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when I was a child.”
    When I was a child
. As if she were a child no longer.
    “I must leave this place now,” she said, darting a glance down the mountain. “Get your horse. I cannot catch him.”
    Luke smiled. “There’s no hurry.”
    “
Sí
, there is.” She hesitated, considered him for a moment, then explained. “There are men chasing me. If they catch me—” She swallowed and jerked her chin at the grave. “My cousin Ramón will do the same thing to me as that pig!”
    “Your
cousin
?”
    “
Sí
. Oh, he will marry me first, even though he hates me and he knows I hate him. He will say it is because he is a man of
honor
!” She spat out the word. “But the truth is, it is the only way he can get—” She broke off.
    The jewels? Luke wondered. Was she some kind of heiress?
    “And after he weds me, to make sure of me, he will… do
that
.” There was a flat note of despair in her voice.
    “No, he won’t,” Luke said firmly. “Not if I can help it.”
    “You will help me?” she said incredulously.
    “I will.” He laid his hand over his heart. “My word of honor as an English gentleman.”
    “English?” She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t sound English.”
    Luke shrugged. He was dark haired, dark eyed, and spoke Spanish like a native. It was why he’d been sent on this mission. “Englishmen can speak Spanish, too.”
    She snorted. “Not like that. You sound nothing like an Englishman. That’s an Andalusian accent.”
    She had a good ear. “I spent the summers of my childhood on a relative’s property in Andalusia,” he admitted. He and the younger of his two cousins had been sent there by hisuncle, the Earl of Ripton, to learn the wine business. He’d loved Spain in those days.
    She frowned, unconvinced. “You don’t look English. Englishmen have red faces and blue eyes.”
    Luke smiled, amused, despite the situation. “Not all of us, I promise you. I truly am English. Lieutenant Luke Ripton, special dispatch rider under the command of General Sir Arthur Wellesley himself, at your service.” He saluted.
    The suspicious look didn’t fade, nor did the pistol waver. “Say something in English, then.”
    “You’re an extremely suspicious girl,” he told her in English, “but I can’t say I blame you, not after all you’ve been through.” She didn’t respond, and he felt a bit foolish.
    “So, now I’ve told you my name,” he resumed in Spanish. “What’s yours?”
    “Isabella,” she said eventually.
    “Well, Isabella, we’ll leave this place soon, but first I must bury this fellow.”
    She muttered something in a low stream of angry-sounding Spanish.
    “I know, but it must be done,” he said firmly.
    The next time he glanced up, she’d put the pistol away. She stood watching him, rocking slightly and hugging herself as if she were cold. It wasn’t a cold day.
    Finally the hole was big enough. Luke dusted off his hands—he had a few new blisters now—and dragged the body to the grave. He rolled it in.
    “Now, a few words.”
    She gave him a burning look. “He deserves no words, nothing!”
    Luke turned to the grave. “Lord, here lies a cur who, among other things, betrayed his country and brutally attacked a child. May he receive your divine judgment.” He glanced at Isabella and added in English, “And may this courageous young girl receive your blessing and heal in body and spirit. Amen.”
    “Do you wish to say anything?” he asked her.
    She came to the lip of the grave, peered in, muttered somethingangry that he didn’t catch, spat into the grave, then crossed herself.
    “Good.” He began shoveling dirt into the hole and glanced at her as she stood, watching. “The sooner it is done, the quicker we leave.”
    She immediately kicked some dirt into the grave. Clumps of earth fell on the dead man’s face. Her expression hardened. She kicked again and again.
    Soon it was nothing but a long mound of dirt. “Now we stamp it down. Hard. Like this.”