Her Dearest Sin. Gayle Wilson

here.”

      “Whatever tenderness I once harbored for damsels in distress was destroyed the day you allowed him to do this,” he said, touching his cheek with the tips of his finger. He could feel the rough texture of the scar beneath them.

      “I allowed?”

      “Your intervention made it possible.”

      “My intervention allowed you to escape with your life.” She corrected his version of those events vehemently.

      “Your intervention allowed him to escape.”

      His eyes tracked the path of the torch as it was carried through the garden. Although what he had told her was true—he wasn’t afraid of the man she called Julián—he also wasn’t stupid enough to be caught off guard by him.

      Occasionally the searchers would call her name, but they were careful to keep their voices low so that the sound wouldn’t carry to the palace. Apparently, her guardian had no desire to call attention to her disappearance.

      “Whatever you choose to believe about that day…” she began.

      The pause brought his eyes back to her face, long enough to realize that hers were again examining the scar.

      “Whatever I believe?” he prompted caustically.

      “You must never doubt that Julián would have had no compunction about killing you. To him, you are far less important than the stallion you shot.”

      “And what are you to him?”

      “He is my guardian. And soon…soon he will become my fiancé.”

      For some reason, the word created a sickness in the pit of his stomach. Almost the same reaction he had felt that day by the river when he’d considered the possibility that the horseman might be her husband.

      “Do you love him?”

      “What a child you are,” she said, her voice touched with the same bitterness he had heard then.

      “Does he love you?”

      She turned her head, watching the flame from the torch move in and out among the trees.

      “Marriages like ours seldom have their basis in love. Nor do they in England,” she added.

      “So his actions that day were the result of…jealousy?” he asked. “Pride of possession?”

      “Does it matter?”

      “I find that it matters a great deal to me.”

      “He’s a proud man. I had humiliated him by running away. At first, he believed you’d helped me.”

      “At first?”

      “If he had really believed that, he would have killed you no matter what I said.”

      “And I have you to thank for convincing him otherwise? Are you expecting my gratitude?” he mocked.

      “I’m expecting you will continue to play whatever game you are playing until he finds us here and kills you. Other than that, I assure you I have very little expectation of anything.”

      The bitterness was there again, more open than before. Despite the anger he had cherished toward this girl during those long months, something about her claim touched a nearly forgotten chord of chivalry.

      The same emotion he’d felt the first time he had encountered her, he reminded himself. It had proven to be misplaced.

      “No one can force you to marry him,” he found himself saying, despite the too-clear remembrance of the last time he had attempted to intervene on her behalf. And of the price he had paid, a price he would carry to his grave, for that attempt.

      She laughed, the sound abruptly cut off. She turned, again watching the flame stream through the darkness.

      “You are a child,” she said again, her voice carefully lowered. “And now, you and I will return separately to the palace, and we will act as if none of what happened tonight has occurred. If you see me or Julián again while you are in Madrid, I would advise you to pretend that you don’t.”

      Before he could react, she slipped past him. Staying within the shadows cast by the building, she made her way to the foot of the stairs leading up to the balcony. As she stepped onto the bottom one, she turned her head, looking back to where he was standing, hidden by the shadows. One hand on the balustrade, she hesitated, her face illuminated by the flambeaux above her.

      Their light glinted off the track of tears on her cheek. Then, lifting the hem of her gown, she began to climb, eventually disappearing from his sight.

      “You’re sure it was the same girl,” Harry asked when they had finally achieved the privacy of the coach and could talk openly.

      Sebastian had returned to the ballroom only a short time after the torchbearer and his helpers had left the garden, but he hadn’t seen the girl again. His eyes had searched the perspiring mob gathered under the glow of a thousand candles, but neither of the faces he sought had been among them.

      “The instant I saw her.”

      “It’s been nearly a year,” the viscount reminded him hopefully.

      “I’m not likely to have forgotten either of them. Besides, she didn’t bother to deny it.”

      He hadn’t told Harry the whole. There was no reason to repeat everything that had been said—and done—during those few moments he and the girl had spent together in the garden.

      Sebastian couldn’t explain to his own satisfaction why he had kissed her. He was unwilling to try to produce an answer to his friend’s inevitable questions about his motives in doing so.

      “It wasn’t the girl who cut your face, Sin,” Harry reminded him. “Actually, from what you said—”

      “She knocked my pistol aside. If she hadn’t—”

      “If she hadn’t,” Wetherly interrupted reasonably, “we would more than likely have found you dead with a ball in your back.”

      “And you believe I prefer this?” Sebastian asked savagely, touching the mark on his face.

      The resulting silence lasted long enough that he knew with regret there could no longer be any pretense after tonight that he didn’t care about the scar. Of course, this was Harry, who knew him well enough to understand the purpose behind that long charade.

      “It was checkmate,” Sebastian said stubbornly, trying to cling to his anger, “until she interfered. He could have ordered them to shoot me, but I would still have taken the whoreson to hell with me.”

      “Let it go, Sin,” Harry advised gently. “Pursuing him won’t change what happened. It won’t change anything at all. You must know how Wellington will feel about your carrying out some personal vendetta while we’re here. Especially with the delicacy of his mission.”

      “Which everyone knows is doomed to failure. I know his name, Harry. I can hunt the bastard down and—

      “And do what?” Wetherly interrupted. “Kill him? What will that change?”

      “At least it will free her,” Sebastian said.

      And it was only when he heard the words spoken aloud that he realized their implications. As did the viscount, of course.

      “Bloody hell, Sin. Is that what this is about?” Harry asked incredulously. “You’re still playing knight errant?”

      “I knew then there was something wrong. She was running away because she’s terrified of him. I saw it in her eyes when that bastard sent his horse down the incline. But still she stood up to him. And then tonight…it was as if she were someone completely different. All the life and fire and spirit had been sucked out of her. And she was even more terrified of him.”

      “I’m not saying she isn’t, Sin,