Falling for the Enemy

by Naomi Rawlings

  The boy scampered off and was back in an instant, rummaging through the sack to produce a needle and thread.

  Belanger took the supplies in hand. “While I sew, Lord Halston is going to tell me exactly how he got my daughter shot.”

  Gregory worked a finger beneath his collar and loosened the suddenly tight fabric. “I...ah—”

  “There wasn’t much to it.” Serge raised his shoulder and let it drop. “We’d gotten into a scuffle with some deserters and were being looked for. Two farmers happened upon Dani and Halston, then fired at Dani. Halston should tell you about the first time they met instead. It’s much more interesting.”

  Serge’s voice was entirely too cheerful, and Gregory scowled. “Just a mom—”

  “Dani here tackled Halston’s valet and held a knife to his throat,” Serge volunteered. “Which somehow made Halston decide she would do a good job of getting them to the coast. So then he kidnapped us, even tied Dani up for a bit until she agreed to help on her own.”

  “You tied my daughter up?” Belanger’s shout likely alerted half the countryside to their presence

  Gregory shoved a second finger beneath his collar and tugged harder. Danielle was right about her brother. The boy never knew when to close his mouth. “I, ah...couldn’t exactly have her running to the nearest gendarmerie post and accusing us of being spies.”

  The worn lines around Belanger’s eyes crinkled while he worked on Dani’s side. “I see you’ve been introduced to her full charm.”

  Her full charm? Yes, he’d been introduced to all of it. The fierce way she’d fought against them at first, then for them once she’d decided to help. The tireless manner in which she’d cared for Westerfield, the quick rebukes she’d spit at Kessler.

  The passionate way she’d kissed him.

  His mouth turned dry at the sudden memory— memories, as there had been two kisses. His gaze drifted to her lips, a dull, chapped pink on a face devoid of color. What would they feel like if he touched his mouth to hers now? Cold like the rest of her face? Soft despite their chapped state? Or perchance a kiss would wake her as it had the princess in the story of Sleeping Beauty.

  Belanger’s throat cleared, and Gregory glanced up, heat flooding the back of his neck.

  “Care to state your thoughts?”

  “Ah...your daughter is...well...”

  Belanger shifted back and crossed his arms, revealing that Danielle’s side was tightly sewn together. When had Belanger finished?

  Likely sometime while he’d been staring at her lips.

  Exactly how long had he stared?

  And how long had her father watched him?

  “You were saying?”

  “I...” He looked back toward camp and pushed to his feet. “Perhaps I should check on the others.”

  “I think not. Sit down, Halston, and let Serge see to the others. I’ve a story to tell you.”

  Gregory turned back to the older man. A story? He could well imagine what the story might be—a tale of a man who fell in love with the wrong woman and then ended up in prison for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, Gregory sank into the dirt beside Danielle’s freshly wrapped side while her father moved to probe the knot on her head.

  “Before I ever met Danielle, when she was a mere child of three and ten, she’d sneaked into my house and stolen the knife from above my mantel. She’d also taken a chicken from the coop, but she knew not how to grip a knife or kill a chicken. So she dragged the thing, half dead, to the woods lining one of my fields, and when I came upon her, she had that knife raised like a warrior above her prey, ready for the kill strike.”

  Danielle gave a little gasp, and her hand opened before fisting tightly on her belly.

  “Dani?” Gregory took her hand and glanced at Belanger, his fingers still probing her injury. “Dani, are you awake? Can you hear me? You swooned, darling. We think it’s because your wound started bleeding again.”

  Her eyelids flickered open, and her gaze landed on his for half a moment before her eyes closed again.

  Belanger cleared his throat and shifted, staring at him yet again before turning his attention back to Dani. “As I was saying, I approached, and she whirled. She still clutched the knife as though she planned to use it on me should I take another step.”

  “No more.” Danielle mumbled, though her eyes remained closed. “Not this story.”

  “Hush, daughter, don’t strain yourself. We need to see you well.” Belanger removed his hands from her hair and stroked an errant lock off her forehead. “You’d tell me nothing about how you’d come by the knife or who your parents were or where I could find them. Do you remember? And I couldn’t help but love you from the first—and determine to teach you the proper use of a knife.”

  Gregory ran his thumb over the knuckles on Danielle’s hand. “You must have found her family, seeing how you married her mother.”

  The glazed look of memories left Belanger’s eyes. “Oui. I found her mother and two little brothers, and I discovered Danielle stole my chicken because they had naught but pulse to eat and her mother was sick with fever.”

  “So you helped them.”

  Belanger’s strong jaw worked back and forth. “I helped. They needed quite a bit of it.”

  Just as his own party had needed quite a bit of help from Danielle and Serge. He gave Dani’s hand a final squeeze and released it, her eyes still closed, her breathing even and steady as though she’d fallen asleep. “Will you help us, as well? Will you take us to the coast?”

  The breath stilled in his lungs as he watched the harsh man who could cart them off to prison at any time. Belanger searched Gregory’s face and eyes and body, every inch of him, though he could hardly guess what Belanger looked for. Footsteps thudded the earth from somewhere in the camp and a squirrel scampered through the nearby trees, but silence lingered between them.

  “Oui. I’ll help.”

  Relief swept through Gregory at the simple words. “Thank y—”

  “But my daughter is going home. I’ll carry her tomorrow, but once we reach Abbeville, she and Serge will stay home while I take you to the coast. I’ll not risk her anymore. I know not how you’ve planned to cross the channel, but I’ve a son in Saint-Valery who can ferry you across as easily as anyone else. ’Tis only a two-day walk from here.”

  Two days? That was all? Going up to Berck would require more than a half week of travel, and here Belanger could see them off in two days’ time.

  “Yes,” he croaked. “It should work perfectly.” Gregory glanced at Danielle, her beautiful face pale, her usually vibrant form so still. “And she’ll be safe.”

  Which mattered more to him than he dare admit aloud.

  * * *

  The Englishmen.

  Danielle woke with a start, pushing herself up quickly to survey the camp. The men were still there, as was her father, all up and about the camp in the dim morning light. At least he hadn’t taken them to Captain Montfort in Abbeville yet. She raised herself from her bedding, ignoring the pain in her side and the throbbing in her head.

  “You should be resting.” Her father barreled toward her, his jaw set at a formidable angle.

  “You didn’t leave,” she countered.

  “I’ll help with your bedding.” He bent and scooped up the blankets with his massive arms, wadding them into a ball that would never fit into their small sacks of supplies. “Just don’t aggravate your injuries.”

  She pressed a hand to her still-tender side. “I pushed myself too hard yesterday, but I’ll not make the same mistake today. You’ve little need to worry.”

  “You’ve spent the past fortnight helping spies.” He looked about the campsite, his gaze pausing on where Gregory, Kessler and Westerfield clustered together while Farnsworth busied himself beside the fire. “That’s p
lenty of reason to worry. You’ll not be walking today. I’ll carry you until we’re within a kilometer or two of home before sending you and Serge on while I take these men to the coast.”

  He’d been bent on taking the English to Captain Montfort, and now he’d decided to help? She gripped her father’s arm, her fingers digging into the thick wool of his coat. “Did I change your mind last night?”

  “Something of the sort.” He slanted anther glance toward Gregory. “Now go rest by that tree yonder. I need you well, not weak and sickly.”

  She didn’t need rest. She felt perfectly fine—well, except for the pain. But she wasn’t about to walk docilely home while Papa led the men to safety. “I intend to see them to the coast.”

  Her father sighed, untold weariness behind the exhalation of breath. “Danielle, don’t make things more difficult. I’ve already decided to involve Julien in passage across the channel rather than take the men farther up to Berck. I refuse to risk you and Serge any more than necessary.”

  Julien! Why hadn’t she thought of him? It was perfect. “’Tis a wonderful plan, especially since we know not if the gendarmes and smugglers have set a trap for them in Berck.”

  “Oui. And Julien can keep a secret.”

  That he could. Her older brother might well carry the secrets of half northern France and one would never know it. “Since it’s only two days’ journey rather than a week’s you should have no trouble with me going along.”

  “Non.” The curt word rang through the camp.

  “Papa, you’ve already—”

  “Must you fight with every word that issues from my mouth? First you try convincing me to help a bunch of spies rather than see them imprisoned, and once I give you that, you demand to continue traveling with them. I forbid it.”

  She sucked in a breath through her nose, nice and long and slow. It did nothing to calm the blood burning hot through her veins. “Did you listen to nothing I said last night? They’re not spies!”

  Papa scowled. “Why they’re here makes little difference seeing how they’re English and we’re at war.”

  “And yet you’re not delivering them to Captain Montfort.”

  “Enough.”

  “It’s not enough. Don’t you understand?” Tears scalded the backs of her eyes, hot and mortifying. “I have to go with them, and not just to the coast, but all the way to England to ensure they get there safely. I’ve come too far to back away now.”

  Papa shifted his bulky weight from one foot to the other. “You don’t need to add a trip across the channel to everything you’ve endured. You don’t even need to add a trip to the channel. I promise to deliver the men safely.”

  But her father’s promise wasn’t enough. Not anymore. There had been a time when it would have sufficed. Had been a time when she’d hung on his every word and cherished them like her own sack of gold napoleons. But somewhere along this journey, things had changed. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe her father. She believed him as much as was possible for one person to believe another. But that trust no longer negated her own need to see the man she loved safely to his homeland.

  “I have to go.”

  “Of all the people I envisioned claiming your heart, it was never a British aristocrat.” His voice, though soft and tender, cut as sharply as the blade strapped to her ankle.

  The breath stilled in her lungs, and the air grew thick around them. “How did you know?”

  “You’re begging for me to spare an Englishman. What other reason could there be?”

  She swiped a stray tear away from her face. “I have to make the crossing with Julien. I’ve helped Gregory for so long I can’t bear to say goodbye here when I could see him safe in his own country.”

  “Gregory, is it? Not Halston.”

  Her body turned warm at the sound of Gregory’s Christian name on her father’s lips. “Oui.”

  Somehow Papa managed to shift his burgeoning wad of blankets to one arm and held out the other for her. She needed no invitation to step inside and let his strong arm anchor her, his broad body offer shelter.

  “The more you prolong your farewell, the more heartbroken you’re likely to be.”

  She buried her face in his coat. “That doesn’t change how I feel.”

  “Has he...”

  When his voice faded, she looked up.

  A muscle worked back and forth in his jaw. “Has he offered for you?”

  “It’s not like that between us. He’s a lord.”

  Her father’s brow furrowed, and he slanted yet another glance at Gregory. The man was going to tromp over any moment if Papa didn’t stop staring. As though she needed Gregory Halston privy to this conversation.

  “And your birth father was heir to a seigneury,” Papa continued. “Perhaps if he knew—”

  “Non. I want to marry a man who values me as a person, not my lineage. I might love him...I know I love him. But does he love me? He’s never spoken such words, and I doubt he ever will. In his eyes, I’m too far beneath him to make him a good wife.” Just as there’d always been some reason she wouldn’t make a Frenchman a good wife. She threw knives and spent too much time in the woods. She couldn’t sew, couldn’t cook, couldn’t do half the wifely duties she was supposed to.

  Whether she fell in love with a lord or a peasant, she still wasn’t good enough.

  Except for her stepfather. He’d always loved her in spite of everything she did wrong. “So you see, Papa, I can’t...can’t...” Her voice cracked, and rather than try to wrench the garbled mess of words from her mouth, she pressed her face into his shoulder.

  Papa’s bearlike arms tightened around her, and he settled his chin atop her head, not speaking so much as a word of solace. But then, he didn’t need to. The feeling of his presence and the love of someone who wasn’t ashamed of her was enough...

  Or at least it would be, until she said goodbye to Gregory.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Halt!” Belanger’s harsh whisper permeated the foggy twilight.

  Gregory stilled, his heart thumping against his chest. Beside him, Farnsworth, Kessler and Westerfield all stopped in the murky gloom.

  A wraithlike form appeared shrouded in mist on the empty beach ahead of them. “Gregory, you’re here!”

  A foul word left Belanger’s mouth. “Hush, daughter, or you’ll call down half the countryside.”

  Danielle? Gregory surveyed the stretch of sand, empty save for themselves and the woman moving toward them. She was supposed to have gone home after she and Serge broke from them last night. Clearly she hadn’t obeyed her father.

  Clearly he was a fool for thinking she would.

  She sprinted toward them as though no musket ball had ever grazed her side, sliding to a halt when her toes were mere inches from his.

  He reached out and gripped her arm, no more able to stop himself from running his eyes over her hair and face and lips than he was able to stop the war between their countries. “What are you doing here?”

  “Someone had to warn Julien of your arrival. Now come, the boat’s ready.” She took his elbow and tugged.

  Gregory tightened his hands into fists. As though she belonged on a beach at dusk helping to smuggle men across the channel rather than at home in bed. He glanced around the beach a second time. They’d once again skirted a town, this time coming out on an abandoned stretch of sandy shoreline. The mist shrouded the buildings of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme behind them, and the open bay lapped gently before them.

  It seemed too easy, as though some trap lay hidden ahead. Certainly France wasn’t going to let them simply board the fishing boat and be off. A pack of gendarmes or soldiers would likely come tearing across the sandy beach at any moment.

  But he approached the boat without incident.

  “My fa
ther and sister tell me you’ve coin aplenty to pay if I ferry you across the channel.” A voice roughened from hours spent in the salty sea air spoke.

  Gregory turned to find a shadow limping toward them, too small to be Belanger and too large to be Serge. “I’m Lord Gregory Halston. Behind me, you’ll find Lord Westerfield and Lord Kessler, as well as my valet, Farnsworth. And yes, I can pay.”

  “Lords, are you?” With his scruffy beard, wind-chapped skin and limp, Julien Belanger could have stepped out of a children’s book about pirates. “That’s quite a mouthful of fancy names you got.”

  “Leave them alone, Julien, and take us across before someone finds us.” Danielle climbed gingerly inside the little fishing vessel with its gray sails. “I didn’t bring them all this way to have us discovered on the beach.”

  The auburn-haired man scowled at his sister. “I’m not going anywhere with you in the boat, not when your side’s all shot up.”

  She crossed his arms. “I already told you I’m going, just ask Papa.”

  Gregory’s mouth turned dry. She was going? With them? He planted his legs in the sand. “No.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve decided to remain in France.” Kessler hopped inside the boat, its fore-and-aft-rigged sails jutting into the dim sky.

  “Oui. I thought the point of getting you safely to the coast was so you could cross the channel.” Danielle frowned at him.

  He tightened his grip on the sack slung over his shoulder. “I intend to go to England, and well you know it. But I refuse to endanger you any longer than necessary. You’re supposed to be home right now. Abed. Healing from the injuries I caused you.”

  “You didn’t cause me to get shot.”

  He turned away from her and stalked toward Belanger and Serge on the beach. The sooner they left, the sooner Danielle could return home, where she would be safe. Or perhaps she would even go inside the little cottage near the shore and rest there. Either way, she’d be better off once he departed for England—without her.

  He stopped in front of Julien, Danielle, and Serge’s stepfather. “You told her she could go to England? It’s a needless risk, especially with her being injured.”