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Chapter One

Somewhere on the Spanish coast

1817

Captain Thomas Markham was a reeking, rancid mess. He offended even himself and would laugh at how ridiculous his situation was, but his split lip hurt like the devil, and so did his jaw. His beard had gotten to the itchy stage, but he could not lift a hand to scratch it. In fact, it was like lead cannonballs weighed down both his arms, and it hurt to breathe. The powerlessness of his situation festered, like his wounds, within him. This was a new experience for him, and he did not like it. Not one bit.

If it had not been for the angel at his side, he would have succumbed to death days ago. Despite his own circumstances, he had to wonder why the woman who hovered over him was bothering to help him at all. He should be dead at least twice over. Somehow, whatever she was doing to keep him alive was working. And he wasn’t sure if he was happy about it.

But keeping him alive for what? For them to come and get him again? His French torturers had pulverized his stomach muscles to mush and broken his ribs with fists, boots, and anything else they could find. It was like a carriage had run over his whole body. He doubted any part of him was undamaged.

What more could they do to him? Oh yes, they could take his fingers and toes one at a time. They had already taken one finger. Why not the rest? Nothing like a full collection to please a torturer.

He remembered the intense pain of his severed finger with angry frustration. The rest of his torment? Blurred nightmare and then darkness.

He’d been in Spain for near on six months, gathering information about the uprise of liberal factions against the Spanish king and another possible attempt by the French to take Spain, but the merest error and here he was. Fodder for the desperate French. Making an effort to get details he would never give them.

Through his swollen left eye, he could just see a dim light. Through ringing ears, he heard her voice, his angel. She was muttering in Spanish as if scolding someone. It had a rhythmic flow, the highs and lows, the slightly husky cadence different from his French torturers. Strangely, listening to her voice calmed him. Her warm fingers and hands soothed his battered body. He could vaguely smell wood smoke and lavender, ginger, and mint, but of course, it could just be his mind playing tricks on him. Surely, such smells could not exist in a place like this.

She banged and clattered things somewhere in the hell that was this place, this abandoned fort that had seen better days with only half a roof on one side remaining. Its ancient walls in some places crumbled into the sea. He had no idea where in the fort he was, though he had tried to take in how many turns to the left and right as they had marched him in. This part was thankfully intact.

“You are wasting your time,” he croaked in Spanish. His voice sounded far away, as if spoken by someone else.

She tutted over him and helped him drink something bitter but cool.

“You let me be the judge of that,” she replied in Spanish.

So, she was definitely not French. One thing in his favor then.

“Not…my…enemy,” he bit out. Whatever she had given him made his words sluggish and muddled.

“Not your friend either, Englishman.”

So, she knew he was English, yet she was still helping him.

“Where…am…I?”

“Not in infierno, not yet, though I imagine it is not much different.” She was unwrapping his hand, the one with the missing digit, and it stung like the devil. “Now hush. You need sleep.”

He could not imagine hell to be any different from this, either, to be honest. The pain that radiated through his body was easing. How he longed for a deep, eternal sleep free of pain. His friend Lord Oliver Whitely would have called it a dirt nap, but then he was always flippant like that. It was something Thomas had admired in him. His ability to make everything seem trivial broke the tension of reality. It was how the man had coped with the horrors of war. Thomas would take death on a battlefield any day to this relentless torture. Yes, a dirt nap sounded perfect about now.

His eyelids felt heavy. He wanted to talk to her more, but his mouth would not move. He could feel her hands on him, pressing a damp cloth on his forehead that burned rather than cooled. The last thought he had before slipping into unconsciousness was that he wanted to see her face at least once before he met his end. Something to dream of until the devil came to get him.

*

Elena Diaz plucked various yarrow leaves and flowers from her basket and muddled them in a mortar and pestle before adding a little olive oil. This salve should hopefully stop the bleeding in his hand from where the butchers upstairs had hacked off señor Englishman’s finger. She shook her head at the brutality. What was the use of her being ordered to keep him alive when they intended to bring him near death over and over?

Previously, whenever they returned him to her broken and moaning, she had to summon all her strength to avoid gagging or crying or both. No human should endure such treatment. Had her brother, Juan, suffered such indignity before he died? If only she or someone with medical knowledge had been there to tend to him, he might still be with her.

Elena had to keep her thoughts together, orderly and detached from the scene in front of her. Instead, she would do what her father had taught her. She would concentrate on the injury and not on the man. Oh, but she was exhausted.

Everything inside her urged her to leave. She did not want to be trapped in this room with this man. This English man. Juan had fought against the English and then with them against the French. It was getting harder to know who was a friend and who was a foe in these unsettled days. Even if she did leave without the man, the French would burn her whole village down—at least, that is what they threatened.

After bandaging the man’s hand, she took stock of what she had left of her supplies. Although the French bullies escorted her home every couple of days to wash and change her clothes and gather more ingredients, she was just as much a prisoner here as the Englishman. The only difference was she knew her way around this place, having grown up playing in its ruins. She could escape at any time, and had, over the last few nights. If they found her gone, they would burn the whole village to the ground, as they promised. It would not matter whether she took the pesky Englishman with her or not. Likely, they would kill her as well, like they had her father years ago. Elena would not let them have the satisfaction of killing her or the man she was tending.

“The French do not much like defiance, you know,” she told her patient as she wrung out her cloth again to apply to his forehead. “If that were the case, they should never have betrayed Spain. To place Joseph on the Spanish throne,” she said to the unconscious man, “as if his sole qualification was being Napoleon’s brother!” Instead of loyalty, Joeseph had ignited a fire in the hearts of all of Spain. The French had duped them, but, like always, her countrymen fought back. Now King Ferdinand was back on his throne, but for how long?

Elena did her best to keep busy as the hours ticked slowly by. She kept the fire going and made up medicine that she preserved in little bottles. She hummed a simple tune and talked to her patient, even though she knew he could not hear her. Wiping the sweat from her brow with the corner of her apron, Elena checked on her patient. He was still asleep. The draft worked. Milk of the poppy always worked, but she would monitor him closely. She’d had to guess his weight, but it was tricky business, as she did not want to kill him by giving him too much.