Love Inspired Historical January 2015 Box Set: Wolf Creek Father\Cowboy Seeks a Bride\Falling for the Enemy\Accidental Fiancee (64 page)

God, please let me get through the interrogation without uttering a word.
Gregory swallowed and gave a silent nod.

“Why are you traveling with a boy from Abbeville?” The burly man's face was austere beneath the shadows of his hat.

“We're cousins, sir.” Not a hint of untruth shone in Serge's wide brown eyes.

How did the boy manage to look so innocent?

“Cousins.” Doubt rang from the gendarme's tone. “And what are you doing in Amiens?”

“We're traveling back from visiting our
grandmère
in Reims. She's ailing and not expected to live through the spring.”

The gendarme's brows only furrowed more. “And why are none of you in service to our Consul?”

Serge pressed his lips together, and another bead of sweat trailed its way down Gregory's back.

Why had he not foreseen this question and thought up some believable excuse before now? He was a man of business. His entire livelihood hinged on making predictions so as to be prepared for various situations, and here he'd failed to anticipate a legitimate question.

Then again, most of his previous plans had focused on evading gendarmes, not speaking to them.

A deep, bone-jarring cough resonated from Westerfield's chest. His breath wheezed in and out of his lungs, and he doubled over, bracing himself on the wagon as spasms racked his body.

“Maurice! Claude!” one of the guards from the other side of the road shouted as he waved two old women past. “What's taking so long? Are they British, or aren't they?”

British? Was this checkpoint set up not just to check everyone's papers but to search specifically for British interlopers? Or worse, specifically for the “spies” who had escaped from north of Reims?

The moisture leeched from Gregory's mouth and the air grew hot and thick around him, the pressure of the gendarmes' gazes stifling and intolerable. Somewhere in the crowed behind him, a boy called out, followed by the sound of several deep chuckles and a mother's berating lecture. But Gregory couldn't distinguish the words. In truth, he could barely breathe, let alone move.

They'd be eating moldy bread and drinking stale water for dinner tonight, tortured into giving up any supposed knowledge they had of Napoleon's military plans on the morrow, and he could do nothing to prevent it.

“
Non
. Just a bunch of cowards.” The gendarme shoved the handful of papers back at Gregory's chest so quickly it took him a moment to reach up and grasp them. “You can pass.”

The breath rushed out of him.
Thank You, Father.

The gendarme turned and stalked back to the group of women waiting next in line.

“Don't smile,” Westerfield growled in his ear. “You'll give us away.”

Gregory forced his mouth into a frown and turned to help Westerfield back into the wagon. But Danielle still stood with the gendarme in front of the cart, allowing the man to brush her chin with his thumb.

“Stop staring and get into the wagon.” Kessler shoved him from behind.

Right. He climbed onto the uneven planks and lay down, letting the wood block his view of Danielle being manhandled in front of everyone. If he watched her for another moment, he might well leap from the wagon and pull the lecherous fool off his guide—which would endanger everyone all over again.

Maybe the gendarme was right. Maybe he was no better than a coward.

* * *

“We'll camp here.” Danielle surveyed the narrow patch of woods. It wasn't very big, but a nearby river afforded fresh water.

Halston shoved some hair back from his face and brushed past her. He'd barely looked at her since they passed the checkpoint two hours ago. Was he angry because she had made him lie back in the cart and feign sickness? Her plan had worked.

Westerfield groaned and blinked himself awake in the back of the cart. “That was close back there.”

Much closer than she'd have preferred. “Do you need help getting down?”

“I'll assist him.” Farnsworth moved to aid Westerfield.

She stood back as Westerfield climbed down from the wagon and walked slowly toward the woods. She'd continued her ministrations endlessly over the past seven days, and he was much improved. If they could avoid more checkpoints, Westerfield just might reach his homeland strong enough to make a full recovery. Then again, closer to the coast, they'd be seeing more and more gendarmes and enlisted men, especially with Napoleon's navy stationed at Boulogne. Hopefully they could continue on unnoticed, but each brush with a soldier brought greater risk of being discovered.

“Can you carry some blankets?” Serge reached into the cart and handed Kessler a bundle.

The man glowered but yanked the armful from her brother's hand and followed Halston into the woods.

She sighed and rolled her shoulders, still aching from how tightly she'd held them as they'd waited to pass the gendarmes earlier. Did these Englishmen not understand how exhausting keeping them safe was?

“Go on ahead with the others.” She moved toward Serge, who was standing beside the mule. “I'll hide the cart and settle Clyde for the night.”

Serge handed over Clyde's rope but rested a hand on her upper arm. “Are you well?”

“Fine.”

“You've barely said two words since we left the checkpoint.”

Because there'd been nothing to say.

“You let that gendarme touch you, Dani. I know how much you hate that.”

A wave of revulsion swept through her. Yes, she'd let him touch her. And leer. And make suggestive comments. But she'd gotten Halston, Westerfield, Kessler and Farnsworth past danger by distracting one of the guards so badly the other guard had had to check five sets of papers by himself. That's what mattered most.

“Dani?” Serge stepped closer. “Are you certain you're all right?”

She gave a curt nod. She had to be all right. She didn't have any other choice.

Serge walked ahead, and she turned the mule and cart into the brush, finding a dense thicket where the beast could bed down undetected. She fished a handful of oats from her pocket and then got some barley from the back of the wagon before she left the old mule tethered to a tree. Her feet were tired, her back ached and her head throbbed. If only she could curl up under the cart for a nap, but she started into the woods along the path Serge had taken instead.

A rabbit scampered across the trail, and without thought, she bent to retrieve the knife from her ankle and threw it. At least they'd have fresh meat tonight.

She retrieved the hare and continued on, passing through dead grass and thickets and dark stands of trees before the voices of her companions finally floated through the forest, not overly loud but not quiet, either.

“If we face another checkpoint tomorrow, do you expect me to crawl into that cart and feign illness again?” Indignation rose from Kessler's voice.

Of course Kessler would argue. Hefting the rabbit she carried higher, Danielle hopped over a fallen log and skirted a mud puddle.

“It worked,” Serge answered. “So unless you can think of a better plan—”

“There
has
to be a better plan,” Halston interrupted. “We were nearly discovered.”

“With no thanks to your sister, who was too busy flirting to bother helping us escape.”

Danielle stepped into the camp, the rabbit bumping against her thigh. “It was a distraction, and it worked. The gendarme didn't even speak to you, let alone look your way.”

“You mean to say you did that on purpose?” Halston stalked toward her.

She pressed her lips together, her stomach churning sickeningly at the memory.

“Kessler's right. We'll not do this again.”

“When we hired you as our guide, we didn't know you'd turn out to be a doxy.” Kessler's eyes shone hard and brittle in the waning winter light. “Otherwise I might have used your services long ago.”

She took a step back, feeling her veins fill with ice. Did they think she liked having strange men touch her? Stare at her? Whisper invitations to meet them behind the gendarmerie post that night?

“She's not a doxy!” Serge shoved Kessler's chest. “Apologize.”

Kessler tilted his nose haughtily down at Serge.

“I think we should all take a moment to calm ourselves.” Farnsworth rose from where he'd helped Westerfield recline on a pallet.

“The moment for calm has long passed.” Halston took her by the shoulder, his fingers digging through the thick fabric of her cloak into her skin. “I'll not have you behave in such a manner while with us.”

Serge whirled toward Halston. “You act as though she's a courtesan, not a maid.”

She tightened her grip on the rabbit. Did Halston not understand, either? Did he truly think her a...a...a...?

Doxy, prostitute, Cyprian, streetwalker.
The horrid names ran through her head, one on top of the other.

“Is this why no one wants to marry your sister?” Kessler grabbed Serge's coat and swung Serge back to face him. “How many men has she behaved this way with?”

Danielle jerked away from Halston, her tongue so thick and clumsy in her mouth she could do little more than mumble. “No.”

She dropped the rabbit to the ground at her feet. She had to leave this place. Now.

Chapter Twelve

I
t mattered not how dark the night became or how dangerous the forest floor grew beneath her feet, Danielle wasn't returning to camp.

Serge's call through the forest echoed with Halston's cry from somewhere behind her, but she kept moving, her mind spinning with horrendous memories.

Meet me behind the barracks after dark tonight. I know a quiet spot in the woods where we can go.
That from the gendarme she'd met earlier today, the one who'd touched her and leered while all the crowd looked on.

Then there had been Citizen Fauchet in Reims.
You're an
insufferable little ingrate who'll never marry but become a blight on her family's name
. He'd called her that after she'd used the heel of her boot to stomp on his toes. But then, the man had first put his hands on her waist and forced her against the wall while he attempted to kiss her.

Had Citizen Fauchet expected her to smile and be grateful for his hard grip and roaming hands? To welcome his breath that reeked of foul onions and half-rotted teeth?

Danielle hastened through the tangled trees and uneven ground until she reached the river, a narrow strip of water too deep to be considered a stream. The sandy banks unfurled like a twisting snake before her, and she followed the soft path until a large rock obstructed her way. No voice called behind her and no boots thumped against the fallen leaves blanketing the forest. The rock looked as good a place as any to rest, so she climbed atop the cool surface smoothed by years of wind and rain.

If only the words of Citizen Fauchet, Kessler and the gendarmes weren't so similar to her own brother's.
You're never going to find yourself a husband, Dani, if you don't settle your ways. Stop hunting with your
papa
and spending your days throwing knives. Take up spinning or embroidery or the like. And please try to keep quiet when you go to an assembly, don't start arguments like last night anymore.

They were the last words Laurent had ever spoken to her. Four years, and she still recalled how the sunlight had filtered down over his mussed auburn hair as he'd stood in the yard beside her. Still remembered how his eyes had gone soft at the mention of her getting a husband.

The night before, one of the boys in town had pulled her outside the hall and tried taking liberties. She'd stomped his foot and screamed until both her parents and his, as well as anyone else who happened to be at the assembly, had arrived.

Laurent had somehow blamed her for the incident, saying if she'd only behaved in a more ladylike manner, the boy never would have approached her. Mayhap he'd meant his words as advice for her protection, but she hadn't taken them that way,
non
. Instead she'd told him to go back to his frigate, that she'd find a husband just fine without his help, and then she'd darted into the woods.

She'd brought back a fox and two rabbits later that night, but Laurent had already left a day early for the navy.

Two British men-of-war overtook Laurent's vessel before it even left the channel, taking away any chance of reconciling with her brother.

She sighed and stared out over the water covered in inky blackness, the sounds of the flowing river mixing with an owl's lonely call.

What about her made men want to be cruel? She well understood why no one wanted her to wife, but what allowed them to think base thoughts of her? She'd been traveling with the English for a week. Did none of them see her as a capable, decent woman?

Not even Halston?

But no, evidently he thought her as disreputable as Kessler did.

She shouldn't care. It wasn't as though Halston's opinion made any difference. She was nothing to him but a French peasant useful only as a guide. It mattered not if her mouth turned dry when she thought of how he'd almost kissed her a week past or how her heart had an inexplicable tendency to beat twice as hard when their eyes met over the campfire. She was French and insignificant, and he was a rich, titled member of the English ton.

When he'd almost kissed her, his thoughts had likely been the same as the gendarme's and Citizen Fauchet's. She was just as much of a doxy to him as she was to the others.

She buried her head in her hands.

Father, why?
Why was she even helping the English? All she earned for her efforts was their disdain.

A rustling sounded to her right, followed by the muted padding of footsteps and the thin beam of a lantern. She peered into the shadows behind the light.

“I was beginning to think I'd lost you.”

Halston. Why him? Of all people, couldn't Serge have followed her? Or better, no one.

“I'm sorry for how Kessler treated you back there.”

How
Kessler
had treated her? What about how
he
had treated her? She turned her face away, but that didn't stop him from climbing onto the rock and sitting opposite her.

“I'm rather curious as to why you're not.” His voice carried smooth and deep into the night.

She frowned but didn't bother to look at him. “Why I'm not what?”

“Married yet.”

She wrapped her cloak tighter about her shoulders. “It's not because I'm some fallen woman.”

“I didn't think it was.”

The gentleness in his tone brought her gaze up to his for the barest of instants, then she picked up a broken stick lying near her feet and threw it into the creek.
I'm not married because I want a man who looks at me like
Papa
looks at
Maman
.

But how could she explain that to Halston? How could she make him understand how it felt to be twenty-two and likely to die a haggard spinster who lived with one of her brothers and his family?

She shifted uncomfortably on the rock, but Halston sat beside her, waiting for some answer. Did he know how terrible she was at sitting still? At being quiet? At being patient? “I'm not married, because I'm a failure at every wifely responsibility imaginable.”

He didn't agree, at least not immediately, but he certainly didn't argue either. Instead he just sat there, his smoky eyes surveying her for far too long. “You don't possess many typical feminine qualities, no.”

She raised her chin and turned so her back faced him.

A gracious and feminine gesture, that.

“Don't, Danielle. I didn't intend it as an insult. Perhaps you wouldn't make a picturesque wife, but you have other estimable qualities. I was terrified back there at the checkpoint. Terrified and angry. When I first saw you flirting with the guard, I thought you'd gotten distracted by a handsome face.”

“He wasn't handsome,” she spit out before she could think better of it.

“Nor were you distracted. You saved us back there. But you ought not have played the coquette to do so. The manner in which the gendarme was looking at you...” He cleared his throat. “'Tis not wise to trifle with a man's affections in such a way.”

“Affection is too kind a word for what he was thinking.”

“Yes, quite. Which is why you mustn't do such a thing anymore, not even to protect us. If that gendarme had taken you into the woods or forced you to his barracks, what could I have done? Or Serge? Any of us? The part you played this afternoon was more dangerous than allowing both the gendarmes to turn their attentions on our papers.”

When he stated things in such a manner, his anger over her behavior almost made sense. Almost made it seem that he cared about her as a person, not just as a means of getting him and his brother out of France.

Quiet lingered between them before Halston broke it once again. “Even so, I spoke poorly back at camp when I said I concurred with Kessler. I agreed that you shouldn't play coquette to keep our disguise, but I do not agree with any disparagement against your character. I know you are an honest and honorable woman. By the time I realized my mistake, you'd already fled. Please forgive me.”

She fiddled with another twig lying by her knees. “Serge and I thought it best I not be involved with the gendarme checking papers. I'm a terrible liar. If you want me to hunt or fight, I can do so to the death. But if you want me to look you in the eye and tell you I wore blue yesterday rather than brown, well, I can't.”

He chuckled low and deep in his throat. “I'm aware. How do you think I caught you after we first met and you decided to flee? I was prepared to give chase since your eyes gave your thoughts away. They always do, whether you're irritated with your brother or mad at Kessler or devising a way to keep us all safe.”

She swallowed. Did he watch her eyes so much? And if so, what did he take away from those times when their eyes met over the campfire? When it seemed impossible to pull her gaze away despite whatever else might be happening around them? “'Tis a flaw I must work harder to overcome then.”

“No, 'tis not a flaw but a trait I rather adore.”

“Mayhap. But eyes that give my hidden thoughts away do not make me a desirable wife.”

He turned her to face him fully “Is that what you want, then? A husband?”

“Oui.”
Her eyes turned suddenly hot and moist. A husband like
Papa
with how he sneaked up behind
Maman
to wrap her in his arms and rain kisses atop her hair. “If you want to know the truth of it, I'm not married because...because...I want love.”

“Love.”

The word fell hard and flat between them.

Of course he wouldn't agree with her about the necessity of love in marriage. He was a member of the ton, and people like him didn't marry for love. “
Maman
wasn't always married to my current
Papa
. My first father...he wasn't kind. He didn't love
Maman
, and...and...made things hard for her. For all of us. I see the way
Maman
and
Papa
look at each other now, the way she can't stop having babies though half the town thinks she's mad for birthing the lot of us. And I...I...” She couldn't go on. Her throat was dry and swollen, her eyes burned, and her muddled mind was making a mess of her thoughts. Why had she confessed these things to Halston? He wasn't going to understand.

“You want the same.” He wrapped his arms around the thick wool of her cloak and drew her near, her face resting against his chest. He held her close for a moment before anchoring a strand of hair behind her ear and tilting her chin up.

Her unshed tears turned his face blurry, which was just as well. She didn't need to stare into his eyes. Or have his strong arms wrapped around her. Or sit this close to him.

“People don't marry for love in my country, at least, not members of the ton. But I think the idea noble. If you want love, you're no fool for waiting.”

She blinked. He didn't think her some heartsick child for wanting to marry a man who loved her and would treat her right? Who would cherish her the way
Papa
did
Maman
?

“I should have guessed you wouldn't be like other women, that you'd want something different...” He lowered his head, his lips hovering only a handful of centimeters above hers. “Something more.”

She drew in a breath, staring at the smooth, dull pink of his mouth in the lantern light. Then his lips touched hers, soft and warm...and unforgettable.

* * *

Gregory drew Danielle closer, memorizing everything from the coarseness of her wool coat to the slender form beneath it. The soft breath that burst from her lips an instant before he covered them and the moment her body finally relaxed in his embrace. He would keep her here, against his chest, in his arms all night if he could. And not just tonight, but tomorrow, and the day after that and maybe even the one after that.

She was so different from the debutantes that paraded themselves before him in London. So beautiful and vibrant and alive in his arms. Her heart might be sad, but her body hummed with life, her mouth with care.

Care for him specifically? Or was she merely responding to his kind words, the way he endeavored to look past her lack of propriety and womanly actions to the shining jewel beneath? Would she respond this way to a cobbler or fisherman or butcher if he took the time to appreciate Danielle as she was?

Perhaps so, and it was just as well. There could never be anything between a French peasant and a British lord. She knew it. He knew it. Everyone knew it. If things were different, if she'd been born higher, if he'd been born lower...

Even then, their countries would still be at war.

Gregory pulled away, breaking the kiss though part of him—a very loud, obnoxious part—clamored for more.

Danielle leaned back, her lips wet and her breath puffing white into the cold air. “That was...that was...” She pressed her hand to her mouth, as though trying to seal the feeling of his lips on hers indefinitely.

He ran a hand over her hair, so rich and black and wavy, always falling into her face despite how she tried forcing it up beneath her mobcap.

“Thank you,” she whispered into the moonlight.

“Did you just thank me?” A small smile curved the edges of his lips. “For kissing you?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean...” She sighed. “It's never felt like that before. Thank you for showing me...and for...for...”

The woman with a tongue sharp enough to cut a person in twain suddenly couldn't manage a coherent sentence, and he was responsible. His lips curved even more.

Tonight he could give her those things she craved—understanding, acceptance, care—on some forgotten rock on the banks of some nameless river. But tomorrow...

He suddenly didn't want tomorrow to come.

“We should go,” she said, as though somehow privy to his thoughts. “We've been away so long the others might wonder.” Despite her words, she made no effort to move away from him.

He pulled her back to his chest, wrapping his arms around her until she relaxed against him. Holding her in his arms, hearing the soft inhale and exhale of her breath against the night, feeling the wavy strands of her hair brush against his cheek, it all seemed so right.