Her Dearest Sin

by Gayle Wilson

  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 th
e 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 lin
e 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.”