Her Dearest Sin

by Gayle Wilson

  “To live in England with my husband, of course,” she said.

  She held Dare’s eyes, expecting to see some indication of disappointment or perhaps even anger within them.

  “I take it then that I will be forced to continue my search for a suitable governess for my son.”

  “I thank you for your kind offer, my lord,” she said, suppressing an inexplicable inclination to smile at him, “but I regret that I will be unable to accept that position. My husband has informed me that he intends to set up his own nursery very shortly. He is of an age, you see.”

  “What a pity,” the Earl of Dare said, with what she could have sworn was a twinkle in those Sinclair blue eyes. “Not Sebastian’s nursery, of course. He is, as you say, of an age.”

  She expected him to explain, but he watched her instead, that small enigmatic tilt at the corners of his lips.

  “Then…a pity, my lord?” she prompted finally, giving in.

  “I rather fancied my son having a governess who is considered to be ‘a good shot.’ Even in the moonlight,” he added, “and using a pistol with which she was unfamiliar.”

  There was an unmistakable admiration in the last, and despite their rather difficult relationship, Pilar found she was flattered to hear it.

  “I’m sure there are few women who could have fought so well as you did last night, Doña Pilar,” he went on. “Fewer still who wish to become governesses.”

  Pilar laughed aloud and was surprised when her brother-in-law’s laughter joined hers. It was reflected in his eyes, she realized, just as Sebastian’s often was.

  “There are probably more of us than you imagine,” she said. “Perhaps the others have been advised that being a good shot is not a skill one should tout when seeking employment.”

  She was rewarded again by his laughter. Before she had time to respond, the door to the inn’s parlor, which the earl had made his own, opened to reveal the Scots physician who’d been brought out from London.

  “He’ll do,” Dr. McKinley said. “Constitution of a horse, despite those years of war. Or perhaps because of them. If you’re Pilar, he’s asking for you,” he added, glancing at her for the first time.

  “Is it all right for me to see him?”

  “If you hurry. I’ve given him something to make him sleep. That’s the best remedy for blood loss. Lets the body replenish the supply. Go on,” the doctor advised. “Unless, of course—”

  He looked at the earl, his brows raised in question.

  “Doña Pilar is my brother’s wife,” Dare said.

  “It’s quite acceptable for her to visit him, I assure you.”

  “You don’t have any other brothers who are likely to be shot, stabbed or bludgeoned, do you, my lord?” she heard McKinley ask as she began to make her way across the room. “If so, I had thought I might move into your household. Save us both a deal of to-and-fro-ing.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that Sebastian is the youngest. Pull him through, McKinley, and you will have seen the last of the Sinclairs. Except for confinements, of course. I have a feeling there will be a number of those in the next few years. Perhaps you should move into Sinclair Hall after all.”

  “Frankly,” the Scotsman said, “I prefer a less volatile practice, but I shall keep your offer in mind, my lord. Do call on me at any time. I shall be fascinated to see if the next generation of Sinclairs proves as interesting as this one.”

  “I think you may be assured of that,” Dare said.

  “That you’ll call me or that the upcoming generation of Sinclairs will be interesting?”

  “Both, I should think,” the earl said. “In fact I’m absolutely sure of it.”

  “You’re awake,” Pilar said as she eased the door open.

  He had been, thinking about all that had happened, while the drug coursed soothingly though his system. Despite the doctor’s prodding and poking, the pain was even beginning to ease.

  “For the time being,” he said truthfully. “There’s no guarantee how long I’ll manage to keep awake. Stay with me?”

  That had sounded like a plea. Perhaps she would blame the weakness of will that prompted it on the laudanum, but in truth, he wanted her where he could see her. He had been far too complaisant before, and they both had paid the price. He didn’t intend to be careless again.

  “Of course,” she said, crossing the room to take the hand he held out to her.

  “Is Dare still downstairs?”

  “He’s taken over the inn. No one seems to object. I suspect he has paid well for the privilege.”

  “He always does,” Sebastian agreed, deciding as he looked up at her face that he didn’t want to talk about his brother.

  The effects of the sleepless night she’d spent were evident. The skin beneath her eyes was smudged with exhaustion, her skin almost gray beneath the touch of sun.

  He wanted to take her into his arms and cradle her against his body while she slept. He had done that, he remembered. The night he’d abducted her. The night he had known that he was falling in love.

  “He gave me permission to come up to you,” Pilar said.

  Distracted by the memory of holding Pilar in his arms, for a moment he didn’t understand who she meant. Only when he had put the pronoun together with what they had been talking about before, did he understand.

  “Dare gave you permission?” he asked in disbelief. Not that his brother would permit her to come to him, but that he might think it was his right to decide something like that.

  “As your wife. Apparently the earl has accepted our marriage.”

  “He had better,” he said, deciding he’d bloody well had enough with trying to please his brother.

  At the moment it seemed almost too much trouble to worry about his family and their reaction to the steps he’d taken to protect Pilar. That was his business and his alone. And if he had no regrets…

  He didn’t, he decided, looking up into those dark eyes. Perhaps what he had done had been as rash and impulsive as Dare and Ian always accused him of being, but in this case, that recklessness had stood him in good stead. He would never have found anyone better suited for him than this woman.

  “Lie with me,” he said, using the hand he held to pull her nearer.

  Her eyes widened, and he realized what she must think.

  “You’re exhausted,” he explained. “You need to rest.”

  “Lie down with you to sleep,” she said, the inflection questioning and relieved.

  “For now,” he acknowledged.

  “And for later?” she asked softly.

  “We are husband and wife. With Dare’s blessing. There are some conventions I assure you I don’t intend to flout. For now, all I want to do is hold you close against my heart,” he added.

  The dark eyes were briefly touched with moisture, which was quickly controlled.

  “Against your heart. How very strange,” Pilar said. “That is exactly where I have been longing to be, mi corazón.”

  *Epilogue*

  “And tonight, we are privileged to celebrate yet another homecoming,” Dare said, raising his glass toward his younger brother and again then to Pilar. “And if it were not for you, my dear…”

  “Hear, hear,” Ian said, raising his glass to join in that salute.

  “Hear, hear,” Sebastian repeated softly, his eyes meeting hers. “Thank you seems completely inadequate in the situation, but…thank you for saving my life.”

  “It was quite self-serving, I assure you,” she said, returning his smile before she looked around the table. “I have been more than repaid by your many kindnesses. I don’t suppose any of you can understand what it means to someone who has lost every member of her family to be welcomed so warmly into another.”

  “To the Sinclairs. Rogues and scoundrels all,” Anne said, her gaze touching on the earl’s face before it returned to Pilar’s. “Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. I, too, was an orphan, and they took me in,” she said, turning to s
mile at her husband.

  “I had no choice,” he said. “You were practically left on my doorstep.”

  “Which is why, I suppose, you drove halfway across the country in a snowstorm to fetch me home,” Anne said with spirit.

  “A simple case of doing my duty,” Ian said.

  “He thought I was four, you see,” Anne explained to Pilar. “And in need of a trinket in my Christmas pudding.”

  “He thought you were four?”

  “How Ian and I met doesn’t matter, I suppose. I’ve thought from the beginning, however, that you really should be told the truth about the previous Sinclair marriages. You seem to have the idea that—”

  “I’m sure Pilar isn’t interested in the dull details of our courtships,” Dare interrupted.

  Despite the earl’s tone, which had clearly been intended to quell the discussion she proposed, Anne seemed undismayed by his objection and certainly undeterred from her intent.

  “She might be interested. If she knew that they were as irregular as hers,” Anne said. “Perhaps even more so.”

  “You said something to that effect the night Pilar was abducted,” Sebastian said. “I confess I’m curious, whether she is or not. Especially since I’ve always been considered the black sheep of this family.”

  “You still are,” Dare said crushingly.

  “No, Anne and I are the black sheep of this family,” Elizabeth said calmly. “At least according to the beau monde.”

  “Black sheep?” Pilar questioned, not sure she understood the term in this context.

  “Social outcasts,” Elizabeth explained, smiling at her.

  “But…” Sebastian looked from one of his brothers to the other, obviously hoping for clarification.

  “I was dealing faro in a gambling hell when Dare found me,” the Countess of Dare said. “He won me on a hand of cards.” Her face was perfectly composed as she told that incredible tale.

  “And I…” Anne began, speaking into the sudden silence that had fallen, her eyes again on her husband’s face. “My father was a coward whose actions resulted in the death of many good men on the Peninsula. Ian was almost one of them. Despite that, and despite even—”

  “Anne,” Ian said softly when the flow of words faltered.

  “Despite the fact that he was my guardian, he proposed to me.” she said. It was obvious to them all that was not what she had started to say. “I accepted, of course. We were married in Scotland.”

  “Do you mean…an elopement?” Sebastian asked, clearly relishing the scandal of that. “fan took you to Scotland? Major Ian Sinclair, the steadiest officer and the finest gentleman in His Majesty’s army, spirited his own ward across the Border?”

  “The course of true love,” Ian said without a trace of embarrassment.

  Actually, Pilar decided, he was looking quite pleased with himself.

  “By the way,” Sebastian said, “there’s something I forgot to tell you. Wellington sends his congratulations. Those were given me along with his advice that I should try to emulate you in all things. I’m fairly certain when he said that he hadn’t heard about your elopement.”

  “So you see, Pilar,” Anne said, ignoring the brotherly teasing, “whatever…unconventional path led Sebastian to you or you to him, none of us are in any position to criticize it. Nor do we have the slightest inclination to do so. I thought you should know.”

  “Thank you,” Pilar said, wondering what she could possibly say in light of those confessions.

  It seemed that the Sinclair brides had created a tradition of unusual courtships. It also seemed that she had been worrying unnecessarily about their husbands’ willingness to accept hers.

  “Perhaps, given your generosity, I should share something of our courtship,” she said, feeling far more willing to do that now. “Sebastian rescued me from the man who murdered my father. In reality, he rescued me more than once, each time at great personal cost to himself.”

  “And in a fit of gratitude for my many sacrifices,” Sebastian said, his voice teasing but his face touched with a slight blush along the cheekbones, “she finally gave in and agreed to marry me.”

  “No,” Pilar corrected seriously, “I married you because you assured me that was the only way I might safely leave Spain.”

  The silence that fell this time slowly filled with tension. No one broke it until Sebastian said, “But now you’ve decided to honor those vows because…?”

  “Because I love you,” Pilar said readily. “And because Anne has assured me that Sinclair marriages are magical. I have yet to put that to the test, of course.”

  “Is that a challenge?” Sebastian asked.

  “I believe it might be,” she agreed.

  “Then I believe I accept,” he said. He stood, again taking the footman by surprise. “Come, my dear. It’s past time you became a Sinclair wife. You will excuse us, won’t you?” he asked politely, raising one dark brow in imitation of his oldest brother.

  “Of course,” the earl said with equal aplomb. “With your recent wounds, we all expected you’d make it an early night.”

  “I find that I am fatigued as well,” his countess said, feigning a graceful yawn behind the tips of her fingers. “Perhaps an early night would not come amiss for us, my love.”

  “I have never found an early night in your company to be amiss, Elizabeth,” Dare said, rising with alacrity. “Ian? Anne? With your kind permission.”

  “Of course,” Ian said.

  And almost like Anne’s promised magic, in a matter of seconds the dining room had cleared except for Ian and his wife, who still sat across from one another at the table.

  “Do you really believe Sinclair marriages are magical?” he asked.

  His tone had been as light as Sebastian’s, but Anne’s, when she answered, was contemplative.

  “I believe love is magical. And when two people vow to love forever, despite any and every obstacle that may be thrown into their path—” She stopped, the words a little too abruptly cut off.

  After a moment, Ian pushed up from his place and walked around the table to hold out his hand. Smiling, Anne put her fingers into his.

  “Most beloved of wives, this seems a night for making magic. At least my brothers think so. Shall we join them?”

  “I have, it seems, more than my deserved share of magic in simply being your ‘most beloved of wives,’ but I think that your brothers, as much as I hate to admit it, have the right idea.”

  “If they do,” Ian said, returning her smile, “it will almost certainly be the first time.”

  “At last,” Sebastian said, his lips trailing over her throat.

  Despite the long hours they had spent together at the inn, this was the first time she had truly felt as if they were married. There had been something clandestine, almost illicit, about going to the bedchamber Sebastian occupied there.

  No one had said or done anything to make her feel she didn’t have that right. And as long as Lord Dare had stayed, overseeing his brother’s care, he had treated her with every courtesy. Exactly as if she were his brother’s wife and a member of his family.

  It had not been the same, however, as having their own suite of rooms. Or having the right to come to them openly and together, as they had done tonight.

  “Did you really not know the circumstances of their marriages?” she asked, lifting her hand to touch his cheek.

  “I knew only that they’d both married. As for the circumstances…” He shook his head. “I suppose those are not the kind of explanations one includes in letters.”

  “Still…”

  “Must we talk about my brothers?” he asked.

  His lips moved lower, trailing along the low neckline of her gown as he talked. She shivered to feel the warmth of his breath feathering against the moisture left on her skin.

  “I doubt they are talking about us.”

  “They might be,” she said, leaning back a little to look into his face.

  “Would you
mind?” he asked.

  “Tonight, mi corazón,” she said, leaning forward again to press her lips against the scar that marred his cheek, “I shall mind nothing except the dawn.”

  “Why are you smiling?” he asked, using his thumb to brush a sweat-damped strand of hair away from her cheek.

  She lay curved against his body, her own sated and fulfilled in ways she had not dreamed possible. At his question, her lips tilted.

  “I knew all about horses,” she said.

  “Horses?”

  “My father’s passion, besides my mother and his country, was to produce the finest Barbs in all of Spain, no small feat, since that is a horse which has been bred there for thousands of years. Since he refused to marry again after my mother’s death, he knew I would eventually be his heir. Everything on the estate would one day be my responsibility. He wanted me to be prepared to carry on the bloodlines he had begun.”

  “So…”

  “He made me watch.”

  “The breeding?”

  Although he had attempted to control it, she could hear a hint of shock in his voice. Perhaps no well brought up English girl would have been allowed to do that. Her father, however, had insisted upon it.

  And because he had considered it merely another necessary aspect of her education, she had found nothing shocking about the experience. Not even the first time.

  Despite her expectations, however, all she knew about the breeding of horses had not prepared her for tonight. The fury with which her father’s stallions had mounted his mares bore no resemblance to the slow, deliberate seduction with which her husband had taken her.

  “That surprises you,” she said, tracing the fullness of his lower lip with her finger.

  “I think it intimidates me,” he said, smiling at her.

  She could feel the movement of his lips beneath the tip of her finger. Another unfamiliar sensation to add to a night that had already been full of them.

  “I had thought…” She moved her head a little from side to side, thinking how foolish she had been. “I had prepared myself for something like that.”