Authors: Samantha Saxon
London, England
April 20th, 1811
At a small desk buried in the depths of Whitehall, an old man sat staring at three well-worn dossiers. He reached for the first, as was his ritual, and reread every detail, every event concealed therein. And when he was finished, he closed his eyes in the silence that was only obtainable in the wee hours of the morning…and prayed.
He prayed for protection, he prayed for guidance, but most importantly, he prayed for forgiveness.
He repeated this process with each subject of his well-maintained files and then slowly rose, picking up the papers before walking to the fire. He stared into the flames, hesitant to let go, and with a heavy sigh, let the women of Whitehall slip from his fingers.
The fire flared, and the papers curled, charring from the edges. He stabbed with the poker, stirring the flames and meticulously burning them until nothing remained but ashes…ashes and his tortured conscience.
Albuera, Spain
May 16, 1811
Aidan did not know where he was or how he had gotten there.
Cool air rushed past his face, a welcome confusion to his warm skin. He cracked his eyelids, shutting them when light sliced through his already throbbing head, tenfold worse than anything he had experienced after a night of excess.
He tried again, slowly this time, blinking, straining to focus. Dirt. He could see the ground, but the ground was moving. No, wait. He was moving, but his legs were not. His hair felt wet and sticky, black clumps stuck to his forehead. Dropping his gaze, he tried to comprehend the blood spattered across the front of his uniform.
And then he saw her, and he was no longer confused.
An angel.
His angel.
He would have thought an angel would have wings and yards of billowy white cloth, but his angel wore an ice blue ball gown. He laughed. God must have known he was an Englishman, creating the perfect emissary to meet his tastes.
A sense of peace washed over him and he smiled to himself, pleased that he had died alongside his men. His head bobbed as he struggled to remain conscious. He lifted it with a jerk and noticed the beautiful blonde angel was speaking.
To him? What would his angel want to know? What would he tell her? How could he explain what had happened at Albuera? Explain how he had failed his men?
He could not.
Guilt stabbed at his gut and he groaned in pain when he was unceremoniously thrown on a hard wooden chair, his wrists burning as a rope cut into his flesh.
"Idiots," she snapped in French. "Unbind him."
His angel looked angry, but not at him. A soldier to his right cut the ropes that were securing his wrists, and the tension in his shoulders eased. He felt two drops of blood slide down his cheeks, competing to drip on his already soiled jacket. But he had no idea from whom it had come.
Confused, Aidan struggled to listen to his seraph, but the words meant nothing and his attention wandered to the dim room in which he now sat. Two men, dressed as French infantry soldiers, stood on either side of him, and a third guarded the door. To his left was a functional sideboard with a pitcher and several glasses.
In front of him, a colonel in the French army sat behind a battered desk talking to his angel. French and English merged in his mind, and he was unsure which language they spoke.
"Where was he found?" The angel’s tone was curt.
"Albuera. He was found with one leg pinned beneath his horse and seven of our soldiers surrounding him. All dead."
"And the horse?" His angel asked in French, he was sure.
"Dead. Impaled with a lance."
Aidan grimaced, the screech emanating from Thor when the lance pierced the stallion’s chest playing in his head. The horse had nearly drowned in a puddle where he fell. Drowning would have been so much faster, so much easier.
"No, you fool. Obviously, the horse was dead," the seraph said, dissolving the memory of his loyal stallion to that of carcass. "How else would he have become trapped beneath the animal? Describe the horse. Its quality? Its tack?"
Why she would want to know, Aidan could not fathom.
The colonel sputtered. "He…the horse…the horse was a very fine quality."
Aidan scoffed at the enormity or the man’s underestimation, but then again, he was French.
"And," she prodded when the solider did not continue. He sensed urgency in her tone as her fair brows lifted with irritation. "The tack, colonel!"
Aidan stared, never having seen an angry angel before, but concluding that he had neither the training nor temperament to judge angelic behavior.
"Also of high quality with no markings of any kind," the colonel reported.
"Hmmm?" The angel walked toward Aidan, tapping a delicate lace fan in the palm of her left hand and cocking her head to one side as she looked down at him.
He stared, captivated.
Her eyes were huge. Green with blue flecks, or was it blue with green flecks? He decided they were green and very beautiful. Her golden hair was piled high atop her head in an elegant coiffure as if she had just waltzed off a ballroom floor.
Aidan had no doubt that she would dance beautifully and he suppressed the urge to take her in his arms and do exactly that, but he was too tired. So, he contented himself with a good, long, thoroughly delightful look.
The ethereal woman’s nose was small and tipped up ever so slightly at the end. And her mouth, God, her mouth was the perfect width, and her lips were full and so damn succulent. His chest tightened. He had not had a woman in seven long months, and this heavenly creature would tempt a saint, much less a sinner like himself.
"What is your name?" The angel asked in English with not one hint of a French accent.
His name?
Blood dripped from his chin and his brows furrowed as the fog began to clear. Aidan looked about the room, at the colonel, at the bars on the windows of the dirty chamber. He listened to the clank of metal and the distant cries of men on the other side of the heavy oak door. He blinked. Albuera! He had been fighting at Albuera with Beresford.
Damnation!
He had been captured!
His head snapped up and his body tensed with the instinct to fight his way out of the room, but the sound of a pistol being cocked behind his head held him in his chair.
That was it then; he was a dead man.
But he should have died with his men…in battle.
Guilt feasted as the seraph leaned closer to get a good look at him. He lowered his gaze, fearful that she would see it. His eyes continued their downward decent, coming to rest on her breasts, now spilling from the bodice of her gown. Desire crawled in his chest as she squinted, peering through the mud and blood to the man beneath.
"Bring me your handkerchief, Colonel," the woman commanded.
She held out her hand and waited, still looking down at him, and asking once again, "What is your name, sir?"
Aidan straightened himself and lifted both brows, saying with an air of condescension only the English possess, "I’m afraid I have forgotten."
With the handkerchief now in hand, the woman took a step forward, grabbing his chin with her left hand and tilting his head upward. He flinched at the gentleness of her touch as she wiped away blood and dirt from his features, while boldly holding his gaze.
He sat impassive, giving no indication of the effect she was having on his senses, no indication of how her feminine scent caused his heart to race, no indication of how her touch burned him.
The angel leaned toward him, inspecting him as she turned his face from side to side. He watched her consider. What she contemplated, he hadn’t a clue, but her touch was becoming unbearable. And just when he thought his eyes would drift closed with the pleasure, she was gone, dropping his chin from her soft hands as if he were a vermin-infested guttersnipe.
"Remove his jacket," she ordered, retreating toward the desk. "And give me the contents of his pockets."
Aidan rose to his height of six feet one inch and towered over the two soldiers at his side. He grit his teeth against the pain from his injuries as they cruelly yanked off coat, pulling his shirt open in the process. His hands balled into fists, but he did not use them.
It was not the time.
When the soldiers had finished, he looked down at the woman who was clearly in command of the room. Their eyes held, and she observed him in return, waiting for the search to be completed. And when it was, the impatient rustling of silk petticoats was the only sound in the small chamber.
Exhaustion drew air deep into his lungs, expanding his aching chest. He knew they would find nothing to identify him. The only item he carried into battle was a miniature portrait of his sister holding his niece and nephew. Reminders of why he was fighting this godforsaken war.
The stunning angel, his enemy, came forward to take the miniature. She held Sarah’s portrait in one hand and placed the palm of the other against his exposed chest, running her fingers beneath his muddy shirt and awakening his flesh with reminders of long ago pleasures. Pleasures he hungered for, pleasures that provided, for a fleeting moment, a respite from the realities of war.
Aidan closed his eyes and cursed himself for tensing, for revealing the effect she was having on his body. She was lovely, and she used that beauty, wielding it like a saber and he was too weak to defend himself against her.
She continued the sensual assault, asking, "Are you injured, my lord?"
The use of his title stopped his now-shallow breathing. He forced himself to regain his composure, and when he was once again in control, he said, "I’m afraid to disappoint you, my lady, but Frenchmen are notoriously bad shots. I believe I was merely grazed."
Her feminine laughter was out of place within the filthy walls of the prison. She applied pressure to his shoulder in a silent command to have him resume sitting on the hard chair. He remained standing, but he was tired and saw no benefit in resistance. He glared at his stunning capture and then took his seat.
"Oh, but you English are refreshingly arrogant, and you more so than most, my lord." Her smile was dazzling, as if she were flirting with him in the midst of some grand event, not in a filthy French prison. She walked to the desk and picked up a sheet of paper, reading to herself.
"You fought at Albuera under the command of Lord Beresford." She nodded to the colonel in an unspoken communication, and the man began to take notes. "You were in command yourself of a small regiment, most likely, and from your accent are most assuredly a peer of the English House of Lords. The only question remains as to which one?"
Impressed by her accuracy, he watched the treacherous seraph walk toward him, stopping close enough that her skirts obscured his filthy boots. Aidan lifted his chin and looked into her mesmerizing eyes. She allowed it, invited it. Her gaze held, continuing their mental swordplay. After several moments, the woman sighed and took a step back, looking as though she might expire with ennui.
"When I was a child, I had a horse." She paused, smiling at her memory before continuing to pace the small room. Suspicion narrowed his eyes as he contemplated her reasons for revealing such personal information. "This horse was so stubborn that the more my father beat him, the more my horse refused to do the work that was required of him."
Aidan’s eyes slid to the colonel, who was looking at the lady’s backside with undisguised lust.
She continued, "Fearful that my father would kill my beloved horse, I enticed the animal with a carrot." She stopped in front of him and laughed. "And do you know, that horse did anything I asked of him from that moment on?" The woman waited for a response and he enjoyed taking his time in giving it.
"Enchanting tale," he finally said, "But I fail to see the point of your little recitation."
The woman lifted a brow and grinned. "Ah, but the tale has a point, my lord." Disquiet crept up his spine. "You strike me as a man with whom a beating would have little effect." Aidan set his jaw. He knew all too well the amount of punishment his body could endure during the heat of battle.
"However," she said, placing her legs between his knees and spreading them wide, brushing his inner thighs as she stepped between them. Caressing him, knowing the effect the movement would have on him, on any man. The siren looked down at him, smiling as she bent forward to give him a long look at her breasts before her jade eyes met his.
Her face, her mouth was a mere six inches away. His hands itched to touch the enticing mounds so elegantly displayed before him. He battled, but lost. His shaft was hardening, and his gaze fell to her lips when she breathed, "A carrot, you might just take into your mouth for the pleasure of tasting it."
She leaned closer. He could smell her, feel the heat rising from her creamy skin. Aidan clenched his hands into fists and stared at the wall, but despite his effort to ignore her, he could feel her breath on his neck just behind his ear.
"And I know just what you want to bite," she whispered, drawing the lobe of his ear between her teeth. Aidan closed his eyes as ripples of pleasure washed over his traitorous body.
"Mmm, and I might want to…bite…back," she finished.
Desire flared from the pit of his stomach, consuming his entire body. She stepped out of his reach, and relief flooded him. He looked up and forced himself to smile his most charming when he said, "I dare say you had a French horse, my lady. English mounts are not so easily led by such
common
enticements."
Anger flashed in her beautiful eyes, but when she turned to look at him, he thought, for the briefest of moments, that he saw surprise. No, something more than surprise, different than surprise. He studied her, trying to identify the emotion. But she recovered quickly, lifting her delicately pointed chin as she spoke.
"Well, my lord, it seems we need not offer you the stick nor the carrot." The angel walked toward him, placing her soft hands on his cheeks. He could feel them shaking as her thumbs traced the location of his dimples now hidden beneath the stubble of his fledgling beard. Her mood was light, her eyes sparkled. His blood ran cold as he identified the emotion as excitement.