His father emerged from the empty stall where Joseph’s groom bedded down. Joseph schooled his features to nonchalance while his guts churned and his heart thumped fit to burst. “Have you come to wish me happy Birthing Day, Father?”

Lord Godwin bent to dust chaff from his boots with his kerchief, and discarded the filthy linen square as he straightened. Only once satisfied that his gloves were clean did he approach Joseph. “You know why I am here, boy.” “Oh?” Joseph feigned ignorance. His father couldn’t possibly have discovered—

Lord Godwin spat with unerring accuracy. His self-satisfied, expectant expression, that same expression he assumed whilst awaiting the accolades he considered his due, made Joseph follow his father’s gaze downward. Thus he spied the fat globule of phlegm that had landed atop one of his boots. He glanced up again, paled at the pure disgust twisting his father’s face. It was an expression he had often seen on Lord Godwin’s face but never before directed at him.

It was too late to dissemble, Joseph knew it the moment that Mallothi emerged from the shadows to stand beside his father’s side. He knew it, too, when three of his father’s most trusted footmen appeared, one of them hauling Bashima along with his hand clamped firmly over her mouth.

He recognized the instant she scented him, for she ceased struggling and stilled, quivering like a captured bird. Her panic faded as she breathed him in, her eyelids drifting down to half-close over slumberous eyes.

He wrenched his gaze from hers and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Divine Spirit, I beg you, please do not subject this innocent to my corrupting influence. Is it not enough for you that I am to be punished for my sins? Let that be enough, please!

He opened his eyes just as the man holding Bashima relaxed his grip. She wrenched herself away, lunging for Joseph, prostrating herself at his feet and wrapping her arms around his legs. It took two men to drag her back from him and subdue her.

“Joseph,” she said, eyes and body entreating, conveying to everyone present how desperate she was to touch him.

Lord Godwin stepped forward. “Silence, trollop!” He drew back his gloved hand and slapped her face. “You will not sully yourself by touching such filth.” And a second time. “Lay your hands upon this abomination again and I will have them both severed from your arms.” And a third. “Do you hear me, girl?”

Bashima dangled helplessly between the two men. Her head lolled toward Joseph. He recognized lust—how could he not, when he had so recently been ensnared in its insidious web? But there, etched on her face for him, and him alone, to see, was guilt and misery. Forgive me, she mouthed.

And the fragile hope that he might bluff his way out of this dire mess died.

Oh yes, his father knew what had transpired in his chamber that morning. Lord Godwin might not have witnessed Joseph’s struggle to suppress his base desires, but he would condemn him just the same. Joseph was a Scentinel. One of Satan’s get. Evil personified. And Lord Godwin would do whatever needed to be done to wipe such evil from the face of the earth.

Joseph’s gaze lit on his groom, a man he had considered a friend. The hatred and fear etching Mallothi’s weather-beaten face cut him to the quick. And the man’s switch of allegiance, his betrayal, was still more devastating.

At a nod from his new master, Mallothi grabbed Joseph’s arms, twisting them painfully behind his back. One of his father’s thugs clenched a meaty fist and smashed it into Joseph’s nose. Blood gushed and agony bloomed. Mallothi released him, and Joseph sank to his knees, his head bowed. He sensed rather than saw Mallothi’s hands clenching into fists, descending towards the vulnerable nape of his neck.

It was sheer relief to give himself to the pain and let it carry him away. His final thought before he lost consciousness was that he deserved to be treated thus. It was the Divine Spirit’s punishment for the wicked deeds he’d been prepared to undertake in order to save himself.