Love Inspired Historical January 2015 Box Set: Wolf Creek Father\Cowboy Seeks a Bride\Falling for the Enemy\Accidental Fiancee (60 page)

“Non.”
Serge's answer rang clearly over the crowd. “We've been fine, haven't we, Dani? Nothing suspicious.”

“Nothing suspicious,” she finally muttered. But her stomach churned sickeningly.

She and Halston had much to discuss when they returned to camp.

If she decided to go back at all.

Chapter Eight

“C
ome, Westerfield. Another swallow.” Gregory lifted his brother's shoulders while Farnsworth held a flask of broth to his lips, but Westerfield's eyelids didn't even flutter; nor did his throat move.

He laid his unconscious, wheezing brother gently back on the pallet.

“Would you like to try again, my lord?” Farnsworth twisted the lid securely onto the container. “Perhaps just water this time, rather than bone broth?”

Gregory pressed his eyes shut. What was the use? Westerfield wasn't even conscious, let alone eating or drinking. “No.”

“Very well, sir.” Farnsworth stood, flask in hand. “Can I get you some food, then? Or perhaps some broth for yourself?”

He shook his head and stared out across the dreary little clearing, the clouds above casting a gray pall over the afternoon. What right did he have to eat or drink while his brother remained so ill?

Perhaps if Danielle returned with the medicine, Westerfield might take a turn for the better, but Danielle and Serge had promised to return by last night, and were now running a half day late.

A twig snapped in the woods, followed by the sound of boots on leaves. Gregory turned as Kessler stomped into camp. “Are they coming?”

Kessler's eyes were hard and angry. “They've deserted us. There's no sign of them.”

Gregory stood on legs that felt leaden and aged beyond his eight and twenty years. “Then something must have detained them.”

“Nothing detained them. That was the problem. You gave them a chance to run, and they took it.”

He crossed his arms. “If that were true, we'd have been encircled by gendarmes two days ago.”

“Perhaps they didn't turn us in, but they still left us.” Kessler stalked to the fire, presenting his back as he helped himself to some water. “I told you not to let them go.”

“You blame me for this?”

From where he sat on a fallen log, Farnsworth stopped sipping his bowl of broth, his eyes moving between the two of them.

“Why shouldn't I?” Kessler tipped his head back and drank deeply. “One of us should have gone with the wench instead of her brother, but you refused to listen.”

“Danielle said we'd have been found out in under a minute,” he growled at Kessler's back.

“‘Danielle said,'” Kessler mocked. “Tell me, since when does London's richest man of business bow to the whim of some frog?”

He looked down at Westerfield, his face gray and faint breaths rattling inside his chest. “Since she's saving our lives.”

“She's not saving our lives—she's deserting us. And in the meantime we don't even have someone here who knows how to hunt.”

“So you didn't find food, either? Not even a squirrel?” Gregory raked a hand through is hair. “Can you do anything besides stomp around camp and argue?”

“I'm skilled at a great many things, as you well know.”

“I meant besides debauching maids.” The words slipped out of his mouth before he thought to check them, crashing to the ground like large, insurmountable boulders.

“I beg your pardon,” Kessler spoke slowly. Quietly.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—”

“Oh, no. You should have. You definitely should have.” Red rushed up Kessler's neck and cheeks all the way to the tips of his ears. “It's what you've been thinking all along, isn't it? Ever since you first pulled me from that wretched dungeon. In fact, if your brother hadn't been imprisoned beside me, you'd have left me to rot, would you not?”

“Do you deserve anything less than a dungeon after how you treated Suzanna?”

“You act as though I ravished your sister, not some serving girl.”

Did Kessler hear his words? How arrogant they sounded? How cruel? How ruthless? Did Suzanna somehow not matter because she was in service? Perhaps Danielle had the right of it when she spoke of people's value not being based on who their parents were. “Serving girl or not, you were still wrong.”

“And I tried apologizing!” A vein throbbed along Kessler's neck.

“Last I checked, you couldn't give a woman her virtue back with a mere apology.”

“Can we calm down, my lords? I'm not sure all this shouting is good for Lord Westerfield.” Farnsworth stuck a finger in his collar and tugged.

Kessler's jaw worked back and forth. “As I told you before the duel, you see only what you want to see, but what's the point of trying to explain when you're too self-righteous to listen? Perhaps I will go hunt more squirrel. That's certainly more appealing than being stuck in this camp with you.” Kessler dropped the flask of water and stalked off toward the woods.

Gregory heaved in a giant breath of air. He should let Kessler walk away. Of course he should. Nothing good would come of fighting further.

But the sight of the other man retreating, his back straight and shoulders squared, his blond hair pulled back into its queue was so similar to when he'd walked away after Gregory confronted him about Suzanna. And again, when he'd walked away after the duel, leaving Gregory crumpled on the ground with a leg wound that had given way to an infection that nearly took his life.

Kessler wasn't going to walk away a third time.

“It's time we have this out.” He charged forward and yanked Kessler around by the shoulder.

“My lords...” Farnsworth shouted.

Gregory swung his fist into Kessler's stomach, and Kessler stumbled back, bumping into one of the tripod legs near the fire.

“Look out for the broth and fire,” Farnsworth finished, but too late.

The little pot of broth tipped and extinguished the flames, emptying the last of their food—food that Westerfield needed.

Kessler jerked away from Gregory's hold. “This is ridiculous. I've apologized for Suzanna time and again. The problem isn't with me. It's with you. You refuse to forgive me.”

“You think
I'm
the problem? You're the one impossible to work with. Always too good to help find squirrel or pack up bedding or carry water. Staring at Danielle as though she's Suzanna.”

“I don't look at Danielle that way.”

Gregory lunged forward and gripped Kessler's coat by the collar, jerking him forward until their breaths tangled. “Don't lie to me. I've seen you look at her.”

“I haven't set eyes on a woman in over a year,” Kessler growled. “I can't help it if—”

“What are you fools doing?” A displeased feminine voice cut through the clearing.

Gregory dropped his hands from Kessler and took a step back. Danielle stood on the opposite side of the camp, her mass of hair tucked up beneath that tiny mobcap while stray wisps fell about her face.

She was back and safe.
Thank You, God.

“You're late.” Kessler tromped around the fire toward her. “What took you so long?”

Gregory gritted his teeth. Had the man learned nothing from their argument? “He means, ah...we hope you didn't meet with any trouble returning.”

She propped a hand on her hip and surveyed the three of them, her eyes lingering on the spilled broth. “That's why you were fighting? Because I hadn't returned?”

“Ah...somewhat...”

“The business between Lord Gregory and myself is none of your concern.” Kessler straightened the crumpled collar of his coat.

“Danielle.” Farnsworth stood and headed toward her. “Did you get medicine for Lord Westerfield? Is there anything I can help with?”

“None of my concern.” Danielle glared at Kessler, her voice going from curious to a low, deadly calm.

“Danielle?”

She didn't even look at Farnsworth, who had come to stop beside her. “Tell me, how much more of this journey is ‘none of my concern'? And I'll not listen to any more of your lies.”

Gregory furrowed his brow. “We've not lied to you, Danielle.”

“No? Do you agree with your friend Kessler and claim everything is ‘none of my concern,' as well?”

Gregory could hardly call the lout his friend. Westerfield's friend, perhaps. Though he'd never understood why.

“Like Kessler and Westerfield not being imprisoned in Verdun is ‘none of my concern'?” Spite dripped from Danielle's voice.

Gregory winced. Had she discovered the truth about his brother and Kessler on her trip to Saint-Quentin? “Perhaps we should have explained more—”

“Like the fact that they're escaped spies?”

The blood drained from his face. He cast a glance at Kessler, but the other man looked as immovable and hardened as ever, while Danielle's voice grew louder with every word she uttered.

“I'll tell you what else is ‘none of my concern.' All four of you.” She spread her arm to encompass the camp.

“Dani.” Serge broke through the trees. “I could hear you shouting from ten meters away. Calm down.”

“It doesn't matter whether I'm calm or not.” Danielle's creamy cheeks darkened to a dull pink. “We're leaving. Just give me a few minutes to show Farnsworth the medicines Westerfield needs. He doesn't deserve to die because of these two idiots.”

Serge scratched his head. “Are they really spies?”

“Spies or not, I won't spend the next two weeks traveling with people I can't trust.” She turned then and stalked to Westerfield, kneeling over him and unfolding a little pouch. “Farnsworth, I need your assistance.”

The servant dropped to the ground beside her, leaving Serge to stand by himself. “But what about the cart and mule hidden by the road?”

“Leave them for Westerfield. They'd only slow us down.”

“There's no need to leave them,” Kessler boomed. “Because you're not breaking from our party.”

Gregory turned to Kessler and gripped his arm before whispering, “Keep quiet, man. Do you want her to stop helping Westerfield?”

“We can't let her leave,” Kessler whispered furiously. “She'll turn us in to the first gendarmerie post she comes across.”

“If she was going to do that, she'd not have returned at all. Look at her.” He gestured toward Danielle's hunched form studiously working beside his brother. “If nothing else, she wants Westerfield to live.”

“And cares not whether the rest of us live or die.”

Gregory blew out a breath. “I probably should have told her where you and Westerfield had been imprisoned.”

“You mean you didn't?”

“She suspected we were spies as soon as she saw us. Do you think telling her everything would have convinced her to help? I thought it better to let her assume you were in Verdun.”

Kessler crossed his arms over his chest. “So you lied?”

Gregory cleared his throat. “I...ah...didn't exactly correct her assumptions.”

Kessler's upper lip curled into a vicious snarl. “And here you blame me for—”

“Do one of you want to go hunting with me?” Serge stepped around the fallen pot and smoking embers of the now-dead fire. “Dani will have to make poultices and then separate our things from yours, so we've got at least an hour.”

Kessler looked down his nose at the boy.

“Go,” Gregory urged. “I'll remain here and see if I can convince Danielle to stay.”

“It's no use.” Kessler jerked his chin toward where Danielle still knelt over Westerfield. “That woman is as stubborn as a mule.”

“Perchance, but it's worth the try.”

“Fine.” Kessler huffed out a breath. “But don't think this conversation is finished. You're arrogant and self-righteous, Halston, and a hypocrite, as well. You always stand in judgment over us all as if you are free of wrongdoing. But you lied about where Westerfield and I were imprisoned. That's on your head, and if you can't make things right with Danielle I'll hold you accountable.” He stalked off with Serge into the woods.

The muscle in Gregory's jaw clenched involuntarily. Kessler thought him arrogant and self-righteous?
Him?
What had he ever done besides give to the poor and aid the needy? He was the sole funder of the Hastings Orphanage and more generous than many a peer with his giving to London's various foundling hospitals and poorhouses.

And he'd never once debauched a woman, only helped the ones left destroyed in Kessler's wake. Suzanna had hardly been the first, just the most personal.

Yet Kessler had the gall to call him hypocritical for not correcting Danielle's assumptions about Verdun. It had seemed the wisest option at the time, nothing more and nothing less.

But evidently it hadn't been the best choice, not if Danielle wanted to leave them because of it.

He sighed and made his way across the small clearing toward Danielle. Though not yet evening, the gray winter light shone down on her through the spindly branches above, illuminating her round cheek and tapered jaw as she worked intently on his brother. A woman as beautiful and vibrant as she belonged somewhere like a London town house or ballroom, with maids to wait on her every need and a string of suitors following her.

But she wasn't in London. Nor was she aristocracy. She was a French peasant with an uncanny understanding of the woods and survival.

And she was his only hope of reaching England alive.

He stepped closer. “Danielle.”

She held up a hand, not bothering to take her eyes from her work. “Farnsworth, I need some water.”

Farnsworth jumped up and rushed for Kessler's discarded flask while Danielle took a little wooden mortar and pestle out of her pouch.

Gregory cleared his throat and tried again. “Danielle, I'm sorry. Truly.”

Her shoulders stiffened.

“I want you to know—”

“Your words won't sway me, Halston. But if you want your brother's condition to improve, I suggest you stand back and let me work.”

“Will this be enough?” Farnsworth returned with the half-empty container of water.

She took the container and looked inside. “
Merci
, Farnsworth. It will do for now.”