Her Dearest Sin

“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 the 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.”