“Serge what?” Kessler took another piece of salt pork. “Have you a surname?”
“Serge Belanger.”
“Belanger?” Gregory set his salt pork aside. “And you say you have relatives in England?”
The boy’s brow furrowed. “Oui, an aunt and an uncle that moved there during the Terror.”
“Are you by chance related to Michel and Isabelle Belanger? They live near Hastings and have a furniture factory.”
The boy stopped chewing. “How do you know Oncle Michel and Tante Isabelle?”
Gregory ran his eyes over the lad. He didn’t look at all similar to Michel Belanger, but why would he lie about such a thing? “I’m Belanger’s man of business.”
Much to his mother’s dismay. She’d wanted him to join the church, but his brother and the other noblemen whose accounts he handled certainly didn’t complain about the money he made them. And if he happened to take on a client or two from the merchant class in exchange for a certain percentage of the money made on their investments, then so be it.
The boy’s nose scrunched. “What’s that?”
“I manage his investments.” He glanced at Danielle across the fire. Was she surprised he knew her aunt and uncle?
The stubborn woman’s jaw was still set and her body angled away from him.
“Man of business.” Serge rolled the words over his tongue. “Sounds like some fancy English farce of a position that no one needs.”
Kessler smirked. “Halston probably makes more money in one day than your father does in a year.”
Gregory rolled his shoulders. He was a bit adept at making money, yes. So much of it, at least, that whatever he spent on clothes or conveyances or housing, he easily made up and then some within the month. Which was why he allotted a large chunk to the Hastings Orphanage and a series of foundling hospitals and poorhouses in other areas of England.
“You don’t look all that rich.” Serge eyed Gregory.
Kessler laughed, the first time the man had likely smiled in two years. “Yes, Halston, why don’t you look rich?”
Gregory rubbed the back of his neck. “I usually don’t traipse about the French countryside disguised as a peasant and trying to evade the law.”
“You’re disguised as a peasant?” The boy’s nose wrinkled again. “With boots as fine as that but unmended holes in your trousers? Being rich sure don’t give you much sense, does it?”
“What, precisely, is wrong with my garments?”
“No peasant would let those holes in their trousers without sewing them up right quick—they need their clothes to last, not fall apart. No peasant would spend the money for boots like that, and no peasant would stand as straight as you do.”
Gregory stared down at his boots. Did they truly give him away? He’d wanted sturdy leather ones that wouldn’t pain his feet while walking. Who could fault him for that? His first guide certainly hadn’t objected when he’d chosen his disguise.
Then again, his first guide had probably intended to betray him all along.
“From where do you hail?” Kessler asked Serge.
Gregory blinked and looked back at the boy. He probably should have asked that before demanding that Danielle and Serge take them to the coast. If this was their first time traveling inland, would they make competent enough guides? Knowing English and having family across the channel didn’t exactly mean the woman and her brother could effectively lead them.
Though the woman’s skill with a knife would certainly be useful.
“Abbeville,” the boy stated.
Kessler merely stared.
“It’s near the coast. Just inland a bit from Saint-Valery-sur-Somme. Do you know Saint-Valery?”
“I do,” Gregory answered. “It’s somewhat across the channel from Hastings.” Which made the boy and his sister perfect guides for his purposes. They were likely familiar with the roads and terrain between here and the channel and could guide them with far less risk of getting caught than Gregory and the others could ever manage on their own. And he needed that, since the prison guards would have already notified cities, towns and gendarmerie posts of their escape.
Serge reached for more salt pork—what had to be his fifth or sixth piece of the leathery meat—but Kessler clamped down on his hand. “If you’re from the coast, what are you doing so far inland?”
“We were in Reims visiting our tante and oncle and trying to find a husband for Dani.” The boy scowled at his sister. “No one wants her, though.”
Gregory had been taking a sip of water and choked at the boy’s words. No Frenchman wanted her? He glanced at Serge’s silent sister through the smoke of the small flames. What was wrong with the men of this country? Could they not see the crystalline color of her eyes or the smooth, pale skin of her face? The riotous black waves that fell about her shoulders?
No, her hair would have been up. The men wouldn’t have known how magnificent it looked free. But even so, the rest of her was enough to bend any man’s mind toward marriage, wasn’t it?
Well, maybe not if she decided to hold a knife to her suitors’ necks.
“Stow it, Serge.” Warning dripped from Danielle’s voice.
The boy shrugged. “What? They asked. I’m just being honest.”
“Then stop talking all together. Why are you volunteering information to these strangers? Your mouth is what got us into trouble in the first place, Mr. I’m-going-to-forget-I-have-a-brain-and-speak-English-when-I-should-be-speaking-French.”
“On the contrary,” Westerfield’s weak voice filled the air behind them. “I believe his excellent English quite proves his possession of said brain.”
The youth laughed at that, his face alight with pride. “See that, Dani? He thinks my brain is just fine.”
“Though I question the intelligence of any Frenchman who doesn’t want your sister.” Kessler watched Danielle with a predatory glint to his eyes.
“Don’t even think about it,” Gregory muttered.
“I wouldn’t dare,” Kessler answered airily.
But Kessler had already had thought of it—and done it—in England, and his gaze said he’d thought of such with Danielle just now.
She glanced between the two of them, as though sensing the tension. Then again, a deaf, blind mute could likely sense the tension between him and Kessler.
Serge, however, stuffed another piece of salt pork in his mouth and spoke around it. “Well, some of the men might want Dani if she tried being nice. She stomped on one landowner’s toe and then slapped him, and he was the richest of the lot of them.”
Danielle threw up her hands. “He tried to...” But she suddenly clamped her mouth shut, color flooding her cheeks. “Never mind. Just keep quiet, Serge.”
“On the contrary, I’m rather curious now that you’ve brought it up.” Kessler’s harsh voice floated over the campsite. “What precisely did this Frenchman attempt, Danielle?”
She hardened her jaw.
“Enough.” Gregory stood. So Danielle was beautiful, any man could see that. But she