stolen from my own coffers by his motley band of rabble!”
The earl’s insults didn’t seem to faze Sinclair. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a waste. If I hadn’t gone to St. Andrews, I might have never made the acquaintance of your charming nephew here.” That earned him a fresh glare from Ian. “But I will make sure to give my grandfather your regards the next time I see him.”
So this brigand had lived among civilized folk for a time. That would explain why the roughest edges had been polished off his burr, leaving it even more dangerously silky and musical to Emma’s ears.
“Just what do you plan to do, you miserable pup?” the earl demanded. “Have you come to hasten your own inevitable journey to hell by murdering my bride in cold blood on the altar of a church?”
Emma was alarmed to note that her devoted bridegroom didn’t look particularly dismayed by the prospect. With his title and riches, she supposed it would be a simple enough matter for him to procure another bride. Ernestine and Elberta were both nearly old enough to wed. Perhaps her father would be allowed to keep the earl’s settlement if he offered the man a choice between the two girls so the ceremony could proceed without further interruption.
After they’d mopped up her blood, of course.
A nervous hiccup of a giggle escaped her. She had avoided swooning or begging for her life only to end up skating dangerously near to hysteria. It was just beginning to occur to her that she might actually die here at the hands of this merciless stranger—a virgin bride never knowing true passion or the adoring touch of a lover.
“Unlike some,” Sinclair said with pointed politeness, “I’m not in the habit of murdering innocent women.” A tender smile curved his lips, more dangerous somehow than any sneer or glower. “I said I’d come for your bride, Hepburn, not that I’d come to kill her.”
Emma read his intent a heartbeat before anyone else in the abbey. It was there in the squaring of his unshaven jaw, the tension that rippled through his muscular thighs, the way his powerful fists wrapped around the beaten leather of the reins.
Yet all she could do was stand rooted to the flagstones, paralyzed by the raw determination in his narrowed gaze.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Sinclair dug his heels into the horse’s flanks. The beast lurched forward, eyes rolling wildly, nostrils flaring. It came charging down the aisle of the abbey, heading straight for Emma. Her mother let out a bloodcurdling scream, then slumped into a dead faint. The minister dove behind the altar, his black robes flapping behind him like the wings of a crow. Emma flung her arms up over her face, bracing herself to be trampled beneath those flashing hooves.
At the last possible second, the horse veered to the left while Sinclair leaned right. He wrapped one powerful arm around Emma’s waist and swept her into the air, tossing her belly-down across his lap as if she weighed no more than a sack of wormy potatoes and knocking the air clear out of her. She was still struggling to catch her breath when he wheeled the horse in a tight circle, forcing the beast up on its hind legs for a dizzying pirouette. As those deadly hooves pawed at the air, Emma sucked in a breath that was sure to be her last as she waited for the horse to topple over backward and crush them both.
But her captor had other ideas. He sawed at the reins with brute strength, using sheer mastery to force the creature to succumb to his will. The beast let out an earsplitting whinny. Its front hooves came crashing down, its iron shoes striking sparks off the flagstones.
Sinclair’s strong voice carried, even over the shrill shrieks and frantic shouts of alarm echoing off the vaulted ceiling. But his words were meant for the earl alone. “If you want her back unharmed, Hepburn, you’ll have to pay and pay dearly! For your own sins and the sins o’ your fathers. I’ll not return her to you until you return to me what’s rightfully mine.”
Then he snapped the reins on the horse’s back, sending the beast charging back down the aisle of the abbey. They thundered through the doorway and past the crooked gravestones of the churchyard, each of the horse’s long, powerful strides carrying Emma farther away from any hope of rescue.
Chapter Three
EMMA COULD NOT HAVE said how