by Gayle Wilson
The last word became a yelp as Sebastian grabbed the man by the front of his jacket and lifted him until he dangled, toes barely touching the floor. “The truth, if you please, Malford.”
“I beg you, Captain Sinclair—”
“The truth,” Sebastian said, shaking him.
The flush spread upward, suffusing the man’s entire face. His top lip was beaded with sweat.
“There was a…message,” Malford stammered.
“We seem to be making progress,” Sebastian said, shaking him again. “A message from whom?”
The man’s eyes held on his, and then he swallowed. “A fishmonger brought it to the kitchens this afternoon.”
“From whom?” Sebastian repeated.
“I’m sure if Lord Wetherly had wished this meeting to be made public—”
“Hardly public. I’m his best friend. And you know as well as I do that if your master didn’t tell me about this meeting, it’s because he’s hiding something from me. As, I suspect, are you.”
In the back of Sebastian’s mind the thought was beginning to form that Harry’s mysterious disappearance might have something to do with what had happened at the palace reception last night. And if it did…
“I assure you, Captain Sinclair—”
Sebastian shook him again. The lie was cut off as the man’s teeth snapped together with the violence of that motion.
“Enough. We are in a foreign country. We are here at the sufferance of its monarch. And your master doesn’t speak the language. If you don’t tell me where he has gone this instant, I shall go to the duke and ask him to get to the bottom of your deception. That is something I doubt any of us, especially you, should wish to happen. Now, where the hell is Lord Wetherly?”
There was a prolonged silence as the servant again considered Sebastian’s eyes. Apparently what he saw there wasn’t entirely convincing, because his lips flattened, just as if he had reached a conscious decision to keep them closed.
Furious, Sebastian threw the batman backward. He landed against the side of the high bed, but Sebastian hadn’t even watched after he’d released him. He had turned on his heel and headed to the door of the bedchamber instead.
“It was from a woman,” the batman said when he realized that intent.
Sebastian stopped in the act of reaching for the knob. And then he slowly turned, looking over his shoulder. The man was still lying where he had fallen.
“A woman?” Sinclair repeated softly.
As far as he was aware, Harry hadn’t met any women since they had been here. Unlike their time in Paris, they had been busy enough with their official duties that there had been no opportunity for that particular kind of entertainment.
“A lady,” Malford amended.
“A lady?” Sebastian mocked. Spanish ladies didn’t make private assignations with soldiers, of course, especially foreign ones. “And this lady’s name?”
“I only heard it once. And my Spanish—”
“As much as you remember,” Sebastian demanded.
“Maria del Pilar…”
The tone of the information he’d just imparted had been almost sullen, but Sebastian was hardly aware of that, considering its import. Pilar. And the timing—
“She sent Harry a message?”
Again the batman seemed reluctant, and finally losing patience with the delay caused by having to drag each bit of information out of him, Sebastian started back across the room. This time, whatever the man read in his face seemed to have the desired effect.
“Not to Lord Wetherly. The message was for you. The viscount intercepted it. He’s gone to meet her.”
“Where?”
One word, and its intonation left no doubt that his patience with evasion was at an end.
“At a chapel called Santa María de la Rosa. She’s waiting in the cemetery.”
“How long has he been gone?”
“An hour. Maybe less.”
Harry, Sebastian thought, trepidation crowding his throat. Oh, Harry. You poor stupid bastard.
By the time Sebastian had secured both a horse and directions, the trickle of anxiety with which he had left Harry’s bedroom had become a raging torrent. As he guided his mount through the last of the narrow, winding streets of the city and then dug in his heels as he had finally reached the open countryside, he reminded himself that the viscount had never in his life managed to follow directions. Or to arrive at any destination on time. Please God, he prayed, today would be no exception.
The secluded chapel, when he found it, appeared to sleep in the heat of the late afternoon. The only sound as he approached, slowing his horse to a cautious canter, was the low hum of the cicadas.
The cemetery beside the church stretched along a hillside, shaded by numerous stands of trees. From what he could see as he dismounted, almost before the gelding had come to a full stop, it was deserted. All the same, glancing back toward the chapel, he drew his sword from its scabbard, the slide of metal loud in the somnolent stillness.
It was too quiet here, almost like the breathless hush before battle. That eerie waiting they all were forced to endure until the drums began their tattoo.
The hair on the back of his neck had begun to lift, a soldier’s premonition. And despite the fact that the place seemed deserted—or perhaps because of it—he knew he had been right to fear for his friend.
He’s not a man. The echo of that phrase added to his sense of foreboding as he opened the gate of the low iron fence that surrounded the shadowed graveyard and stepped inside. He didn’t bother to close it behind him, but stood listening to the strange quality of the silence instead.
Even the hum of the insects had ceased and now the only sound was the pulse of his own blood, rushing too quickly through his veins. Yet somehow he knew he wasn’t alone. Every instinct warned him.
Moving noiselessly, he began to search the cemetery. Senses alert, he threaded his way between aged headstones, their letters eroded with rain and sun and wind and the long, slow passage of the years. Death was all around him, the sense of it so strong it was almost a physical presence.
Gradually he was forced to accept that there was no one else here. Not Harry. Not the girl he had kissed last night. Only the sleeping dead.
He had begun to turn, intending to go back to the gate when an anomaly in the monotoned pattern of dry earth, gnarled olive trees and weathered stone caught his eye. Something lay on the ground among the most distant of the graves, those which dotted the rise of the gentle slope.
They were in the deepest shade, and yet whatever he saw was far darker than the hues that surrounded it. It seemed a spill of pure black against the silent shadows.
His sword at the ready, he crossed the distance carefully. If the message that had brought him here was a trap, as he suspected, then this would be the most dangerous moment. An enemy might be waiting just beyond that rise. Actually, any number of men could be concealed there by having them lie flat against the ground on the other side.
As he approached it, the patch of darkness he had noticed resolved itself into a piece of cloth, which he eventually drew close enough to recognize as a cloak. Of rich black velvet, it was of the type a gentlewoman in England might have worn to an evening entertainment.
His heart rate accelerated when he made that identification, but it quickly became obvious that no body lay concealed under the garment. It was as if it had been dropped or perhaps pulled from the wearer’s shoulders.
Pulled away as she fled? he wondered, his eyes searching the area that surrounded it for any sign of a struggle.
He resisted the urge to touch the cloak, finally stepping across it instead. Then, keeping low, he climbed to the top of the slope, which proved steeper than it had appeared from below.
As he approached the summit, he crouched close to the ground, listening for any sound from beyond the rise. Some movement. The same slide of metal against metal the unsheathing of his own sword had created. The cocking of a pistol.
There
was nothing. Nothing except that same cold sickness of premonition he had felt from the first.
Something was wrong. Something —
Without giving himself a chance to succumb to that almost superstitious presentiment, he pushed up off the ground, charging over the top of the rise as if he were attacking a barricade.
As long as he lived, he would never forget the sight that awaited him there. In less than a heartbeat, he was kneeling beside his friend. The man who had come to keep a treacherous assignation that had been meant for him. And who had met, instead, the fate intended for Sebastian.
The front of Wetherly’s uniform was literally soaked with blood. It was obvious where the ball had entered his chest, too near the heart for him to have ever had a chance. Hands trembling, Sebastian touched the bloodless cheek, turning Harry’s face toward him.
As he did, the hazel eyes opened. They were sightless, already glazed with the unmistakable sheen of death Sebastian had seen too many times in the past three years to mistake for anything else.
“Mother?” Harry whispered.
“It’s Sin, you great goose,” Sebastian said, fighting tears as he found the cold, white fingers and enclosed them in his own, trying desperately to warm them. “Why did you come, Harry? What the hell did you think you were doing?”
There was a silence as Wetherly seemed to try to focus on his face, and then his eyes closed again as if he were too tired to make the effort. Sebastian bowed his head, the moisture he had fought running unchecked down his cheeks.
“Couldn’t let you have all the pretty ones,” the breathless whisper came. “Reputation to consider, you know.”
The last had been a gasp. The handsome face contorted hard before it cleared, seeming at peace again. And because he understood he could do nothing for Harry, Sebastian now wanted that.
Still, he had to know. If he were going to do anything about this, he had to know.
“What happened, Harry? What happened to the girl?”
The eyes opened again, and this time they seemed to find Sebastian’s face. A trick of the shadows perhaps, caused by the hot wind moving through the twisted branches of the trees above their heads.
Then, as quickly as it had appeared, awareness faded. The eyes didn’t close, but the faint flicker of animation that had been within them was suddenly gone, snuffed out like night’s last candle.
Sebastian Sinclair lifted the hand he held and brought it to his lips, pressing a kiss against the cold knuckles. And then he raised his own eyes, blinded by the hot scald of tears.
“Oh, God, Harry,” he whispered. “Don’t go. Not you, too. Not now.”
It was supposed to be over. The long years when they buried a friend at twilight and pushed the memory of the loss out of their heads by dawn, so they could go out and kill again, never knowing which comrade would fall that day. Never knowing if the next shell would shatter their own limbs or those of the man who ate and slept and fought beside them.
He and Harry had survived it all. Now, when it was supposed to be over, Harry was dead.
And it was his fault. His thirst for revenge had brought his best friend here in an attempt to protect Sebastian from his own impulsiveness.
He lowered his head, looking down into the face of a man he had loved as dearly as his brothers, and the sentimental words he would never have spoken aloud to any of them whispered through his mind.
We happy few. This band of brothers.
He put the palm of his hand over the staring eyes, closing them gently. “Rest in peace, Harry,” he whispered, his voice breaking over the name.
He didn’t bother with vows or promises. There were no words for what was in his heart. Wetherly, of all people, would understand that he would make this right. As right as his world could ever be again without Harry in it.
Chapter Four
Wellington’s eyes never left Sebastian’s face throughout the painful recital. It had even seemed there was within them the occasional gleam of sympathy. Or perhaps that was something else, he thought. A hint of moisture that had appeared in response to his own.
When it was done, when Sebastian had laid everything that had happened before him, the duke rose. He walked away from the enormous desk where he had been working, its surface cluttered with the usual reports and dispatches, and stood with his back to Sebastian, looking out the window.
“There’s nothing you can do, you know,” Wellington said after a moment.
There was no logical reason for the swell of disappointment that was evoked by hearing the words. He had known before he came that it was ridiculous to hope the duke might suggest some course of action that would allow him to avenge Harry’s death. And in these circumstances, of course, his commander’s advice was nothing less than an order.
Wellington turned, his lips slightly pursed as he considered Sebastian’s face. “First of all, you have no proof of what you suspect. Even if the fishmonger could be forced to verify the source of the message he gave, there would be no point in compelling him to do so. The man you believe guilty of Harry’s death is too powerful for such testimony to carry weight with the Spanish Court.”
“You’re saying that even though he murdered Harry, he’s untouchable,” Sebastian said bluntly.
“Untouchable by you. Taking into account our current mission and his past service to the crown. Colonel Delgado led what was perhaps the most effective of the juntas that helped to restore Ferdinand to the throne. The king is unlikely to reward him by having him arrested.”
Little more than private armies, the juntas had been organized by individual commanders and operated independently of any allied command. They had fought the French using tactics which, although undeniably effective, differed strikingly from the more traditional methods employed by the British army. Rather than engaging the enemy in pitched battles, the juntas harried the French forces with series of quick strikes and quicker retreats, fighting a multitude of “little wars.” Or, as they were called in Spanish, guerrillas.
If Delgado had been one of their more successful leaders, Sebastian acknowledged, then Wellington was right. Ferdinand’s gratitude would preclude any action being taken against him, no matter what proof might be presented of his role in the viscount’s murder.
And as of now, of course, he had no such proof.
He had nothing but his own absolute surety that Delgado had been responsible for Harry’s death.
“The only thing you can do,” his commander went on, “the thing you must do, is to put this as well as what happened a year ago, from your mind. Considering the king’s negative response to the prime minister’s suggestions, we shall be in Madrid only a few more days at any rate. I think you have no choice but to let this go.”
“Are you saying I should let Wetherly’s murder go unpunished, your grace?” Sebastian asked with a son bitterness.
Locking his hands behind his back in a characteristic pose, Wellington walked back across the room. Surprisingly, he didn’t stop at his desk. He approached Sebastian’s chair and put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder.
“You’ve lost comrades before, Sin. We all have. This is no different. Simply another sort of battle. A diplomatic one, if you will.”
“I was the one who was supposed to die this afternoon, your grace. Not Harry. That ambush was directed at me.”
“Then consider that Wetherly, as your friend, gave his life for yours. Honor that sacrifice.”
“By letting the man who killed him get away with it?”
“By remembering who we are and why we are here,” Wellington said simply.
He had told them the same thing before the reception. And Harry had even echoed it after the incident in the gardens. Then, perhaps, it had made sense. Now, however…
“I have a letter for you, by the way,” the duke said, his tone as different as the change of subject. “It was included with the latest dispatches. I was about to send for you when they told me you were waiting outside to see me.”
Sympathy for Harry? Or was it possible…
“Ian?” he asked, fear tightening his throat. He couldn’t bear another loss of this magnitude.
“If the news were bad, I’m sure the earl would have asked that I give it to you personally. Since he hasn’t, we must presume Major Sinclair continues to recuperate from his wounds.”
Wellington, notoriously unable to dissemble, appeared to be telling the truth, and Sebastian remembered to breathe.
“Maybe this will be good news on that front at least,” the duke continued with his quick smile.
Giving Sebastian’s shoulder a light squeeze, he strode over to his desk and began sifting through the papers there. After a moment he held up the one he had sought among that confusion and walked back to hand it over.
Dare, with his customary decisiveness, had pressed his signet firmly into the wax, the impression it left both crisp and clean. Seeing the family crest brought a wave of nostalgia, which produced another embarrassing pricking at the back of Sebastian’s eyes.
He lowered them to hide the emotion, breaking the seal on his letter and spreading open the single sheet. As he scanned his brother’s scrawl, he realized with relief that Wellington had been right.
“Ian has married,” he said, trying to determine Dare’s opinion of the match by reading between the lines of the sparse information the earl had given him.
“Please add my congratulations to your own when you write,” the duke said. “I shall be glad to make a place for your reply within the next diplomatic pouch. And with it, you may include the welcome news that we will be home before next month is out.”
Home.
After three years of hard fighting, the idea of returning to the almost idyllic life he had led as the youngest son of a well-to-do and indulgent family seemed nearly fantastical. Sebastian looked up from his letter to find those blue eyes still fastened on his face.
“Don’t do anything that might jeopardize a reunion with your brothers, Sebastian,” Wellington warned. “Not now. Not so near the end.”