Her Dearest Sin

by Gayle Wilson

  His lips eventually found her throat, tracing downward until they encountered the low neckline of her gown. The feel of his mouth, moist and hot and worshipping, as it moved over her skin set off a shivering reaction.

  A wave of heat built until it invaded the very core of her body, centering low and deep within it. Sweetly aching.

  When his callused fingers pushed aside the fabric, allowing his lips access to the rounded curve of her breast, she gasped. Her fingers dug into his back, gripping the material of his jacket as if she were afraid to let go.

  She almost was. She no longer felt connected to the earth. She was grounded only by the feel of his hands and his mouth moving possessively against her body.

  As soon as he heard that reaction, however, Sebastian lifted his head. She 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.

  “I didn’t intend for that to happen,” he said.

  “What did you intend?”

  “Only to kiss you. And to convince you to think about what I suggested.”

  “That’s what you did.”

  He smiled at her before he nodded.

  “I had no idea you’d respond that way. I should have, I suppose. You have always managed to surprise me.”

  “What if I have already thought about your suggestion?”

  He hesitated, drawing another deep breath. Somehow, without seeming to move away from her, he had increased the distance between their bodies minutely.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I want you to be very sure. You know the problems we’ll have to face. It may be that this marriage will never be sanctioned by the church. Only you can decide how much that will matter in the years to come.”

  “Sebastian—”

  “That isn’t a decision that should be made in the moonlight. Or after a kiss. Certainly not after that one. Nor should it be made as the result of a justifiable anger over the interference of my family. This is something that must be carefully thought through, because I warn you, my darling, once you’re mine, I’ll never give you up. Not for any reason. You must make no mistake about that.”

  There was nothing he could have said that would have made her more certain of her decision. Or more convinced it was the right one.

  However, morning would be time enough to tell him that. They would both be more in control of their emotions. And, she decided, better prepared to deal with his brother’s machinations.

  “Sebastian?”

  Speak of the devil, she thought.

  At the sound of the earl’s call, they both turned, almost guiltily, peering through the darkness toward the town house. A dark figure stood on the balcony, silhouetted against its lights. Too reminiscent of Julián’s appearance at the palace that night, she decided, shivering again for a very different reason.

  “Dare,” Sebastian whispered, taking her arm and pulling her into the deeper shadows. “I can imagine what he’ll have to say if he finds us together.”

  “He’ll know you’re here,” she warned. “I could smell the smoke. Go to him before he comes to look for you.”

  His eyes found hers, holding a long moment.

  “Tomorrow,” she promised, smiling at him.

  He nodded, dropping a quick kiss on her forehead before he turned and hurried along the path that led to the back of the town house.

  Mindful of the betraying paleness of her gown, Pilar shrank farther into the shadows, watching as he ran lightly up the stairs, taking them two at a time. In the stillness she could hear the murmur of his and his brother’s voices, but the distance was too great to distinguish what they were saying.

  She hoped the earl had come to seek a reconciliation rather than to add more fuel to the fire of Sebastian’s resentment. After a moment, she was relieved to see Dare, distinguishable because he was the taller of the two figures, put an arm around the shoulder of his brother.

  Then they walked together, still talking, toward the open door. She watched until they had disappeared inside.

  Unconsciously, her lips curved into a smile. It seemed that everything she had worried about since her arrival might be resolved in the course of the next twelve hours. She would give Sebastian her answer and hopefully Dare would give them his blessing.

  She glanced upward, her eyes seeking a glimpse of the stars that had spangled the sky above the sea the night Sebastian had told her about his family. The spreading branches of the oak blocked her view.

  She moved back a step, trying to peer up through an opening in the canopy of leaves. As she did, she collided with something solid.

  There was no sense of alarm. Not until a man’s hand closed over her mouth and his other arm locked around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides as he dragged her backward.

  She had begun to struggle as soon as she realized what was happening, but no matter how frantically she twisted and turned, it had no effect on the muscled arm wrapped round her body.

  She tried to scream, in spite of the palm that was pressed so tightly over her mouth and nose that it was hard to breathe. The sound that emerged was too muffled and the distance too great for anyone in the Earl of Dare’s elegant London town house to hear it.

  As her assailant half dragged and half carried her from the garden and threw her into the waiting coach, she realized that none of the Sinclairs could possibly be aware of what had happened to her. And they might not be for hours.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I hope you’ll both agree that it’s time to resign my commission,” Sebastian said. “With Wellington‘s approval, of course.”

  “Obtaining that shouldn’t be a problem,” Ian offered. “Now that Bonaparte is contained.”

  The knock that sounded on the door of Dare’s study was unexpected, certainly at this hour. Even more unexpected was the fact that it opened without permission having been given. When Anne Sinclair stepped through the doorway, however, none of them thought to question her right to invade what had been a very masculine conclave.

  “Oh, please don’t get up,” Anne protested as the three of them began to rise. “I’m looking for Pilar. In light of something she said to me this morning, as well as your remarks at dinner, Sebastian, I decided someone should tell her the truth about the previous Sinclair courtships and marriages.”

  For some reason, the smile with which Ian had greeted his wife’s arrival faded at the last phrase, although his eyes continued to hold hers with such a look of intense love and concern that it was almost embarrassing. At least it would have been embarrassing, Sebastian admitted, had he not recently learned what the emotions reflected in Ian’s face felt like.

  “Obviously, however, she isn’t here,” Anne added, smiling at them in turn.

  “I assume you’ve looked for her in her room,” Dare said.

  It had been long enough since he’d left Pilar in the garden that she should be upstairs, Sebastian decided, glancing at the clock on the mantel. It was a shock to realize he and his brothers had been talking for more than an hour.

  Time well spent, he admitted, because their attitudes seemed to have undergone a transformation since their previous discussion. Especially Dare’s. The earl had been able to consider the possible ramifications of Sebastian’s actions on the continent without provoking in his youngest brother the anger created by last night’s interrogation.

  “According to her abigail, she never came up,
” Anne said in answer to Dare’s question.

  “Perhaps she’s with Elizabeth,” Ian suggested.

  “Elizabeth hasn’t seen her since dinner. I confess to being concerned enough that I’ve asked the servants to search the house. You don’t suppose she really has left us to seek employment?”

  “She was in the garden,” Sebastian said. He had already gotten to his feet. “I’d gone outside for a breath of fresh air and she joined me.”

  Nothing could have happened to her there, he reassured himself, despite the sudden increase in his heart rate. The years he had spent at war, combined with the events of the past few weeks, had made him unnecessarily wary.

  After all, this wasn’t Iberia. This was his brother’s home, located in one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in all of London, which was surely the safest and most cosmopolitan city in the world. What did he imagine could possibly have happened to Pilar here?

  Despite that reasoned argument, all his well-honed instincts for danger were in full force. He had left the woman he loved alone in a dark garden from which it seemed she had disappeared.

  “And when you came in with me?” Dare asked.

  “She stayed behind,” Sebastian confessed, adrenaline flooding his body.

  He fought for calmness, telling himself that there had to be a logical explanation for Pilar’s disappearance. One that had nothing to do with what had happened in Spain.

  “You left her there?”

  The earl had also risen. His face was composed, but there was something in his voice that made Sebastian know he was thinking the same thing he was.

  “I never even considered there might be any reason not to,” he said, heading toward the door. As he ran down the hall, he was aware that they were following.

  He was a fool, he thought as he flung open the French doors. Pilar had warned him again and again not to underestimate her guardian, and yet once they had reached London, he’d let down his guard, putting the dangers through which they had passed out of his mind.

  After all, Delgado was in Paris, serving as ambassador for his king. The war was ended. He was home. For all those very good reasons, he had foolishly believed them to be safe.

  “If you’ve searched the house, then she must still be out here,” he said, throwing the comforting words over his shoulder at Anne as he ran across the balcony. “Pilar?”

  He stopped at the top of the steps, his eyes searching the darkness as he waited. The peaceful, cloud-dappled moonlight drifted over the close-cropped lawn and silvered the ornamental shrubs. His eyes examined each patch of shadow, praying that his gaze would find the pale gown she had been wearing or that she would step out of the shade, coming toward the sound of his voice.

  “Pilar?” he called again.

  “Sebastian,” Anne said, stepping up beside him to put a warning hand on his forearm. He looked down into her face and was even more frightened by the sympathy he saw in her eyes. “I’ve already looked here. Before I came to find you.”

  “Ian, would you rouse the servants and have them conduct a thorough search of both the house and the grounds?”

  Dare’s voice had come from behind him. Without a word, Ian turned and limped quickly toward the door. Sebastian started down the steps, but Dare’s hand on his shoulder prevented him.

  “They’ll bring torches,” Dare said. “It will be quicker.”

  “She was here when I came inside,” he said, as if that made any difference now.

  “But if she were still here, don’t you think she would have answered you?”

  The possibility that Pilar was somewhere safe was rapidly diminishing. And if she weren’t, the fault could be laid at no door but his.

  “Then where the hell do you think she is?” he asked, pulling free from the grip of his brother’s hand.

  He ran down the shallow steps, but it took only a few minutes to confirm what he had known in his heart and refused to accept. The garden was empty.

  Resisting the urge to smash his fist into the oak under which he’d kissed her, he turned instead, heading back to the town house. He could see his brother and Anne still standing at the top of the steps.

  “She isn’t here,” he said when he reached the bottom.

  “I take it that…you don’t believe she left voluntarily,” Anne said. Her eyes were wide and very dark in a face that seemed to have lost all color.

  “I don’t know how that bastard could have found us,” he said to Dare, making the obvious leap from Anne’s question.

  Even as he offered that excuse, he knew he should have expected Delgado would come after them. He’s not a man, Pilar had said. But even a mere man could have easily found out the identity of the officer on Wellington’s staff whose face bore the distinctive scar the Spaniard himself had cut into his cheek.

  Then, with a few questions to the right people, perhaps to someone in the Horse Guards here in London, Delgado would have been able to trace Captain Sebastian Sinclair’s family. It wasn’t as if the Sinclairs were unknown. Or as if the King of Spain’s accredited ambassador wouldn’t have been shown every courtesy, he thought bitterly.

  “Where would he take her?” Dare asked.

  He had no way of knowing, Sebastian realized. It would depend on whether Delgado’s mission to Paris had been completed, he supposed, but given the speed with which her guardian had tracked them…

  “Paris,” Sebastian said, praying he was right.

  “If a more intensive search of the grounds proves to be unsuccessful…” the earl began.

  Sebastian knew what was coming. “He’ll have had more than an hour’s start.”

  “He doesn’t know the country. Nor does he have my stables,” Dare said, that habitual arrogance somehow comforting in this instance. “We’ll catch him.”

  “There are probably a dozen places to which he could be headed,” Sebastian said.

  “To take ship to France? Gravesend,” Dare advised decisively.

  “Or some freebooter’s cove.”

  “An Englishman perhaps. Not a Spaniard. In this case, we have no choice but to go with the most obvious.”

  “I go,” Sebastian corrected. “You and Ian—if you’re willing—should investigate the most likely points of departure in case Madrid and not Paris is his destination.”

  For a moment he believed his brother was about to refuse, and then the earl nodded. “Take the grays,” he offered.

  “And Father’s pistols,” Sebastian requested.

  Again the blue eyes held a fraction of a second too long before Dare nodded. “Of course,” he said simply.

  “A Spaniard,” Sebastian said. “Seeking a passage to France tonight. He has a woman with him, but he may have kept her hidden.”

  Sebastian had stopped at the last public house before the docks, believing that someone inside it would have the information he needed. It was late enough that the place was almost deserted.

  “Do you have any idea how many ships bound for France leave here every day?” the man asked.

  “I’m only interested in those leaving tonight. Or possibly tomorrow. How many of those?”

  The innkeeper shook his head. “Half a dozen, perhaps.”

  With the help of Dare’s grays, Sebastian had cut the time by which they could be ahead of him at least in half. An optimistic estimate, perhaps, but he had pushed the team for all they were worth. And they were worth a great deal.

  “I will tell you this,” the man went on, “if you want to prevent this Spaniard from leaving tonight, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Those ships will sail with the tide, and it goes out in less than two hours.”

  You’ve got your work cut out for you. It seemed there was no way to do that work other than to try to physically go from ship to ship, questioning their captains. A near impossibility in the time frame he’d just been given.

  Fighting both fear and frustration, he nodded his thanks, laying a crown before the host. The man’s eyes widened as he picked up the coin.
Sebastian had already begun to turn away when the innkeeper’s voice stopped him.

  “The launches would have been stowed at sundown.”

  Sebastian turned back, trying to decide why the innkeeper thought that was important. Launches were the small boats used for ferrying passengers to and from the ships that anchored in the estuary. When their work was done, they were raised over the side and stowed away to be used in the next port of call.

  If the ships in the estuary were catching the dawn tide, then their launches would have long since been taken on board. So anyone who wanted to be ferried out to one of those ships tonight…

  Just as he’d mentally reached that point, the innkeeper said it for him. “If your Spaniard arrived in the last half hour, as you say, then he would have had to hire a tender to take him out.”

  “Where would he have found one?” Sebastian asked.

  “There be plenty of those lining the pier. Always ready for the late passenger or a forgotten cargo.”

  “Thank you,” Sebastian said sincerely, laying down another coin.

  “Good luck,” the man called as he crossed the public room on the way to the door.

  When Sebastian stepped out onto the street, he pulled his frieze cloak more closely around him. Despite the fact that it was June, the wind off the Thames was damp and cold.

  The same moon that had provided enough light in the garden to allow him to read the emotions in Pilar’s eyes illuminated the masts and furled sails of the ships waiting in the estuary to catch the outgoing tide. And just as the innkeeper had told him, lining the pier that extended into the water toward them, a dozen skiffs bobbed gently on their mooring lines.

  All he had to do was to find the one that had taken a Spaniard and a woman out to one of those ships. And as soon as he had identified which one—

  First things first, he told himself, tamping down the anticipation. It was always possible his speculation about Julián’s destination had been wrong. It was always possible that even now Delgado was making for Plymouth or one of the southern ports, planning to take ship there for the much longer voyage to Spain. If that were the case, Sebastian would have to rely on Dare or Ian to stop Pilar’s guardian.