Columbine by MIRANDA JARRETT Page B

impatiently searching for Dianna. He wanted to find her, talk to her, not to apologize exactly, but to say he understood how difficult Asa could be. But with Constance hanging on his arm and a crowd of neighbors welcoming him home, he was one of the last to leave the meetinghouse. Outside, the congregation dawdled in the churchyard in the warm spring sunshine, chatting among themselves as the baskets with cold suppers were unpacked from wagons and horses. Kit spotted Dianna at once. She was hard to miss, with Jonathan in his scarlet coat dawdling beside her, giving her the full benefit of his considerable charm. Kit almost swore, remembering in time that it was the Sabbath. But it was so like Jonathan to saddle him with Constance and then go after Dianna himself.
    “I swear you’ve not heard a word I’ve told you, Christopher,” Constance was saying petulantly.
    “You’d sooner see me starve than fetch me my supper!”
    But before Kit answered, a man on horseback cantered up to the meetinghouse, sending children and a neighbor’s chickens scurrying for safety. The rider laughed and cruelly jerked the horse’s head around, scattering flecks of spittle and blood from its mouth.
    He was a heavy-set man and strong, easily controlling the horse with one gloved hand. His round, florid face was framed by a black, curling beard streaked with white, and his hair was carelessly tied back with a limp riband. A single pearl on a gold loop dangled from one ear. His clothes were expensive, velvet and broadcloth, though stained with neglect, and his tall boots, too, were scuffed and mud-stained, the silver spurs glinting in the sun.
    “Sparhawk!” the man called to Kit, challenging.
    “Sacrd sang, the savages for once did not lie, and your filthy English soul is back among us!”
    “Haul your black carcass out of the sight of decent folk, Robillard,” answered Kit evenly, but the threat in his voice was clear. The crowd around him had melted away, leaving an open path between him and the rider, and even Constance had vanished.
    Defiantly, the man dismounted and sauntered toward Kit.
    “You have no power over me, Sparhawk.
    Your Anglais laws mean nothing, just as your Anglais borders and your Anglais treaties mean nothing, either. You are the interlopers, the intruders, here merely by the whim of Nouveau France, and when she wishes to be rid of you, she will.”
    Every muscle in Kit’s body tensed. He hated Robillard’ hated him with a passion that had been handed down from his father.
    “This land belongs to us, and to England, Robillard, and there’s an end to it.”
    Robillard laughed, his velvet-covered belly shaking.
    “You talk bold, but you know the truth. Someday I will own your land, Sparhawk. I have offered you a fair price for it, and like your father, you were too stupide to agree. So I will try other ways, eh? I will take it fora belle France, and see you mewling Anglais at last gone from my woods.”
    The Frenchman was close enough that Kit could smell the burgundy on his breath, but he was not so foolish as to judge the man drunk.
    “I don’t discuss business on the Sabbath, Robillard, with you or any man. If you have anything to say to me other than your customary empty threats, you may call on me tomorrow at Plumstead. But now, you will leave
    “N W
    Wickhamton.” Kit’s eyes narrowed, of , Robillard. I want you gone now.”
    As he spoke, Jonathan had come to stand beside Kit, and Dianna wondered how the Frenchman could dare to face both Sparhawk brothers. The tension in the air was palpable; the rest of the congregation stood frozen, watching. She knew that neither Kit nor Jonathan was armed; she had seen the long rifles they always carded left in the back of the church. Robillard, too, had left his gun on his saddle. But she still had a sick feeling that something very bad was about to happen.
    She wasn’t wrong.
    “Fah, Sparhawk, you insult me!” Robillard spat in the dirt before Kit.
    “Which