Free Spanish Serenade by Jennifer Blake Page A

his mouth before he spoke. “If the Carranzas had not inspired such hatred and need for revenge in your stepfather, he might never have pursued and married your mother, never have caused her death or sent you into exile. This sword has a double edge.”
    “That may be, but there is more. If you had not killed Don Esteban's son, I might have been forced to marry him. I owe you a great deal.”
    “You might, if I had killed the son for your sake. Since I did not, you owe me nothing. Nor is there any real question of blame. Shall we call that much settled?”
    She inclined her head in uneasy acquiescence. “If you like.”
    “I do.”
    Pilar from under her lashes looked at the man sitting so near. His shoulders were broad, straining against the worn material of his shirt. His hair lay in dark, soft waves against his head, and his gaze from under thick brows was steady yet had rapier-sharp perception in its depths. His features were perfectly balanced, and there was strength and grace in the shape of his hands as he held the crude earthenware cup. Despite his guise as a bandit and the edge of danger it gave him, there was also a sense of breeding, of ancient lineage about him. For a fleeting instant she wished things were different, wished it were possible for her to continue her acquaintance with Refugio de Carranza y Leon under other, more proper conditions. She looked away, disturbed by the tenor of her thoughts.
    The silence between them stretched. In the next room a man coughed and rose from his blankets with a muttered imprecation. The quiet crackle of the fire could be heard as someone placed more wood on the coals.
    Refugio drained the last of his chocolate. “As pleasant as this is, it's time we began to plan in earnest for Cordoba, to think of a ruse to get you inside the gates.”
    “A ruse?”
    “What did you expect? A grand procession with a gilded carriage, outriders, and the town fathers waiting to greet you?”
    “Hardly,” she answered, her tone tart.
    “Good. Then you won't be disappointed.” She entered the ancient, walled city in a two-wheeled cart. If she had been traveling alone, she could have ridden through the great carved gates without worry or hindrance beyond giving her name to the guards. But she was not traveling alone; Refugio had agreed to see her to the house of her aunt, and he intended to do exactly that. Pilar had not considered, when she made her proposal to him, how El Leon would be able to keep his bargain. She knew that folk tales had sprung up crediting him with the powers of a ghost to pass where he would without being seen. She had also heard rumors about his many friends and sympathizers in the countryside and smaller towns who helped him come and go, and the bribes that were sometimes passed to allow him to enter and leave Seville at will. What other shifts he might be forced to use had never occurred to her; certainly she had never expected to become a part of one of them.
    The cart was old and worn out, so that its tall wheels of solid wood squealed on their axles with nerve-shattering regularity. Its load of firewood, the sticks and stumps and odd-shaped branches of deadwood carefully scavenged from the forest, was almost too much for the ancient donkey plodding between the shafts. Pilar rode on the seat while Refugio walked to one side, with the donkey's lead rein in one hand and a staff that was stouter than it looked in the other.
    They had found their dubious transportation at a farm well outside the city. The farmer's wife had also supplied the rebozo of black wool that covered Pilar's head and shoulders, and the piece of charcoal that had been used to make the dark, aging circles under her eyes and the hollows in her cheeks. Where Refugio had found the peculiar conical hat that he wore pulled low over his eyes, and the short, ragged breeches and rough shoes that made him look the part of a peasant, Pilar did not ask. She only stared at him from time to time,