Kessler stayed in the water, which had to be frigid given the cold January temperatures, and for a moment it seemed he decided to keep quiet. Then Kessler hefted himself onto the bank, the tendons in his emaciated hands and forearms stark even in the blackness. “I’m sorry.”
The breath exploded from Gregory’s lungs. His wound had become so infected he’d almost died. What was he supposed to do with an apology?
A small splash rippled the water, and he tore his gaze away from Kessler to the dark head full of shaggy hair surfacing at his feet.
“Westerfield.” The name felt odd on his tongue. His brother had been a mere heir to the Marquess of Westerfield when he’d entered France during a short-lived period of peace all those months ago. Now he was the marquess himself, and their father—the man the world had once called Westerfield—was dead.
Gregory held out a hand to pull Westerfield from the water.
The palm that reached up to wrap around him was naught but bones, with a grip so weak a child could break it. What had these despicable Frenchmen done to his once-strong brother?
Gregory hauled Westerfield out of the moat and wrapped his arms around him. Never mind that the embrace soaked his cloak and shirt. Never mind that they hadn’t time for such things until they were at least shrouded in the shelter of the trees.
A horrid stench rose up around him, sour and reeking of urine and vermin. He nearly broke his hold, would have, except Westerfield’s gaunt hand had only been the beginning of the horrid discovery. The man was so thin he might well be more corpse than human.
“Did they feed you?”
“On occasion.” The rasp in his brother’s words made the once-familiar voice barely recognizable. Westerfield sagged into him, as though too weak to stand on his own. Then a cough racked his chest, ringing out over the water and up the castle walls.
“Get him to the trees,” Kessler murmured. “You can greet each other there.”
Gregory wrapped his arms tighter around Westerfield, bracing him more than hugging him. Was his brother ill? That hadn’t been reported. The guard had claimed Westerfield and Kessler were both in excellent health.
Gregory looked at Kessler. Though the man stood covered in a sopping black cloak, ’twas plain from his pronounced cheekbones and the drawn way his skin sank into his face that he’d fared little better than Westerfield. “There’s only the two of you?”
Kessler frowned. “Yes. Were there supposed to be more?”
“I arranged for three escapes, the last was supposed to be the...”
A lantern appeared in one of the lower castle windows, voices carrying across the moat.
“Could there have been an escape?”
Despite Gregory’s rather basic understanding of French, the meaning of the words was clear enough.
“Non. No escape, not here!”
“One of the cells below is empty.”
“I know nothing of it.”
“Wake the guards, and search the castle. The men couldn’t have gotten outside these walls.”
“What if they did?”
“We must hasten,” Kessler growled quietly, then wrapped an arm beneath one of Westerfield’s shoulders.
They scrambled toward the trees together, stopping only when they met Farnsworth. But the tree line could offer only momentary respite. They needed to get away, yet the guard hadn’t made the escape, and their French guide was still missing.
Westerfield coughed again, the bone-deep sound jarring against the otherwise still night. “Slower next time.”
A call rang out from somewhere inside the towering stone walls of the castle, followed by an echo in response. Gregory didn’t look back to see whether more lanterns had appeared in the windows, but he could well guess the next cry before it left the mouth of a distant guard.
“Escape!”
The shout reverberated across the field and bounced against the trees.
A cold dread filled his chest. They’d been betrayed.
And stranded.
In the middle of France.
At the center of a war.
He glanced briefly around his group. Four men, all unmistakably English. Their clothing and coin might be French, but their tongues were English. They could manage to speak some French between them, yes, but not without accents.
By this time tomorrow night, they’d all be rotting inside a dark French dungeon, and something told him their new home was going to make the horrors his brother and Kessler had endured look trivial in comparison.
* * *
Danielle Belanger crouched beside the campfire and laid another stick on the licking flames, then sighed.
Another task failed.
Oh, she’d been sent to Reims to visit with her aunt, true. And the visit had gone rather well. Her mother’s sister was kind, generous, well respected...
And had tried introducing her to every decent, unmarried man in the city.
Those meetings had turned out about as well as all her introductions to men in her hometown of Abbeville.
Two and twenty years of age, and no one wanted to marry her.
Not that she wanted to marry any of them, but most girls four years her younger were happily married and bearing babes. Shouldn’t she have had at least one marriage proposal by now?
Or rather, she’d had one, she supposed.
Well, more like a dozen. But none of them from men any sane woman would marry. Perhaps if she was blind and docile and preferred spending her days mucking stalls and spinning yarn, she could be happily married. But she certainly didn’t take to mucking stalls—they stank too much. Or spinning yarn—one had to sit far too still to manage such a task. She wasn’t blind, and as for the docile part, well...
“I could only get one.” Serge, her younger brother by six years, emerged from the tangle of trees and shrubs lining the creek. A squirrel dangled from his hand by the tail.
She rolled her eyes. “Go back for another, then.” He held out the squirrel for her to take. She merely crossed her arms. “Papa said you need to practice.”
“Come on, Dani. You can have it skinned in half the time.”
Which was likely why her younger brother had reached sixteen and was the slowest animal skinner in all of Abbeville.
“I caught and cleaned the rabbit last night. It’s your turn.” She eyed the bloodied animal, a large stab wound gaping in its chest. “And you’ve little choice about going back for more. Mayhap we could have shared just the one had your blade hit between the eyes. But knifing it in the chest like that, you lost too much meat.”
Which her brother should have known.
Maybe he wasn’t just the worst in Abbeville at handling a knife. He had to be the most inept in all of northern France.
She pushed up from her crouched position by the fire and stood, stretching her back before turning to head upstream.
“Where are you going?” Serge called after her.
“To look for berries.”
“In January?”
She shrugged. So mayhap she wouldn’t happen upon berries, but she might find some burdock or cattail root to dig. Anything to get her away from the fire. If she lingered there, she’d end up doing