Valiant Soldier, Beautiful Enemy

by Diane Gaston

  The girl shrugged. “That was all, ma’am.”

  “When did this man speak with your brother?” Gabe asked.

  She became more animated. “It happened about a week ago, my brother said.”

  Gabe fished in his pocket and found a coin. He handed it to the maid, who grinned and curtsied. “Thank you, sir!”

  Emmaline walked to the door and waited there until he joined her and unlocked it. He could feel her distress escalating even higher.

  Once inside he gave in to his desire and reached for her. She collapsed against him. “Oh, Gabriel,” she cried. “Claude is ahead of us. He is ahead of us in finding Edwin Tranville.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway and the doorknob turned. Gabriel released Emmaline and she stepped away from him.

  Jack entered the room. “I have discovered where Edwin has gone!” He paused a moment to catch his breath. “To Blackburn for the cock-fighting.”

  Chapter Eleven

  One brightly plumed cock lunged at another, drawing blood with his sharp beak. Feathers flew, and the other bird, a black-breasted red, lashed out with silver spurs affixed to its clawed feet.

  “That’s the way!” one man yelled while he stared down into the pit. “Kill the bloody fowl!”

  Another man shoved him. “My bird’s not done for yet.”

  The brightly plumed cock shrieked and lashed back, wings flapping, dust rising. More blood splattered on the dirt beneath their feet.

  A roar broke out in the crowd, and several red-faced, sweaty men threw down bets.

  “Kill him! Attack!” The shouting continued.

  Claude Mableau stood at the edge of the crowd, heedless of the sound and caring nothing about the two cocks locked into a battle to the death. Claude’s attention was consumed by only one man.

  Edwin Tranville.

  Claude watched Tranville’s eyes flash with excitement as he devoured the violence in front of him and swigged from a leather-sheathed flask. His shrill laughter rang in Claude’s ears.

  Claude had seen that same expression on Tranville’s face once before, heard that same macabre laughter. It had been years ago at Badajoz when Tranville watched Claude’s father being stabbed to death. Like the cocks now jabbing with beaks, two English soldiers had plunged knives into Claude’s father until he fell to the cobblestones and his blood pooled around him.

  The scent of burning wood and gunpowder and fear again filled Claude’s nostrils, scents belonging to that earlier time, that other place of violence and death.

  He’d been a boy then, too afraid to come to his father’s aid. He was no boy now. He stood inches taller and weighed a good two stone heavier than the scar-faced man who’d invaded his thoughts so vividly throughout the years.

  The other two men were a blur in his memory. That night they’d been shrouded by shadows, but Claude had seen Tranville so clearly the man’s image was etched on his brain.

  Claude had been searching for weeks, and finally he was close to Tranville, the man who’d celebrated Claude’s father’s death by trying to rape his mother.

  Claude took a deep breath and the knife hidden under his coat pressed against his chest. He slipped his hand inside and curled his fingers around its hilt. The handle fit Claude’s hand to perfection. Its blade was thin and sharp. All Claude needed to do was sidle up to his enemy, slip the blade from under his coat and jab it into Tranville in any number of lethal spots that would guarantee his death. Claude could slink away before the cock-wild crowd would even notice.

  He tasted the prospect of success and moved closer, reaching a spot behind Tranville, so close he could smell Tranville’s unwashed hair and the brandy on his breath.

  Claude’s fingers closed around the knife’s handle.

  One of Tranville’s friends, the one called George, pushed his way between them. “Come on, Edwin. Out now.” George pulled Tranville off the wooden bench and dragged him towards the door.

  Claude’s heart pounded. He froze for a moment, thinking the friend had guessed what Claude had been about to do, but the man took no notice of him.

  Bitterly disappointed at being even unwittingly thwarted, Claude followed Tranville and his companion out of the building and into the drizzle of the early evening. Keeping to the edge of the path, Claude bent his head low to look as if he were paying Tranville and his friend no heed.

  “I wanted to see the end!” Tranville protested. “It promised to be a battle to the death.”

  “Did you have money on it?” George asked.

  “No,” Tranville admitted.

  “Never mind, then.” George waved to Tranville’s other two companions, Harry, with blond hair so light it looked white, and Nicholas, whose red hair and spindly legs made him resemble the cocks in the pit.

  These messieurs élégants had never been soldiers, Claude was certain of that. In fact, if Claude had not recognised Tranville’s scarred face, he would never have guessed Tranville to be a soldier.

  Claude ducked into the shrubbery so he could make his way close enough to the men to hear what they said to each other.

  Harry called to Tranville as he approached, “We need your blunt. The innkeeper is demanding his money for the rooms and the damages.”

  “Damages?” Tranville looked puzzled.

  Nicholas clapped him on the shoulder and laughed. “You were too deep in your cups to remember. We sported a bit with his daughter; it is not our fault that some of the furniture and crockery was broken. The damned man says he’ll go to the magistrate unless we pay.”

  Tranville fished in his pockets and drew out a purse. “I have a little left.”

  “The rest of us are all done up,” George said. “We’ll have to rusticate at my family’s estate for a while. I sent a message for the coachman to pick us up tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like a dead bore,” Tranville said.

  They walked towards the inn and their voices faded, but Claude had heard enough. He would discover more at the inn’s public rooms that evening and the stable in the morning. Wherever he went he befriended stable workers, who always could tell him what he needed to know in order to track Tranville.

  Perhaps it was for the best he had not killed Tranville this day. Better to confront Tranville and compel him to disclose the names of the two men who’d actually killed his father. Claude liked the idea of facing Tranville, eye to eye. He wanted Tranville to know who murdered him and why.

  Claude took a breath and reached into his coat and again felt the warm metal of the stiletto.

  If no opportunity afforded him to kill Tranville tonight, he’d follow him to the next destination. No matter what, Claude was certain to eventually devise a way to confront Tranville alone.

  And finally avenge his father’s murder.

  The next day Gabe and Emmaline set off for Blackburn while Jack and Ariana returned to London.

  It took Gabe and Emmaline three days to reach Blackburn from Bath, in Gabe’s mind a journey more difficult than a fortnight’s march through the hills of Spain. Indeed, Gabe would have preferred a hard ride on horseback instead of this cushioned coach, sitting next to Emmaline. He was forced to remember how it had felt to hold her, to make love to her.

  How had he come to spend so much time in her company, to be so constantly reminded of the past, so frequently tempted? He felt trapped in a vortex, spinning deeper and deeper. True, he could escape her at any time, merely by refusing her request to find Edwin and save her son. He ought to do that very thing: return to London and continue the search for a commission.

  But that would mean abandoning her. He could no more abandon her than he could require her to for ever be separated from her son.

  He ought to be wishing she’d never come back to turn his emotions into complete disorder, but even in this misery of confusion, he relished her company.

  Once being seated beside her had seemed like a joyous gift. Now each turnstile they crossed, each village they
passed, merely intensified the unease between them. They spoke as little as possible to each other. Even when others were not present and they could talk freely of their search, there was little new to be said.

  To make matters worse, the journey turned into a familiar one. The Bath coach eventually travelled to Manchester and they were required to wait several hours in the inn there until the stage to Blackburn arrived. All the while they remained in Manchester Gabe worried he might happen upon someone who knew him.

  There was little reason to think he’d be recognised. His appearance was so altered by his years in the army that his only real danger was if a member of his family happened to come into the coaching inn. To limit that slim possibility Gabe secured a private dining room so that he and Emmaline could wait out the time alone.

  That came with its own dangers. To be alone with her, just the two of them, intensified memories of the intimacy they’d once shared.

  After what seemed an eternity, they climbed in the coach to Blackburn. Gabe breathed another sigh of relief that none of his brothers were also making the journey. In his childhood, frequent trips to the then-new textile mills in Blackburn were a part of his father’s business. As a boy, he’d sometimes accompany his father and brothers, but he was needed only to carry bolts of cloth. Gabe mostly felt in their way.

  Sometimes, if lucky, he’d been able to go off on his own and explore Blackburn as much as he wished.

  When the stagecoach finally reached the outskirts of Blackburn, the afternoon was well advanced. Luckily the posting inn was close to Miller’s blacksmith shop where Jack had learned Edwin and his companions were bound. Miller was well-known for his cock fights. Gabe had even sneaked into Miller’s on some of his boyhood expeditions.

  After securing their lodging, Gabe asked the innkeeper whether Edwin was a guest. Why not? Maybe their luck would change. Maybe they would find Edwin this day and Gabe’s duty to Emmaline could be discharged and he would part from her once more.

  The innkeeper slid his finger up and down the pages of his register book. “What name again?” the man asked.

  “Edwin Tranville.”

  Emmaline stood behind Gabe and he sensed her tension, as if her nerves were connected to his own.

  The innkeeper turned back another page. “There have been several comings and goings.” He glanced up. “The cock fights, you know.”

  “If he did not sign the book, perhaps you will see the name of one of his companions, Frye or Stewel.”

  The innkeeper’s brows shot up. “I remember those two. Frye and Stewel. Troublemakers. I tossed them out—good riddance to them!”

  Gabe frowned. “They are no longer here?”

  “Gone several days already.” He tapped on his book.

  Emmaline made a small cry. Clutching Gabe’s arm, she asked, “Did Edwin Tranville stay?”

  The innkeeper pointed to names on the page. “I cannot read the names. There were two others with that lot, though, come to think of it. Can’t say if the fellow you are seeking was one of them.”

  Gabe peeked at the page. The signatures indeed looked like scribbles.

  Emmaline spoke up. “He would have a scar.”

  The man raised a finger. “Ah, yes! Scar on his face from here to here?” He pointed from his temple to his mouth.

  “That is the one,” Gabe responded. “What can you tell us of him?”

  The innkeeper laughed. “I can tell you he depleted my stores of brandy. More than that I do not know. He and his friends left the same day, thank the Lord.” He shook his head. “You could ask in the stable. One of the workers might know more.”

  “We will do that.” Gabe gestured to their baggage. “Can someone take our things up to the rooms? We’ll go to the stables now.”

  The innkeeper called to a boy in the other room and told him where to take the luggage. Gabe gave them both coins in exchange for their assistance. He and Emmaline hurried to the stable.

  “I recall them,” one of the stablemen said. “They left in a private carriage. It came and fetched the lot of them and carried them away after the horses rested.”

  Another man spoke up. “There was a crest on the side of it. With a bird, I think.”

  “Do you know where they went?” Gabe asked.

  The first man scratched his head. “Can’t say I do. The coachman waited inside the inn. Did not pass the time with anyone here.” The other shrugged in agreement.

  “Pardon, sir,” Emmaline broke in. “Was there a young Frenchman here at that time? He would have been a connoisseur of the horses.”

  “Mableau?” He grinned. “Nice fellow. Not French, though. Said he was from Brussels. He left about the same time as that other lot, come to think of it, but I did not see him go.”

  The other worker also shook his head.

  “Thank you.” Gabe tipped both stable workers. “We are staying at the inn. I would be grateful if you would come and tell me if anyone else knows more.”

  As they walked out Emmaline grabbed Gabe’s arm. She needed steadying. “What do we do now, Gabriel?”

  What, indeed? Gabe had no notion of how to look for a group of young men who had left in a private carriage. They could be anywhere.

  “We go back to the inn.” What else could they do?

  She stepped in front of him and clutched at the lapels of his uniform coat. “We cannot give up! Claude has followed them. We must find him before it is too late!”

  He dug his fingers into her shoulders, not knowing whether to push her away or to enfold her in his arms and comfort her.

  He released her, now pulsing with desire and resentment. It was madness to feel attached and distant at the same time.

  By all rights he should abandon this charade. He needed to return to London, to be present if word came of a commission. If an opportunity presented itself, he had to pounce on it or lose it to one of the countless other men eager to return to full military service.

  He opened his hands as if telling himself he would not touch her again. “We will walk back to the inn where you will stay. I will go to the cock fights and ask among the spectators. Perhaps someone will know where they were bound.”

  Her eyes met his and roused his tenderness again. “I want to go with you.”

  He turned away and started walking. “Not to a cock fight.”

  She said nothing else to him as he escorted her back to the inn and arranged for a meal to be sent up to her room.

  Gabe spent a good two hours watching birds attack each other so men could bet on them. When a boy, watching the fights held all the excitement of the forbidden, but now it disgusted him. He’d seen too much bloodshed during the war. Watching birds jab and slash each other held no amusement.

  He did manage to engage a few men in conversation. Some recalled seeing Edwin but only now noticed he and his friends were gone. Gabe found no one who knew where they might have travelled next.

  “They lost a great deal of money,” one man said, patting his coat pocket. “I know because I profited nicely from it.”

  Where would spoiled young gentlemen go if low on funds? Gabe had no idea. He checked in a few nearby taverns before making his way back to the inn. These Blackburn streets were both familiar and strange. Like his home town, Manchester, Blackburn, too, had changed. The mills had multiplied. A canal had been built. More people crowded its streets. Dusk had fallen and Gabe imagined they were bound for their homes and families. He fancied they’d settled into a life where they could predict what would happen one day to the next. He did not know whether to envy or pity them.

  With the inn in sight, Gabe stopped. All he had to offer Emmaline this night was more disappointment. How long could he continue to search, especially with no clues at all of where to look next?

  He must eventually face the fact that he could not help her.

  Gabe pressed his fingers against his forehead. He needed a drink. Or two. Or three. He turned around and went b
ack to the tavern he’d just left.

  Seating himself in a dark corner, he signalled the serving maid. “Brandy,” he ordered.

  “Open the door, Frenchie!” The man’s voice was slurred and Emmaline heard one of his companions laugh, as if those words were very droll.

  He pounded on the door again and the wood bent with the force.

  Emmaline jumped back and hurriedly dragged a wooden ladderback chair to wedge under the doorknob. Remy had taught her the trick many years before. It was her husband’s version of protecting her when he marched them into places of danger.