Falling for the Enemy

by Naomi Rawlings

  The jagged words lodged like shards of glass, barbed and biting, in his chest. Lady Isabelle was right. Here he thought himself different, better, commendable for giving Danielle a chance when Kessler had belittled her from the start.

  He’d listened to her verses about equality and importance before God. He’d even ignored Westerfield and Kessler’s warnings about how close he was growing to Danielle.

  But he wasn’t any better than Kessler or the rest of the ton—not if he was prepared to walk away from Danielle for his own pride.

  “God forgive me. I don’t deserve her. I’ve never deserved her. And I’m a fool for not understanding sooner.” He raised his chin and met Lady Isabelle’s eyes. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve a rather urgent matter to attend to.”

  One that had already waited far too long.

  * * *

  “Come back and release me!” Danielle rattled the shackles that chained her arms to the wall above her head. “You’ve no right to hold me here—I’ve done nothing!”

  No footsteps echoed and no lantern flickered in the deserted corridor beyond her prison cell, just like no footsteps or lantern or guard had appeared the last twenty times she’d called.

  “Help!” she shouted again from her undignified position on the floor. “Please, someone, anyone. I’m not a smuggler. I didn’t spy!”

  Her words bounced off the bare stone walls and straw-covered floor, but no one came. No one could likely even hear. ’Twas probably part of the reason they’d imprisoned her in the lowest, darkest level of the house of corrections. They planned to forget she existed.

  Either that or leave her there without food and water until they hanged her.

  Perhaps if she could free herself, somehow find a way to loosen her hands from the shackles or the shackles from the wall, she could use them to bludgeon the guards when they came for her. She twisted her wrists inside the unforgiving metal bands above. They bit into her flesh, causing a thin stream of blood to trail down her arm, but they didn’t slacken or allow her hands to slip in the slightest. She got up onto her knees and attempted to turn toward the damp stone wall. The chains that held her twisted in the process, and she gave them a good, hard yank.

  The bolts anchoring the chains didn’t budge.

  She pulled again, the shackle on her left wrist dug fiercely into her flesh, producing yet another stream of blood. She yelped, then fell against the wall. ’Twas no use. Her side hurt from the strain her writhing put on her wound, and the bands weren’t about to give.

  It was probably just as well. Fighting the excise men and then the prison guards earlier had done little but get her face cuffed, her stomach bludgeoned and her arms chained above her head. Now she had to use the privy—or rather, the foul bucket over in the corner—but had no means of doing so.

  “Come back! I need to be unchained.”

  And she needed to know where Julien was. Both the excise men and the guards had been silent about him when she’d demanded answers, and she’d not seen him when the guards led her past the filled cells upstairs.

  Was he chained down here as she was?

  If so, would he not have heard her cries and answered? The small barred window in the cell door allowed at least some sound to carry. It also allowed the only bit of light she had, which flickered through the ghastly bars from the lantern across the corridor.

  She raised herself onto her knees, trying to get a better view of the corridor through the window. Why did no one come? Where were the guards?

  Where was Gregory?

  She pressed her eyes shut against the hot flood of moisture that rushed through them at the mere thought of his name. Would he come for her? Did he know she’d been imprisoned? If so, did he care enough to help?

  The hard set to his eyes when she’d declared her love for him that morning swam through her mind. He’d washed his hands of her, then turned his back and walked away. Oui, she’d told him to send one of his servants back to the beach with her money, but the servant would probably see the cave absent of people and the boat and assume they’d returned to France early.

  With Julien having disappeared and Gregory thinking she’d already left for France, who would help her?

  “God, did I do something wrong? Why am I here? I was only trying to help. Only trying to treat men the way You would have me treat them, even if they were English.”

  She stared up into the darkness, at the eerie play of shadows across the cracked stone ceiling of her cell. But no heavenly answer drifted down from above.

  To think she’d been worried about being thrust into a French prison, had even felt bad for what Westerfield and Kessler endured in her country. Now she suffered the same fate they had previously known. Was that why she was here? Some strange sort of justice that resulted from the hate-filled broken world in which they lived? First Westerfield and Kessler were wrongly imprisoned, now her?

  She leaned back against the cold stone and shivered. That would make sense had she turned her back on Gregory and refused to nurse Westerfield, had she left them as she’d first planned to after learning all of France thought them spies.

  But she hadn’t turned her back on them. She’d helped.

  And for what?

  To end up rejected by the man she loved, rotting in the depths of some foul British dungeon for a crime she hadn’t committed?

  A tear slipped down her cheek, and she hadn’t even the ability to brush it away.

  Was it just this morning she’d dreamed of marrying Gregory? Had hoped he’d confess his love when she’d told him of hers? The idea seemed laughable now. Gregory wasn’t coming. No one was coming. Westerfield and Kessler had languished in their dungeon for over a year. Would she languish just as long? Or would the excise men take her before a magistrate and see her hanged long before the year was out?

  “Help!” she called one more time into the darkness, her voice weaker and quieter than when she’d first started shouting many hours ago.

  Like all the other times, no one came.

  * * *

  Gregory ducked his head against the salty winter wind coming off the sea as his horse raced over the road toward the hills lining the shore. His saddlebags held six thousand pound notes—the four thousand he’d promised Danielle, the one thousand he’d promised Julien plus an extra thousand for...

  Well, he didn’t precisely know, but Danielle and her family deserved it nonetheless.

  He’d offer her every last note. He prayed she’d take none of it and agree to marry him. Or maybe she’d take all of it and still agree to marry him, sending the monies back to France with her brother.

  As long as she became his wife. Then the two of them could sneak back across the channel to France, where they could live...but no, France wouldn’t make a good home for him and his English accent. He’d be arrested as a spy within a week and end up in one of those forgotten dungeon cells, if not beneath the guillotine’s blade. And Danielle would probably be accused of treason with him.

  Perhaps they could marry here and board a ship to America. Yes, America might work. They weren’t so picky about titles and such there, were they? And even if it was shocking for a lord to marry a peasant, no one needed to know that he was a lord, or that Danielle wasn’t a lady. Yes, that would work splendidly. Perhaps he’d never see his family again, but they’d be safe from the scandal of his marriage, and he’d have Danielle. He could sell off some of his investments and whisk Danielle across the ocean within a few days of their marriage.

  Assuming she wanted to be his wife, that is. She may have proclaimed to love him earlier, but that wasn’t quite the same as agreeing to marry him.

  Nor did it guarantee she wanted to be with him forever after the way he’d left her.

  He kicked the beast beneath his thighs into a harder run. What had he been thinking to leave he
r standing alone on the beach? To listen to her declaration of feelings and give her nothing in return?

  Foolish, foolish man. Why did it take Isabelle Belanger’s piercing words for his stubborn brain to finally understand what his heart had been trying to tell him for weeks?

  Because he was a dunce.

  Because he was practical.

  Because he’d been raised to value a person’s lineage over a person’s actions.

  Flimsy excuses, the lot of them. Perhaps he’d been taught nobility was bound to one’s blood rather than one’s heart, but why had he been foolish enough to believe it?

  Dear God, please let her take me back.

  He reined in the horse at the top of the hill overlooking the channel and tethered it to a shrub before racing down the grassy path to the strip of sand lining the beach.

  “Danielle!” He hurried into the fissure in the hill and the little alcove that had shielded them earlier. What would she say when she saw him? Would delight shine in her eyes? Anger? Confusion?

  Whatever her reaction, he wasn’t leaving this patch of sand without her.

  Except she wasn’t there.

  He frowned and strode closer to the cave where Julien had planned to slide his boat, but the fishing sloop with its dark sails was nowhere to be seen. Had Julien and Danielle departed early? Gregory turned toward the sea, not that he could see the English Channel with the large hill rising in front of him. He bent to study the sand. Danielle could probably make sense of the myriad footprints clumped along the wet muck, but not he. People had been here, lovely. He already knew as much from this morning.

  He made his way back along the coast, rounding the grassy slope to face the sea. So she’d gone back to France without his money. Did she truly think she could evade him? He knew where she lived, and he’d stop at nothing to return to France for her, no matter how dangerous the journey might be. By the end of this week, he’d be holding Danielle—

  “Halt!”

  Gregory stilled at the command.

  Two men rushed down the beach, the silver glint of a pistol shining in one of the men’s hands. “Stop in the name of the king and place your hands atop your head.”

  He slowly brought his hands up as the men approached. “What is the meaning of this?”

  But he needed not ask. The men were clearly excise officers, with their dark blue coats and quick maneuverability in the mucky ground.

  “You’re being arrested for smuggling and spying.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Am I? And by whose authority, may I ask, do you arrest Lord Gregory Halston, brother to the Marquess of Westerfield, for such dastardly activities?”

  “Lord Gregory?” The man without the firearm halted, gazing into his face. “By Jove, Larry. That’s Lord Gregory Halston if I ever seen ’im.”

  The second man’s gun wavered, and Gregory pulled his hands off the top of his head. A most ridiculous position, that.

  “A-apologies, my lord.” The second man stuffed his gun back into his coat. “I didn’t know it was you.”

  “I imagine not,” Gregory growled.

  “It’s just that we found some smugglers earlier today, two of ’em. So we’re watching the coast rather closely. We think there was more on the boat.”

  Panic flared in his chest. Not Danielle and Julien, anyone but them. “Tell me, was one of these smugglers a woman with long black hair and blue eyes?”

  The man with the gun narrowed his eyes and raised the pistol ever so slightly. “Aye, you know them, then?”

  “I do, indeed, seeing how the only things they smuggled were the Marquess of Westerfield, Lord Kessler, myself and my valet back onto English soil this morning. Where are they?”

  “Ah...”

  Gregory grabbed the man by his collar and yanked him forward. “If so much as one hair on either of their heads is harmed, I’ll see to it that you spend the next year rotting in a forgotten prison cell.”

  “Yes, my lord,” he choked.

  The man without a weapon swallowed loudly and stared at the sand.

  “Well, what is it?” Gregory released the first excise agent and turned to the second. “I can tell you’ve more to say.”

  “Th-they’re already gone, my lord.”

  “Gone?” Ice slicked through Gregory’s veins. “What do you mean, gone?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gregory burst through the wooden office door and charged forward. “Where are they?”

  The governor of the house of corrections set his cup of tea down with a rattle, sloshing brown liquid across the papers spread over his desk. “Lord Gregory? What brings you here?”

  “Danielle and Julien Belanger. Where have you stashed them?”

  “Belanger, you say?” The man pushed to his feet and took a piece of tea-stained foolscap from his desk, surveying the handwriting scrawled across the sheet. “I’ve no one here by that name.”

  The door banged behind him as the excise men clambered inside the small, sparsely furnished office. The man who’d originally pulled the pistol on Gregory rushed to the governor’s desk. “The smugglers we took today? Lord Gregory here verifies their story.”

  The paper slipped from the governor’s hand. “They brought the Marquess of Westerfield back from France?”

  “That they did.” Gregory gritted his teeth together. “Now take me to them.”

  “Ah...” The governor’s face turned a decidedly green hue. “It might be rather late for the sailor. The navy needing men the way they do, we sent him on to Portsmouth.”

  Fear cramped in Gregory’s stomach. The British navy did need men, so badly they took both countrymen and enemies alike and forced them to serve in the bowels of their dreadful men-of-war. If Julien Belanger was already en route to Portsmouth, it might well be too late for him—or even Westerfield—to free Julien.

  Gregory whirled and pointed a finger at the excise man standing behind him, the shorter one without the gun. “Get Julien Belanger back here and have him delivered to my brother’s estate before the sun sets. Do you understand?”

  The man, suddenly pale, gave a curt nod and fled out the door.

  Gregory turned back to the governor. “Take me to Danielle.”

  “You see, Lord Gregory, she...ah, proved to be a rather difficult prisoner,” the remaining excise man stuttered.

  Difficult prisoner? What, precisely, did that mean?

  But he could well guess. Danielle would never have allowed herself to be captured without a fight—a fight she must have lost if she was being held within these walls. And she already had a wounded side and head.

  “Perhaps we ought to bring her to you, rather than have you enter the holding cells.” The governor stepped away from his desk. “Make yourself comfortable in my office, and I’ll see that Miss Belanger is brought to you shortly.”

  “I think not. Either take me to her, or I’ll find her myself.”

  Gregory spun toward the door and strode out of the office. Three women sat waiting on a hard wooden bench while a farmer argued with one of the guards and a small line of people formed behind him. All commoners with some sort of business here. All waiting in line. All at the mercy of a guard who looked none too happy to deal with them—the same guard who had smiled at him and ushered him directly into his superior’s office when Gregory had first entered the building.

  Being a lord, he could barge into a prison such as this and demand the release of an innocent person, while the cobbler down the street was stuck waiting in line only to have his entreaties stymied by the bureaucrats meant to help him. Was this not what Danielle meant when she spoke of men and women being valued because of their birth rather than their actions?

  Here he was using his title, birth and position in society for his own advantage while countless othe
rs had to suffer. He’d happily claim the benefits of his title a thousand times over if they would help save Danielle, but what would become of those here without his advantages? Danielle was right—there was no justice to these divisions.

  He strode toward the imposing wooden door that would give him access to the internees. “Open up.”

  The governor rushed up behind him, rattling his keys and using his heavy girth to push aside the people waiting in the foyer. “I’ll escort you, Lord Gregory. No need to rush.”

  The door squealed open and Gregory stepped into darkness on the other side, a foul stench rising up to greet him.

  “Who you got there? Another man to add to our ranks?” A voice rose from the row of cells lining the wall.

  “Mr. Gov’nor, sir, when do I go before the magistrate?”

  “How much longer you going to let us rot in here?”

  “Hey, that there’s a dandy. What’d he do to get hisself in here?

  “Don’t matter, he won’t be staying. His type never do.”

  “Edward! Come here.” The governor’s voice bounced over those of the prisoners, and a hulking guard made his way down the long row of cells.

  “Where are the women held?” Gregory turned toward a passage leading to the right.

  “Your lady’s down this way,” the governor answered.

  Gregory took a step forward. “But these are all men. Surely you don’t house the men and women together.”

  “We don’t have facilities for confinement in the women’s section. This is only a house of corrections, not a gaol.”

  “Confinement?” Gregory shouted the word so loudly the prisoners fell silent.

  “We put prisoners who attack guards in confinement for a few days.” The guard took an already burning lantern from the wall and started down the corridor.

  Gregory followed closely behind. “She attacked a guard?”

  “With a knife,” the governor answered. “The excise men said they searched her...”