The Uncompromising Lord Flint

by Virginia Heath

  Everything was going entirely to plan.

  Not that she really had any more of a plan now than she had when all this had started a few weeks ago. It was more a series of events and opportunities created out of necessity and desperation and a large sprinkling of unexpected luck, but at least she was out of the run-down pension which had been her prison for the last month and was heading home, albeit as a prisoner again.

  She hoped this ship was fast.

  The more miles between her and Saint-Aubin the better. Cruel, callous and with the single-minded determination to crush anyone or anything that got in his way under the heel of his glossy boots, that monster had stolen too many years and sucked all the joy out of her soul. Oh, how she hated him! Except now he had an excellent reason to turn all that venom towards her. She hadn’t just escaped, she had destroyed the documentation he would need to fill the void she had left. Every name, every contact, every supplier carefully recorded in her mother’s leather journal now languished somewhere at the bottom of the harbour in Cherbourg. It would take him weeks and possibly costly months to piece it all together again—unless he found her first and forced the details out of her.

  Torture, then death.

  Neither appealed. Once she was in sight of the English coast, Jess would find a way to escape properly and disappear, never to be found again. A new life and a new identity, miles from the shore, ships and the smugglers who had stolen her old ones.

  The only hatch to the brig opened, followed by the tell-tale smell of boiled cabbage and stale sweat, and the same toothless sailor who had watched her lasciviously for the last week, carried steaming wooden buckets of water. Over his shoulder were tossed towels and fresh clothes. Behind him came the other guard, not quite as hostile but no more compassionate, with a small tin bathtub filled with folded sheets which the pair of them suspended from the low ceiling like a sail. Then with a snarl, the toothless one produced a key and undid the padlock of her cell, warily watching Jess as she sat unmoving before him.

  ‘Your bath, your ladyship. Not that traitors deserve baths as far as I’m concerned. If it was down to me, I’d leave you to rot in your own filth.’

  ‘As you do?’ Bating him was probably not sensible. The toothless one was free and easy with his fists, but Jess couldn’t bring herself to cower subserviently. She had experienced worse. ‘You stink.’

  His lip curled and he raise his hand, then dropped it. A first for him. Something must have changed to make him resist. He threw the soap and hairbrush into the straw in front of her.

  ‘Once you’re finished, the illustrious Lord Flint wants to see you in his cabin while we get to clean up the mess you’ve made.’ Something which clearly disgruntled the old sea dog immensely. ‘Don’t try any funny business! There’s another guard up there with a loaded musket and orders to kill if you don’t do as you’re told. Bath. Dress. And be swift about it.’ Threat issued, they retreated up the narrow steps to the main deck and the tiny hatch slammed closed once again.

  Lord Flint.

  So that was his name? It made sense he was an aristocrat. Every aspect of his being—from the inscrutable expression on his handsome face, the arrogant stance and the impeccably tailored coat he filled so well—all pointed to as much. His obvious physical attributes aside, the privileged, pampered English male was always the same no matter what magnificent shape or size they came in. Cold, detached and uninterested in any opinions which contradicted their own.

  Jess hadn’t been exaggerating when she had warned he was in danger. Saint-Aubin would have them both torn limb from limb and their entrails fed to the dogs in a heartbeat, yet Lord Flint had brushed off her concerns with rude indifference. She hated that.

  She remembered her father’s same indifference all those years ago when her mother declared her intention to leave him and take their only daughter with her. Like the arrogant Lord Flint, he hadn’t believed a word of it and lived to rue the day. Or more likely, as it turned out, he had simply been glad to be shot of her and hadn’t rued it at all. The manner of her leaving had certainly given him a valid excuse to dissolve the marriage with impressive haste, disown his only daughter and rapidly find a new wife to finally give him his longed-for son. Cold, detached and uninterested peers of the realm were so at odds with her experience of their French aristocratic counterparts. Saint-Aubin had been hot-headed, suspicious and terminally cruel. While she might have been fleetingly attracted to the man, Lord Flint’s staid, emotionless demeanour had been reassuringly familiar.

  He hadn’t bothered introducing himself, not that she’d really given him much chance to or cared overmuch who he was. It wasn’t as if she intended to spend much time in his company. Jess had ranted and raved for all she was worth. If one of Saint-Aubin’s men were on this ship—and she wouldn’t put that past him because he had his poisonous tentacles everywhere—then Jess needed to appear outraged and afraid at being captured rather than relieved. It was relief tinged with a healthy dose of raw terror, but again that emotion was so familiar nowadays, always lurking menacingly in the background, that she had ruthlessly trained herself to ignore it unless absolutely necessary. Right now, while she was bobbing in the middle of the English Channel, it wasn’t necessary.

  If they came in little boats in the dead of night to fetch her and drag her back, her only chance at living to see another sunrise depended on her fighting her new captors tooth and nail while lying through her teeth. Once she set foot on English soil, Jess was a dead woman walking. Saint-Aubin or the Boss would have highly paid assassins waiting to eventually erase her from the world unless she outwitted them first.

  Until—if—that happened, she could console herself with one not insignificant achievement. Her trail of crumbs had been followed and she was out. That alone was cause for celebration.

  Allowing herself a small smile of satisfaction, she rose and dragged the tub to a position which she hoped afforded her the most privacy and emptied the steaming buckets in. It was a meagre bath by normal standards, the water merely a few inches deep, but it was hot and wet and the first proper bath she had been allowed in months. Even conditions in this dank and humid brig were a considerable improvement on her rat-infested prison in Cherbourg or the same, compact four walls in Saint-Aubin’s claustrophobic and oppressive chateau.

  All in all, things were looking up. Jess would not weep today. If she was destined to die in the coming few days, then she would take whatever small pleasures she could in the interim. Jess closed her eyes, inhaled slowly and deeply, tucking the constant fear into the little box in her mind where she stored all the bad things, then stripped off her filthy dress, kicking it back into the cell. It was the last vestige of Saint-Aubin and she was done with all that.

  From this moment on she was in control of her destiny and nothing and nobody was ever going to get in her way again. The call of freedom and survival was too strong. She took a moment to inhale the sweet, fresh scent of the soap before she gratefully stepped in the tub and lowered herself into the water, revelling in the glorious sensation of soothing, clean water enveloping her skin.

  Délicieux!

  Paradise.

  It was the little things, the things people took for granted, that she had missed the most. The hot meals, the heady aroma of fresh air, this warm bath. The unfamiliar sound of her first language spoken once again and the odd yet comforting way it felt coming from her own lips after all these years. Everyday luxuries she would rejoice in until she gasped her last breath because she was tired of hating herself and determined to begin her life afresh.

  The handsome Lord Flint and his aristocratic arrogance could wait until her bath chilled and her skin shrivelled before she deigned to grace him with her presence. If he was to be the latest in her long line of temporary gaolers, it was best he found out early that Jess had never been partial to following orders.

  Chapter Two

  The harridan had
made him wait two hours already. No doubt she would have made him wait two more had he not dispatched someone to go fetch her. He would allow her that petty victory. He’d used the time constructively, going over the prearranged route to London and writing messages to send to every fashionably busy inn along the way, cheerfully appraising them, and anyone else who intercepted the missives, of the exact dates and times he expected to arrive at their establishment. Lord Flint and Lady Jessamine would require two rooms next door to one another, but not a private dining room. The more witnesses who saw her pretty face, the better.

  The rap at his cabin door had him pausing mid-sentence. He kept his head bent and his pen hovering as the guards shepherded Lady Jessamine in, ignoring the way his body seemed to sense her.

  ‘The prisoner, sir. Would you like me to attach the manacles?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’ Flint didn’t do her the courtesy of looking up. He could play silly games, too. Till the cows came home if need be. ‘Leave us.’

  Both guards hesitated, then let go of her elbows. ‘As you wish, sir. We’ll be outside.’

  He scratched out another few words, then dipped his quill in the inkstand before continuing to write, leaving Lady Jessamine standing like a naughty student at his desk. In his peripheral vision he took in the sight. Bare feet, clean this time, and several inches of shapely, naked female calf poked out from beneath the striped sailor’s breeches she had been issued. The over-large linen shirt had been gathered to one side and tied in a jaunty knot, cinching the masculine garment tightly around her slim waist and displaying the obvious feminine shape of her rounded hips and bottom to the world. The collar was undone, the graceful curve of her neck and delicate collarbone yet another reminder of her sex—not that one was needed. Her long, tousled, jet-black hair was completely loose and tumbling down her back and around her shoulders. A beautiful, dark-haired temptress who might have been expressly designed by God to specifically appeal to his particular taste in women—damn her.

  She looked scandalous, sultry and, to his shame, Flint’s body had never wanted a woman more. But he wouldn’t be waylaid by the physical. Beneath the perfect veneer, the wood was rotten. He gripped his pen so firmly as he formed the next letters, it would take a miracle to prevent the crew hearing the sound of it squeaking against the parchment up in the crow’s nest. Sheer pride made him grit his teeth and continue regardless. Let her think he was furious, which he really was now—but at his own uncontrollable and wholly unwanted lust rather than at her.

  Arrogant to the last, without waiting for an invitation, she wandered to the comfortable armchair across his cabin and lowered herself into it. For good measure, she crossed one delectable leg over the other and lounged with an elbow propped upon the arm and stared at the top of his head insolently.

  Totally relaxed.

  Totally galling, when he could feel the intoxicating power of those beautiful eyes all the way down to his toes.

  Flint waited another couple of seconds before he carefully laid the quill down and faced her, his face a perfect mask of blandness that took all his years of training to muster. ‘Your friend—The Boss—I need his name.’

  ‘Straight to the point? No small talk, Monsieur Flint?’ Dropping his honorific was an obvious insult, not that he cared. In his line of work, where he was paid to be a chameleon, he rarely got to use it anyway.

  ‘You are to stand trial for treason, Lady Jessamine. A crime, as I am sure you are well aware, which carries the death penalty. Your co-operation now might encourage the courts to be lenient with their sentence should you be found guilty.’

  She snorted and tossed her head dismissively. ‘There will be no leniency nor a fair trial. Your courts will hang me regardless of what I say or do not say. I have been tried and found guilty already. Non?’

  ‘Perhaps that is the way they do things in France, but back home...’

  ‘Spare me your superior English lies. I am not a fool, Monsieur Flint. My confession makes your job much easier, yet it will not help me. You have your supposed witnesses so I am doomed either way. Whether it is by an English hangman or a French assassin, my life is soon to be taken from me.’ Her dark eyes locked with his and held. Beneath the façade of insolence he saw sadness and fear and wished he hadn’t. She was easier to hate when devoid of all human feelings. Knowing she possessed some made it difficult to offer false hope.

  ‘Confession is good for the soul, or so I am told. You will meet your maker knowing you repented at the end.’

  ‘My maker knows the truth already, Monsieur Flint. I have nothing to prove to him.’

  ‘Perhaps you do not understand the gravity of what you have done? Are you aware of the consequences of your actions?’ He didn’t bother pausing for an answer. ‘This year alone, eighteen men have been murdered thanks to you. Granted, many of them had it coming. Seduced by the easy riches that come from smuggling, they were lured to participate in high treason and reaped the rewards. When you dance with the Devil, you inevitably get burned. However, ten of those men were servants of the Crown whose only crime was doing their duty. They were murdered in cold blood.’

  ‘Not by me. I am merely the messenger!’

  Instantly annoyed and determined to control it, Flint stood and braced his arms to loom across the desk. ‘They were simply doing their duty, yet your people reacted as true cowards always do. They killed innocent men to save their own corrupt skins.’ He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. He didn’t need the list. Their names were engraved on his heart for ever, but he appreciated the gravitas of an official document as well as the bolster to his resolve to remain unmoved by her.

  ‘Allow me to tell you about them. Let’s start with Customs Officer Richard Pruitt. His throat was cut when he boarded one of your ships before Christmas last. He is survived by his wife and three small daughters, none of whom are old enough to remember their brave father.’ Flint refused to look at her to see if his words had hit their mark.

  ‘Then there was Corporal Henry Edwards and young Jack Bright of the Essex militia, who likely stumbled across a boat unloading while doing their routine night patrol of the sea wall at Canvey Island. I say likely as we’ll never know what happened, except to say with some certainty that your smugglers garrotted both and tossed their bodies over the wall into the estuary. Edwards washed up on the beach in Southend a few days later. Bright’s rotting corpse served as fish food for three weeks before he floated up the Thames to be found bobbing in Tilbury dock. One had a fiancée, the other an aged mother who relied on his income.’ A quick glance showed that her face had blanched, but she still met his gaze dead on. ‘Shall I continue?’

  She shrugged and turned her head away from his gaze. ‘You will do as you please. No doubt.’

  ‘You have blood on your hands, Lady Jessamine.’

  Her mouth opened as if to speak, then clamped shut, her eyes now fixated on a spot on the floor. Temper had him reeling off three more names just as coldly. Each was met with stoic silence. Her body was as still as a statue and her composure just as hard. ‘Are you proud of yourself, Lady Jessamine? Do you feel no shame for what you have done? No compassion for the lives you have destroyed? The widows and innocent children left bereft and impoverished by your greed and avarice?’

  Her head whipped around and those untrustworthy eyes were swimming with unshed tears. ‘You know nothing about me, Monsieur Flint! Nothing! And I shall tell you nothing. You can name every dead man. Every member of his family. Blame me for every travesty. And I shall reward you with my silence. My secrets are mine to take to the grave! A grave I am fully aware I might lie in soon.’

  One fat tear trickled over her ridiculously long and dark lower lashes and dripped down her cheek. Flint had seen enough female tears to be unaffected, but the matter-of-fact way she swiped it away and proudly set her shoulders got to him.

  His words had hurt h
er. Deeply. He knew it with the same certainty that he knew his own mind. Lady Jessamine had a conscience. Something he didn’t want to know. ‘Tell me his name.’

  Her eyes lifted to his. They were miserable. ‘I don’t know it. I am just the messenger.’ And, God help him, against Lord Fennimore’s voice screaming in his head, Flint believed her.

  ‘You’re lying.’ Of course she was—Flint had now changed his opinion. Behind the beautiful, deceitful face, she had a soul as black as pitch and blood on her hands.

  Her eyes drifted back to the riveting spot on the floor and her slim shoulders slumped for the first time since he had seen her. ‘Have it your way. You will regardless.’

  * * *

  Alone, in the relative privacy of her cell, Jess fought the tears. Hearing those names, imagining every man and picturing his family, literally broke her heart. Ah, quelle horreur! She had always known the smugglers were ruthless, known deep down that there were others suffering worse than she was, but personalising it made those dark, shadowy, distant thoughts starkly real. She hated Lord Flint for holding the mirror up to her face and forcing her to acknowledge the gravity of it all. For the last year she had loathed herself. Hated what she was forced to do and hated that she continued to bend to Saint-Aubin’s will because she was weak. For the whole time she had plotted and schemed and tried to fight back, only to cave in when the blind terror overtook her and she begged for mercy.

  Of course, Lord Flint would see her eventual acquiescence as guilt. To him, she supposed her involvement made her a traitor—and perhaps now she knew the full extent of what she had unwittingly been involved in, perhaps she was. There was blood on her hands. She hadn’t known that before.