She’d be the mistress of him, with his fiery kisses and icy reserve.
She glanced over at the marshal, wondering if he suspected as well. He didn’t smile—of course he wouldn’t—but he did flick his eyes heavenward.
She dropped her gaze to her plate and bit her lip to stifle a wild giggle at his unexpected humor. Now they were the ones in a conspiracy.
A strange conspiracy—his every tiny movement, whether of agitation or amusement, sparked a heightened response from her.
He plucked her, and she hummed.
Clearing the laughter from her throat, she said, “Truly, Mother, I’ll be fine on my own. No doubt the marshal has business to attend to, and I’ll… I’ll spend the remainder of the day reading.” She slanted him a glance. “The marshal did promise to allow me to correct his taste in novels.”
“But, Sebastian,” his mother said, sweetly chiding, “you don’t care for novels.”
“The Señorita means to change that,” he said.
His fingers left his knife as his eyes met hers. Every bit of her broke out in gooseflesh as he held her there with only his gaze.
Señora Moreno’s eyes narrowed, no doubt catching the current running between them. She studied the two of them, her mouth parting a hair, as if to sigh, but nothing came forth.
After a moment she said, “I suppose you will be safe enough here. With the marshal.”
Isabel knew what that cost her mother, to admit her daughter might be safe with this man—the battle that must have occurred against her hard-earned suspicions! Saving her daughter from a gunman must have weighed more heavily in her mother’s consideration of the marshal than his working for Judge Bannister.
“Sebastian will see to it that Señorita Moreno is entertained,” his mother said. “Won’t you?”
He was playing with his fork again, turning it over and over in his scarred hands. He set it beside the plate before saying, “Certainly, Mother.”
“Don’t worry, Marshal Spencer,” Isabel said, something wicked within her wanting to poke at him. “I won’t bother you.”
But, oh, she wanted to. The urge was a powerful tightness in her breast.
Several hours alone with him. Perhaps an entire afternoon. She swallowed hard, the sound loud to her own ears.
“Oh, please, do call him Sebastian,” his mother said. “‘Marshal Spencer’ sounds much too fearsome.”
His expression was wry—and a touch sad. “I don’t believe that anyone finds me fearsome. Not anymore.”
Isabel had thought him fearsome at the beginning—or at least menacing. But now… No, fear wasn’t this odd, churning buoyancy he inspired in her.
His mother drooped slightly, her smile dissolving. “You were never fearsome. Only misguided.”
He reached across the table to clasp at his mother’s hand, a silent apology that made Isabel’s heart wrench. She desperately wanted to know what he was apologizing for. A man that closed off, that tightly wrapped within himself—what could he possibly have done?
He gave his mother’s hand one last squeeze, then rose from the table.
“I’m going to retire to the library,” he announced with a bow to each of them, “before my fearsome reputation suffers any more blows.”
“Oh, yes, go to the library and sulk,” his mother said, her smile back in place. “If you’ll excuse me, I shall say good night to you all here.”
Her mother rose to join Señora Vasquez. “It’s past time for us to retire, as well. Are you coming, Isabel?”
“Perhaps I could see the library first?” She looked at the marshal—Sebastian—towering over them all, his knuckles set hard against the table as he heard her request. He gave no indication if he wanted her to stay—or to go. “If that’s where I’m to spend the day tomorrow.”
He only inclined his head in agreement.
“Not too late, Isabel,” her mother warned, as through she were still a child.
Then she and Señora Vasquez retired, leaving Isabel alone. Alone with Sebastian.
He should have told her no, to leave him alone, to go to bed before she awakened within him something so strong he could not repress it.
So strong he could not control it.
But how could he have said all that to a simple request to see the library?
The library had always been a bittersweet place for Sebastian, home to some of the best and worst memories of his childhood. He chose to focus on the good these days, rather than the bad, so he could still enjoy the place.
And the library was where he kept his notebooks.
He walked down the hallway to the paneled doors, knowing she was following behind.
“There is a dog,” he warned. “He keeps close to my mother—he shouldn’t bother you. I’ll lock him in the garden during the day.”
“I’m not afraid of dogs,” she said.
She would be of this one. Junius wasn’t anyone’s pet—he took his duties guarding Sebastian’s mother very seriously. Perhaps too seriously. But he was devoted to her, and that was all that mattered.
Junius would be in his mother’s room; he always was this time of night. Sebastian would lock him outside first thing tomorrow. Señorita Moreno would never encounter the dog.
He pushed the library doors open, then punched the switch on the wall, filling the room with the buzzing yellow light peculiar to electric lamps.
Suddenly, a memory flashed through him. His father, in this very room, breath thick with liquor, red-faced, those same lights buzzing indifferently above his raised fist.
Sebastian closed his eyes, nearly stumbling under the image. As his eyelashes met his cheeks the memory eased its hold, but behind his eyelids the image of his father echoed, ghastly in its insubstantiality.
His father was dead, but Sebastian could not rid himself of his memories of the man, of what Judge Spencer had done to his mother, to him, a spreading corruption pressing all about him—
Except for the presence at his back. The corruption did not reach her.
Isabel was right behind him. He could feel her, as clearly as if she were draped across the bared skin of his back. He forced his eyes open, his vision clearing, took a moment to resettle his composure, and stepped away from her.
The sensation of her along his back persisted.
“Here it is,” he announced.
She looked like he’d presented her with a cave full of treasures, her eyes going wide, her mouth parting as she put a hand to her breast.
It wasn’t much, as far as libraries went. Truth be told, it was a bit of a mess just now, with newspapers and books littering the tables and the chairs. He’d run out of space on the shelves a while ago, and since his mother only entered infrequently, the maids mostly left it as it was.
She rummaged through a pile of newspapers, her fingers flying. “You must take every newspaper in the state.”
“Hardly. I take a few California papers, some from back East, and two from Mexico,” he said. She triumphantly held up one from the stack. “I see you’ve found Alta California.”
She rustled through it, then dug back into the stack.
“So,” she said, “I’m to call you Sebastian.” His skin tightened at the sound of his name on her lips. She looked up, her eyes curious behind her spectacles. “How many people call you by your given name?”
“My mother,” he said. “And now you.”
It was a temporary intimacy. She would leave after the trial—and take the sound of his name on her lips with her.
Her brows drew together. “Not very many.”
It wasn’t, but he wanted to tell her that only the people he esteemed in this world called him Sebastian.
Instead, he said, “Not very many at all, Isabel.”
He drew her name out, a three-syllable poem he savored.
Isabel.
Her name was a sigh, meant to be whispered in a lover’s ear at the moment of final possession…
He gave himself a shake.
&nbs
p; Her cheeks were flushed and her breathing erratic. If she kept looking at him like that, he might kiss her again.
No, he might want to kiss her again, but he certainly wouldn’t do it.
“I’m glad I am one of them,” she said softly.
“As am I,” he said just as softly.
She picked up another paper, hugging it to her bosom.
He never imagined he’d be envious of a newspaper.
“How do you find time to read them all?” she asked.
“I read quickly.” He gestured to the paper round her chest. “You can take that to your room, if you like.”
The paper crinkled as she squeezed it closer.
A snapping, a snarling—and a mass of gray fur rushed toward her before he could even blink.
The dog.
“Junius!” he roared, his hand reaching for the dog’s collar, but finding nothing. “Down!” His voice vibrated with the urgency of the command—and the fear that it wouldn’t be enough.
Thankfully, the dog subsided mere inches from her. But he kept his teeth bared, the fur of his back standing in stark warning to the woman in front of him.
Heart racing, Sebastian grabbed the collar and pulled the dog away, Junius straining against his hold.
She was pinned against the door, her eyes wide and her face drawn. But no marks on her skin or tears in her dress. She was whole.
Sebastian exhaled sharply. The dog hadn’t harmed her, only scared her. If he’d known Junius was here… The dog didn’t usually have such a severe reaction to strangers.
“It’s all right,” he said. “The dog won’t hurt you now.” Although if he hadn’t been here, he shuddered to think what might have happened. “You said you weren’t afraid of dogs.”
“I’m not,” she snapped, never moving from the door. “I am wary of dogs who want to eat me.”
As if to prove her point, Junius lunged, the leather of his collar folding into Sebastian’s palm.
“Sit,” Sebastian snapped. “Down.”
What had gotten into the beast?
The dog came to lie at Sebastian’s heels, but kept a baleful eye on Isabel.
“He’ll be locked outside from now on, I promise.” Sebastian wished he could reassure her the dog meant no harm, but it wouldn’t be true. Junius had been bred to be aggressive and protective—and he was. Sebastian could go about his day with an easy mind, knowing the dog was there to protect his mother.
She continued to watch the dog with equal parts suspicion and fear.
“I swear to you,” Sebastian said, “the dog won’t hurt you. I won’t allow it.”
Her back finally came away from the door.
Junius growled.
“Junius,” he warned. “Perhaps you should go,” he told her. “Tomorrow he will be properly secured.”
She bent to pick up the paper she had dropped, and the dog bared his teeth.
“Good night.” She opened the door enough to slide through, then disappeared.
Sebastian stared at the door, although he knew she wouldn’t return.
Junius shifted at Sebastian’s feet, claws squealing against the floor.
Sebastian frowned down at the dog. He could ask it what the hell it had been thinking, but the dog couldn’t answer. And Sebastian already knew.
The dog was only doing what it was supposed to do.
What’s bred in the bone will come out in the blood.
There was nothing to do but to lock the dog away to keep him from doing any damage.
Sebastian sighed and moved to the far wall, to the shelves where row upon row of unmarked black spines marched along.
Time to ensure that what was in his bones stayed there.
He flicked a fingernail along the notebooks, marveling at how many there were. He hadn’t taken inventory of them in years. Amazing how many sheets of paper it took to tame a man. There would be fewer and fewer new ones in the years to come, as his mastery over his emotions grew ever more complete.
Someday, he might not have to add any new ones at all.
But not today. With the entrance of Señorita Moreno—Isabel—into his home, today’s entry would be longer than usual.
A kiss was a very large sin to do penance for. Not to mention all the sensations she had stirred within him that he would have to account for.
Idle curiosity had him pulling out the very first notebook. The one from that terrible day when he realized he was becoming an even worse monster than his father.
He flipped to the first page. A smear of dried blood stained the words he’d scrawled.
The blood that day had been up to his forearms—he’d scoured them for what seemed like hours. He’d never been able to scrub it clean.
He ran a fingertip along the words there, written in the emotional scrawl of a seventeen-year-old. So much rage, so much violence in those words. His broken knuckles had barely allowed him to hold the pen, making the words nearly indecipherable.
But he knew what was written there.
He’d been a perfect terror that day, thinking there was no escape from his father’s curse, that he would break his mother’s heart as surely as his father had. In desperation, he’d turned to the notebook, not knowing what else to do.
He wrote not to recall his base impulses—nothing was ever erased from his memory—but rather to elide them from his heart. To scrub the sin from his soul, as best he could. To prevent him from sinning again.
The notebooks had taken some trial and error, of course. Recording only that which was evil and vulgar within himself wasn’t enough. The good, the pleasurable had to go as well.
After all, when contagion entered a house, everything had to be fed to the fire, reduced to barest ash, no matter how innocuous.
Every sensation he experienced in a day—each time he gritted his teeth, every urge to smile—all went in the notebook. When he shut it, those emotions were gone. The paper could swallow up any sin he submitted, never retching it back up.
There was very little to erase these days. Even the strictest priest wouldn’t demand penance for the trifles he recorded now.
The image of McCade spitting out one of his teeth flashed through his mind.
He snatched his hand back from the book as though it had burst into flame.
He’d reacted as instinctively as the dog had, attacking without thought or reason. All because the outlaw had insulted Isabel.
Isabel.
He’d never once been tempted by alcohol and had no desire to roll in the aisles at a tent revival, but he would do nearly anything for another sip at her sanctified lips.
He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at it. He only had to keep his feelings chained for the duration of this trial. Then she would go, and he could return to normalcy. He had enormous reserves of self-control. The next few days would hardly be enough to tap them. No matter how he ached when he imagined holding her again.
Enough. Time to erase these unwanted sensations.
He pulled the current notebook from the shelf. He wrote quickly, leaving nothing behind. His panic at the shooting, the feel of her in his arms afterward… and the kiss. He paused, the pen poised above the word kiss.
He shut the notebook with some force.
Done.
Gone.
He set it back and pondered the wall of black spines. Pages and pages of his sins, set down in blackest ink.
Perhaps he ought to move them if she would be here. A curious lady might look in them and discover all his secrets.
He decided to leave them as they were. There was nothing about these books that would catch her eye, especially given all the titles surrounding them.
Before Sebastian retired for the night, he made certain the dog was securely locked outside.
Nothing in this house must harm her.
Chapter Thirteen
The brick façade of the courthouse spoke to strength and rightness. The courtroom was a wood-paneled temple to justice and order. The rows of chairs in
the spectators’ section were worshipfully arranged around the high altar where the judge sat, as the lawyers prepared their offerings to him—all of it constructed to appear as though God himself had assembled it and His own angels ran the proceedings within.
Isabel had only to look at the judge, heavy-lidded as a frog, the lawyers, slick as snakes, and McCade himself, a wolf put into sheep’s clothing for the occasion, to remember that this whole edifice had been constructed by men.
There was nothing celestial here.
Despite her unease, she kept her hands folded in a neat deception of calm, the bench beneath her as rigid as her spine. The judge was going on about the charges and all the other legal folderol that accompanied any gathering of lawyers, but she couldn’t force her ears to attend to what he was saying.
She didn’t have to force her gaze to hold to McCade’s back—it clung there entirely against her will. His pomaded hair gleamed as he turned toward his lawyer, his cheek bare and his suit expertly tailored.
Today the outlaw was as carefully put together as… well, as carefully as the marshal himself. But while Sebastian’s studied appearance was reassuring, a thing that spoke to his care and consideration, McCade’s spoke to something filthy swept under a fine rug.
Each time he turned to his lawyer, the light catching on his hair, the curve of his ear, her heart flinched.
He never once glanced at her.
Everyone else had, though. She’d met more than a few penetrating stares, their owners not even having the courtesy to drop their eyes when their gazes met. Thanks to the charming illustrations the papers had run of her—where they got the photographs to draw from she’d no idea—she was instantly recognizable to anyone following the case. The spectators were determined to look their fill of her, now she’d appeared in the flesh.
No matter. Stares were simply that—stares.
The great Edwin McCade was attending as well, wearing a mane of iron-gray hair and a sadly imploring expression. A lion come to beg for his cub’s life. Still powerful, but supplicating himself before the court.
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