Nine
Valiant Soldier, Beautiful Enemy
Diane Gaston
Badajoz, Spain—1812
A woman’s scream pierced the night.
Countless screams had reached Captain Gabriel Deane’s ears this night, amidst shattering glass, roaring flames and shouts of soldiers run amok. The siege of Badajoz had ended and the pillaging had begun.
The marauding soldiers were not the French, not the enemy known to live off the bounty of the vanquished. These were British soldiers, Gabe’s compatriots, prowling through the city like savage beasts, plundering, killing, raping. A false rumour saying Wellington would permit the plundering had sparked the violence.
Gabe and his lieutenant, Allan Landon, had been ordered into this cauldron, but not to stop the rioting. Their task was to find one man.
Edwin Tranville.
Edwin’s father, General Tranville, had ordered them to find his son, who’d foolishly joined the marauders. Once inside the city Gabe and Landon had enough to do to save their own skins from drunken men in the throes of a bloodlust that refused to be slaked.
The scream sounded again, not distant like the other helpless cries of innocent women and children—this woman’s cry was near.
They ran in the direction of the sound. A shot rang out and two soldiers dashed from an alley, almost colliding with them. Gabe and Landon turned into the alley and emerged in a courtyard illuminated by flames shooting from a burning building nearby.
A woman stood over a cowering figure wearing the uniform of a British Officer. She raised a knife and prepared to plunge its blade into the British officer’s back.
Gabe seized her from behind and wrenched the knife from her grasp. “Oh, no, you don’t, señora.” She was not in need of rescue after all.
“She tried to kill me!” The British officer, covering his face with bloody hands, attempted to stand, but collapsed in a heap on the cobblestones.
At that moment another man stepped into the light. Lieutenant Landon swung around, pistol ready to fire.
“Wait.” The man raised his hands. “I am Ensign Vernon of the East Essex.” He gestured to the unconscious officer. “He was trying to kill the boy. And he attempted to rape the woman. I saw the whole thing. He and two others. The others ran.”
The two men who passed them? If so, it was too late to pursue them.
“The boy?” Gabe glanced around. What boy? He saw only the woman and the red-coated officer she was about to kill. And nearby the body of a French soldier, pooled in blood.
Gabe kept a grip on the woman and used his foot to roll over her intended victim. The man’s face was gashed from temple to chin, but Gabe immediately recognised him.
He glanced up. “Good God, Landon, do you see who this is?”
Ensign Vernon answered instead. “Edwin Tranville.” His voice filled with disgust. “General Tranville’s son.”
“Edwin Tranville,” Gabriel agreed. They’d found him after all.
“The bloody bastard,” Landon spat.
Vernon nodded in agreement. “He is drunk.”
When was Edwin not drunk? Gabe thought.
Another figure suddenly sprang from the shadows and Landon almost fired his pistol at him.
The ensign stopped him. “Do not shoot. It is the boy.”
A boy, not more than twelve years of age, flung himself atop the body of the French soldier.
“Papa!” the boy cried.
“Non, non, non, Claude.” The woman strained against Gabe’s grip. He released her and she ran to her son.
“Good God, they are French.” Not Spanish citizens of Badajoz. A French family trying to escape. What the devil had the Frenchman been thinking, putting his family in such danger? Gabe had no patience for men who took wives and children to war.
He knelt next to the body and placed his fingers on the man’s throat. “He’s dead.”
The woman looked up at him. “Mon mari.” Her husband.
Gabe drew in a sharp breath.
She was lovely. Even filled with great anguish, she was lovely. Hair as dark as a Spaniard’s, but with skin as fair as the very finest linen. Her eyes, their colour obscured in the dim light, were large and wide with emotion.
Gabe’s
