Authors: Penny Richards
“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
“S
erge, 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 fastâsince “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 ofâ”
“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 JulienâLaurent's twinâwere 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 Englishmanâor womanâto 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. Perhapsâ
“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 eyesâa 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.