Falling for the Enemy

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 Englishman—or woman—to 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. Perhaps—

“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 eyes—a 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.

Chapter Five (#ulink_b3b82368-9af0-5192-b690-7c392c7cf1f3)

“Where are your ropes?”

Danielle propped an eye open and stared up into the gray light of dawn, partially covered by the silhouette of a rather irritated blond man towering over her.

“We left you tied,” Kessler added when she failed to reply.