Valiant Soldier, Beautiful Enemy. Diane Gaston

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hatred encompassed everything Anglais, and would even include the man who’d protected them and brought them to safety.

      But neither her aunt nor Claude would know of her sharing dinner with Gabriel Deane, so she was determined not to worry over it.

      She was merely paying him back for his kindness to them, Emmaline told herself. That was the reason she’d invited him to dinner.

      The only reason.

      

      The evening was fine, warm and clear as befitted late May. Gabe breathed in the fresh air and walked at a pace as rapid as when he’d followed Emmaline that morning. He was too excited, too full of an anticipation he had no right to feel.

      He’d had his share of women, as a soldier might, short-lived trysts, pleasant, but meaning very little to him. For any of those women, he could not remember feeling this acute sense of expectancy.

      He forced himself to slow down, to calm himself and become more reasonable. It was curiosity about how she’d fared since Badajoz that had led him to accept her invitation. The time they’d shared made him feel attached to her and to her son. He merely wanted to ensure that Emmaline was happy.

      Gabriel groaned. He ought not think of her as Emmaline. It conveyed an intimacy he had no right to assume.

      Except she had called him by his given name, he remembered. To hear her say Gabriel was like listening to music.

      He increased his pace again.

      As he approached the shop door, he halted, damping down his emotions one more time. When his head was as steady as his hand he turned the knob and opened the shop door.

      Emmaline stood with a customer where the ribbons of lace hung on a line. She glanced over at him when he entered.

      The customer was another English lady, like the two who had come to the shop that morning. This lady, very prosperously dressed, loudly haggled over the price of a piece of lace. The difference between Emmaline’s price and what the woman wanted to pay was a mere pittance.

      Give her the full price, Gabe wanted to say to the customer. He suspected Emmaline needed the money more than the lady did.

      â€œTrès bien, madame,” Emmaline said with a resigned air. She accepted the lower price.

      Gabe moved to a corner to wait while Emmaline wrapped the lace in paper and tied it with string. As the lady bustled out she gave him a quick assessing glance, pursing her lips at him.

      Had that been a look of disapproval? She knew nothing of his reasons for being in the shop. Could a soldier not be in a woman’s shop without censure? This lady’s London notions had no place here.

      Gabe stepped forwards.

      Emmaline smiled, but averted her gaze. “I will be ready in a minute. I need to close up the shop.”

      â€œTell me what to do and I’ll assist you.” Better for him to be occupied than merely watching her every move.

      â€œClose the shutters on the windows, if you please?” She straightened the items on the tables.

      When Gabe secured the shutters, the light in the shop turned dim, lit only by a small lamp in the back of the store. The white lace, so bright in the morning sun, now took on soft shades of lavender and grey. He watched Emmaline glide from table to table, refolding the items, and felt as if they were in a dream.

      She worked her way to the shop door, taking a key from her pocket and turning it in the lock. “C’est fait!” she said. “I am finished. Come with me.”

      She led him to the back of the shop, picking up her cash box and tucking it under her arm. She lit a candle from the lamp before extinguishing it. “We go out the back door.”

      Gabe took the cash box from her. “I will carry it for you.”

      He followed her through the curtain to an area just as neat and orderly as the front of the shop.

      Lifting the candle higher, she showed him a stairway. “Ma tante—my aunt—lives above the shop, but she is visiting. Some of the women who make the lace live in the country; my aunt visits them sometimes to buy the lace.”

      Gabe hoped her aunt would not become caught in the army’s march into France. Any day now he expected the Allied Army to be given the order to march against Napoleon.

      â€œWhere is your son?” Gabe asked her. “Is he at school?” The boy could not be more than fifteen, if Gabe was recalling correctly, the proper age to still be away at school.

      She bowed her head. “Non.”

      Whenever he mentioned her son her expression turned bleak.

      Behind the shop was a small yard shared by the other shops and, within a few yards, another stone building, two storeys, with window boxes full of colourful flowers.

      She unlocked the door. “Ma maison.”

      The contrast between this place and her home in Badajoz could not have been more extreme. The home in Badajoz had been marred by chaos and destruction. This home was pleasant and orderly and welcoming. As in Badajoz, Gabe stepped into one open room, but this one was neatly organised into an area for sitting and one for dining, with what appeared to be a small galley kitchen through a door at the far end.

      Emmaline lit one lamp, then another, and the room seemed to come to life. A colourful carpet covered a polished wooden floor. A red upholstered sofa, flanked by two small tables and two adjacent chairs, faced a fireplace with a mantel painted white. All the tables were covered with white lace tablecloths and held vases of brightly hued flowers.

      â€œCome in, Gabriel,” she said. “I will open the windows.”

      Gabe closed the door behind him and took a few steps into the room.

      It was even smaller than the tiny cottage his uncle lived in, but had the same warm, inviting feel. Uncle Will managed a hill farm in Lancashire and some of Gabe’s happiest moments had been spent working beside his uncle, the least prosperous of the Deane family. Gabe was overcome with nostalgia for those days. And guilt. He’d not written to his uncle in years.

      Emmaline turned away from the window to see him still glancing around the room. “It is small, but we did not need more.”

      It seemed … safe. After Badajoz, she deserved a safe place. “It is pleasant.”

      She lifted her shoulder as if taking his words as disapproval.

      He wanted to explain that he liked the place too much, but that would be even more difficult to put into words.

      She took the cash box from his hands and put it in a locking cabinet. “I regret so much that I do not have a meal sufficient for you. I do not cook much. It is only for me.”

      Meaning her son was not with her, he imagined. “No pardon necessary, madame.” Besides,

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