Falling for the Enemy
Naomi Rawlings
An Unlikely AllianceBetrayed and stranded in France at the height of war, Lord Gregory Halston has few options. After rescuing his ailing brother from jail, they struggle to survive in hostile territory without outing themselves as Englishmen. Gregory hopes the feisty French peasant woman he meets is willing to guide them to safety.Danielle Belanger doesn't wish to protect any man from the same country responsible for her brother's demise. But there's something about the determined Englishman that makes her willing to try. Though a match between Danielle and Gregory is impossible, their attraction can't be denied. The only thing more dangerous than aiding the enemy…is falling in love with him.
An Unlikely Alliance
Betrayed and stranded in France at the height of war, Lord Gregory Halston has few options. After rescuing his ailing brother from jail, they struggle to survive in hostile territory without outing themselves as Englishmen. Gregory hopes the feisty French peasant woman he meets is willing to guide them to safety.
Danielle Belanger doesn’t wish to protect any man from the same country responsible for her brother’s demise. But there’s something about the determined Englishman that makes her willing to try. Though a match between Danielle and Gregory is impossible, their attraction can’t be denied. The only thing more dangerous than aiding the enemy…is falling in love with him.
“My brother has spent the past year and a half trapped in your horrid country.”
Frustration ground across the edges of his words. “When I came to rescue him, the French guide I paid quite handsomely betrayed us. Now Westerfield might well be dying, and he needs help. What must I do to convince you to help us?”
“That man is your brother? The sick one with the wretched cough?”
He probably raised that arrogant eyebrow at her, except she couldn’t see it in the black. “Does it make a difference?”
It didn’t. Or rather, it shouldn’t. But could she blame him for wanting to protect his family? “When you learned he fell ill, you came over from England solely to get him?”
“Again, why does it matter?” His voice was hard, as though he hadn’t a drop of mercy anywhere inside his tall, lanky form.
“Because…because…” Because I had an older brother once, and if he’d been trapped in your country, I would have done anything to save him.
But Laurent wasn’t trapped in England. He was dead.
Because of England.
NAOMI RAWLINGS
A mother of two young boys, Naomi Rawlings spends her days picking up, cleaning, playing and, of course, writing. Her husband pastors a small church in Michigan’s rugged Upper Peninsula, where her family shares its ten wooded acres with black bears, wolves, coyotes, deer and bald eagles. Naomi and her family live only three miles from Lake Superior, and while the scenery is beautiful, the area averages two hundred inches of snow per winter. Naomi writes bold, dramatic stories containing passionate words and powerful journeys. If you enjoyed the novel, she would love to hear from you. You can write Naomi at P.O. Box 134, Ontonagon, MI 49953, or contact her via her website and blog, at www.naomirawlings.com (http://www.naomirawlings.com).
Falling for the Enemy
Naomi Rawlings
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
—Galatians 3:28
To my in-laws, George and Becky,
for raising a wonderful son and being awesome grandparents.
First and foremost, I’d like to thank my husband, Brian, who loves and encourages me through each book I write. Second, I’d like to thank my critique partner, Melissa Jagears. My writing would suffer greatly without your hard work and keen insights, and my heart would suffer greatly without your friendship. Thank you for all the hours of critiquing you poured into this story.
I also want to thank my agent, Natasha Kern, for supporting me both professionally and personally. Thank you to my editor, Elizabeth Mazer, for your helpful suggestions and enthusiasm about my stories—and especially for your love of all things French.
Beyond these people, numerous others have given me support in one way or another: Sally Chambers, Glenn Haggerty, Roseanna White and Laurie Alice Eakes, to name a few.
Thank you all for your time and effort and helping me to write the best books I possibly can.
Contents
Cover (#u8f889b49-70c1-5749-9f30-74e18f73eec1)
Back Cover Text (#ufa3a0c7c-9f86-5a86-99c9-871da26a92f2)
Introduction (#u9e672bbe-0855-5c55-bf2a-09523677b844)
About the Author (#u14f86903-99c0-5f45-9360-610d918e1110)
Title Page (#u7b59865f-1edb-5c45-a19c-35ca723ebc6f)
Bible Verse (#u8b7589f7-b6e4-50b7-8ee6-e290bcf2e3e1)
Dedication (#ue3e5ac1b-cc2d-53db-a73b-02c0e16156c1)
Acknowledgments (#u4e578624-3f63-57c3-86b2-1dbf84d4825e)
Chapter One (#ulink_bd8b720f-aa85-51d5-aa00-c76ec45d399f)
Chapter Two (#ulink_d24ab17d-fa82-5618-accf-0b31ea5a1e01)
Chapter Three (#ulink_b99f5d00-131c-56e6-ae25-11e7cdc3f718)
Chapter Four (#ulink_40856ba2-9b1b-56aa-b4fa-2566618cdb9f)
Chapter Five (#ulink_a58c72ab-d341-5948-93fe-8c116905ee48)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_b0a4974f-e631-548f-b6ca-4a16fefe701b)
Countryside of Ardennes, France January 1805
Blackness pulsed around him, reaching its icy tentacles out to swirl about his feet and beneath his coat, up his torso until it nearly froze his skin. The tree branches clattered above, scrawny and bare of leaves as they scraped together like skeleton fingers. But Gregory Halston, third son of the sixth Marquess of Westerfield, remained still despite the foreboding sense that permeated the night, shrouding himself against a centuries-old oak as he stared at the fortified castle in the center of the field.
“Do you see them yet, Lord Gregory?”
“No.”
But they had to be coming. Any moment now. Too much planning had gone into this night for something to go awry. The journey across the English Channel and a hostile country at war with his own, the exorbitant funds paid for a guide to lead them through a land that had been fighting for nearly a decade, an even larger sum paid to bribe a cook and a guard to sneak messages, ropes and a sack of supplies to a certain pair of prisoners inside.
The endeavor was worth every last guinea.
Or it would be, provided the plan worked.
“Shouldn’t they have been here by now?” Farnsworth whispered. “And our guide has yet to arrive.”
Gregory clamped his teeth together. While valets had their uses in London, bringing his on a trek across war-ravaged France wasn’t one of his brightest ideas. “I realize that, thank you.”
“Do you want me to check my timepiece?”
“As that would involve lighting a lantern and likely alerting the guards to our presence, no.”
“I could always—”
“Farnsworth, stow it.”
The man grunted, and Gregory blew a breath into the silence, keeping his eyes pinned on the shadowed castle. Four rectangular walls jutted toward the sky, with looming guard towers anchoring each corner and a moat surrounding the entire structure. As a fortress, it would have been impregnable. Now that it functioned as one of Napoleon’s secret prisons, unauthorized entrance was utterly impossible.
What had his brother done to get himself jailed behind that massive stone edifice?
Gregory swallowed the lump forming in his throat. What Westerfield had done mattered little compared to getting him out. Unfortunately, Westerfield and his friend Kessler, the future Earl of Raleigh, had been imprisoned together, and rescuing one meant rescuing the other.
Gregory reached down and slid his palm slowly over the bullet scar in his thigh. He’d be happy to see his brother, yes. But as for the man who had faced him across a field at dawn nearly two years ago?
He would prefer to let him rot in prison.
“Do you think they had trouble deciphering the appointed time?” Farnsworth asked from beside him.
A trickle of apprehension started at the base of his neck and dripped down his spine. If only it was something so simple as a misread number. If only something hadn’t gone wrong inside those castle walls.
“Perhaps they mistook your two for a three.”
A dark blob, barely visible in the nighttime shadows, appeared through the opening of a second-story window, followed by a second blob.
The breath rushed from Gregory’s lungs. They were coming. Everything was according to plan, just a bit late. In another moment their guide would arrive, and they could head across the hills and fields toward the coast, and then on to England.
He ran his eyes over the shadowed forms, now inching slowly down the wall with nothing but ropes to hold them. But there were only two. Where was the third? Had something happened to the guard who was supposed to escape with them, the one who had smuggled the black cloaks and ropes into the prison? The one that was supposed to “accidentally” drop a key when delivering food this night?
No, nothing could have happened to him. Westerfield and Kessler wouldn’t be climbing down the castle wall if not for the guard, and the guard couldn’t have changed his mind about the escape. Gregory had already paid the man half a fortune, and once he reached England, the information he could provide about Napoleon’s police and secret prisons would net him another.
Perhaps the guard was one of the blobs and something had happened to Westerfield or Kessler.
Gregory tightened his hands into fists at his side. Just as long as his brother was one of the escaping forms. But with both men hidden beneath heavy cloaks as they inched down the dark castle wall, he couldn’t distinguish which was Westerfield—if his brother was even there at all.
He slanted a glance at the nearest guard tower, where lanterns cast their narrow beams through the windows and into the field beyond. No call rang out from the guards. A few more moments, a silent swim across the little moat, and two men would be free.
Please, Father God, let Westerfield be one of them.
Just then a cough ricocheted against the quiet waters and one of the men slipped, dangling precariously from the rope.
A wave of ice swept through Gregory. He turned toward the tower. Had the guards heard? Surely they must have. A cough like that couldn’t be ignored against such a silent night.
But no shout sounded from the tower, no extra lantern appeared at the window to better illuminate the out-of-doors. Nothing happened whatsoever.
Thank You, God.
The figure on the rope righted himself and climbed down the last few feet, slipping silently into the water. A moment later, the first escapee disappeared into the black depths.
“Stay here, Farnsworth.” Wrapped in his own dark cloak, Gregory broke away from the line of trees and headed toward the moat. His breath puffed hot against the cool winter air as he stood exposed.
Half a minute passed, then another. He stared at the calm surface of the water. How long did it take to swim a moat? Could something have happened underwater?
To both men, no less?
He wiped his damp palms on his thighs, though his gloves prevented the action from doing any good. This was something they hadn’t taught him at Eton and Cambridge, how to enter a country he was at war with and effect a prison break. All those useless hours sitting in lectures, studying and writing essays, and for what? The two schools hadn’t even taught him how to duel.
A head full of matted blond hair broke through the top of the water and heaved a gasp. Kessler.
Gregory’s leg wound, though healed for over a year, smarted afresh. He crossed his arms over his chest. The rat could climb out of the moat on his own.
But Kessler didn’t climb out, at least not immediately. Instead, he looked up, his face thin and drawn.
Gregory hardened his jaw. He’d known he’d see Kessler again, but it should have been in England surrounded by his family, not here on a field outside a prison in northern France. Not after he’d just helped the man who’d shot him to escape.
“Halston...” The world grew still around them, and even the lapping of the water seemed to cease, as though the air itself held its breath in anticipation of what Kessler might say.
Kessler stayed in the water, which had to be frigid given the cold January temperatures, and for a moment it seemed he decided to keep quiet. Then Kessler hefted himself onto the bank, the tendons in his emaciated hands and forearms stark even in the blackness. “I’m sorry.”
The breath exploded from Gregory’s lungs. His wound had become so infected he’d almost died. What was he supposed to do with an apology?
A small splash rippled the water, and he tore his gaze away from Kessler to the dark head full of shaggy hair surfacing at his feet.
“Westerfield.” The name felt odd on his tongue. His brother had been a mere heir to the Marquess of Westerfield when he’d entered France during a short-lived period of peace all those months ago. Now he was the marquess himself, and their father—the man the world had once called Westerfield—was dead.
Gregory held out a hand to pull Westerfield from the water.
The palm that reached up to wrap around him was naught but bones, with a grip so weak a child could break it. What had these despicable Frenchmen done to his once-strong brother?
Gregory hauled Westerfield out of the moat and wrapped his arms around him. Never mind that the embrace soaked his cloak and shirt. Never mind that they hadn’t time for such things until they were at least shrouded in the shelter of the trees.
A horrid stench rose up around him, sour and reeking of urine and vermin. He nearly broke his hold, would have, except Westerfield’s gaunt hand had only been the beginning of the horrid discovery. The man was so thin he might well be more corpse than human.
“Did they feed you?”
“On occasion.” The rasp in his brother’s words made the once-familiar voice barely recognizable. Westerfield sagged into him, as though too weak to stand on his own. Then a cough racked his chest, ringing out over the water and up the castle walls.
“Get him to the trees,” Kessler murmured. “You can greet each other there.”
Gregory wrapped his arms tighter around Westerfield, bracing him more than hugging him. Was his brother ill? That hadn’t been reported. The guard had claimed Westerfield and Kessler were both in excellent health.
Gregory looked at Kessler. Though the man stood covered in a sopping black cloak, ’twas plain from his pronounced cheekbones and the drawn way his skin sank into his face that he’d fared little better than Westerfield. “There’s only the two of you?”
Kessler frowned. “Yes. Were there supposed to be more?”
“I arranged for three escapes, the last was supposed to be the...”
A lantern appeared in one of the lower castle windows, voices carrying across the moat.
“Could there have been an escape?”
Despite Gregory’s rather basic understanding of French, the meaning of the words was clear enough.
“Non. No escape, not here!”
“One of the cells below is empty.”
“I know nothing of it.”
“Wake the guards, and search the castle. The men couldn’t have gotten outside these walls.”
“What if they did?”
“We must hasten,” Kessler growled quietly, then wrapped an arm beneath one of Westerfield’s shoulders.
They scrambled toward the trees together, stopping only when they met Farnsworth. But the tree line could offer only momentary respite. They needed to get away, yet the guard hadn’t made the escape, and their French guide was still missing.
Westerfield coughed again, the bone-deep sound jarring against the otherwise still night. “Slower next time.”
A call rang out from somewhere inside the towering stone walls of the castle, followed by an echo in response. Gregory didn’t look back to see whether more lanterns had appeared in the windows, but he could well guess the next cry before it left the mouth of a distant guard.
“Escape!”
The shout reverberated across the field and bounced against the trees.
A cold dread filled his chest. They’d been betrayed.
And stranded.
In the middle of France.
At the center of a war.
He glanced briefly around his group. Four men, all unmistakably English. Their clothing and coin might be French, but their tongues were English. They could manage to speak some French between them, yes, but not without accents.
By this time tomorrow night, they’d all be rotting inside a dark French dungeon, and something told him their new home was going to make the horrors his brother and Kessler had endured look trivial in comparison.
* * *
Danielle Belanger crouched beside the campfire and laid another stick on the licking flames, then sighed.
Another task failed.
Oh, she’d been sent to Reims to visit with her aunt, true. And the visit had gone rather well. Her mother’s sister was kind, generous, well respected...
And had tried introducing her to every decent, unmarried man in the city.
Those meetings had turned out about as well as all her introductions to men in her hometown of Abbeville.
Two and twenty years of age, and no one wanted to marry her.
Not that she wanted to marry any of them, but most girls four years her younger were happily married and bearing babes. Shouldn’t she have had at least one marriage proposal by now?
Or rather, she’d had one, she supposed.
Well, more like a dozen. But none of them from men any sane woman would marry. Perhaps if she was blind and docile and preferred spending her days mucking stalls and spinning yarn, she could be happily married. But she certainly didn’t take to mucking stalls—they stank too much. Or spinning yarn—one had to sit far too still to manage such a task. She wasn’t blind, and as for the docile part, well...
“I could only get one.” Serge, her younger brother by six years, emerged from the tangle of trees and shrubs lining the creek. A squirrel dangled from his hand by the tail.
She rolled her eyes. “Go back for another, then.” He held out the squirrel for her to take. She merely crossed her arms. “Papa said you need to practice.”
“Come on, Dani. You can have it skinned in half the time.”
Which was likely why her younger brother had reached sixteen and was the slowest animal skinner in all of Abbeville.
“I caught and cleaned the rabbit last night. It’s your turn.” She eyed the bloodied animal, a large stab wound gaping in its chest. “And you’ve little choice about going back for more. Mayhap we could have shared just the one had your blade hit between the eyes. But knifing it in the chest like that, you lost too much meat.”
Which her brother should have known.
Maybe he wasn’t just the worst in Abbeville at handling a knife. He had to be the most inept in all of northern France.
She pushed up from her crouched position by the fire and stood, stretching her back before turning to head upstream.
“Where are you going?” Serge called after her.
“To look for berries.”
“In January?”
She shrugged. So mayhap she wouldn’t happen upon berries, but she might find some burdock or cattail root to dig. Anything to get her away from the fire. If she lingered there, she’d end up doing all Serge’s work, and she could hardly sit still long enough for him to find another squirrel.
He likely wouldn’t return until after dark, the dunce.
She made her way along the water, sluggish from the coolness of winter, but not frigid enough to turn to ice. Leafless brambles and shrubs sprang from soil still damp from yesterday’s rain. She shivered inside her cloak and glanced up at the gray sky through the tree branches above. Home would be more temperate than this, near enough the channel’s warm waters to drive winter’s chill away.
Something rustled ahead, then a rabbit scampered out from beneath a bush and darted toward a little thicket. Within half a second, she had her blade in hand, her fingers gripping the familiar leather handle. One throw, quick as lightning and silent as a snake, and she’d have their supper.
Except Papa had all but commanded she let Serge do the hunting on their trip, saying he had to learn sometime. And she’d done most of the hunting on the way to Reims, then yesterday, on the first day of their journey, she’d killed a rabbit.
She was going to be good and obedient—for perhaps the third or fourth time in her life—and let Serge do tonight’s hunting. She sighed, her grip loosening on the knife.
As though sensing the sudden lack of danger, the rabbit stopped and turned, sniffing the air before staring straight at her.
Too easy a kill to bother with now anyway. What was the fun of throwing a knife when her target was still rather than moving? She bent and slipped her blade back against her ankle and continued down the little stream, winding her way deeper into the woods.
She could almost see the resigned look in Maman’s eyes and hear her exasperated sigh when Maman realized her eldest daughter had returned to Abbeville husbandless. Two towns, with a suitable groom yet to be found. Two! Papa claimed God had a plan for her. That she only needed to wait on Him, and everything would fall into place.
Evidently Papa didn’t understand how hard it was for her to wait for anything—let alone for God, Whom she couldn’t see or touch.
As though waiting for the right man to happen along hadn’t already taken long enough.
A rustling sounded from the trees behind her. Likely another rabbit. But no, the noise was too loud for such a small animal. A fox, perhaps?
She stilled until only the trickle of the creek over rocks and the tapping of tree branches in the wind filled her ears. Another sound, deep and rich, carried on the faint breeze.
A distant, undeniably male voice.
She reached for the knife strapped at her ankle once more, then straightened, stepping stealthily around twigs and through a tangle of saplings.
Probably not anyone to worry about. Just another traveling party stopped to make use of the stream.
Except they were settled awfully deep into the woods to be merely traveling.
Then again, she was nestled rather deeply into the woods, as well. But the trees provided ample opportunity to find game, and with only her and Serge, she didn’t want to invite trouble. She could defend herself well enough, ’twas true, but she wasn’t going to seek disquiet, either.
A different person would probably turn around and head back to the campsite, pack up and move another kilometer downstream before settling in for the night. That would certainly be the safe thing to do. The predictable, normal, safe thing.
But then she wouldn’t know who the travelers were, whether they posed a threat.
She crept closer to the voices. The cadences were low, all male but slightly different. She slipped silently between two shrubs, years of moving quietly through the woods while hunting with Papa aiding her stealth. She only needed to creep a bit closer.
Something about the voices didn’t sit right. The intonation seemed off, rough and coarse, without the gentle roll of French off one’s tongue. Perhaps if she overheard a word or two, she could better understand why they were camped so obscurely. The men could be anyone from gendarmes to army deserters to thieves.
Or they could be normal travelers having just left Reims and heading toward the coast like her and Serge.
Either way, she needed to know.
She crouched lower and inched forward. Something moved ahead, a flash of cream on the other side of the brambles. Then a cough sounded, loud and harsh and from deep within the chest.
Whoever made up this party, one of their members seemed not much longer for this world.
A gruff voice filled the air. “I still say we’re better to travel during the day.”
The breath in her lungs turned to ice. She couldn’t have heard right. No. Certainly not. It almost sounded as if they spoke...
“He’s right,” another man rasped, followed by a small cough. “We can’t travel at night. We hardly know which way to go during the day. We’d be lost within a matter of hours.”
English.
She swallowed against her suddenly dry throat. That vile country’s navy had killed her older brother. If she never saw another Englishman or heard the language spoken again, she’d be happy, indeed.
But what were a band of Englishmen doing here?
She squeezed her eyes shut. No. Never mind. She didn’t want to know.
Definitely didn’t want to know.
Most assuredly didn’t want to know.
She simply needed to get herself and her younger brother away from this place.
She began to back away as stealthily as she’d crept up. Except, with her hands shaking and her heartbeat thudding wildly in her ears, she wasn’t stealthy at all. Clumsy, more like. Her foot cracked a dried twig, and her cloak brushed against the brambles. She paused for a moment. Had they heard?
“We’re lost now.” A third voice, higher pitched than the first two and with a hint of intelligence behind his words, spoke.
She let out a silent breath. They’d noticed nothing. Now she need only move quietly—because she could be quiet if she didn’t let panic get the better of her—back through the brambles. Then she’d find Serge, and they’d pack up camp. Dinner could be some of the salt pork and bread they carried. No need for freshly roasted squirrel now, not when they had to find a gendarmerie post and report the Englishmen.
Because Englishmen traveling through France during the middle of a war could only be spies.
What secrets would these men impart to the British government if they reached the coast and no one stopped them? She was glad they were lost. They could walk around in circles for the next week.
Except by then, she’d have found that gendarmerie post and explained everything. A week hence, those British spies would be moldering in some nameless dungeon, likely being tortured and pouring forth whatever secrets they’d discovered about her country.
Which was exactly what they deserved.
But first she had to get away without anyone noticing.
“What do you want us to do? Stop and ask for directions?” The third, intelligent-sounding voice dripped with sarcasm. “Or perhaps a map? I’m sure there’s a very welcoming gendarmerie station along the road to Saint-Quentin. We need only present ourselves and say, ‘Good day, sirs. Could you tell me the quickest way from here to the channel? You see, I’ve two es—”
Something crashed in the woods behind her. Danielle whirled, the leather handle of her knife clamped tightly between her fingers. But too late. A male body slammed into her from the side and crashed her to the ground.
Shrubs scratched her arms and tore at her cloak as the man rolled himself over her. She fought as he struggled to sit up while holding her to the ground. He wasn’t overlarge or terribly strong, but he plunked himself down directly atop her while trapping the forearm that held her knife beneath his knee. If she could only find some way to upend him...
“Come quickly! I’ve found a spy.”
A spy? Her?
She wasn’t a spy. She was just...well, spying, but not for the reason they thought. They were the spies, and she’d only wanted to make certain she and Serge were safe from the men camped so close to their own site.
Or rather, that’s all she’d wanted to do until she’d discovered the mysterious men were English.
“What’s that you say?” The English voices grew closer and footsteps thudded on the muddy ground.
“You found someone?”
If she was going to get free, she had to do so quickly. She’d not lie there docilely while men from the same country that had killed Laurent attempted to capture her. She brought her knee up, trying to uproot the oaf’s bottom. The man only gripped her shoulders and pressed her harder against the damp earth. She twisted and turned, but his weight made it difficult to suck in air and his knee still pinned her knife hand.
“She was watching from the bushes,” her captor explained. “I wouldn’t have spotted her except she started moving as I was coming up from the stream with the water.”
Danielle pressed her eyes shut and stifled a groan. She should have considered someone might be at the stream, should have thought to scout the area before she’d even started into the bushes. Instead, she’d turned into a complete and total idiot at the sound of one simple phrase in English.
“What’s your name?” the intelligent voice asked in English.
She opened her eyes and stared at the tall form above her, with tousled dark brown hair, an arrogant, aristocratic nose, and eyes the color of fog over the ocean. Not quite gray but not quite blue, and just mysterious enough one might stare into them a bit too long, trying to understand—
“Her name matters not,” a deeper voice snapped. “How much did she overhear?” Another man appeared above her, leaner and taller than the first, with a face so thin and wan the bones seemed to jut from it. His hands appeared just as bony, as though he hadn’t had a good meal in the past half decade. But his emaciated body didn’t stop his shrewd green eyes from narrowing at her.
She licked her lips. What should she tell them? She hadn’t overheard much beyond that they were lost and debating when to travel. Could she pretend as though she didn’t know English and hadn’t understood a word? They had little reason to suspect a woman such as her would know their language.
And even if she wanted to answer their questions, she couldn’t manage to speak more than a word or two with an English ignoramus sitting atop her stomach and squishing the air from her body.
“I daresay she didn’t overhear anything,” the raspy voice spoke from the other side of the brambles. Then that horrid coughing filled the air again.
“A woman like her isn’t going to know English,” the dunce atop her proclaimed. At least he was useful for something besides squishing the breath from her body. “Lord Westerfield is right.”
Lord Westerfield? She nearly groaned, would have if she possessed the ability to breathe.
She moved her gaze between the two men standing above her, their patrician noses and arrogant bearings suddenly more than mere circumstance. As if finding regular Englishmen hiding in the woods wasn’t trouble enough. She’d somehow stumbled into a nest of aristocrats.
Just her luck.
“Try in French, Halston.” The thin blond man nudged the darker haired one—Halston, evidently.
Halston scowled at the other man. “You try in French. You’re the one who’s spent the past year and a half in this wretched country.”
“The only French I found use for were curses. The rest of the language I’d like to forget as quickly as possible.”
Danielle bit the side of her lip. This was probably supposed to be the moment she turned grateful for all those horrid English lessons her mother had forced upon her while growing up.
Except she still didn’t feel all that grateful—though it was rather helpful to know what they were saying instead of being left to guess their intent.
And now that she had a moment to consider, she’d best not speak in English. She might lay pinned beneath a wiry man who felt far heavier than he looked, but she still had two things to her advantage. First, her captors didn’t realize she understood their words, and second, they didn’t know about Serge.
If she managed nothing else from this debacle, she would at least keep them from learning of her brother.
“Stand her up, Farnsworth. Let’s have a look at her,” the blond commanded.
“She’s a person, Kessler, not some dog,” Halston growled.
The two men stared at each other, the air between them igniting like the sudden spark of a flintlock. Then Kessler turned away and the man atop her began to rise.
She tightened the grip on her knife, waiting for the perfect moment...
Chapter Two (#ulink_e35d2edb-8b75-5dd2-aa6d-8a478b3d374b)
Gregory had never seen anything more astounding. One second the woman was lying docilely beneath Farnsworth’s hold, and the next she’d reversed their positions, flipping his valet to the ground and sitting atop him, a knife pressed to his throat.
“Come any closer, and your servant dies.” The woman spoke in a calm, controlled voice, and judging by the fierce look etched across her face, she wasn’t bluffing. The French words fell comfortably off her tongue, only confirming what they’d already suspected. She knew not a lick of English.
Something sick rolled through his stomach. Why had he brought Farnsworth on this wretched journey in the first place? As though endangering himself, his brother and Kessler wasn’t enough.
He took a step closer to the woman, but her grip on the knife only tightened and her lips pressed into a thin white line. How was he supposed to get her off Farnsworth if she wouldn’t even let him approach?
“Lord Gregory,” Farnsworth gasped, evidently not minding moving his throat to speak despite the wicked-looking blade pressed against it. “I could use a little help here, if you don’t mind. Perhaps you might find my service to you worth a guinea or two and be willing to—”
“Silence!” the woman snapped.
Though the pronunciation in French was quite different from English, Gregory had no trouble recognizing the word.
He reached into his pocket and fished out two napoleons, speaking to Kessler without taking his eyes off the woman. “We can let her go.” Once he convinced her to leave Farnsworth unharmed, that was. “She couldn’t have understood what we were saying.”
“No, but she likely understands we’re English.” Kessler tilted his nose down at the woman. “Where do you think she’ll head the moment we free her?”
Of course Kessler would have to argue with him. Though he did agree on one point: the woman was trouble, plain as day, with all that thick black hair ready to tumble from beneath her mobcap, those sharp blue eyes, quick reflexes...
And the blade.
She’d lain meekly under Farnsworth the entire time they talked about her, and somehow they’d all missed she had a blade. “Ah, shouldn’t we be more concerned about her freeing Farnsworth at the moment than us freeing her?”
Kessler waved his hand absently in the air. “She’s only a wench. Surely she can’t hold him for more than a minute or two, and then we’ll need to know what to do with her.”
True, they needed a plan for after she released Farnsworth, but first and foremost, they needed to get that knife away from her and his valet off the ground.
“Excusez moi.” He stepped closer to the woman, the rusted French bumbling over his tongue. He cringed a bit, and a trace of a smile curved the woman’s lips. But at least she didn’t press the knife closer to Farnsworth’s throat. “I give you my word that we won’t hurt you, but we have a few questions.”
Kessler made a disapproving sound, but what did he expect the woman to be told? That they wouldn’t let her go? They’d have to eventually. They could hardly cart another person all the way to the coast just to make certain she didn’t run off and inform the gendarmes of their whereabouts. A napoleon or two would likely keep her silence for the next half century.
“Leave it be, Kessler,” Westerfield said from where he lay on his blankets, his weak voice ten times more alarming than finding a woman spying on them through the bushes. Though if Gregory had to pick between some foul lung disease or a half-crazed Frenchwoman holding a knife to his neck, he might just pick the lung disease.
“You can’t truly think the girl will keep quiet,” Kessler protested, but he’d turned to face Westerfield, the rigidness leaving his shoulders like it did whenever the man was around his brother.
“Just watch.” Gregory crouched down, meeting the woman’s eyes. Eyes that were too blue in a face that was smooth and perfect as porcelain. She looked like some Celtic warrior sitting atop Farnsworth, the knife still gripped in her hand. She wasn’t the typical English rose, but if a woman of her beauty entered a ballroom in London, she would have half-a-dozen suitors come morning.
Except first she needed the wealth and position that would place her in a London ballroom. Her presence in the woods, coupled with her rough brown coat, indicated she had neither.
He held up the two coins in his hand. “I’ll give you two napoleons. One if you put that knife away, and another if you don’t tell anyone we were here. We’ll be gone in the morning and won’t be back. Agreed?”
The woman’s chin came up. “I don’t want your filthy coin.”
He slipped the French coins back into his pocket, took out two guineas and extended his hand. “Guineas, then.”
She spit into the dirt at his feet. “As if filthy, English money will do more to change my mind.”
He raised an eyebrow at that. His “filthy English money” was gold, like the napoleons, but the British currency was far more stable than the French, which was why he carried both with him.
“Are there any others in your traveling party?” Kessler snapped in a French accent not nearly as horrid as Gregory’s. The liar.
The defiant look left the woman’s face, and her eyes skittered wildly to the left then right. She drew her knife away from Farnsworth a fraction of an inch and sucked in a deep breath.
He sensed her plan an instant before she moved. She loosed a bloodcurdling scream and heaved herself off Farnsworth, bolting into the brush and vanishing even quicker than she’d first appeared.
Gregory instantly moved toward the creek. He lengthened his gait, one stride then two, nearly close enough to catch her. “Stop.”
She sprang lithely through the brambles, then darted around a dead log and between two saplings, quick as a pickpocket running through London alleys. If not for his guessing her escape, she’d have been gone.
“Stop!” he tried again.
She didn’t even look back, just kept running.
He pumped his legs harder. A thick stand of fir trees loomed ahead, its shadows black in the growing darkness. If she made it into the dense branches, he’d never find her. Yet she was only a few steps ahead of him. He couldn’t reach her with his arms, but would likely fell her if he lunged.
He grimaced at the thought of crashing to the ground, as she’d just held a knife to his valet’s throat. What else was he to do? He drew in a breath, readied his legs, braced himself for the pain of landing on the forest floor...
And dove.
His hands felt only the fabric of her skirts as he fell. He stretched farther as he collided with the dirt, finally gripping a limb beneath the layers of cloth. One hard yank, and the woman squealed. Then she crashed in front of him, landing in earth still soft from yesterday’s rain.
She rolled quickly onto her back, but he kept hold of her ankle—which she attempted to kick furiously at his head.
“Be still,” he gritted in English.
She only fought harder, as though his words, which she couldn’t understand, had somehow incensed her.
He climbed closer, resting his weight on her legs until she was forced to stop kicking. Only then did he see why she struggled so hard. Her knife lay on the ground an arm’s length in front of her.
“Farnsworth, Kessler,” he called, then frowned. Was he really about to ask the man who’d shot him in the leg for help?
One way or another, this trip was going to be the death of him.
“Over here,” he shouted a bit louder. “I need some...help.”
It was galling to admit, both because Kessler would be involved in the helping, and because his opponent was a woman. Yet he couldn’t keep her still enough to—
A sharp slice of pain seared his cheek, followed by a screeching, “Non!”
Teach him to not watch her wolfishly quick hands. He reached up to grasp the woman’s wrist before she could withdraw it and stared down at her bloody nails while his cheek throbbed wildly. Blast, but that was going to leave a nice wound.
“Let me go. I know nothing,” she spit out in French.
But she did know something. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be struggling so hard to free herself. Otherwise, she would have taken his guineas.
Footfalls sounded, and a moment later Kessler’s and Farnsworth’s boots appeared on the ground beside him. “Someone get the knife.”
Kessler headed toward the blade while Farnsworth hunkered down and grasped the woman’s free arm.
“You’re bleeding, Lord Gregory.”
As though he hadn’t noticed. He would have rolled his eyes if he wasn’t so busy stilling the woman’s legs as she tried to knee him in the stomach yet again. Instead, he wiped his bleeding cheek against the shoulder of his shirt.
Farnsworth clucked his tongue “And you’re rather a mess.”
That he was, covered in mud from ankles to shoulders. Even now cold dampness seeped through his clothing around his knees.
“Perhaps, but I have the girl.” Which ought to count for something.
Kessler returned, knife in hand.
“Hold her other arm while I get up.”
Kessler shoved the knife into a pocket of his greatcoat and came near enough to take the woman’s shoulder opposite Farnsworth. Gregory rolled away from her legs quickly enough so as not to get himself kicked—though she tried, the hoyden.
He stood while Kessler and Farnsworth hauled her up. Two men to hold one woman, and still she looked around as though planning another escape attempt. Then her gaze landed on the hilt of her knife peeking from Kessler’s pocket.
Gregory sprang forward and wrenched the blade away an instant before the woman’s hand touched the spot where the hilt had rested.
Her lips curled into a snarl.
He took a step back lest she attempt to swipe the blade from his hold. Instead she jerked hard on the shoulder Kessler held, forcing his hand to slip an inch.
“Hold still, wench, or we’ll use that knife on you,” Kessler snapped in French.
The woman stilled, panic flashing through her eyes for the briefest of instants before she masked it.
What was he going to do with her? Her hair had come completely free of her cap and hung wildly about her shoulders with thick clumps of mud matted in the riotous mess. More mud splattered her dress, starting at the hem and working up her body. And from how she’d lain on the ground earlier, the back of her dress was probably soaked through and caked with mud as well.
Yet somehow, despite her filth and bedraggled state, she was magnificent.
And here he’d thought Joan of Arc had been burned at the stake several centuries past. Surely the woman before him could lead an army into battle just as well as the legendary heroine.
“Before you ran, I asked who you traveled with.” He spoke slowly in French, so she wouldn’t mistake a single word of his statement
Her nose came up and her jaw hardened, yet she met his gaze with her icy, sky-blue eyes. Once again, she resembled the ancient woman warrior who had defied the English even when facing death.
“Answer me. Who else is with you?”
Silence permeated the forest, the faint trickle of the creek and the occasional tapping of tree branches in the breeze the only sounds surrounding them.
“Perhaps she travels alone, sir.” Farnsworth shifted his weight beside the woman. “Or perhaps she doesn’t understand your question.”
Oh, she knew what he asked, all right. Knew more than she was willing to admit.
“Hold the knife to her throat,” Kessler commanded. “She’ll talk then.”
Gregory ground his teeth together. The man had shot him in the leg, fled the country and then found himself in a French prison for sixteen months...and still failed to learn that violence seldom solved one’s problems. “I promised not to harm her.”
Though that had been before she’d fled into the woods, rolled around in the mud with him and scratched his cheek.
Kessler arched an eyebrow. “How else do you plan to force answers? She’s not volunteering any.”
He glanced at the woman’s throat, slim and creamy beneath the mud that splattered it. Unfortunately, Kessler had a point.
And what kind of barbarian had this journey turned him into that he considered holding a knife on a woman?
“No. There’s another way.” He gestured in her direction, though she’d remained curiously still ever since Kessler had threatened to use the knife on her. “This is no fool lass. When she reached the creek, she headed upstream, which means her traveling party must be downstream. We only need to find them.”
The woman jerked against Kessler’s and Farnsworth’s holds, forcing the two men to grapple for a better grip on her shoulders. Slight though she was, restraining a woman wasn’t exactly an everyday task valets and future earls performed in England.
France, on the other hand, was proving to be quite different.
A torrent of French words poured from her mouth. Most of them came too fast for him to understand, though he caught something about how she’d sit down and talk with them now.
Finally.
“Do you remember those napoleons I showed you earlier?” He spoke haltingly as he approached her. “I have more, but you need to be silent first.”
Her body grew still though her chest heaved from spent exertion. She tossed her head backward, likely trying to dislodge the mess of hair that had fallen over her face to hide her eyes.
Kessler and Farnsworth hardened their holds on her shoulders, but Gregory stepped forward and reached out a hand, smoothing the tangled hair away from her cheek and back over her shoulder. Frightened blue eyes came up to meet his, and he paused, his hand resting on her shoulder. He’d thought her beautiful before, but he’d underestimated. Her skin wasn’t just creamy, but as soft as a daffodil’s petals during spring. Her hair not merely long and wavy, but as rich as velvet. And those eyes...they appeared a light, icy-blue at first, but when standing this close, darker streaks flared through the lighter blue like little starbursts before they rimmed her irises. Irises that still held a muted look of fear.
Fear he’d put there.
“A comely thing, isn’t she?” Kessler smirked.
Gregory dropped his hand, took an abrupt step back and blew out a breath. What was he thinking touching a woman’s hair in such an intimate manner, letting his hand linger on her shoulder? He’d never behaved so forwardly in his life. Then again, save for his mother and sister, he’d never seen a grown woman’s hair down, either.
“You’re not to touch her, Kessler.”
The man stared pointedly at where his hands gripped her shoulder and upper arm. “No?”
A sudden bout of memories flashed through his mind. Suzanna’s hunched shoulders and tearstained face on that dark night. The quiet field outside their country estate at dawn. The searing pain in his leg as a bullet lodged itself beside the bone. As a simple serving girl on his family’s estate, Suzanna had never shown this woman’s fiery determination, nor was she as beautiful, but the situation was far too similar. He cleared his throat. “You know to what I refer.”
All color had fled the lord’s face, leaving it pale and drawn. Kessler’s memories must have traveled to the same place as his own.
Good. Perchance those memories would help Kessler behave around the Frenchwoman.
“Then what do you propose we do with the wench? We certainly can’t free her.”
“The first thing we’re going to do is check on Westerfield.” Who’d been left untended for far too long. “Then we’re going to find her traveling party.”
Which would hopefully provide him with some answers. Because night was falling, and he still hadn’t a clue what to do with her.
* * *
Danielle stumbled down onto the makeshift pallet where Farnsworth and Kessler thrust her. As if the English capturing the frigate where Laurent served and killing him hadn’t been enough, now some English had captured her and were about to take Serge, as well.
Kessler knelt down to hold her in place then growled something unintelligible at Farnsworth. The servant walked stiffly away, back straight and posture perfect as he found a sack and rummaged through it. He started back for them, a length of thick rope in his hands.
“Non!” She attempted to pull away from Kessler, but the arrogant blond only clenched her arms harder.
“Quickly,” he boomed at the servant.
“Please don’t tie me. I promise I won’t run.” And she wouldn’t, not when the men were planning to find Serge and bring him here. It would be easier to meet him in the English camp and then plan their escape. If she managed to free herself now, she’d not have time to find her brother and pack before the Englishmen were upon them. Better to wait and then run while everyone else slept.
But she wouldn’t be able to escape if they tied her.
The servant knelt beside her and held the rope out to Kessler.
“You should have considered how we might deal with you before you held a knife to Farnsworth’s neck.” Kessler’s cruel words bored into the back of her head.
“Non. Please...” She swallowed against the panic creeping into her voice, but that didn’t stop the hot burn of tears from rising in her eyes.
“Stop.” Halston’s stern voice carried from the other side of the fire, where he sat watching her from beside the sick man’s pallet. “Don’t tie her.”
“We haven’t a choice.” Kessler took the rope from Farnsworth, his grip leaving her for the barest of moments.
She used that instant to roll away. “I won’t run. You have to believe me.”
She sought Halston’s eyes over the orange flicker of flames. He might be the one who had thwarted her escape, but he also seemed the most inclined to be merciful.
“You held a knife to my valet’s throat, then ran through the woods like a madwoman.” His gray-blue eyes locked with hers. “Why should I trust you?”
She bowed her head, letting the fight drain from her body. Why indeed? “I promise.”
Halston stood and came around the fire, the small muscle along the side of his jaw working back and forth. “Fine. But run again and you will be tied.”
Kessler stood. “You’re a fool, Halston,” he muttered in English, obviously still not comprehending that she could understand their conversation. “A pretty woman does naught but bat her eyes, and you believe anything she says.”
“Just look at her. She’s so frightened she’s trembling.”
Danielle glanced down at her hands, which unfortunately were shaking, and tucked them under her arms.
“Maybe leaving her unrestrained makes me a fool, but at least I’m not an ogre,” Halston retorted.
The air between the two men sparked again, an angry exchange that she didn’t begin to understand.
“Watch her closely.” Kessler jutted his chin toward her. “If she flees, it’s on you.”
“Seeing how you’re free at this moment because I rescued you, I don’t think asking you to trust me is too big a request.”
Free? Danielle looked between the two men. Free from what? The most obvious answer was prison. Had one of them been imprisoned for spying? Were they prison escapees as well as spies?
“How easily you forget.” Kessler’s eyes shot tiny sparks at Halston. “You started this entire mess nearly two years ago.”
Halston looked away, rubbing a hand through his already tousled hair. “Farnsworth, go scout downstream and invite whoever’s in charge of the woman’s party back here. There’s no need for threats or violence. We can likely pay them for their silence, and they should be able to convince the woman to cooperate.”
“Yes, my lord.” The servant started toward the creek, this time heading downstream rather than upstream.
Danielle stared at her hands, unbound—at least for now. A helplessly sick feeling rose in her chest. What if she was making the wrong choice? What if Halston let Kessler tie her and her brother tonight so they couldn’t escape? What if the Englishmen were crueler to her younger brother than they had been to her?
She should have thought her actions through better from the beginning. Should have pretended she didn’t care whether they searched the banks of the stream instead of panicking when they first asked who she traveled with.
But she’d always been a poor liar. She could fight to defend herself, oui, but she gave herself away the moment she so much as thought about uttering a falsehood.
She glanced around the woods, surveying the brambles and saplings immediately surrounding them, the more stately trees rooted to the forest beyond. Better to not attempt any lies and stay quiet for the next few hours. Once darkness fell, she could lead her brother into the dense woods.
The sick man lying on the bedroll on the far side of the camp coughed—hadn’t the servant called him Lord Westerfield? Not that she would utter the title “lord” to any man. Her captors might be English by birth, but they were in France now, and in France, everyone was a citizen. All of equal value and standing.
Halston gave her a hard look, then turned back toward the sick man. Kessler had moved to the opposite side of the fire where he rummaged through a sack, not nearly so trusting as Halston. His eyes didn’t leave her for an instant.
Not that she could blame him.
So she tucked her knees up into her chest and waited.
And waited.
And waited. Soon the two hale Englishmen started arguing about which one of them would make tea for the sick one. Evidently neither knew the first thing about boiling water. And the British wondered why the French had overthrown their own aristocracy.
Halston sorted through a sack until he found some salt pork and offered it to Kessler, who wrinkled his nose but took of the offering.
Halston turned to her, the dried meat extended in his hand. She raised her chin and looked away. She’d rather starve than take food from those who shared the same nationality as the men who’d killed her brother.
The brambles near the creek rustled, and she tensed, watching, waiting. If any harm had come to Serge, she’d find some way to punish them all. These insidious English knew not how deadly she was with a knife—even if they had taken hers for the moment.
But Serge stepped into the clearing of his own volition, spotted her and headed straight over, plopping himself down onto her blanket.
“Dani, what did you go and get yourself into?”
“A nest of English spies.”
Halston dropped his cup of tea to the ground. “What did you say?”
She swallowed, her tongue freezing against the roof of her mouth. What had she done?
Or rather, what had Serge done?
Repercussions of her simple mistake echoed through her body. Serge had spoken to her in English—had probably been speaking to the servant in English since the man first found him by the river.
And she’d answered him back.
In English.
“You speak our tongue.” Halston narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ve understood every word we’ve said.”
“I knew she was hiding something.” Kessler spit into the ground by the fire.
She was going to kill her brother. Slowly. Torturously. She turned so her back faced Halston, though that didn’t stop the growing vibrations from his footsteps as he approached.
“What were you thinking?” she whispered to her brother furiously. “How dare you let them know we speak their language? We’re their prisoners, and you just gave away one of our advantages.”
“Calm down, Dani.” Serge reached over to pat her back. “They’re nice. Besides, it’s not like they’ve got us tied up or anything.”
If he only knew.
“Why didn’t you tell us you spoke English?” Halston’s irate voice boomed from above her, all traces of mercy and consideration vanished in the storm of his anger. “Well?”
She didn’t need to turn around to know where he stood. She could feel his nearness, the heat of his legs boring into her back, the fury of his rage rolling off him. The hair on the back of her neck prickled in instinctive dread, and she bit the side of her lip. But really, there was only one thing to say. In English, unfortunately. “I demand you let us go.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
She jumped at the underlying bite to his words, then glanced at Serge, who stared up at the Englishman with wide eyes.
“What exactly did you overhear earlier, before Farnsworth found you in the shrubs?”
Before Farnsworth had found her? Something about traveling at night and being lost and a sarcastic comment that involved asking the gendarmes for directions—which was about the time she’d decided to go find a gendarmerie post herself and turn the men in.
And also happened to be about the time she’d made too much noise backing through the shrubs.
She licked her lips. “Nothing terribly significant.”
“Turn around.”
She startled again, the edge in his voice warning her not to disobey.
He crouched before her, his large, looming body so close all moisture leached from her mouth. “I don’t believe you.”
“I didn’t...that is...I don’t...I mean...um...”
“Tell me—Dani, is it?” His gray-blue eyes flashed at her.
“Danielle,” Serge piped up. “Just the family calls her Dani.”
“Danielle.” The name sounded long and cool on his tongue, an oddity considering the way the rest of his words smoldered. “What is it you think we’re going to do to you?”
She squeezed her eye shut. Take her and Serge to England, throw them in a dungeon and leave them to starve. Or maybe he wouldn’t take them to England but kill them here in the woods and bury...
“Danielle, look at me.”
She forced her eyes open. “I know not.”
“I’m not going to harm you, merely offer you a few napoleons—a business proposition, if you will. Are you familiar with business?”
She nodded, afraid to speak an answer lest he somehow trap her with her own words. She was already quite trapped enough with the way his intense eyes refused to let hers go and the way his strong body hovered so near her own.
“Our papa lets land and farms.” Serge, evidently, didn’t feel quite so trapped. The dunce. “And he owns a share in a clothing manufactory. We know all about business.”
The man’s eyes left her gaze, only to run slowly down the rest of her hunched form. “And you’re good with a blade...know English rather well.”
“Our maman taught us the English,” Serge spoke up again, and Danielle clamped her jaw so tightly her teeth ground together. Would the boy never learn to hold his tongue? “She used to be a governess, she did, and insisted we learn it. Then there’s our aunt and uncle across the channel, so we’ve got to know English for when we go over there to visit.”
Halston’s eyebrows rose. “You have relatives on the other side of the channel?”
“Hush, Serge,” she gritted.
“And you visit them despite the war?”
Serge finally closed his mouth, but it was too late. Gregory’s calculating eyes gleamed in triumph.
The kind of triumph that could only mean her own defeat.
“You’re perfect, then. I’m in need of a guide to the channel, and you have the ability to take us there.”
Every muscle in her body turned hard as stone as she stared at the abhorrent man. Help men from the country that had killed her brother? The man had to be mad. “Do you think me a traitor? I care not how much coin you can offer. I will not aid English spies. Not now and not ever.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_3fe65faf-e374-5c11-8006-5565ef2036a3)
“Spies?” Gregory sputtered. “You think we’re spies?”
The accusation was laughable, really, if it didn’t carry such deadly implications should they be caught and imprisoned as such. “Last I checked, English spies don’t get themselves lost or need maps. English spies speak flawless French, and if you met an English spy on the street, you’d never know.”
The color that had suffused the woman’s cheeks just moments before drained away, and her jaw fell open for the slightest of instants before she hardened it again. “You’re still Englishmen. In my country. In the middle of a war. You can have no honest reason for being here, or you would not dread being spotted by the gendarmes. Do you expect me to take your guineas or napoleons or whatever other coins you offer and let you continue on your way to the channel with no objection?”
He sent a gaze toward the heavens. “No. I want you to help us get to the channel.”
She turned her back to him.
“I’ll pay you well. I’ve only a few guineas now, but I can promise two thousand pounds sterling if you see us safely to the coast.”
The woman still didn’t deign to face him. “I told you once. I don’t want your filthy English money.”
Heat surged up the back of his neck. “My money is far from filthy.”
“Dani, don’t be a fool.” The youth nudged his sister. At least one of them had a fraction of sense. “Just think of it. Two thousand pounds is enough to buy up more of the clothing manufactory. Why, you could start your own factory for that sum.”
She swiped a strand of hair from her face. “I don’t want to start my own factory. I just want to go home.”
A large, uncomfortable lump settled inside Gregory’s stomach. Yet another thing he’d never learned at Eton or Cambridge: How to hold people hostage and drag them across half a country against their will. But the woman knew too much for him to allow a different course of action. “You and your brother are coming with us to the coast. You can either aid us with our journey and be paid in turn, or you can fight us—in which case you’ll be restrained and towed along. But either way, if you’re caught with our party, your fate will be the same as ours.”
Danielle looked out over the tangle of shrubs that circled them, then to the larger trees in the forest beyond. Planning her escape, most likely. She could handle a blade well, but she would make a poor spy. Every thought and plan flitted across her expressive blue eyes a half instant before she acted.
She sighed. “If you’re in northern France headed toward the coast, I suppose you escaped from Verdun.”
He watched her with the same hard gaze he would use on anyone he distrusted. And in the selfsame manner, he held his tongue. Let her think they’d come from Verdun, where Napoleon had interred all the English he’d rounded up after the peace treaty failed. Yes, that was the most reasonable assumption, and if Westerfield and Kessler had been interred there instead of imprisoned in a forgotten fortress, they’d likely be following this very path back to the channel.
But then, had Westerfield and Kessler been in Verdun, he’d have known their whereabouts long ago and been able to send Westerfield money to procure apartments and buy wares, set Westerfield up with a household and purchase new clothes. From the reports Gregory had heard, Verdun functioned as any normal British city would, with people attending the theater as well as gaming halls, making calls and going about everyday business. The only difference was the English weren’t allowed outside the city’s impenetrable walls.
But Westerfield and Kessler hadn’t been imprisoned in a place where they could get sunshine and a decent meal, much less the other trappings of ordinary life, not with the crimes they’d been accused of committing. Oh, no. They’d been held in one of Napoleon’s secret prisons, instead, deprived of the most basic comforts, and Westerfield had fallen deathly ill because of it.
Danielle already suspected them of being spies. If she knew the whole of it, she’d never agree to help. “Think about whether you’ll aid or hinder us. But know this, I won’t let you escape again as easily as last time.”
Gregory stood and moved to the other side of the fire, keeping one eye on her. She’d promised she wouldn’t run.
If only he believed her.
Kessler wrinkled his nose as he ate a bite of salt pork, watching Danielle and her brother the way a hawk did a field mouse while Farnsworth tried coaxing tea down Westerfield’s throat. His brother only coughed in response, and a thin stream of liquid trailed down his chin to dampen the blankets beneath his head. Gregory turned away, his jaw working back and forth. Could nothing go as planned?
He was a man of business. He made his living off predictions and plans. He predicted the Exchange, rates on interest, returns on investments and likelihood of growth for various industries. He also predicted people. His father would never invest in a shipyard—too risky given that ships would be lost during the war. Yet shipping could offer a great return on investments, and a man like Kessler would have no trouble putting money toward such a venture.
When he’d come to France, it hadn’t been on a whim. He’d had a plan, which was why he’d hired a guide, purchased coarse French clothing and carried both guineas and napoleons on his person. Yet he’d still ended up here, dependent on two French strangers for the safety of himself, his servant, his brother and Kessler.
Father God, am I doing something wrong? Please save my brother and get us safely to England.
“Can I have some?” Serge came around the side of the small fire, his eyes locked on the salt pork sitting beside Kessler. “I didn’t get supper.”
At least the young man wouldn’t choose to starve—unlike his stubborn sister.
Kessler thrust a piece at him. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Serge.” The youth settled beside Kessler, scarfed down his pork in three bites and reached for another piece.
Gregory sat on the soft earth between his brother and Kessler and took some meat for himself. Danielle merely glowered at them from across the fire, arms crossed and back rigid. Good. For some unfathomable reason, he preferred that rigid silhouette to the sight of her hunched over, arms wrapped around herself and eyes blinking as she pleaded for him not to tie her.
“Serge what?” Kessler took another piece of salt pork. “Have you a surname?”
“Serge Belanger.”
“Belanger?” Gregory set his salt pork aside. “And you say you have relatives in England?”
The boy’s brow furrowed. “Oui, an aunt and an uncle that moved there during the Terror.”
“Are you by chance related to Michel and Isabelle Belanger? They live near Hastings and have a furniture factory.”
The boy stopped chewing. “How do you know Oncle Michel and Tante Isabelle?”
Gregory ran his eyes over the lad. He didn’t look at all similar to Michel Belanger, but why would he lie about such a thing? “I’m Belanger’s man of business.”
Much to his mother’s dismay. She’d wanted him to join the church, but his brother and the other noblemen whose accounts he handled certainly didn’t complain about the money he made them. And if he happened to take on a client or two from the merchant class in exchange for a certain percentage of the money made on their investments, then so be it.
The boy’s nose scrunched. “What’s that?”
“I manage his investments.” He glanced at Danielle across the fire. Was she surprised he knew her aunt and uncle?
The stubborn woman’s jaw was still set and her body angled away from him.
“Man of business.” Serge rolled the words over his tongue. “Sounds like some fancy English farce of a position that no one needs.”
Kessler smirked. “Halston probably makes more money in one day than your father does in a year.”
Gregory rolled his shoulders. He was a bit adept at making money, yes. So much of it, at least, that whatever he spent on clothes or conveyances or housing, he easily made up and then some within the month. Which was why he allotted a large chunk to the Hastings Orphanage and a series of foundling hospitals and poorhouses in other areas of England.
“You don’t look all that rich.” Serge eyed Gregory.
Kessler laughed, the first time the man had likely smiled in two years. “Yes, Halston, why don’t you look rich?”
Gregory rubbed the back of his neck. “I usually don’t traipse about the French countryside disguised as a peasant and trying to evade the law.”
“You’re disguised as a peasant?” The boy’s nose wrinkled again. “With boots as fine as that but unmended holes in your trousers? Being rich sure don’t give you much sense, does it?”
“What, precisely, is wrong with my garments?”
“No peasant would let those holes in their trousers without sewing them up right quick—they need their clothes to last, not fall apart. No peasant would spend the money for boots like that, and no peasant would stand as straight as you do.”
Gregory stared down at his boots. Did they truly give him away? He’d wanted sturdy leather ones that wouldn’t pain his feet while walking. Who could fault him for that? His first guide certainly hadn’t objected when he’d chosen his disguise.
Then again, his first guide had probably intended to betray him all along.
“From where do you hail?” Kessler asked Serge.
Gregory blinked and looked back at the boy. He probably should have asked that before demanding that Danielle and Serge take them to the coast. If this was their first time traveling inland, would they make competent enough guides? Knowing English and having family across the channel didn’t exactly mean the woman and her brother could effectively lead them.
Though the woman’s skill with a knife would certainly be useful.
“Abbeville,” the boy stated.
Kessler merely stared.
“It’s near the coast. Just inland a bit from Saint-Valery-sur-Somme. Do you know Saint-Valery?”
“I do,” Gregory answered. “It’s somewhat across the channel from Hastings.” Which made the boy and his sister perfect guides for his purposes. They were likely familiar with the roads and terrain between here and the channel and could guide them with far less risk of getting caught than Gregory and the others could ever manage on their own. And he needed that, since the prison guards would have already notified cities, towns and gendarmerie posts of their escape.
Serge reached for more salt pork—what had to be his fifth or sixth piece of the leathery meat—but Kessler clamped down on his hand. “If you’re from the coast, what are you doing so far inland?”
“We were in Reims visiting our tante and oncle and trying to find a husband for Dani.” The boy scowled at his sister. “No one wants her, though.”
Gregory had been taking a sip of water and choked at the boy’s words. No Frenchman wanted her? He glanced at Serge’s silent sister through the smoke of the small flames. What was wrong with the men of this country? Could they not see the crystalline color of her eyes or the smooth, pale skin of her face? The riotous black waves that fell about her shoulders?
No, her hair would have been up. The men wouldn’t have known how magnificent it looked free. But even so, the rest of her was enough to bend any man’s mind toward marriage, wasn’t it?
Well, maybe not if she decided to hold a knife to her suitors’ necks.
“Stow it, Serge.” Warning dripped from Danielle’s voice.
The boy shrugged. “What? They asked. I’m just being honest.”
“Then stop talking all together. Why are you volunteering information to these strangers? Your mouth is what got us into trouble in the first place, Mr. I’m-going-to-forget-I-have-a-brain-and-speak-English-when-I-should-be-speaking-French.”
“On the contrary,” Westerfield’s weak voice filled the air behind them. “I believe his excellent English quite proves his possession of said brain.”
The youth laughed at that, his face alight with pride. “See that, Dani? He thinks my brain is just fine.”
“Though I question the intelligence of any Frenchman who doesn’t want your sister.” Kessler watched Danielle with a predatory glint to his eyes.
“Don’t even think about it,” Gregory muttered.
“I wouldn’t dare,” Kessler answered airily.
But Kessler had already had thought of it—and done it—in England, and his gaze said he’d thought of such with Danielle just now.
She glanced between the two of them, as though sensing the tension. Then again, a deaf, blind mute could likely sense the tension between him and Kessler.
Serge, however, stuffed another piece of salt pork in his mouth and spoke around it. “Well, some of the men might want Dani if she tried being nice. She stomped on one landowner’s toe and then slapped him, and he was the richest of the lot of them.”
Danielle threw up her hands. “He tried to...” But she suddenly clamped her mouth shut, color flooding her cheeks. “Never mind. Just keep quiet, Serge.”
“On the contrary, I’m rather curious now that you’ve brought it up.” Kessler’s harsh voice floated over the campsite. “What precisely did this Frenchman attempt, Danielle?”
She hardened her jaw.
“Enough.” Gregory stood. So Danielle was beautiful, any man could see that. But she didn’t deserve to be taken advantage of—especially by someone like Kessler. “Kessler, go to the stream and get more water. Westerfield might need some in the night.”
Kessler’s eyebrows shot up. “You expect me to haul water? Have Farnsworth do it.”
Gregory glanced at Farnsworth, sitting near the fire and stuffing salt pork into his mouth as greedily as Serge. “Farnsworth is about to unroll the bedding.”
His valet shot up and rushed to the pile of blankets, still chewing awkwardly.
“But if you’re too cowardly to walk to the stream by yourself,” Gregory continued, “I’m sure Serge will accompany you.”
“That’s hardly necessary.” Kessler pushed stiffly to his feet, grabbed the one small bucket they had and stalked off into the darkness.
Gregory watched the other man go, and not a moment too soon. Did he think he could take advantage of—
“Don’t.” Westerfield’s voice drew Gregory’s attention away. “Those thoughts won’t do you any good now.”
He approached his brother and kneeled, speaking low enough the others couldn’t hear. “How can I not think of what happened at times like this? When he looks at Danielle as though he would devour her?”
“Put it behind you.”
How could he, when dreams of Suzanna’s tearstained face still came to him in the darkest hours of the night? He could picture the scene in his mind as clearly as though it was happening this very moment. Coming in from a late night in the village, he’d found Suzanna in the stable, her dress undone and her crumpled form sobbing into the hay.
So he’d called Kessler out, and Kessler had injured him in the duel. When infection claimed his leg, his father had been so furious, he’d sworn retribution on Kessler, and Kessler had fled to France. The sordid tale might have ended there were it not for Westerfield. Why his brother would up and leave England to find Kessler, Gregory would never understand. But leave England Westerfield had, only to end up disappearing after the peace treaty failed.
“Careful, Halston, you don’t know the full of it,” Westerfield rasped.
No, he clearly didn’t, because Westerfield’s decision to come to France and bring Kessler home still made no sense. But one thing was clear: were it not for the duel, Westerfield wouldn’t be gravely ill, and the rest of them wouldn’t be stuck in a country they were at war with.
Then again, other parts of the story were as clear as water on a cold winter morning. “When you’re a guest in someone’s home, you shouldn’t make free use of the serving girls. That isn’t difficult to understand.”
Never mind that it was a common enough practice among the ton. Never mind that Kessler’s own father never would have taught him otherwise—had probably been the leading example, in fact.
Wrong was still wrong, and it shouldn’t take a vicar pointing his bony finger at Kessler to sear the man’s conscience.
And listen to him, waxing moral. Perhaps he should have joined the church, as Mother had wanted, rather than become a man of business.
But then he wouldn’t have those two thousand pounds to pay the Belanger siblings for taking his party to the coast. Nor would he have the funds he contributed to the Hastings Orphanage or the foundling hospitals.
And he probably wouldn’t have known about Suzanna because he would have been seeing to his parish in some far-off village instead of staying at his family’s country home for a visit.
He didn’t regret what he’d done.
Which only proved to nearly everyone he knew that he’d gone mad at some point since he’d graduated from Cambridge, because titled members of the ton didn’t call out future earls over a serving girl. A duel could be fought over a lady, certainly, but never a servant.
Westerfield coughed again, his hacking more violent this time.
Gregory touched his forehead. “You’re getting worse.”
“I’m f-f-fine,” Westerfield stammered through a sickening wheeze.
But he wasn’t fine. His skin was hot and clammy, and his once-strong body lay pale and emaciated. “I’ll go for a physician if you but give the word.”
And he would. It mattered not how many napoleons or guineas he’d have to use to buy the physician’s silence. His brother needed to live.
“The cough isn’t so bad, really.” But Westerfield couldn’t even speak the words without letting loose a smaller cough.
Something rustled by the fire, and Gregory turned to find Serge sitting back beside his sister. Farnsworth had busied himself making up pallets to sleep upon, and Kessler had returned. He set down his pail of water and approached the Belanger siblings, a length of rope in his hand.
Not again. Gregory pushed wearily to his feet.
“Be kind,” Westerfield warned.
Why should he? Hadn’t he told the man to leave Danielle be? Not that Kessler would ever deign to listen to a mere third son when he was a future earl.
Kessler crossed his arms and waited for him. “We can’t have her escaping in the night.”
“She’s not some slave to be bound at your whim.”
Danielle scooted closer to the trees while Serge’s wide-eyed gaze moved from him to Kessler and back.
Kessler held up the rope. “She’ll escape by morning if you don’t tie her, and we’ll likely awaken to gendarmes and bayonet tips.”
“She promised not to run.”
“And you’re risking our capture on the word of a woman who held a knife to your valet’s throat and pretended not to speak English?”
“The knife to my throat was rather uncalled-for, if I can say so,” Farnsworth spoke from where he unrolled the final blanket for his own bed.
“Don’t tie my sister, please,” Serge’s pleading eyes sought Gregory rather than Kessler. A smart boy, that Serge Belanger.
Gregory heaved a sigh. Kessler was right—much as he hated to admit it. Perhaps she would keep her word, but she was also the sort to use her wits and cunning to seek any loophole she could find. Danielle had promised she wouldn’t run, but she’d never said for how long. She was likely just waiting for night to fall and everyone else to sleep. If he didn’t tie the woman, they’d be rotting in prison cells come tomorrow evening.
“Fine, but let me do it.” He jerked the rope away from Kessler.
“Non! You can’t.” Tears flooded the boy’s eyes. “She’ll promise to be good and not escape, won’t you, Dani? She doesn’t deserve it, I swear.”
Gregory wouldn’t say she didn’t deserve it—his cheek still throbbed where she’d scratched him—but he’d no desire to humiliate the woman, either. This wasn’t about what she deserved—it was about protecting himself and his brother.
“Do you need me to hold her?” Farnsworth approached while Kessler stalked around the fire to his pallet.
“Please don’t.” Danielle looked up, her blue eyes entreating him in the firelight.
This would be easier if she screamed or attempted to run. Instead she sat too still, like one of his sister’s dolls propped on a shelf.
He paused, and Westerfield coughed again from where he lay. As beautiful and earnest as she might seem, he couldn’t risk his brother, risk them all, based on the word of a woman who’d already proved herself untrustworthy.
He knelt behind her. “Put your hands behind your back.”
She kept her fists anchored firmly by her sides and looked away but couldn’t hide the slight tremble in her jaw.
He tugged her hands behind her back, her skin far too soft for one who seemed so fierce.
Blast! He was letting her charms play tricks on his mind. So she was beautiful. He’d seen many a beautiful woman before, all dressed in finer clothes than Danielle Belanger, with jewels dangling from their necks and fingers and coiffures. Simpering, delicate creatures who wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the woods, let alone know how to use a knife or attempt to escape a band of strange men.
But Danielle didn’t fight him now. She didn’t speak, didn’t even look at him as he began to tie.
Why wasn’t she begging, pleading, attempting to struggle?
A faint bead of moisture slipped down her cheek to glisten in the firelight, and she sucked in a long, quivering breath. Perfect. Instead of fighting him like the woman two hours ago would have done, she now struggled against tears.
Yet another thing Eton and Cambridge hadn’t taught him. How to tie up a captive woman so she couldn’t escape. Or what to do with one when she cried.
Useless schools, the both of them.
He tightened the knot as much as he dared against her tender wrists, then stood, tossing another length of rope to Serge. “Tie your sister’s ankles.”
“Non.” Hatred radiated from the boy’s eyes.
“Either you tie her legs, or I will. But in the end, her ankles will still be bound.”
Serge reached for the remainder of rope, and Gregory dug the heel of his boot into the dirt as he watched. He was making a muck of everything. Serge hadn’t despised him until now. Sure, Danielle had wanted naught to do with them from the first, but the boy had been much more amicable, helpful even.
Gregory couldn’t let them escape and call in gendarmes, yet neither could they travel to the coast with two guides who hated them. He had to find some way to make amends and change their minds about helping, or this was going to be the longest, most miserable journey in the history of Europe.
But how exactly could he convince a humiliated woman and her angry brother to help him? Somehow, he didn’t think a nice little apology was going to repair things.
* * *
Danielle lay back on her makeshift pallet, her hands bound behind her back and her ankles tied tightly together while hot tears of mortification welled behind her eyes. She had no one to blame but herself for this situation, she supposed. She was too rash, always too rash. Papa and Maman had told her so numerous times over the years, but what did she do over and over again? Run headlong into a situation, waiting until she had herself well and truly tangled before she stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, she should have slowed down enough to mull things over before she’d acted.
’Twas probably the reason no decent man wished to wed her. Who wanted to be bound for life to a woman who always created trouble?
Like tonight, she should have agreed to guide Halston and his friends. Why had she not thought it through first? She could have guided them straight to a gendarmerie post and no one would have been the wiser until it was too late. Instead, she’d proudly defied them.
Why, oh, why hadn’t she just pretended to be a simple girl from the provinces, eager to do anything for a bit of coin?
Maybe because she was neither simple nor willing to do anything for coin. Her parents had instilled principles into her far too well. Plus, she was a terrible liar and likely would have given herself away.
Even so, no one had ever warned her having principles and staying fixed on doing what was right could lead her here. To being tied up while a bunch of Englishmen milled around. To being forced into acting as a guide when she should be running through the woods toward a gendarmerie post.
“Don’t cry, Dani.” Serge plopped down beside her, chewing yet another piece of salt pork as he faced her on the blankets. “Everything will be all right.”
“Easy for you to say...” She pressed her eyes shut. How could she even look at her brother while she lay trussed up like some animal? “You’re not the one being made into a spectacle.”
He sighed, long and heavy. “Dani, if you don’t want to be a spectacle, then don’t act like one.”
“I wasn’t trying...oh, forget it.” She moistened her parched lips and glanced at Kessler and Halston sitting beside the sickbed arguing over something or other. “At least they didn’t tie you, too. That should make our escape easy enough.”
Serge cast a quick glance toward the darkened woods. “Figured we’d wait until everyone was asleep, and then I’d untie you.”
Untie her. Like she was some captive animal rather than a person. A fresh wave of humiliation welled inside her chest. “Lie down here and get some sleep. The sooner we go to bed, the sooner everyone else will.”
Serge scrambled down onto the blankets beside her. “Are you going to pretend sleep? If we both truly sleep, we might miss our chance.”
She winced as rope bit into her wrists. Of course, if she stopped trying to loosen her bindings, they probably wouldn’t bite so much. Serge would be freeing her in a few hours, so she could stop struggling and simply wait. But truly, how was she to sit docilely and not attempt to loosen the ropes even a little?
“Danielle?” Serge blinked up at her. “Are you going to stay awake, then?”
“Don’t worry, even if I doze off, I won’t be able to sleep long with these ropes cutting into my skin.”
His eyes turned soft as he watched her. “I’m sorry, Dani. Really, I am. The Englishmen seemed nice enough, and they’ve got that sick man on the other side of the fire. I didn’t think they’d hurt us.”
“Of course they’ll hurt us. Have you forgotten we’re at war with them?”
“But they’re people just the same. And if one of us was sick and needed help, I’d like to think...” His words trailed off as another grotesque cough filled the air.
“That doesn’t mean we need to be nice to them,” she snapped. “Or that they need to be nice to us. Now lie down and sleep. You’ll need all your strength if you’re going to keep up with me tonight.”
“All right.” He rolled over, presenting his back to her as he snuggled in for slumber.
On the other side of the fire, Halston pushed his tall form up from where he sat and approached. In his hands he held a blanket torn into strips and then knotted together formed a makeshift rope. Were they planning to gag her as well?
“Non.” Danielle scooted herself back on the pallet as best she could with both her hands and feet tied.
“It’s not for you but your brother.”
“For me?” Serge pushed himself up to a sitting position.
“You can’t tie him. He hasn’t—” She clamped her mouth shut. She was going to give their escape plan away if she panicked again.
Halston quirked an arrogant, dark eyebrow at her. “You were saying?”
“Nothing.”
“Put your hands behind your back, Serge,” he commanded.
Her brother’s gaze shot fiery little arrows toward the Englishman. “I didn’t do anything.”
“It’s whether you plan to do anything once the rest of us are asleep that I question.”
“So you’re going to tie me with a blanket?” he scoffed.
“We’re out of rope. It will have to do.”
And with those words, the man knelt down to tie her brother, cutting off their best chance at escape.
Chapter Four (#ulink_182ce8e6-92df-586b-b968-ce06859723d2)
“Serge, you have to be quieter,” Danielle hissed into the darkness.
The admonishment did little good. Her brother still clomped behind her, his boots rustling old leaves and snapping twigs.
’Twas hardly astonishing the boy had trouble killing a squirrel. The entire forest would hear him coming a full kilometer away. “You’re going to awaken the English and lead them straight to us.”
The noise of mud sucking at his feet drowned out her words.
She rolled her eyes and moved soundlessly behind an ancient maple tree. They’d best just focus on getting away fast—since “quiet” wasn’t working for them. She surveyed the darkened trees. The clouds now blanketed the moon and stars, making the forest so black it obscured trees a meter in front of her. But the darkness would also make following them nigh impossible.
If not for Serge and his incessant noise.
He came up beside her, panting. “How do you move so fast in the dark? I can hardly follow you.”
“There’s a thick stand of firs several meters ahead.” She reached back to take hold of his wrist, keeping her eyes pinned on the goal ahead. “If we can get there, the English will have no hope of—”
“Finding you?” A hand reached out to clasp her upper arm.
She squealed at the sound of the familiar English voice.
“Serge, t’enfuis! Run!” She shoved her brother away before Halston could grab him, as well. At least one of them would be free to find a gendarmerie post.
Serge’s heavy footfalls crashed into the darkness while a narrow beam of lantern light found her face.
“Where, exactly, did you intend to go this late?” Halston asked.
The oaf. He deserved to have his other cheek scratched as badly as the first. She curled her fingers into fists at her side.
He chuckled, clearly guessing the direction of her thoughts. “I wouldn’t attempt it again if I were you.”
She jerked her chin up. “Where I go is none of your concern.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll have to forgive me for not believing you, seeing how when you feigned sleep two hours ago, I left both you and your brother bound.”
The word cracked through the woods with such force she couldn’t help but cringe. “Mayhap we didn’t like being bound.”
His hand dug harder into her arm. “Wretched woman.”
She couldn’t make out more than his shadow with the way he held the light to shine on her alone, but she could well imagine him gritting his teeth as he called her wretched, just like Papa always did when he said she was insufferable.
Not that she was either wretched or insufferable.
“My brother has spent the past year and a half trapped in your horrid country for the heinous crime of traveling here when our two countries were at peace and not managing to leave before we were once again at war.” Frustration ground across the edges of his words. “When I came to rescue him, the French guide I paid quite handsomely betrayed us. Now Westerfield might well be dying, and he needs help. I’ve offered you two thousand pounds to take us to the channel, a sum that should be of great use to you and your family, and you look down as me as though I’m no more than dung on the heel of your boot. What must I do to convince you to help us? Offer you another thousand pounds?”
“That man is your brother? The sick one with the wretched cough?”
He probably raised that arrogant eyebrow at her, except she couldn’t see it in the black. “Does it make a difference?”
It didn’t. Or rather, it shouldn’t. But his brother? Could she blame him for wanting to protect his family? And what if his claim about not being spies was true? “When you learned he fell ill, you came over from England solely to get him out of Verdun?”
“Again, why does it matter?” His voice was hard, as though he hadn’t a drop of mercy anywhere inside his tall, lanky form.
“Because...because...” Because I had an older brother once, and if he’d been trapped in your country, I would have done anything to save him.
But Laurent wasn’t trapped in England. He was dead.
And she, Serge and Julien—Laurent’s twin—were all absent a brother because of England’s navy.
She licked her lips and looked away from Halston’s shadow. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter.”
“That’s not what you were thinking.”
She attempted to yank her arm away. Serge had had ample time to escape, and if she could free herself, he’d never be able to catch her in the woods. But Halston only tightened his hold on her arm.
“So are you going to take me back to camp and tie me up again?”
“What were you about to say concerning my brother?”
She glared at him and tapped her foot impatiently against the soft earth. “Sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut. Or do they not teach such manners in your country?”
He laughed then, so bold and loud the sound echoed off trees. “The woman who held a knife to my valet’s throat and scratched my cheek is now lecturing me about manners? Forgive me if I hesitate to heed your advice.”
Her stomach coiled into a knot. “Fine. Perhaps I wished your brother dead a few moments back.”
“You were right. You should have left that thought to yourself.” His voice, relaxed and curious only seconds ago, now resonated hard and cold. He turned her back toward camp and thrust her forward, his hand never leaving her arm.
She swallowed tightly. She hadn’t meant to offend, not really. The words had just slipped out. What else did he expect when she’d been thinking of Laurent? If he was bound and determined to drag her to the coast with him, he’d best learn to accept her harshly honest ways.
She peeked back over her shoulder. Halston’s jaw was set at a hard angle, while the rest of him remained shrouded in darkness. “I didn’t mean it like that. I had a brother once, ’tis all.”
He shoved her forward with greater force. “You still have one, by the look of it.”
“An older one named Laurent. He served in the navy.”
The grip around her shoulder loosened a fraction.
“Your country captured his frigate and killed him. Mayhap I don’t actually wish your brother dead, but in some ways it seems fair, does it not? A brother for a brother?”
Halston pulled her to a stop, though he didn’t turn her to face him. It was just as well. She hardly wanted to look into an Englishman’s eyes when she spoke of Laurent. So they stood in the darkness, with only the faint sound of the flowing stream permeating the eerie silence.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” His words, once he finally spoke them, rang with sympathy.
Did she want sympathy from an Englishman?
She blinked and looked down, only to find her arms had somehow slid around her ribs and wrapped about her body in a lonely hug. “I should think you’d be glad to hear of a fallen French sailor. We’re your enemies.”
“I’m not happy to hear of any life lost, even a Frenchman’s.”
Moisture burned in her eyes.
“And yes, I did enter France for the sole purpose of finding my brother and bringing him home. It only seemed right, seeing how it’s my fault he left England in the first place and our middle brother is making a muck of the marquessate in Westerfield’s absence.”
She craned her neck to glimpse Halston’s face, partially visible with how he now held the lantern. His brother’s being here was his fault? She’d not have guessed that. If anyone seemed the most blameworthy of his party, ’twas Kessler. “At least you had the courage to come to France and do right by him.”
“Does that mean you’ll help?”
She shifted from foot to foot. The wind whispered through the barren trees, and an owl let out a distant call. She should twist from his grip while it remained loose and run into the forest. He might catch her, but she was quick and quiet and had the cloak of darkness on her side. Somehow running seemed less dangerous than facing this tall man with sympathy in his voice.
“I don’t trust you in the least. What if you’re spies, only pretending to be internees from Verdun so that you can reach England and foil Napoleon’s next military campaign?”
He chuckled. “You have quite the imagination, Danielle Belanger.”
The breath in her lungs stilled at the sound of her full name on his tongue. Danielle Belanger. It hadn’t sounded so...so...so tender when he used her Christian name earlier. Tender and full of compassion.
But he shouldn’t have compassion for her, not when their countries were at war. “You expect an awful lot of me when you hail from the land that killed my brother.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Even through the darkness, his gaze felt warm against her skin; she was aware of it in a way she didn’t quite want to contemplate. The sensation might have been soft and comforting, if it wasn’t quite so...unsettling.
She shouldn’t help him. He had no reason to speak truth to her and every reason to lie. About his “brother.” About why he was in France. About everything.
And yet, if he was going to lie, why admit his brother had been interred because of him? Why plead for her help rather than kill her?
Kill her...
Had she truly discovered spies speaking in English, she and Serge would be dead by now. Suddenly cold, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms. A faint cough rang through the trees, as though the sick man knew she stood in turmoil a few meters away, debating whether or not to help.
What if the situation were reversed and that sick man was Laurent, trapped in a hostile land? What if her older brother hadn’t been killed three years ago but had somehow ended up in England and begged for some Englishman’s mercy? Would she not want that Englishman—or woman—to show kindness to her brother? To help him return to France?
For there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
She shoved the verse from her mind. She cared not how many times Papa had read it from his old, large Bible while the family sat around the table. Cared not if Serge’s words were right earlier when he’d said that the English were people just as much as the French. Those principles certainly didn’t apply here and now. Not with her enemies. Not with men from the country that had killed Laurent and had warred with her own nation for over a decade. Maybe there wasn’t any difference between Jew and Greek, but there was certainly a difference between English and French.
Wasn’t there?
Another cough echoed through the woods, this one louder than the last. Westerfield wasn’t going to live much longer if he didn’t get help, and given the not-very-secret manner in which the Englishmen were traveling, they’d be discovered by the end of the week even without her and Serge seeking out some gendarmes. Another bout of imprisonment would finish the man off.
“So will you help?” Halston asked again.
Could she really leave these men to be caught, and one of them to likely die, just because they were from the wrong country?
Yes. Of course she could. That’s what happened in war: people died if they were from the losing country. She raised her chin and swallowed thickly, meeting Halston’s eyes.
And then the entirely wrong words came out of her mouth: “Oui. I’ll help.”
* * *
She would help? Had Gregory heard her right? Her eyes met his, no longer hard and determined but misty in the pale orange glow from the lantern. His knees nearly folded beneath him in relief. Perhaps all wasn’t lost. Perhaps he could get help for Westerfield and make it to the coast undetected. Perhaps—
“But I won’t let you tie me or my brother again. If we’re going to work together, you’ll have to trust us.”
The hope that had filled his chest deflated. “Trust you? What reason have I to trust you?”
“What reason have I to trust you’re who you claim and the sick man is really your brother? That you harbor no secrets of the state, or...”
He held up a hand. “All right. I agree. No more ropes.”
“Or torn blankets that act as ropes.”
He shoved a hand into his hair. “Or torn blankets.”
“Do you really mean it, Dani?” a voice piped up from the woods. “We’re going to help them after they tied us up like trussed pigs?”
Danielle whirled toward the voice. “I thought I told you to run. You should be halfway to a gendarmerie post by now.”
A loud, awkward rustling sounded to their left, and Serge clomped from the darkness into the dim circle of lantern light. “I couldn’t just leave you. What if he tried to hurt you?”
She rolled her eyes—a rather common habit, that. “And what would you have done if he’d hurt me?”
“I still have my knife, remember?”
Gregory frowned. “Is that how the two of you escaped? Farnsworth missed one of your knives?”
Serge turned to him and crossed his arms. “No. You missed the knife.”
Evidently he hadn’t searched the boy thoroughly enough before tying him. Then again, he hadn’t exactly searched the boy at all, had he? He’d simply assumed Farnsworth had seen to it. Yet another thing he’d failed at this day. Though truly, he might well suggest that the faculty add a class on how to properly manage an abduction when he next visited Cambridge. With the wars facing Britain these days, one never knew if alumni would end up abducting an enemy of the crown.
But how many knives Danielle and Serge Belanger had or where they were strapped mattered little so long as they planned to use those knives to help rather than thwart them.
Gregory raised his eyes to the heavens, darker than tar with a layer of clouds covering the stars and moon. Thank You, God, for bringing them to help us.
Because maybe now he could begin to undo the mess he’d started with that duel two years ago. Maybe now they’d be able to reach the coast safely. And maybe, just maybe, he could save his brother’s life.
Chapter Five (#ulink_b3b82368-9af0-5192-b690-7c392c7cf1f3)
“Where are your ropes?”
Danielle propped an eye open and stared up into the gray light of dawn, partially covered by the silhouette of a rather irritated blond man towering over her.
“We left you tied,” Kessler added when she failed to reply.
She yawned. “Halston untied us.”
“Halston?”
She nodded and snuggled back into the blankets. Usually she’d little trouble getting up of a morn, but then, usually she didn’t stay awake into the wee hours of the night, either. And she had a long day ahead of her if she was going to lead this party of useless aristocrats through the countryside without any of them getting caught.
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