Читать книгу Falling for the Enemy - Naomi Rawlings - Страница 11

Chapter Two

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.”