Heroes of Honor: Historical Romance Collection

by Laurel O'Donnell

  “Austin?” He gently moved his friend but stopped when Austin moaned. Bloody hell. What had they done to him?

  Gabriel’s blood boiled. Austin hadn’t only been imprisoned and beaten. He’d been tortured.

  Gabriel glanced at the torn flesh on Austin’s back and the burns over his arms and shoulders and was engulfed by a fury that raged out of control.

  He placed his arm beneath Austin’s shoulder and raised him. His face was swollen and caked with blood, and he was weak and barely conscious. But he was alive.

  “Gabe?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

  Thankfully, Henri entered the cell and helped him carry Austin down the long hall. They made their way past the single guard, then the two in the outer room, and finally out into the open. The minute they hit the cool outside air, Austin moaned again.

  “Hold on, Austin. Just a little farther.”

  “Thorn,” Austin said.

  “It’s all right,” Gabriel answered. He knew what Austin was going to tell him. He’d been beaten and tortured, and he’d broken. He’d told them about Thorn. “It’s all right, Austin. We’ll fix it.”

  “No…he’s…” Austin grabbed Gabriel’s jacket and pulled him closer. “He’s…here.”

  Austin’s words struck him like a blow to the chest. “What did you say?”

  “He’s here…last cell.”

  Gabriel settled Austin in the bed of the wagon, then raced back inside the prison. Prisoner after freed prisoner rushed past him and Gabriel evaluated each one, praying he’d recognize the man they’d dubbed Thorn.

  None seemed likely.

  He looked down the aisle. Jean-Paul hadn’t reached the last cell. Their mysterious agent was still locked inside.

  Suddenly it was important to Gabriel that he was the one to free the agent who’d played such an important role in ending the war, that he was the one to get Thorn to safety, perhaps as repayment for what he’d done for England.

  He raced down the long corridor as fast as his aching leg would allow and met Jean-Paul as he reached the last cell. “I’ll finish here. Make room in the wagon. There will be one more.”

  Jean-Paul left him without question and Gabriel slid the key into the lock. With a loud clang, the latch released and he swung open the door.

  He looked to the huddled form in the corner of the cell. The man struggled to sit, but couldn’t accomplish the deed.

  Gabriel raced to his side. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “I can walk, Major.”

  A stabbing of familiarity spiked through him and he turned his head to look at the man who’d been a mystery to him during the war. The realization of Thorn’s identity nearly took him to his knees.

  Gabriel halted in mid step. He’d waited more than a year to discover Thorn’s identity, spent endless hours arguing with Austin over what kind of man this larger-than-life hero had to be, but the man he helped from the French prison couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be—because if it was, he was saving the man who would destroy any chance he had for happiness when they returned to England.

  He was saving the Marquess of Culbertson.

  His mind reeled. This was the man who’d masterminded every covert operation Gabriel had been sent on. The man whose daring and brilliance had saved thousands of lives. The man whose ability to discover the enemy’s next moves had brought about a quicker end to the war.

  The man who would take Liddy away from him.

  He tried to force his feet to move but the battle inside him waged too intensely. The vow he’d made Chisolmwood more than a year ago blared with alarming hostility. He had it within his power to exact revenge on the Duke of Chisolmwood for destroying not only his life, but Liddy’s, too.

  If he left Culbertson to fend for himself the man would likely not survive. If he left Culbertson here…

  “Have you decided if you’re going to rescue me, Major? Or would you prefer to leave me to face the hangman’s noose in the morning?”

  Gabriel’s gaze locked with Culbertson’s. He saw his swollen lips and the bruises on his face. He’d obviously been beaten, but he was a strong man. If Gabriel got him to safety, he’d survive. And when they returned to England, Liddy would become his marchioness.

  But that was how Gabriel always knew it would be. He couldn’t live with himself if he let it end any differently. He couldn’t live his life knowing that he’d taken the life of an innocent man to exact his revenge on the Duke of Chisolmwood. His conscience wouldn’t allow him to be happy with Liddy, knowing he was responsible for Culbertson’s death.

  He didn’t answer Culbertson, but lifted the agent to his knees and half dragged, half carried him out of the prison.

  “Cover him with hay,” Gabriel ordered when Culbertson was safely in the wagon. Marcel, Francois, and Jacques quickly covered Austin and Culbertson, then jumped in beside them.

  Jean-Paul already sat atop in the driver’s seat, waiting to set the wagon in motion.

  Gabriel rushed to take his place beside him, but stopped when loud gunfire exploded behind him.

  “Halt, Major Talbot,” LeBrouche shouted as he galloped toward him.

  Gabriel turned and fired. LeBrouche and a half dozen other soldiers closed in on them.

  “Go!” Gabriel hollered.

  The horses skittered at the explosion and Jean-Paul tried to hold them steady. But they were too frightened.

  Gunshots rang through the air and Jean-Paul’s frantic voice ordered him to get in, but Gabriel knew his leg wouldn’t allow him to mount a moving wagon. The only chance they had to escape was if he stayed behind to draw fire.

  “Go!” he bellowed again, then slapped his hand across the lead horse’s backside.

  The team lurched forward and Gabriel fired his pistol until the wagon was out of sight.

  He pressed his back against the wall and quickly reloaded.

  Four French soldiers followed LeBrouche into the alley, but Gabe was able to keep the French soldiers pinned behind a wall of crates. He fired as rapidly as he could, then took advantage of a slight pause in the gunfire to make his escape.

  He ran down the alley in the opposite direction the wagon had gone, hoping LeBrouche wanted him badly enough to follow him and give Jean-Paul the opportunity he needed to flee.

  The rumble of the wagon grew fainter while the thunder of horses chasing him grew louder. He turned when he reached the end of the alley and his eyes locked with LeBrouche’s. He veered to his right.

  “Let the wagon go!” LeBrouche hollered. “I want the major!”

  Gabriel ran faster, ignoring the stitch in his side and his leg that threatened to buckle beneath him. He ran into the Paris streets, hoping to get lost amongst the predawn vendors gathering to sell their wares. The semi-darkness helped, made him less visible. But from the commotion behind him, he knew the soldiers were gaining on him.

  A bullet whizzed past his ear, hitting the side of a building. Pieces of brick chipped off. A big piece struck him above the eye. Gabriel wiped the blood from his forehead and ducked into an alley just as another bullet sang through the air. It grazed his left arm. The wound was just a scratch. His leg, however, throbbed like bloody hell.

  He’d been in tight spots before and knew he didn’t have much time before they caught him. He dove through the first door he could open, that of a rundown barn. It smelled of old grain and moldy hay. He limped down the aisle between the empty stalls, his leg nearly useless now. He couldn’t go any further. He needed to get out of sight, needed to find someplace to hide.

  He entered one of the stalls and crawled to a dark corner. Just as he reached the shadows, the door opened and a French soldier rode through the opening. Gabriel expected to see LeBrouche, but it wasn’t. His adversary was a young soldier, barely out of his teens.

  “Damn,” Gabriel hissed as he lifted his gun and fired.

  Their gunshots echoed simultaneously and Gabriel felt a sharp pain in his shoulder a
second before he hit the floor.

  …

  Lydia stood at the window, staring down onto the alley, waiting for Gabriel to return with Austin. The sun was already above the horizon. Sunrise had come—and gone.

  “You have to get ready to leave, Lady Lydia,” Jennie said from the doorway. “I promised Papa and the major that Gustav would take you to Rouen if they weren’t back by sunup.”

  Lydia looked at the tall Frenchman standing behind Jennie, then turned to look back out the window. “Not yet.”

  A tension-filled silence enveloped the room. She ignored the worried glances Jennie and Gustav exchanged with Hannah. She didn’t care. She couldn’t leave yet. She wouldn’t. Gabriel wasn’t back. She couldn’t leave without knowing if he was safe—if they were safe.

  “But the major said—”

  “I promised the major I’d leave when I was certain he wasn’t coming back. I am far from certain.” She dropped the yellow-checked curtain and stepped toward where Gustav still stood in the doorway. “Have you heard anything yet? Have any of them come back?”

  Gustav shook his head. “One of our compatriots left a short while ago to find out what he could but he hasn’t returned.”

  “We won’t leave until he returns.”

  Gustav’s shoulders lifted as if his size might intimidate her. “It’s not safe to wait,” he said. “The major ordered me to—”

  Lydia raised her hand to stop him. “I know what the major ordered you to do, but I’m a long way from following his orders. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone.” She turned back to watch out the window.

  Thankfully, Hannah shooed Jennie and the Frenchman out of the room and followed them. It wasn’t until the door closed behind them that the inner fortitude that held her nerves together crumbled and she sagged against the wall. She wrapped her arms around her middle and prayed the trembling would stop.

  Something was wrong. They should have been back hours ago. There’d always been an innate connection between Gabriel and herself, and that connection told her something had happened. He’d have returned already if things had gone as they’d expected.

  Lydia turned back to the window to keep watch. She repeated the prayer she’d prayed all night, that God would bring them all back to her safe and sound. Over and over she repeated the litany, not even stopping when Hannah came back into the room.

  “Why don’t you sit, my lady.” Hannah pushed a chair closer. “You’ve stood for hours. Just rest for a bit and I’ll keep watch.”

  Lydia shook her head then looked from one end of the alley to the other. A sickening dread weighed heavily in the pit of her stomach, a painful pressure that pushed against her heart. She reached out to steady herself against the wall when a wave of dizziness overtook her. Worry, lack of sleep, and no food had taken its toll and she swayed again as the room swam before her eyes.

  Then she saw it.

  Jean-Paul’s wagon rumbled down the alley and stopped beneath her window. Her heart leaped to her throat and her cry echoed in the small room.

  “They’re here! Oh, thank God. They’re here! They’re here!”

  She raced out the door and down the hall. She took the stairs at an unladylike pace, but she didn’t care. Her only concern was reaching the wagon where several men lifted an injured Austin out of the straw.

  She scanned the area for Gabriel but didn’t see him. He was probably standing guard at the entrance to the alley to make sure they hadn’t been followed. That would be like him.

  She breathed a sigh of relief as she rushed to her brother’s side. “Austin?”

  “Liddy?” he answered. “Bloody hell, Liddy. What are you…doing here?”

  She reached for his hand and squeezed his fingers. “I came for you, silly. I wanted to make sure you found your way home without getting lost. Thank you for appreciating my efforts.”

  “Ah, Liddy,” he gasped, then coughed. The effort to speak took its toll.

  “Take him inside,” she ordered, brushing her hand across his face.

  A painful pressure tightened in her breast. His features were gaunt as if he’d gone months with barely enough to eat, and his face was cut and bruised as if he’d endured more than his share of beatings.

  The men holding him moved toward the inn and she took a few steps with them then stopped. Someone else was in the wagon. Gabriel?

  She rushed to the wagon. “Gabriel?”

  Two men lowered the second man to the ground and she could tell he was severely injured. She ran the last few steps.

  “Gabriel, are you all right?”

  The man they helped out of the wagon tried to stand, but failed. She reached for him as he turned to face her and stopped short. “Ga—”

  “Sorry to disappoint, my lady.”

  “Geoffrey?” She tried to recover. “I didn’t…what?…”

  He tried to smile but his grin turned to a grimace.

  “Take him inside,” she ordered when he grabbed the side of the wagon to steady himself.

  Two of Jean-Paul’s men helped him into the building and up the stairs. She took note of the blood running down the side of his face and the bruises turning darker by the second.

  She followed as far as the doorway, then turned. This couldn’t be happening. Goeffery wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to know she was here—with Gabe.

  Gabe

  She cast a quick glance over the area. “Where’s Major Talbot?” she asked Jean-Paul.

  “Go inside, my lady. We can’t risk being seen.”

  She rushed through the door, then up the stairs and stopped. “Where’s Gabriel?”

  Jean-Paul hesitated, then answered. “He was detained.”

  Her heart raced faster. That was a lie. “Where is he?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be here—”

  “Where!”

  Her voice sounded shrill to her ears and filled with a sense of panic she couldn’t hide. Jean-Paul’s hesitation terrified her even more because she knew his first instinct was to lie. In the end he wisely chose otherwise. On a heavy sigh he said the words she’d prayed she wouldn’t hear.

  “He didn’t make it.”

  …

  Austin was finally asleep. Lydia tucked the covers around him and stepped away from the bed. She’d cared for him, fed him some broth, and helped Hannah bandage his wounds. She’d done all this to keep herself busy so she didn’t have to concentrate on the fact that Gabriel hadn’t returned with the rest of them, that no one knew what had happened to him.

  When Austin finally fell asleep, she went to the next room to check on the Marquess of Culbertson. He was lying on the bed with his left arm strapped tightly to his body.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, pushing a chair closer to the bed. She sat beside him.

  “Thankful to be alive.”

  Every part of his body she could see was bruised with ugly purple and black marks that indicated he’d suffered the same torture as Austin. “Is there anything I can get you?”

  “A glass of water, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Of course.”

  She rose and poured some water into a glass, then helped him drink. She’d done the same for Austin just a few minutes ago.

  She remembered the first time she’d lifted a glass to Gabriel’s mouth. A thousand bolts of lightning had spiraled through her. She lifted a glass to Culbertson’s lips and waited for the same explosive reaction. Instead, tending the marquess was much the same as tending her brother.

  She lowered Geoffrey back to the pillow and sat in the chair at his bedside. She was tired—no, more than tired, she was exhausted. She’d been awake for more than twenty-four hours and nearly every one of those hours had been filled with a nervous anxiety that bordered on fear. Now, the fear was so intense she was numb.

  “How did you come to be here?”

  She started, realizing for the first time that she’d been lost in thought about Gabriel, and Culbertson had caught her a
t it.

  “I came with Major Talbot. He needed a diversion to make it into France safely. I was able to help him.”

  A frown pulled at Culbertson’s forehead. “What diversion did you offer?”

  Her cheeks warmed and she hoped they weren’t as flushed as she feared they might be. “The major and I pretended to be newlyweds arriving in Paris for our honeymoon.”

  She looked out at the mid-afternoon sky, wondering where Gabriel was. He was such a long way from here and with his leg...

  She turned back to face Culbertson’s disapproval.

  “Your brother agreed to let you take such a risk?”

  “There wasn’t any other choice.”

  His eyebrows arched. “And you came alone?”

  “My maid, Hannah, came with me. As well as Morgan, who acted as Gabe—” She cleared her throat. “As Major Talbot’s manservant.”

  He studied her. “I’m surprised the major allowed you to come. I would have thought he’d have refused.”

  “He tried, but Harrison and I gave him no choice. Allowing me to come was the only way to assure he would make it into France.”

  She noticed the frown on his face and fought a wave of irritation. He’d best not question her. He’d been rescued because she’d taken the risk. He and Austin were both alive because Gabriel had risked his life to save them.

  She rose from her chair and walked to the window. The sun was high in the sky. It was past noon and there was still no sign of Gabe.

  “What happened?” she said. “How did you escape and Major Talbot didn’t?”

  He sank back against the pillow. “We made it out of the prison with no problem but the French soldiers arrived before we left the courtyard. The major held them off to give us time to get away.”

  Lydia’s heart dropped. “Do you think he…got away?”

  Culbertson hesitated. “Perhaps. Jean-Paul and his men have gone out again to search for him. Maybe they’ll find him.”

  She heard the doubt in his voice. Waves of panic crashed inside her head. She had to believe he was alive. “Even if he didn’t get away from them, it doesn’t mean he’s dead. Maybe the French took him captive. Maybe they’re holding him prisoner.”