Gabe spoke to the British officer, explaining the woman’s circumstance to him.
“What happens to them?” he asked the man.
The officer’s answer was curt. “The women and children will be sent back to France, if they have money for the passage.”
Gabe stepped away and fished in an inside pocket of his uniform, pulling out a purse full of coin, nearly all he possessed. Glancing around to make certain no one noticed, he pressed the purse into the woman’s hands. “You will need this.”
Her eyes widened as her fingers closed around the small leather bag. “Capitaine—”
He pressed her hand. “No argument. No—” he pronounced it the French way “—argument.”
She closed her other hand around his and the power of her gaze tugged at something deep inside him. It was inexplicable, but saying goodbye felt like losing a part of himself.
He did not even know her name.
He pulled his hand from hers and pointed to himself. “Gabriel Deane.” If she needed him, she would at least know his name.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, speaking his name with the beauty of her French accent. “Merci. Que Dieu vous bénisse.”
His brows knit in confusion. He’d forgotten most of the French he’d learned in school.
She struggled for words. “Dieu … God …” She crossed herself. “Bénisse.”
“Bless?” he guessed.
She nodded.
He forced himself to take a step back. “Au revoir, madame.”
Clenching his teeth, Gabe turned and started for the door before he did something foolish. Like kiss her. Or leave with her. She was a stranger, nothing more, important only in his fantasies. Not in reality.
“Gabriel!”
He halted.
She ran to him.
She placed both hands on his cheeks and pulled his head down to kiss him on the lips. With her face still inches from his, she whispered, “My name is Emmaline Mableau.”
He was afraid to speak for fear of betraying the swirling emotions inside him. An intense surge of longing enveloped him.
He desired her as a man desires a woman. It was foolish beyond everything. Dishonourable, as well, since she’d just lost her husband to hands not unlike his own.
He met her gaze and held it a moment before fleeing out the door.
But his thoughts repeated, over and over—Emmaline Mableau.
Brussels, Belgium—May 1815
Emmaline Mableau!
Gabe’s heart pounded when he caught a glimpse of the woman from whom he’d parted three years before. Carrying a package, she walked briskly through the narrow Brussels streets. It was Emmaline Mableau, he was convinced.
Or very nearly convinced.
He’d always imagined her back in France, living in some small village, with parents … or a new husband.
But here she was, in Belgium.
Brussels had many French people, so it was certainly possible for her to reside here. Twenty years of French rule had only ended the year before when Napoleon was defeated.
Defeated for the first time, Gabe meant. L’Empereur had escaped from his exile on Elba. He’d raised an army and was now on the march to regain his empire. Gabe’s regiment, the Royal Scots, was part of Wellington’s Allied Army and would soon cross swords with Napoleon’s forces again.
Many of the English aristocracy had poured into Brussels after the treaty, fleeing the high prices in England, looking for elegant living at little cost. Even so, Brussels remained primed for French rule, as if the inhabitants expected Napoleon to walk its streets any day. Nearly everyone in the city spoke French. Shop signs were in French. The hotel where Gabe was billeted had a French name. Hôtel de Flandre.
Gabe had risen early to stretch his legs in the brisk morning air. He had few official duties at present, so spent his days exploring the city beyond the Parc de Brussels and the cathedral. Perhaps there was more of the cloth merchant’s son in him than he’d realised, because he liked best to walk the narrow streets lined with shops.
He’d spied Emmaline Mableau as he descended the hill to reach that part of Brussels. She’d been rushing past shopkeepers who were just raising their shutters and opening their doors. Gabe bolted down the hill to follow her, getting only quick glimpses of her as he tried to catch up to her.
He might be mistaken about her being Emmaline Mableau. It might have been a mere trick of the eye and the fact that he often thought of her that made him believe the Belgian woman was she.
But he was determined to know for certain.
She turned a corner and he picked up his pace, fearing he’d lose sight of her. Near the end of the row of shops he glimpsed a flutter of skirts, a woman entering a doorway. His heart beat faster. That had to have been her. No one left on the street looked like her.
He slowed his pace as he approached where she had disappeared, carefully determining which store she’d entered. The sign above the door read Magasin de Lacet. The shutters were open and pieces of lace draped over tables could be seen though the windows.
A lace shop.
He opened the door and crossed the threshold, removing his shako as he entered the shop.
He was surrounded by white. White lace ribbons of various widths and patterns draped over lines strung across the length of the shop. Tables stacked with white lace cloth, lace-edged handkerchiefs and lace caps. White lace curtains covering the walls. The distinct scent of lavender mixed with the scent of linen, a scent that took him back in time to hefting huge bolts of cloth in his father’s warehouse.
Through the gently fluttering lace ribbons, he spied the woman emerging from a room at the back of the shop, her face still obscured. With her back to him, she folded squares of intricate lace that must have taken some woman countless hours to tat.
Taking a deep breath, he walked slowly towards her. “Madame Mableau?”
Still holding the lace in her fingers and startled at the sound of a man’s voice, Emmaline turned. And gasped.
“Mon Dieu!”
She recognised him instantly, the capitaine whose presence in Badajoz had kept her sane when all seemed lost. She’d tried to forget those desolate days in the Spanish city, although she’d never entirely banished the memory of Gabriel Deane. His brown eyes, watchful then, were now reticent, but his jaw remained as strong, his lips expressive, his hair as dark and unruly.
“Madame.” He bowed. “Do you remember me? I saw you from afar. I was not certain it was you.”
She could only stare. He seemed to fill the space, his scarlet coat a splash of vibrancy in the white lace-filled room. It seemed as if no mere shop could be large enough to contain his presence. He’d likewise commanded space in Badajoz, just as he commanded everything else. Tall and powerfully built, he had filled those terrible, despairing days, keeping them safe. Giving them hope.
“Pardon,” he said. “I forgot. You speak only a little English. Un peu Anglais.”
She smiled. She’d spoken those words to him in Badajoz.
She