Her Dearest Sin

“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 line 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.”

Sebastian wondered if she gave him pleasure, and again the unpleasantness of the thought disturbed even the fear and the fury at his helplessness.

The girl said nothing in response, but her chin lifted. An unspoken challenge? Or simply an expression of pride?

“I hold you to your word, Julián. You are bound by the oath you gave me, no matter the circumstances.”

The Spaniard’s smile was as soulless as his eyes. Almost before it formed, the sword moved—one flick of his wrist and then another. With the point, he had drawn an X on Sebastian’s chest, directly over his heart.

Before the Englishman could think of trying to respond, the point of the blade was pressed against the very center of that mark. All the horseman needed to do was lean forward, putting a downward pressure on the hilt…

“I hope you are telling me the truth, my dear. I do so hate liars and cheats.”

“I never saw him before today,” she affirmed.

“And you care nothing for him.”

“Only as I care for any fellow creature. I do not wish to see him hurt for some groundless suspicion that he has given me aid. Or for your jealousy.”

The point of the sword lifted again, settling this time very near the place where it had been resting when Sebastian had regained consciousness. The horseman’s eyes fell to his face. Lips pursed, he seemed to study Sebastian’s features as if he were memorizing them.

“Very well,” the Spaniard said finally. “Since I gave you my word…”

Again his lips tilted upward and, with another flick of his wrist, so did the sword. It slashed across Sebastian Sinclair’s face, a much deeper cut than the one it had drawn along his chest.

The blade had sliced diagonally, moving across the flesh of his chin and missing the corner of his mouth by a hair’s breadth. Then it had continued on that same path, straight as a die, laying open his cheek. The point lifted only when it reached the hairline at his temple.

The horseman’s eyes had followed the lightning-quick movement of the sword. When it reached its apex, his strong swordsman’s wrist straightened, snapping the tip of the blade upward, straight at the girl’s face. A droplet of blood was flung from the flexing steel onto her cheek.

“Unharmed. As promised,” the horseman said, smiling. And then, as he turned to mount one of the other horses, which was being held for him by its rider, he threw a brusque order over his shoulder. “Bring her.”

Two of the men stepped forward and took the girl by the elbows. She offered no resistance, but before she moved, she looked down into Sebastian’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Then, with one quick, decisive movement she freed her arms. As if she were a queen approaching her courtier, she walked across the rocks to the man who had slashed open Sebastian’s face. When she reached the horseman, who had already vaulted into the saddle, he lowered his hand, holding it out to her.

She put her fingers in his and her foot on the toe of the boot he offered. With a movement as smooth as that with which he had mounted, she was pulled up onto the horse and settled behind the Spaniard.

Without looking at Sebastian again, the horseman put his booted foot back into the stirrup and used his heels to urge the gelding up the slope that led to the English-held side of the river. The other riders streamed behind them, heading back toward the ford they had crossed before.

Stunned by what had just occurred, Sinclair lifted his bound hands, trembling fingers touching the cut that marred his face. His eyes filled with tears, not of pain or anguish, but of sheer, unadulterated rage as he listened to the sound of their horses’ hooves fade away on the rocks.

He lay where they had left him. And looking up blindly into the heat of the summer sky, he swore that he would find and kill the Spanish bastard who had ruined his face if it were the last thing he ever did in this life.

Chapter One

Madrid, 1814

“And finally, I would remind you that we are here as representatives of the Prince Regent,” the Duke of Wellington concluded, his piercing eyes examining each of his officers in turn. “I need not tell you what an honor—and a responsibility—that is.”

He inclined his head, almost a bow, before he turned. As if on parade, his staff followed him through the massive doors and down the steps of the residence that had graciously been made available to the former commander of the British forces in Iberia, now special envoy to the Spanish court. Waiting below were the carriages that would take Wellington and his party to the reception at the royal palace.

Some of the men who accompanied the duke tonight had been with him the last time he had entered Madrid—under far different circumstances than these. There was very little he could tell them about duty or responsibility they didn’t already know. And he, more than anyone, understood that.

“He’d rather be hanged, I venture,” Viscount Wetherly confided sotto voce to Sebastian as they followed their commander.

“He’d rather be charging an enemy,” Sinclair responded more accurately.

“He’ll find enough of those tonight. Not the sort one can take satisfaction in charging, of course. A gaggle of Spanish nobles determined to turn the clock back on the past five years. Can’t be done, if you ask me.”

“No one will,” Sebastian assured his friend with a grin. “Politics isn’t your forte, Harry. Leave the maneuvering to the Beau. At least he knows what message it is we’re supposed to convey to Ferdinand and his advisors.”