulse of his blood.
“Pilar?”
Julián’s voice. But of course, she had known it was he since she had seen that figure on the balcony.
“Shh,” the Englishman warned again, the sibilance no louder than the sound of his heartbeat.
Because she had no choice, she obeyed, holding her breath so that nothing would betray their presence to the man who was hunting her. She could hear his footsteps now. Too near and far too dangerous.
Their bodies hidden from the walkway by the trunk of the tree, the Englishman released her hands. Terrified to breathe with Julián so close, much less to move, she closed her eyes, her lips trembling in a silent prayer.
The Englishman leaned back slightly, far enough that her sense of being held captive eased. She drew a careful breath, wishing she could warn him to stillness, but Julián was too close to risk even a whisper.
Then, unexpectedly, the Englishman’s palms encircled her face. He tilted it upward with pressure from his thumbs, which were beneath her chin. Startled, her eyes opened in time to watch his mouth descend toward hers.
She was too shocked to close her lips, so that his tongue had invaded before she realized his intent. His breath mingled with hers, the smoky warmth of the cigarillo pleasant.
She didn’t dare protest. Not with those footsteps coming closer and closer to where their bodies, entwined like lovers, were sheltered by the tree.
That was a lesson she had learned too well. Julián did not listen to explanations. He wouldn’t now. He would kill the man whose mouth was fastened over hers, his lips ravishing them expertly.
All she could hope was that the darkness would not betray them. And that what had happened before…
His mouth lifted, allowing her to draw another breath. During the past few seconds, she had forgotten how necessary that was to life. She had forgotten everything but her fear and the feel of this man’s lips moving over hers.
Warm and firm and knowing. So knowing.
Belatedly she realized the footsteps that had terrorized her were fading. Julián was returning to the lights and the crowded ballroom, while they…
Their breathing—his as ragged as hers—was still mingled. Just as his body was still intimately pressed against hers.
As the danger that Julián would discover them lessened, she gradually became conscious of other things. Sensations she had not been aware of before. The muscles of the Englishman’s chest moving against the tightening nipples of her breasts as he breathed. The strength of his erection, obvious through the silk of his knee breeches, which offered no more barrier between their bodies than the thin silk of her gown. And of long callused fingers that trembled as they touched her face.
“Why?” she whispered, finally daring that one word. “Why would you take this risk?”
“All life is risk,” he said. “Nothing makes it sweeter.”
“You risked death for a kiss?” she accused, her anger with his recklessness building again, now that the immediate danger had passed.
She raised her hands and forced his wrists apart, freeing her face. She put her palms against his chest, trying to push him away, but he refused to move.
With each passing second she had become more aware of the intimacy of their position. And for the first time, her fear of his intent was almost as great as her concern for his safety.
“Aren’t your kisses worth dying for, señorita?” he mocked.
“You’re a fool,” she said, pushing more strongly against his chest.
Suddenly his hands closed over her wrists once more, and he pulled her roughly away from the tree. Then, maintaining his hold with only his right hand, he began to drag her along behind him. Again she twisted and turned her captured arm, finally using her free hand to strike at his shoulder. He ignored the repeated blows.
“If I had a weapon, I swear I would kill you,” she said.
“Steal one,” he suggested. “You seem to be very good at that.”
At that same moment she realized he had been dragging her toward the palace rather than away from it. She stopped the barrage of ineffectual blows, trying to make sense of both that destination and his words.
By the time she had realized they were too reminiscent of that terrible reality to be coincidental, he had already accomplished what he had brought her so dangerously near the palace to do. The light from the torches on the balcony above them flickered over his face, revealing the scar Julián had slashed there almost a year ago.
“We meet again, señorita,” he said. “And this time, I believe the advantage is mine.”
Chapter Two
There was a definite satisfaction in watching the slow dilation of her eyes as she recognized him, Sebastian decided. It was not enough to make up for what she had done, but it was something.
“Who are you?” she whispered, her tongue moistening lips that had not seemed dry as they responded to his kiss only seconds before.
Kissing her had been a mistake. One he freely admitted. He had never been able to determine in his own mind what he would do if he found this girl. After the sensation of her mouth trembling beneath his, carrying out any of the punishments he’d devised during the past eleven months would be an impossibility.
“Sebastian Sinclair, señorita. I would add ‘at your service,’ but considering what happened the last time I attempted that…”
He deliberately let the sentence trail. Her eyes again traced the line of the scar, and he felt the muscles of his stomach tighten as he was forced to endure their scrutiny.
“I never meant that to happen,” she said.
“His name,” Sebastian demanded.
Her eyes found his, searching them.
“No,” she whispered.
“Someone will tell me.”
“Let them. Then, if you aren’t a fool, you’ll hear the name and let it disappear from your memory. What he did—”
“Requires retribution,” he interrupted softly.
“If you attack him, you’ll disgrace your king, and Julián will still kill you.”
“Julián?”
“Colonel Julián Delgado.” Despite her avowal that she wouldn’t tell him, she enunciated the name deliberately, almost defiantly, as if it had weight and substance. “A man more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
“A man,” Sebastian mocked. “Nothing more and nothing less. He’ll bleed and then he will die. Like any other man.
He fought to control the same rage he had had to conquer when he’d seen her making her way across the ballroom. He had followed her out into the darkness because, once he had found her, this confrontation was inevitable.
He had sworn he would know the name of the man who had disfigured him. Now that he did…
“He isn’t a man,” she said, the words low enough that for a moment he believed he must have misheard them.
The silence, broken only by the music from the palace above them, expanded as he considered what she had said. And, far more troubling, the tone in which she had said it.
“Then…what is he?” he asked, touched, in spite of his long-held anger, by an almost superstitious dread.
A sudden noise from the balcony above their heads caused them both to turn. Three men, one carrying a torch, were descending the steps that led out into the garden. The flame streamed behind them like a banner. At the sight, the girl shrank back into the shadows of the building, drawing Sebastian with her.
“You mustn’t be found here. Not with me.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Sebastian said.
He wasn’t, despite that almost preternatural chill her characterization had created. Finding this man was something he had thought about every day since the bastard had laid open his cheek.
“You should be,” she said. “If nothing else, be afraid of what he will do to me if he finds you here.”
“Whatever tenderness I once harbored for damsels in distress was destroyed the day you allowed him to do this,” he said, touching his cheek with the tips of his finger. He could feel the rough texture of the scar beneath them.
“I allowed?”
“Your intervention made it possible.”
“My intervention allowed you to escape with your life.” She corrected his version of those events vehemently.
“Your intervention allowed him to escape.”
His eyes tracked the path of the torch as it was carried through the garden. Although what he had told her was true—he wasn’t afraid of the man she called Julián—he also wasn’t stupid enough to be caught off guard by him.
Occasionally the searchers would call her name, but they were careful to keep their voices low so that the sound wouldn’t carry to the palace. Apparently, her guardian had no desire to call attention to her disappearance.
“Whatever you choose to believe about that day…” she began.
The pause brought his eyes back to her face, long enough to realize that hers were again examining the scar.
“Whatever I believe?” he prompted caustically.
“You must never doubt that Julián would have had no compunction about killing you. To him, you are far less important than the stallion you shot.”
“And what are you to him?”
“He is my guardian. And soon…soon he will become my fiancé.”
For some reason, the word created a sickness in the pit of his stomach. Almost the same reaction he had felt that day by the river when he’d considered the possibility that the horseman might be her husband.
“Do you love him?”
“What a child you are,” she said, her voice touched with the same bitterness he had heard then.
“Does he love you?”
She turned her head, watching the flame from the torch move in and out among the trees.
“Marriages like ours seldom have their basis in love. Nor do they in England,” she added.
“So his actions that day were the result of…jealousy?” he asked. “Pride of possession?”
“Does it matter?”
“I find that it matters a great deal to me.”
“He’s a proud man. I had humiliated him by running away. At first, he believed you’d helped me.”
“At first?”
“If he had really believed that, he would have killed you no matter what I said.”
“And I have you to thank for convincing him otherwise? Are you expecting my gratitude?” he mocked.
“I’m expecting you will continue to play whatever game you are playing until he finds us here and kills you. Other than that, I assure you I have very little expectation of anything.”
The bitterness was there again, more open than before. Despite the anger he had cherished toward this girl during those long months, something about her claim touched a nearly forgotten chord of chivalry.
The same emotion he’d felt the first time he had encountered her, he reminded himself. It had proven to be misplaced.
“No one can force you to marry him,” he found himself saying, despite the too-clear remembrance of the last time he had attempted to intervene on her behalf. And of the price he had paid, a price he would carry to his grave, for that attempt.
She laughed, the sound abruptly cut off. She turned, again watching the flame stream through the darkness.
“You are a child,” she said again, her voice carefully lowered. “And now, you and I will return separately to the palace, and we will act as if none of what happened tonight has occurred. If you see me or Julián again while you are in Madrid, I would advise you to pretend that you don’t.”
Before he could react, she slipped past him. Staying within the shadows cast by the building, she made her way to the foot of the stairs leading up to the balcony. As she stepped onto the bottom one, she turned her head, looking back to where he was standing, hidden by the shadows. One hand on the balustrade, she hesitated, her face illuminated by the flambeaux above her.
Their light glinted off the track of tears on her cheek. Then, lifting the hem of her gown, she began to climb, eventually disappearing from his sight.
“You’re sure it was the same girl,” Harry asked when they had finally achieved the privacy of the coach and could talk openly.
Sebastian had returned to the ballroom only a short time after the torchbearer and his helpers had left the garden, but he hadn’t seen the girl again. His eyes had searched the perspiring mob gathered under the glow of a thousand candles, but neither of the faces he sought had been among them.
“The instant I saw her.”
“It’s been nearly a year,” the viscount reminded him hopefully.
“I’m not likely to have forgotten either of them. Besides, she didn’t bother to deny it.”
He hadn’t told Harry the whole. There was no reason to repeat everything that had been said—and done—during those few moments he and the girl had spent together in the garden.
Sebastian couldn’t explain to his own satisfaction why he had kissed her. He was unwilling to try to produce an answer to his friend’s inevitable questions about his motives in doing so.
“It wasn’t the girl who cut your face, Sin,” Harry reminded him. “Actually, from what you said—”
“She knocked my pistol aside. If she hadn’t—”
“If she hadn’t,” Wetherly interrupted reasonably, “we would more than likely have found you dead with a ball in your back.”
“And you believe I prefer this?” Sebastian asked savagely, touching the mark on his face.
The resulting silence lasted long enough that he knew with regret there could no longer be any pretense after tonight that he didn’t care about the scar. Of course, this was Harry, who knew him well enough to understand the purpose behind that long charade.
“It was checkmate,” Sebastian said stubbornly, trying to cling to his anger, “until she interfered. He could have ordered them to shoot me, but I would still have taken the whoreson to hell with me.”
“Let it go, Sin,” Harry advised gently. “Pursuing him won’t change what happened. It won’t change anything at all. You must know how Wellington will feel about your carrying out some personal vendetta while we’re here. Especially with the delicacy of his mission.”
“Which everyone knows is doomed to failure. I know his name, Harry. I can hunt the bastard down and—
“And do what?” Wetherly interrupted. “Kill him? What will that change?”
“At least it will free her,” Sebastian said.
And it was only when he heard the words spoken aloud that he realized their implications. As did the viscount, of course.
“Bloody hell, Sin. Is that what this is about?” Harry asked incredulously. “You’re still playing knight errant?”
“I knew then there was something wrong. She was running away because she’s terrified of him. I saw it in her eyes when that bastard sent his horse down the incline. But still she stood up to him. And then tonight…it was as if she were someone completely different. All the life and fire and spirit had been sucked out of her. And she was even more terrified of him.”
“I’m not saying she isn’t, Sin, but…he’s her guardian. Soon to be her fiancé. They have some peculiar notions here about the sanctity of that pledge. My God, man, if they’re betrothed, she’s as good as married to him. Nothing you do can change that.”
“If they’re betrothed. They aren’t. Besides, she’s only marrying him because he’s threatening her. She as much as told me that he’s holding something over her head.”
“Her family, maybe. If it’s an arranged match, they would suffer if she cried off.”
“They deserve to suffer if they’re forcing her to marry a man she’s afraid of.”
“That’s nothing to you. Let it go. There’s not a thing you can do for her. Best for everyone concerned if you forget any of this ever happened.”
“Except I’m reminded every time I look into a mirror,” Sebastian said, his voice intense.
“Did she ask you to intervene?”
She hadn’t, of course. Her advice had been the same as Harry’s. The same Wellington would give, if Sebastian were to lay the situation before the duke.
They were guests in a foreign country, one whose customs were very different from their own. Even in England, women were compelled to marry against their wishes. Some of them managed to make a success of their arranged matches, and the others, he supposed, eventually learned to be content with their lot. He had never before thought about the role of a woman bound in marriage to a man she not only didn’t love but was frightened of.
He isn’t a man.
For some reason the words and the bitterness with which they had been uttered echoed in his brain. There were so many possible connotations for them he couldn’t possibly know what she had meant.
All he knew was that she wasn’t in love with the man to whom she was about to be betrothed. And that he was her guardian and she was afraid of him.
“Sin?”
“She didn’t ask,” he admitted shortly. “She didn’t ask me to do anything.”
There was a small silence, unbroken except for the sound of the carriage wheels on the cobblestone street.
“Leave it,” Harry urged again, his voice serious as it rarely was. “For all our sakes. This isn’t the time or the place for your damned heroics. Besides, if she don’t want rescuing—”
“Then I suppose I must leave her to her fate.”
“Exactly,” Harry said, obviously missing the sarcasm. He sounded relieved that Sebastian had been so easily persuaded to see reason. “Not really our affair, you know.”
It wasn’t. And it was always possible that in dwelling on what he thought he had seen in her eyes, Sebastian was simply looking for an excuse to seek out the man who had marked his face, despite the delicacy of their mission. A reason for doing so that would carry more weight with his conscience and his commander than his thirst for revenge.
Besides, Harry was right about Wellington’s probable reaction. Dare’s, too, he supposed. Considering the distance between them, his brother’s disapproval seemed less meaningful than it had while he was growing up.
Of course, despite Dare’s carefully cultivated cynicism, he and Ian had been the ones who had taught him the values by which he had lived his life. Honor. Love of country. Courage in battle and in sport. And a willingness to offer his strength and his skills in defense of those who were unable to defend themselves.
You have only yourselves to blame, he mentally apprised his absent brothers. And then, in spite of the depths of his genuine, almost murderous rage, his lips curved into a small, secret smile at the thought of their probable reactions to that assertion.
“I told you,” Pilar said, drawing her hairbrush slowly through the entire length of the strand of hair she held. As she did, she held her guardian’s eyes in the mirror above the dressing table, assessing the depth of his rage.
She had dismissed her maid as soon as Julián opened the door to her chamber. She had understood very well what was about to happen. There was no need to try to delay the inevitable.
“Tell me again,” he demanded.
“My head was aching from the heat and the crowd and the music,” she went on. “I sought out an anteroom for a few minutes of peace and quiet. Someplace where the smell of a hundred perspiring bodies covered in stale scent wouldn’t sicken me.”
“But you didn’t think to inform me.”
“You were attending the king. I thought it best not to disturb you.”
He caught the hairbrush on its downward stroke and wrenched it from her hand. In the same movement, he put the fingers of his other hand on her shoulder, pulling her upper body around so that she was facing him.
His thumb and forefinger fastened around her chin, lifting her face to him. And then, the brush raised menacingly in his right hand, he looked down into her eyes for a long, silent moment.
She concentrated on letting nothing of what she was feeling be reflected in her eyes or in her expression. No fear. And no defiance.
She had learned that the best—indeed, the safest—way to deal with Julián, no matter his mood, was to present him with a facade of absolute calm. She made no further attempt, therefore, to convince him that what she had told him was the truth.
“Where were you?” he asked again.
“I have told you where I was,” she said evenly. “And I have told you why I had taken refuge there. Do you wish to hear the explanation again?”
“What I wish to hear is the truth.”
He did not raise his voice, but after all these months in his control, she could no longer be lulled by the fact that he might appear to be reasonable.
He wasn’t. There was nothing at all reasonable about his anger.
She eased a breath, swallowing carefully before she opened her mouth again. “The heat and the stench in the ballroom—”
He released her chin, and then, without releasing her eyes, he hurled the hairbrush at the mirror. Not heavy enough to shatter the glass, it fell onto the dressing table, overturning several of the pots and bottles arrayed there.
One of them was a perfume, the same scent she had worn to the palace tonight. As the smell permeated the heavy air, he paced away from her, his angry stride carrying him halfway across the room before he turned.
“Was your English friend there tonight?”
Her heart leapt into her throat, beating strongly enough that she prayed he wouldn’t see it pulse beneath the thin silk of her robe de chambre.
“Was he one of those bastards with Wellington?” he demanded.
He doesn’t know, she realized in relief. If he had seen the English soldier whose face he’d ruined, the tenor of this questioning would have been very different.
If Julián had known with certainty that man had been in attendance at the ball, he would not have waited until they’d reached the house. He would have dragged her from the carriage as soon as they had left the lights of the palace behind. This confrontation would have taken place in the street and not in the privacy of her bedroom.
“My…friend?” she repeated as if puzzled by the reference.
“The gallant Englishman you met by the river.”
“You think…you think that a common soldier would be invited to the king’s reception?”
She was pleased with the tone of her disclaimer. Disbelieving. Holding almost a note of ridicule.
“Hardly a common soldier,” he said, closing the distance he had opened between them.
At his approach, her heart began to pound again. She knew it would be disastrous to let her fear gain control. Julián delighted in making people afraid. Then he delighted in using that fear to destroy them.
That was something she had sworn on her father’s grave she would never let him do to her. With the thought of her father, it seemed that she could smell the acrid richness of the cigarillo the Englishman had been smoking in the garden.
The taste of it was suddenly on her tongue and her lips, along with the memory of his kiss. No one had ever kissed her like that before. No one had ever kissed her at all except Julián. And his kisses were nothing like the Englishman’s.
“What is it?” Julián asked, his voice sharpening with suspicion.
He crossed the few feet that separated them and caught her chin in his fingers again, gripping hard enough that she flinched from the pain.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded.
She had let down her guard, something she could never afford to do. No mental excursions into more pleasant circumstances. Especially when he was like this.
“The scent is bringing back my headache,” she lied.
“I saw something in your eyes,” he said.
She shook her head, brow furrowed as if in confusion.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“There was something in your face when I mentioned the Englishman.”
Deliberately she widened her eyes, shaking her head again. “You’re imagining things,” she said.
“It should be easy enough to ascertain if you’re lying.”
His voice was no longer threatening. It was almost caressing, instead. And she knew from bitter experience that this was when he was most dangerous.
It would be easy for him to procure a list of the officers who had accompanied Wellington to Madrid. Those would be only names, however, and unless he saw the Englishman’s face—
“Tonight’s isn’t the only entertainment planned for the English envoy,” he went on, destroying that comforting hope. “There will be half a dozen activities at which Wellington and his staff will be expected to make an appearance. It’s so fortunate I was wise enough to arrange it so that I should instantly know that particular officer again.”
Hearing his mockery, she hated him with a renewed swell of emotion, an indulgence she had not allowed herself in a long time. The memory of the thick, reddened scar with which he had marred the visage of the man who had tried to help her was too clear. As was the pain that had been in the Englishman’s eyes as he had watched her examine it.
“If I find you have lied to me about his presence in the envoy’s party,” Julián warned, “you know what will happen.”
Despite the threat, she said nothing. She had learned that with Julián the truth often served her no better than a lie. His punishments were as capricious as his rages.
If she confessed what had happened in the garden tonight, the punishment he threatened might still be carried out in retaliation for the clandestine meeting. Just as swiftly as it would be when he discovered she was lying. And it was always possible that he would never discover that.
Anything is possible, she thought, clinging to the thinnest thread of hope. Maybe the Englishman would take to heart what she had told him. Maybe he would heed her warning and avoid the entertainments Julián had mentioned. Maybe—
“The truth,” Julián demanded again.
Without a heartbeat of hesitation, her choice made for her by her previous experiences with his sense of fair play, she lied to him once more, “I have told you the truth.”
His lips lifted into one of his rare smiles.
“Have you, my dear?” he asked softly. His thumb released her chin to trace across her mouth. “I wonder.” His smile widened, his thumb moving along a line that matched the one he had carved in the English soldier’s cheek.
“Shall I send for your maid?”
Her heart stopped, but she controlled her face, fighting that fear. “There is no reason for that,” she said. “Please, Julián, I swear on my father’s grave that I have told you the truth.”
Perhaps she would go to hell for that, but it was better than sending someone else.
His eyes held hers a long moment. “Almost I wish…”
She didn’t ask, because she knew what he wished for—some excuse to vent his rage at her. Now he would have to try to suppress it at least until he had proved her a liar. And when he had—
He bent, putting one hand on the top of the littered vanity and slipping the other beneath the fall of her hair. With that one, he gripped her neck strongly enough that even had she dared, she would not have been able to turn her head. His mouth fastened over hers, his tongue demanding entrance.
She didn’t respond. She never did, because it made no difference to him. He preferred her impassivity. Or even, as she had learned very early in their relationship, her resistance. That was a mistake she had never made again.
As her guardian kissed her, the movement of his mouth hard, almost brutal, tears burned at the back of her eyes. Unwillingly she remembered the touch of another man’s lips. Another man’s kiss. Another man.
He isn’t a man, she had warned the Englishman. She had known from what she had seen in his eyes that he didn’t believe her. And so, even as Julián’s mouth moved against hers, her mind raced, frantic to find before it was too late, some way to prevent what was about to happen to him.
Chapter Three
“My lord?” the Viscount Wetherly’s batman called hesitantly.
Harry opened one bloodshot eye, briefly assessing his man’s face. He was standing in the doorway to the viscount’s bedroom, carefully out of range of whatever could be reached and thrown at him from the bed.
“Go away,” Wetherly said, closing the eye again.
He had found nothing in those open Yorkshire features to alarm him. If Sin had gotten into serious trouble, there would surely have been some hint of it in Malford’s revealing countenance.
“There’s a fishmonger in the kitchen, my lord…”
The viscount’s eyes opened again, very wide this time, despite the dull ache in the back of his skull. He should know better than to try to drink a Sinclair under the table, Harry acknowledged, even if that were the only way to guarantee he would know where to find him come morning.
“A fishmonger?” he repeated, imbuing his tone with every ounce of aristocratic outrage he could muster. “What the hell should I have to do with a fishmonger? Do I look like the cook, you bloody fool?”
“Indeed, no, my lord, but—”
“Go to hell and take your bleeding peddler with you,” Wetherly ordered. “You’re interrupting my sleep.”
There were a few blessed minutes of silence, during which the viscount tried to relax the muscles that had been tightened with his unaccustomed anger. Just as it seemed he might succeed, his man spoke again.
“He is really quite insistent, my lord. Otherwise, I should never have dreamed of awakening you. Your instructions concerning Captain Sinclair seemed so urgent, however—”
“Sin? Good God, man, have you let Sin leave the house without arousing me?”
With the question, the viscount had tried to sit up—much too quickly. The aborted maneuver reminded him of exactly how much wine he had consumed last night. And now it seemed that through the incompetence of this idiot, that valiant effort might well have been in vain.
Clutching his head with both hands to keep it from flying off his shoulders, and moving far more prudently, Harry finally achieved an upright position, sitting on the edge of the mattress. From there he glared banefully at his servant.
“Oh, no, my lord!” the batman hastened to assure him, apparently horrified that the viscount thought him so lax in his duty. “Captain Sinclair hasn’t stirred since we rolled him into bed. I looked in on him before I came to wake you.”
“Then why in perdition do you keep yammering on about him?”
Harry knew there must be some point to his batman’s actions because, despite his accusation, the man wasn’t a fool. He’d be damned, however, if he could figure out what this was about.
“Because the fishmonger’s message is for him, my lord. At least…” The servant hesitated again, seeming determined to make him beg for every scrap of information.
“What message?” Harry asked, trying to keep his attention to the problem at hand, despite his aching head and the increasingly urgent need for the chamber pot.
He eased off the edge of the bed, staggering slightly when his stockinged feet hit the floor. The room swam sickeningly until his batman rushed forward to put a steadying hand under his arm.
Wetherly shook it off impatiently, beginning to unfasten the flap on his evening britches. At the signal Malford bent, pulling the chamber pot from beneath the bed. He arranged it at the proper position, and they both waited, their silence almost respectful, as Harry relieved himself.
“A message for the man with the scarred face,” the servant said, when it seemed that objective had at last been achieved.
The viscount’s hands hesitated in the act of straightening his clothing. His eyes fastened on his valet’s face with the first glimmer of understanding.
“Are you telling me there’s a peddler downstairs with a message for…Sin.”
He had breathed the name separately, as if it had not been part of the original question. Any message intended for the man with the scarred face, Harry reasoned, would have to be for Sebastian. And a message delivered this particular morning—
“Where is he?” Harry demanded, his voice for the first time holding the authoritative tone one might expect from an officer and a gentleman.
“Still abed, my lord,” Malford said, sounding puzzled.
“Not Captain Sinclair, you idiot. The fishmonger. Where’s the bloody fishmonger?”
“In the kitchen, my lord. I’ve asked him to wait.”
“Good man,” Harry said, clapping him on the back and pushing him toward the door. “Now go back down and bring him up. And, Malford…”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Make sure that no one, especially not Captain Sinclair, sees him.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Harry sat down on the bed again, putting his head back in his hands. After a moment he spread his fingers and pushed his hair away from his eyes.
Given the mood Sin had been in after the reception last night, there was no telling how he might react to a message from the woman he’d seen there. And no telling what message she might have sent, Wetherly decided.
It would be better for all concerned if he intercepted this communication. Then, after he had the gist of it, he would be able to judge if it were one he should pass on to Sinclair. Or, and he strongly suspected this might be the case, one that should never be allowed to reach his friend.
After all, Sin wasn’t thinking straight about all this. His penchant for letting his emotions embroil him in situations his intellect had a hard time extracting him from was well-known to the viscount.
Far better, Harry decided with a nod, if he handled this himself. After all, he wasn’t emotionally involved with the chit. And knowing Sin, he had a good notion that more had gone on in that dark garden than his friend, as a gentleman, had revealed. If the girl were already seeking another meeting—
Far better left to me, he reiterated mentally. As a friend, his job was to make sure Sinclair’s recklessness didn’t get him into trouble with the Beau. Not while they were in Madrid, at any rate. Some day, when all this seeking revenge business had been forgotten, he would tell Sin what he’d done and receive his grateful thanks for keeping him out of a situation that was fraught with danger for his career.
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Gayle Wilson
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Sebastian Sinclair mirrored his notable brothers in every way, even when it came to pursuing an intense, impossible love. Surely the flame in his heart could be nothing else, for it drove him to rescue a brave and beautiful Spanish noblewoman–held prisoner to another man′s dangerous desires!Doña Pilar tasted the sweetness of the epithet upon her lips and knew she′d named Sebastian Sinclair well. For the fearless Englishman had dared to snatch her from the grip of monstrous evil, had wed her to preserve her honor and had now become Her Dearest Sin.…