Love Inspired Historical January 2015 Box Set: Wolf Creek Father\Cowboy Seeks a Bride\Falling for the Enemy\Accidental Fiancee (59 page)

“Serge, you scout ahead for a stream.” Danielle pointed toward the thick trees growing behind the brambles. “We'll camp at least a kilometer back, and in thick patch of woods so our fire won't be spotted.”

“Oui.”
Serge took off obediently, crashing through the barren branches.

Danielle bent to collect the sack of supplies and bundle of blankets, then paused, her worried gaze landing on Westerfield. “Westerfield, can you travel a bit farther tonight?”

Westerfield opened his eyes only long enough to give a faint nod before his eyelids drifted closed again.

Gregory reached out and laid a hand against his brother's burning forehead. “Perhaps we won't make it as deep into the woods as you're hoping, Danielle.”

Her rigid shoulders fell just a bit. “That means a greater chance of being discovered.”

Possibly, but his brother needed rest, not to be dragged half-conscious through brush. “You three go on ahead. I'll carry Westerfield after you find a spot to camp.”

Danielle sighed and rubbed at the pale, creamy skin beside her eyes. “Fine, but don't wear yourself out to the point where you're as ill as your brother.”

Kessler rose slowly, muttering something unintelligible as he took up his sack and a bundle of blankets before following Danielle into the woods.

Only Farnsworth remained behind. “Lord Gregory, you haven't the strength to carry Lord Westerfield.”

Gregory looked down at his brother, his gray pallor and closed eyes, the sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cold January air. His chest rattled subtly with each shallow breath he took. “Perhaps, but 'tis worth it to aid my brother.”

“Very well, sir.” Farnsworth rose, taking up his own sack and the last of the blankets before moving off in the same direction as the others.

Gregory slumped back against a tree trunk, shifting his brother carefully so as not to disturb Westerfield's rest. He used his sleeve to dab at the sweat beaded along Westerfield's hairline.

Pneumonia, she had said.

Pneumonia killed people in England who were able to rest abed all day with servants to wait on their every need. If pneumonia could steal the life of a person such as that, what hope did Westerfield have of surviving?

Gregory bent his head over his brother's chest, his eyes suspiciously hot and moist. “Oh, Westerfield, what have I done? You were never supposed to die because of me.”

But die Westerfield would, and all because Gregory and Kessler had fought a foolish duel over a serving girl.

Chapter Seven

W
here was she?

Gregory shifted his gaze around the small clearing, searching for the familiar form of a tall, willowy woman shrouded in a brown cloak. To his right, Serge rummaged around in the packs, while Kessler sat on his own pallet eating salt fish and drinking the water that Farnsworth and Serge had dragged up from the stream. But Danielle was nowhere to be seen.

“Serge...”

Westerfield's wretched coughing sound interrupted his words.

Gregory turned back toward his brother, whose wheezy lungs gasped for air between each cough.

“Here, will this help?” He positioned himself behind Westerfield's back and raised his brother's painfully thin torso, but the new position did little to dissuade the coughs.

Had he truly hoped to ease the pneumonia simply by changing his brother's position? Westerfield had spent all day upright and that had done little good. Gregory set his brother down on the bed of blankets and withdrew his hands.

Footsteps thudded on the damp earth behind him, then Kessler squatted down and pressed a hand against Westerfield's brow.

“He sounds as though he's getting worse.”

He is.

“Westerfield?” Kessler leaned over him. “Can you hear me? Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”

Westerfield's eyelids flickered, and Gregory met Kessler's gaze over the sickly body. Did Kessler feel any guilt? Any bit of responsibility for Westerfield being so sick?

But Kessler's eyes were hard and flat as always, without silent apology or any hint of remorse.

Shuffling sounded from the woods, and Gregory raised his head to find Danielle approaching the little clearing, a makeshift rope filled with rabbits and squirrels dangling from her hand.

She'd been hunting? He hadn't even noticed her absence until a few minutes ago. Then again, she hadn't bothered to tell him she was leaving. She could have run off and escaped or gone in search of some gendarmes, and none of them would have realized until too late.

He needed to have a conversation with her about traipsing off into the woods. He might trust her enough not to bind her at night, but in return, she could take someone else with her on her hunting forays—or at least inform them when she was going.

Serge stood from where he sat by the fire eating salt pork and headed toward his sister. “I'll help you skin.”

“Well, well, looks like the hoyden is good for something more than yelling at us to move faster.” Kessler pushed away from Westerfield and approached the fire.

Danielle didn't even glance up from skinning the rabbit. “Repeat after me,
Lord
Kessler, ‘Thank you.'”

“I think not. You're being paid well to take us to the coast, and such an exorbitant fee should include your hunting skills. Though I do appreciate your admitting I'm a lord.”

Danielle dropped the animal she'd been skinning and rose to face Kessler, mobcap askew as hair tumbled from its perch atop her head. “Oh, how could I resist calling you by anything but your proper title,
my lord
? I wouldn't want you to go more than two minutes without someone reminding you of how superior you are to us commoners.”

Farnsworth choked and dropped the flask of water he'd been holding. At least Serge had sense enough to not make a sound and reached for another squirrel.

“I don't need to be reminded every two minutes, but twice an hour should be sufficient, wouldn't you say, Lord Gregory?” Kessler cast a glance in his direction.

Gregory let out a quiet groan and stood. Another minute of this, and Danielle would have a knife at Kessler's throat.

“Well, I'd actually prefer to be called
lord
three times an hour now that I think about it.” Kessler looked down his nose at Danielle.

She curled her bottom lip. “I should leave you to starve.”

“Enough, please,” Westerfield rasped.

Danielle's chest heaved as she drew in a breath, but then she took a step back from Kessler and ducked her head, almost as though suddenly embarrassed. “I'm sorry, Westerfield. I meant not to disturb you.”

She approached Westerfield, passing Gregory, who stood halfway between his brother and the fire. “Now perhaps you should rest. I've given some thought to the morrow, and I don't think you should travel but sleep and attempt to gather your strength.”

They weren't traveling tomorrow? Gregory moved back to his brother. Hadn't she proclaimed they needed to travel faster to reach Saint-Quentin?

“Don't stop—” Westerfield's eyelids fluttered open and he wheezed, attempting to prop himself up on his arm only to fall back down on his blankets “—on account of me.”

A horrid coughing filled the air, and Danielle crouched down, helping Westerfield to sit up as the convulsions racked his body. Her actions seemed to ease his brother in a way Gregory's hadn't a few minutes earlier, as though a woman's touch was all that Westerfield needed to heal. Most unfair, that.

“Easy now. There's no need to alarm yourself.” Danielle spoke in tones so soft and gentle Gregory almost didn't recognize her voice.

Would she speak that kindly to a child, perhaps one of her own? The orange flicker of firelight cast dancing shadows across Danielle's body. She'd make a good mother one day. A good wife, too, even with her penchant for knives.

And why was he thinking about Danielle Belanger as either a wife or a mother?

“Must...reach England,” Westerfield choked out through a fading cough. “Can't...keep stopping.”

“Lie back now.” Danielle helped Westerfield onto the pallet and smoothed a hand across his brow. “You'll never see England if we keep today's pace. You need sleep and medicine, a cart to lie on while the rest of us walk. I'm a fool for not seeing it sooner. I nearly killed you today.”

Gregory narrowed his eyes at Danielle. Sleep, medicine and a cart for Westerfield sounded wonderful, but how would they ever acquire them if they camped here rather than went to Saint-Quentin?

As though sensing his question, she looked up. “I know I intended for us all to travel together, but I didn't realize how ill your brother was. Serge and I will leave for supplies at dawn then return the following evening.”

“No.”

“There's no other choice.” Westerfield looked up, his eyes pale and weak. “Not if I'm going to live.”

“I agree with Halston.” Kessler spoke from the other side of the fire, his eyes watching Danielle closely in the flickering light. “You and your brother aren't leaving this camp without us.”

“It's not that you can't rest while Danielle travels to Saint-Quentin,” Gregory clamped a firm hand on her shoulder. “But Danielle and Serge aren't going alone. I won't have it.”

Danielle's eyes snapped to his. He could almost hear the sharp words that would likely spill from her mouth were she not kneeling beside Westerfield.
How dare you tell me what you will or won't allow? I'm neither your slave nor your servant and need no permission to do as I please.

She jerked away from him and rose. “Rest, Westerfield. I'll make some bone broth for you after a bit.” She stalked to the fire, where she set about impaling a rabbit on a makeshift spit.

Gregory followed. “You and Serge aren't going off alone for two days.”

“Absolutely not,” Kessler proclaimed. At least the man agreed with him for once rather than argued.

She crouched beside Serge, who'd already started roasting one of the squirrels. “No? Would you rather your brother died from lack of medicine and harsh travel?”

Gregory's throat muscles constricted. “Of course not, but neither am I fool enough to let the two of you head off toward the coast without us. What's to keep you from announcing our campsite to some gendarmes and then continuing on your merry way home? If you want to go, I'll accompany you.”

“Oh, that would be lovely. One word out of your mouth in Saint-Quentin, and the gendarmes will have us surrounded. Not to mention the way you walk and sit and act like a gentleman yet dress like an addle-headed peasant. We'd not last five minutes before someone reported you. If you want your brother to live, Serge and I will go alone.”

“I don't trust you.”

She held his eyes with her own. “And I don't trust you. But if I wanted to tell gendarmes about you, I could have flagged down the ones that rode past earlier. And I certainly wouldn't make you a camp and hunt some food before turning traitor.”

“She's trying to trick you.” Kessler sat on his pallet and flicked a stray twig off his coat. “Either you or I should go and leave the boy here.”

Gregory rubbed the back of his neck. Kessler could bluster and object all night long, but she was right. Both he and Kessler would likely give themselves away. If he wanted his brother to live, trusting her and Serge wasn't just his best choice...

It was his only choice.

* * *

Danielle cast her gaze to the side and swallowed tightly. A gendarme stood not a meter away, surveying the crowd headed into Saint-Quentin's fortified walls. His blue coat and black bicorne hat made him stand out like a red fox against a field of snow, and his broad shoulders and thick torso turned her throat dry. He looked strong enough to wrestle any man present to the ground.

“Don't look so nervous,” Serge whispered from beside her. “Are you trying to draw attention to us?”

“
Non
. Of course not.” She licked her lips and cut another glance toward the gendarme.

Serge sighed. “That's precisely what I mean. Stop.”

“Stop what?” She took a step to the side, only to bump an elderly woman holding a little boy's hand. What were all these people doing here? And why the delay at the gate ahead? “I'm not doing anything.”

“Besides licking your lips and swallowing and staring at the gendarme every two seconds? Your face is paler than milk, and your hands are shaking. If I were
Papa
looking for spies, I'd have noticed you long ago.”

“So I'm not good at keeping secrets!” She could fight her way out of almost any battle, but asking her to lie convincingly was quite a different matter.

“Hush, Dani. You're going to make him...”

But it was too late. The gendarme had already left his post at the side of the road and started shoving through people toward them.

Entering Saint-Quentin was supposed to be a simple task—slip in without anyone noticing them and leave a couple of hours later with their supplies. No throngs of people, no line at the gate, no waiting for two hours to inch a few feet closer to the city's fortified walls.

Within a matter of seconds, polished black boots met her own muddy ones.

“Papers, now!” the gendarme boomed in a voice so loud half the throng quieted.

Danielle sucked in a deep breath. Calm. She needed to be calm. He had no reason to suspect her of any illegal activity. All she need do was reach into her pocket and produce her citizenship papers.

Except her hands shook so badly she could barely find her pocket. She crinkled the papers before passing them off.

“You're from Abbeville? What brings you to Saint-Quentin?”

“We've been visiting our
tante
in Reims for the past three months and needed to stop by Saint-Quentin for supplies on the way home.”

How did Serge's voice manage to sound calm and unmoved when they could be imprisoned if this gendarme discovered they were helping enemies?

“Visiting your aunt?” Disbelief dripped from the gendarme's voice. “I see no valise or supplies.”

“We camped outside the city last night and hoped to slip in and out quickly this morning.” Serge spoke the words easily, as though omitting the four Englishmen that camped with him was as natural as swallowing a mouthful of water. “We never expected such a throng.”

“Is that so?” He jabbed a blunt, stubby finger into her shoulder.

She jerked her eyes up to meet the gendarme's, and she found herself staring into a chiseled face with hard brown eyes, an overlarge nose and eyebrows spaced too far apart.

He shoved a handbill in front of her face—a handbill with a rather accurate sketch of Kessler and Westerfield plastered on the front. “Have you seen these men?”

Her stomach cramped. Was that the reason for this crowd? Were gendarmes searching the city gates for Kessler and Westerfield?

She raised her right foot ever so subtly. She could have her knife in hand in under a second to defend herself.

But just as she inched her palm down, Serge's hand gripped her wrist. Hard.

“Please, sir. My sister and I just want to get into the city for a few supplies. That's all. Mayhap you can explain why there's such a crowd?”

The gendarme jerked the handbill away from her face. “Perhaps you wouldn't have heard if you've been traveling, but two British spies escaped from prison five nights ago. We've got strict orders to search the papers of every person entering the city.”

Spies? Danielle's eyes dropped to the handbill in the gendarme's hand and the bold word printed just below Westerfield and Kessler's faces.
Espions.
Spies. Threats to her country's liberty. They were supposed to be just Englishmen interred at Verdun with all the other captive English, not spies. At least according to Gregory.

Sweat beaded on the back of her neck. But spies imprisoned in a dungeon made more sense. That was the type of place where men would be nigh starved, or get sick and die of pneumonia. The type of place much more fitting for what she saw of Kessler and Westerfield's too-thin bodies than the city where Napoleon held his British visitors.

“I ask again, have you seen anything suspicious?” The gendarme's hard gaze refused to let hers go.

“N-n-n...”
Nothing terribly suspicious, no.
But the words wouldn't come. Halston had lied to her. He'd made his brother and Kessler out to be like any other British captives, living a life of normalcy and ease inside the walled city of Verdun.