Naomi Rawlings - Falling for the Enemy

Except first she needed the wealth and position that would place her in a London ballroom. Her presence in the woods, coupled with her rough brown coat, indicated she had neither.

He held up the two coins in his hand. “I’ll give you two napoleons. One if you put that knife away, and another if you don’t tell anyone we were here. We’ll be gone in the morning and won’t be back. Agreed?”

The woman’s chin came up. “I don’t want your filthy coin.”

He slipped the French coins back into his pocket, took out two guineas and extended his hand. “Guineas, then.”

She spit into the dirt at his feet. “As if filthy, English money will do more to change my mind.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. His “filthy English money” was gold, like the napoleons, but the British currency was far more stable than the French, which was why he carried both with him.

“Are there any others in your traveling party?” Kessler snapped in a French accent not nearly as horrid as Gregory’s. The liar.

The defiant look left the woman’s face, and her eyes skittered wildly to the left then right. She drew her knife away from Farnsworth a fraction of an inch and sucked in a deep breath.

He sensed her plan an instant before she moved. She loosed a bloodcurdling scream and heaved herself off Farnsworth, bolting into the brush and vanishing even quicker than she’d first appeared.

Gregory instantly moved toward the creek. He lengthened his gait, one stride then two, nearly close enough to catch her. “Stop.”

She sprang lithely through the brambles, then darted around a dead log and between two saplings, quick as a pickpocket running through London alleys. If not for his guessing her escape, she’d have been gone.

“Stop!” he tried again.

She didn’t even look back, just kept running.

He pumped his legs harder. A thick stand of fir trees loomed ahead, its shadows black in the growing darkness. If she made it into the dense branches, he’d never find her. Yet she was only a few steps ahead of him. He couldn’t reach her with his arms, but would likely fell her if he lunged.

He grimaced at the thought of crashing to the ground, as she’d just held a knife to his valet’s throat. What else was he to do? He drew in a breath, readied his legs, braced himself for the pain of landing on the forest floor...

And dove.

His hands felt only the fabric of her skirts as he fell. He stretched farther as he collided with the dirt, finally gripping a limb beneath the layers of cloth. One hard yank, and the woman squealed. Then she crashed in front of him, landing in earth still soft from yesterday’s rain.

She rolled quickly onto her back, but he kept hold of her ankle—which she attempted to kick furiously at his head.

“Be still,” he gritted in English.

She only fought harder, as though his words, which she couldn’t understand, had somehow incensed her.

He climbed closer, resting his weight on her legs until she was forced to stop kicking. Only then did he see why she struggled so hard. Her knife lay on the ground an arm’s length in front of her.

“Farnsworth, Kessler,” he called, then frowned. Was he really about to ask the man who’d shot him in the leg for help?

One way or another, this trip was going to be the death of him.

“Over here,” he shouted a bit louder. “I need some...help.”

It was galling to admit, both because Kessler would be involved in the helping, and because his opponent was a woman. Yet he couldn’t keep her still enough to—

A sharp slice of pain seared his cheek, followed by a screeching, “Non!”

Teach him to not watch her wolfishly quick hands. He reached up to grasp the woman’s wrist before she could withdraw it and stared down at her bloody nails while his cheek throbbed wildly. Blast, but that was going to leave a nice wound.

“Let me go. I know nothing,” she spit out in French.

But she did know something. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be struggling so hard to free herself. Otherwise, she would have taken his guineas.

Footfalls sounded, and a moment later Kessler’s and Farnsworth’s boots appeared on the ground beside him. “Someone get the knife.”

Kessler headed toward the blade while Farnsworth hunkered down and grasped the woman’s free arm.

“You’re bleeding, Lord Gregory.”

As though he hadn’t noticed. He would have rolled his eyes if he wasn’t so busy stilling the woman’s legs as she tried to knee him in the stomach yet again. Instead, he wiped his bleeding cheek against the shoulder of his shirt.

Farnsworth clucked his tongue “And you’re rather a mess.”

That he was, covered in mud from ankles to shoulders. Even now cold dampness seeped through his clothing around his knees.

“Perhaps, but I have the girl.” Which ought to count for something.

Kessler returned, knife in hand.

“Hold her other arm while I get up.”

Kessler shoved the knife into a pocket of his greatcoat and came near enough to take the woman’s shoulder opposite Farnsworth. Gregory rolled away from her legs quickly enough so as not to get himself kicked—though she tried, the hoyden.

He stood while Kessler and Farnsworth hauled her up. Two men to hold one woman, and still she looked around as though planning another escape attempt. Then her gaze landed on the hilt of her knife peeking from Kessler’s pocket.

Gregory sprang forward and wrenched the blade away an instant before the woman’s hand touched the spot where the hilt had rested.

Her lips curled into a snarl.

He took a step back lest she attempt to swipe the blade from his hold. Instead she jerked hard on the shoulder Kessler held, forcing his hand to slip an inch.

“Hold still, wench, or we’ll use that knife on you,” Kessler snapped in French.

The woman stilled, panic flashing through her eyes for the briefest of instants before she masked it.

What was he going to do with her? Her hair had come completely free of her cap and hung wildly about her shoulders with thick clumps of mud matted in the riotous mess. More mud splattered her dress, starting at the hem and working up her body. And from how she’d lain on the ground earlier, the back of her dress was probably soaked through and caked with mud as well.

Yet somehow, despite her filth and bedraggled state, she was magnificent.

And here he’d thought Joan of Arc had been burned at the stake several centuries past. Surely the woman before him could lead an army into battle just as well as the legendary heroine.

“Before you ran, I asked who you traveled with.” He spoke slowly in French, so she wouldn’t mistake a single word of his statement

Her nose came up and her jaw hardened, yet she met his gaze with her icy, sky-blue eyes. Once again, she resembled the ancient woman warrior who had defied the English even when facing death.

“Answer me. Who else is with you?”

Silence permeated the forest, the faint trickle of the creek and the occasional tapping of tree branches in the breeze the only sounds surrounding them.

“Perhaps she travels alone, sir.” Farnsworth shifted his weight beside the woman. “Or perhaps she doesn’t understand your question.”

Oh, she knew what he asked, all right. Knew more than she was willing to admit.

“Hold the knife to her throat,” Kessler commanded. “She’ll talk then.”

Gregory ground his teeth together. The man had shot him in the leg, fled the country and then found himself in a French prison for sixteen months...and still failed to learn that violence seldom solved one’s problems. “I promised not to harm her.”

Though that had been before she’d fled into the woods, rolled around in the mud with him and scratched his cheek.