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a way to wear you down.”
    Jessamine kept her shoulders straight until the moment he lay down. Her bravado vanished the instant he turned his back on her. Her shoulders slumped, and she drew a long, quavering breath. It was just her luck that theprophecy would lead her to a man who would bluntly refuse her. In fact, the man had been more than eager to rid himself of her unwelcome presence.
    She turned away and gazed back out over the Mediterranean Sea. She had two days to convince the knight to give in to her demands. Dear Heaven, how would she do it? How did one persuade a man to do something he didn’t want to do?
    Jessamine released a heavy sigh, suddenly weary. She would think of something. She had to. If she didn’t go on this quest with the knight, she might soon find herself a victim of the conde’s lecherous desires.

Chapter Five
    The setting sun hung low on the horizon when Conde Salazar Mendoza appeared in the inn yard of the town of Mijas. Leaving ten armed men outside with the horses, the conde strode through the small wooden door and into the public room. He searched the hazy darkness of the chamber and the throng of men and women seated at long wooden tables for a familiar head of black hair.
    It always annoyed him that Jessamine never wore the traditional Spanish headdress of her mother’s people, preferring her hair loose and uncovered. As he searched the room, rage flared inside him. She wasn’t there. A tall, skinny man skirted him, carrying a tray laden with piping-hot bowls of stew. The conde’s arm snaked out, caught the man’s arm, pulling him to a stop. The tray crashed to the floor.
    “God’s teeth.” The man’s angry cry silenced the chamber.
    Every eye turned toward the doorway. The conde frowned impatiently at the gawking crowd. “I’m looking for someone.” He reached for his belt and the purse of coins he kept there. With his free hand he removed a silver coin and thrust it at the server as compensation for the meals he’d ruined.
    The server seized the coin with his free hand as he tried to shrink out of the conde’s grasp.
    The conde held tight. “There’s more if anyone hasinformation,” he said to the room at large. “The senorita I seek has long dark hair. She may have come into town on horseback with a foreigner, a man dressed in white.” The conde tried to keep the venom from his voice as he continued to scan the room, searching for signs of recognition.
    “Someone must know something?” The conde’s fingers tightened on the server’s arm.
    “Let me go,” the server whined as he tried once again to twist free of the conde’s iron grasp.
    Instead of releasing the server, the conde clenched the man’s skin so hard he drew a sharp cry of pain.
    The conde smiled. When he got his hands on Jessamine, he would take great pleasure in reprimanding her in a similar way. She would writhe in pain when he was through with her. A surge of satisfaction tightened his groin. He’d give her a good lesson on how to treat her husband.
    “I might know something.” A voice interrupted the conde’s pleasant thoughts.
    He scowled as a squat little man pushed back his chair and strode forward. “There was a girl who came into town today. She bartered with some fishermen to take her and the man you described on their boat.”
    “Who were these fishermen?” The conde thrust his fingers into his purse and withdrew three more silver coins. Two he tossed to the man. One he held up for all the room to see. “Who were they?”
    A gray-haired old woman shuffled away from the crowd. “They spoke Hebrew.”
    They were headed for the Holy Land. “You’re certain?” the conde demanded.
    She nodded. “And one thing more.” The old woman shuffled closer. “The girl addressed the man in white as her—”
    “As her what?” His voice was tight.
    “Husband.”
    For a moment, the conde’s heart stopped. The word sank in. Jessamine had refused to marry him, then flung herself at a