“Just look at her. She’s so frightened she’s trembling.”
Danielle glanced down at her hands, which unfortunately were shaking, and tucked them under her arms.
“Maybe leaving her unrestrained makes me a fool, but at least I’m not an ogre,” Halston retorted.
The air between the two men sparked again, an angry exchange that she didn’t begin to understand.
“Watch her closely.” Kessler jutted his chin toward her. “If she flees, it’s on you.”
“Seeing how you’re free at this moment because I rescued you, I don’t think asking you to trust me is too big a request.”
Free? Danielle looked between the two men. Free from what? The most obvious answer was prison. Had one of them been imprisoned for spying? Were they prison escapees as well as spies?
“How easily you forget.” Kessler’s eyes shot tiny sparks at Halston. “You started this entire mess nearly two years ago.”
Halston looked away, rubbing a hand through his already tousled hair. “Farnsworth, go scout downstream and invite whoever’s in charge of the woman’s party back here. There’s no need for threats or violence. We can likely pay them for their silence, and they should be able to convince the woman to cooperate.”
“Yes, my lord.” The servant started toward the creek, this time heading downstream rather than upstream.
Danielle stared at her hands, unbound—at least for now. A helplessly sick feeling rose in her chest. What if she was making the wrong choice? What if Halston let Kessler tie her and her brother tonight so they couldn’t escape? What if the Englishmen were crueler to her younger brother than they had been to her?
She should have thought her actions through better from the beginning. Should have pretended she didn’t care whether they searched the banks of the stream instead of panicking when they first asked who she traveled with.
But she’d always been a poor liar. She could fight to defend herself, oui, but she gave herself away the moment she so much as thought about uttering a falsehood.
She glanced around the woods, surveying the brambles and saplings immediately surrounding them, the more stately trees rooted to the forest beyond. Better to not attempt any lies and stay quiet for the next few hours. Once darkness fell, she could lead her brother into the dense woods.
The sick man lying on the bedroll on the far side of the camp coughed—hadn’t the servant called him Lord Westerfield? Not that she would utter the title “lord” to any man. Her captors might be English by birth, but they were in France now, and in France, everyone was a citizen. All of equal value and standing.
Halston gave her a hard look, then turned back toward the sick man. Kessler had moved to the opposite side of the fire where he rummaged through a sack, not nearly so trusting as Halston. His eyes didn’t leave her for an instant.
Not that she could blame him.
So she tucked her knees up into her chest and waited.
And waited.
And waited. Soon the two hale Englishmen started arguing about which one of them would make tea for the sick one. Evidently neither knew the first thing about boiling water. And the British wondered why the French had overthrown their own aristocracy.
Halston sorted through a sack until he found some salt pork and offered it to Kessler, who wrinkled his nose but took of the offering.
Halston turned to her, the dried meat extended in his hand. She raised her chin and looked away. She’d rather starve than take food from those who shared the same nationality as the men who’d killed her brother.
The brambles near the creek rustled, and she tensed, watching, waiting. If any harm had come to Serge, she’d find some way to punish them all. These insidious English knew not how deadly she was with a knife—even if they had taken hers for the moment.
But Serge stepped into the clearing of his own volition, spotted her and headed straight over, plopping himself down onto her blanket.
“Dani, what did you go and get yourself into?”
“A nest of English spies.”
Halston dropped his cup of tea to the ground. “What did you say?”
She swallowed, her tongue freezing against the roof of her mouth. What had she done?
Or rather, what had Serge done?
Repercussions of her simple mistake echoed through her body. Serge had spoken to her in English—had probably been speaking to the servant in English since the man first found him by the river.
And she’d answered him back.
In English.
“You speak our tongue.” Halston narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ve understood every word we’ve said.”
“I knew she was hiding something.” Kessler spit into the ground by the fire.
She was going to kill her brother. Slowly. Torturously. She turned so her back faced Halston, though that didn’t stop the growing vibrations from his footsteps as he approached.
“What were you thinking?” she whispered to her brother furiously. “How dare you let them know we speak their language? We’re their prisoners, and you just gave away one of our advantages.”
“Calm down, Dani.” Serge reached over to pat her back. “They’re nice. Besides, it’s not like they’ve got us tied up or anything.”
If he only knew.
“Why didn’t you tell us you spoke English?” Halston’s irate voice boomed from above her, all traces of mercy and consideration vanished in the storm of his anger. “Well?”
She didn’t need to turn around to know where he stood. She could feel his nearness, the heat of his legs boring into her back, the fury of his rage rolling off him. The hair on the back of her neck prickled in instinctive dread, and she bit the side of her lip. But really, there was only one thing to say. In English, unfortunately. “I demand you let us go.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
She jumped at the underlying bite to his words, then glanced at Serge, who stared up at the Englishman with wide eyes.
“What exactly did you overhear earlier, before Farnsworth found you in the shrubs?”
Before Farnsworth had found her? Something about traveling at night and being lost and a sarcastic comment that involved asking the gendarmes for directions—which was about the time she’d decided to go find a gendarmerie post herself and turn the men in.
And also happened to be about the time she’d made too much noise backing through the shrubs.
She licked her lips. “Nothing terribly significant.”
“Turn around.”
She startled again, the edge in his voice warning her not to disobey.
He crouched before her, his large, looming body so close all moisture leached from her mouth. “I don’t believe you.”
“I didn’t...that is...I don’t...I mean...um...”
“Tell me—Dani, is it?” His gray-blue eyes flashed at her.
“Danielle,” Serge piped up. “Just the family calls her Dani.”
“Danielle.” The name sounded long and cool on his tongue, an oddity considering the way the rest of his words smoldered. “What is it you think we’re going to do to you?”
She squeezed her eye shut. Take her and Serge