Chapter Thirteen
Jess woke slowly in a cocoon of warmth feeling more rested and light of heart than she had in a long time, reluctant to spoil that heady sensation any time soon. She cracked open one eye and swiftly shut it because the early morning rays of the weak dawn sun were too much to cope with just yet. She snuggled into her cosy eiderdown, looking forward to stealing a few more minutes of rest, and then stiffened. The comforter was neither quilted nor filled with the softest down feathers, it was male. Against the wall of her back she could feel his heart beating rhythmically through his ribcage, feel the corded muscles of his thighs wedged beneath hers and something long and hard rested intimately against her bottom.
She considered outrage, but couldn’t, because his arm was draped possessively around her waist and his deep, even breathing warmed her neck. Lord Flint was snoring softly, his nose apparently buried in her hair. It was a wholly pleasant sensation, a giddy combination of heat, comfort and an overwhelming feeling of security.
Mon Dieu! Had they spent the whole night thus?
Had she snuggled against him in her sleep or he her?
And more importantly, for the sake of her pride, was he aware of it?
Gingerly, she attempted to move, only to have that strong arm tighten and feel his hips press scandalously against her, so that the full extent of his arousal was gloriously obvious. It did peculiar things to her nerve endings in places she rarely thought about and gave her body shameless ideas. More shockingly, she wasn’t inclined to move.
‘Morning.’ His voice was thick with sleep, but she recognised the exact moment he properly came to because the previously relaxed muscles in his abdomen tightened instantly a second before he released her and rolled hastily away.
They both quickly sat and stared at one another, Jess clutching the blanket like a startled virgin on her wedding night, him deliciously rumpled and clearly embarrassed. The overnight golden stubble suited him and brought out the green of his eyes. His shirt was hanging open at the neck, displaying too much of his chest and reminding her of how she had feasted on the sight of it yesterday. He pulled his coat to cover the unmistakable bulge in his breeches, which immediately drew her eyes there at the exact same moment a ferocious blush heated her face and neck. Mortification made her lash out.
‘What do you think you are about?’
‘You were cold... Last night. Shivering, in fact. I gave you my blanket and when that didn’t work, I moved closer to share my body heat.’ He scrambled to his feet and crossed to the other side of the cramped building. Jess had never seen him so discomposed, which was just as well, because a flustered Lord Flint was adorable. In his panic, he became delightfully formal.
‘Please accept my most humble of apologies, my lady... I...’ He huffed out a noise, a cross between a sigh and a groan. Then stared resolutely at his feet. ‘I have no excuses. Except to say you were fast asleep and shivering and I was worried about you... I had intended to move away the moment you were warm again, but I must have nodded off.’
His absolute contrition, the evidence of the two blankets currently covering her body and the knowledge that she had been so perfectly content lying in his arms that she had slept a full night for the first time in months meant she didn’t have the heart to make him feel worse. By the looks of him, he was in utter turmoil. And he was blushing. The arrogant, normally unreadable aristocrat was blushing.
‘Then let us forget it happened.’
As if she could. She could smell his delicious, subtle cologne on her clothes and still feel the comforting imprint of his body against hers.
He didn’t look up. ‘Yes. Probably for the best. Thank you...um...we should get going.’ With more haste than was necessary, he began to pack away all evidence of their occupation while Jess pinned her wayward hair to her head to within an inch of its life before stuffing it back under her cap. A chunk of bread appeared beneath her nose.
‘Eat.’
‘Not now, maybe later.’
‘There’s nothing of you, Jess. You need to build up your strength.’
Their eyes met for the first time since waking. Beneath the lurking embarrassment, his were filled with concern. She found herself complying and nibbled on the crust self-consciously, conscious he was watching her and that something intangible yet significant seemed to have changed between them. She couldn’t think of anything to say and he said nothing more to fill the void. When she finally choked down the last of the bread, they both stood wordlessly and set off again across the moors.
They walked at a more sedate pace than the previous day, the obvious isolation of the narrow lane negating the need to rush now that there was no sign they had been followed. It was just as well. The toll of the last few fraught days had left her drooping with fatigue to such an extent putting one foot in front of the other was now an effort. Once again, he had not bothered appraising her of their destination or of how many more hours they were to walk today and didn’t appear to want to. Initially, he had probed her about the contents of her mother’s notebook and the English aristocrats who were involved with the smugglers with his customary officiousness, but when it became clear she had no intention of telling him anything, Lord Flint had walked the last hour alongside her in awkward silence, his gaze fixed ahead and his expression once again inscrutable.
Jess wished she knew what he was thinking. Was he still embarrassed about this morning? What had possessed him to be so solicitous in the first place to feel it necessary to see that she ate, shared his blanket and dropped all the proprieties to keep her warm? And did any of it mean anything at all, or was she foolishly transferring her own confused emotions on to him in the hope that his opinion of her would soften?
The silence was deafening.
She was annoyed with herself at feeling disappointed because he hadn’t offered her any new hope last night to cling to or any hint at his believing in the possibility of her innocence. Her heart screamed that he had almost confessed that he knew she was not a traitor and she so wanted to put her faith in him. She wanted to trust him. Wanted to dare to hope that the sense of security she experienced around him was real rather than transient and that he might see past her crimes and understand she had no choice. Maybe then the nagging guilt that kept forming a tight band around her lungs would begin to lessen and Jess would begin to forgive herself, too. Her head cautioned that it made no difference if she thought the exasperating Lord Flint the most dependable man she had ever met, or the most decent and kind, reminding her that she hadn’t met many men outside Saint-Aubin’s criminal circle other than her indifferent and cold father. She hardly had a wealth of experience, therefore, to trust such a naïve judgement. He had a job to do and that job was to deliver her safely to the authorities.
Last night was proof of that. Just when she had started to open up to him, he had immediately become officious again, then refused to be drawn on her future or expand upon his precise definition of the word lenient—other than to say there was at least a chance she wouldn’t face execution if her version of events proved to be the truth. But if it meant she lived out her days as a prisoner, then it was merely swapping one intolerable, unjust existence for another. Which put her right back to where she was before she had confided in him—contemplating yet another escape and facing an uncertain and undoubtedly perilous future all alone. As usual. Just thinking that made her more exhausted.
Jess should be contemplating the best way to extricate herself from his presence for ever rather than hoping for him to miraculously become her saviour rather than her gaoler. She should probably do that soon, well before they reached London and the next locked cell that awaited her. Yet just once she wished fortune would favour her and throw her a bone. If only Lord Flint would give her a chance. Je souhaiterais...
‘What’s wrong?’
His voice wrenched her back to the moors. ‘Nothing.’ The word came out snippily, s
he couldn’t disguise it.
‘You’ve been huffing and puffing for at least twenty minutes.’ Childishly, she ignored him. Of course she was huffing and puffing. Not knowing where one stood had a tendency to cause such a reaction. Crétin!
‘Look—I know you are still angry at me about this morning.’
Insufferable, clueless man! ‘I am not bothered about this morning! I am still irritated about last night!’ And now she had inadvertently told him she had rather liked waking up in his arms. He must have noticed because his step faltered briefly. Then he was silent again while he contemplated what was no doubt a suitably banal, measured and insipid response. The agent of the Crown’s response. Irritatingly officious to the last. Jess let it hang while her anger bubbled. The trickster! She picked up her pace and purposefully looked away from him in case he saw how much he had hurt her. Nestled among the grass and wildflowers on the verge was a milestone: Penzance 48 miles.
They had not turned to be on the road to London. They were still headed west!
Very west. Miles away from the marines and the militia who could protect her and probably closer to Saint-Aubin’s cut-throats. Jess stopped dead and positively glared at him. There she was feeling selfish for being tempted to escape when he was being so kind, only to discover he wasn’t being kind at all. ‘How dare you!’
His face remained impassive, apparently oblivious of the latest evidence of his duplicity. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t give you the reassurances you wanted last night, genuinely I am. I am in an impossible position. As much as I like you personally—and, believe me, I certainly never expected to—my first duty is and always has been to the Crown and it is my duty to see justice done. Can you at least try to see things from my point of view?’
‘Your point of view!’ She wanted to slap the sanctimonious piety from his plotting, scheming, dishonest eyes. He was using her as bait again. That could be the only reason he was dragging her across these desolate moors west towards Penzance. A town favoured by Saint-Aubin’s network of smugglers—in fact, every smuggler since the dawn of time. ‘Why should I care about your point of view?’
His response was the typical withering sigh, as if that was all the emotion the topic required and any more emotion was unseemly. ‘Would it help to verbalise your frustrations? It might clear the air and make the next few hours more bearable.’
Clear the air! Crétin! She was livid at her own needy stupidity, frightened, riddled with guilt at her own self-serving inadequacies and apparently had no control over even her own fate despite almost killing herself with the effort to escape. Her temper snapped on a growl and she stalked off, her hands gesticulating wildly as she tried to put into words every turbulent thing she was feeling, but had never verbalised. How did one verbalise the sheer awfulness of the cess pool that was her lot in life?
Clear the air!
Jess was going to give him both barrels.
‘Why should I see things from your point of view? You are the one in charge and I have no power! As always! You have no idea what it is like to have no control over your own destiny. To spend every waking moment afraid and incarcerated. No concept of how awful it is to be forced to do things or accept your awful fate blindly. You have choices, Monsieur Flint. I have been given none.’ She began to mutter in rapid French, knowing his language skills would struggle to translate it all, but needing to vent her utter disappointment at him in particular out loud. Penzance! Of all the places guaranteed to be most dangerous... ‘Salaud!’
She felt him tug at her arm and swing her around. Clearly he understood that insult very well, because his green eyes were stormy.
‘When I said verbalise, I had hoped we might have a proper, reasonable discussion to seek some middle ground. Something that would make our extended time together more bearable. Something which would help me to understand exactly what is going on and your exact part in it. Convince me to trust your further than I can throw you. You ranting and raving in French isn’t helping. I want to listen and I want to help. Really I do, but just for once could we converse without all of the histrionics?’
He had the gall to stare down at her reproachfully, as if she were the one in the wrong. The temptation to slap his sanctimonious face was visceral.
‘Histrionics! You have a nerve! Do they offend you, Monsieur Flint? Is honest human emotion such an anathema to a cold and unfeeling, lying man like yourself? You want to help! Ha!’ It felt good to jam her pointed finger into his ribs. ‘For the record, I am entitled to some histrionics! None of this was of my making and I don’t care if you don’t believe me! I was taken from my home as a child and dumped in a place that never felt like a home. I’ve suffered through a war I didn’t understand and its awful aftermath—during both of which my freedom was denied to me—and then I am pressganged into the service of smugglers, threatened, blackmailed, abused and chained. Did anyone care?’ She shook off his arm and paced back and forth. ‘Of course they didn’t! For my father I ceased to exist the moment my mother left him, for my mother I became invisible because all she truly cared about was her lover! I had no friends. No family. No life. No choices. I longed to be saved. Prayed for it every night—yet when the British finally came, they arrested me and treated me like a criminal when I never intentionally did anything wrong and my thanks is to stand trial as a traitor!’
Her voice choked, but she bit back the tears. Anger always felt better than despair and they had not broken her yet. Venting it all might be cathartic and might well serve to remind her of how badly she had been treated and give her the strength to continue to fight and continue to believe she was not the awful human being she was coming to fear she might be. Because surely surrendering to Saint-Aubin’s vicious admonishments and being seen to do his absolute bidding was counterbalanced by the fact she had still risked her life to send out the truth once her broken mind and body had recovered? But venting certainly wouldn’t clear the air. At this stage, even pummelling the insufferable Lord Flint to a bloody splodge on the grass wouldn’t clear the air.
‘I tasted my first piece of freedom in a decade and you snatched it away from me.’ She prodded him again in the chest with her finger. ‘Then used me as bait to serve your own ends. Now I discover that despite your sincere and reassuring words to the contrary, you are still using me as bait! You have the nerve to not trust me as far as you can throw me! That is rich! You are the most untrustworthy, silver-tongued fibber I have ever met in my life! That I trusted you, even briefly, makes me sick!’ Jess growled and then tilted her head back to growl again at the heavens for good measure. She had stupidly hoped God would send her a saviour for once, not a snake, but He had still sent a snake. A big, lying, scheming viper, albeit one that used manipulative kindness instead of chains, riding crops and heights to get her to comply!
‘And now I have bloodthirsty assassins and the man himself on my tail ready to kill me as soon as they are able. Meanwhile, I get dragged across the country with a man who blows hot and cold, is as inscrutable as a plank of wood, officious and feels it is perfectly appropriate to spend the night wrapped around me! Who expects me to be reasonable. To confess all my sins, to trust him with my life when he doesn’t even honour me with the slightest detail of my fate or even why he persists in dragging me towards Saint-Aubin’s ships and bloodthirsty cronies in Penzance!’ She pointed at the milestone with a quaking finger in case he dared to deny it. ‘I am constantly exhausted. I am constantly petrified and I am so sick of feeling unworthy and all alone. So you will have to forgive me—for I am way beyond being reasonable or from seeing things from anyone else’s point of view—for I am thoroughly entitled to my histrionics! Because I am not nor ever have been a traitor and you can go to hell, Monsieur Flint!’
She heard him exhale in the long-suffering way he did so well and seriously considered launching herself at him like a crazed banshee because she was so furious at him, when he surprised her.
‘It’s Peter.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘My name. Seeing as we have, as you have so rightly pointed out, spent a night cuddled up together we should probably dispense with the formalities. And I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark and for—how did you put it?—blowing hot and cold. In my defence, I am only trying to do my job, one you make very difficult. You confuse me and confound me in equal measure, as I am sure I do you. I will hold my hands up to being officious at times. It is not intentional—but the government needs me to be pragmatic and level-headed, although I find I have to remind myself of that more frequently as I get to know you. These are unusual, fraught circumstances and therefore difficult for both of us to adjust to.’ He sighed and paused, then gave a tiny shake of his head as if having a silent conversation with himself.
‘I also do appreciate that, thanks to this morning, I have made today unnecessarily awkward.’ His impressive chest rose and fell on a deep breath and he briefly looked towards his feet. When his eyes raised, he offered her a half-smile. ‘And I can assure you I am no longer using you as bait Jess. We are not going to Penzance. Nowhere near. I am neither that cruel nor that stupid and my only mission at this time is to keep you safe. We are going to my house. Penmor. We should get there in a couple of hours at the most.’
‘Your house?’ He was taking her home? ‘You are taking me to your house?’ That was an intensely personal gesture. Wholly unexpected. It completely knocked the wind out of her sails. ‘Is that wise?’
‘It is off the beaten track, a good forty miles from Penzance and an unlikely place to hide while my men attempt to round up Saint-Aubin and his associates. Even if they track you down—which I sincerely doubt, by the way—Penmor was built to withstand a siege. Not that I anticipate one. Gray will arrive with plenty of reinforcements in a few days and we’ll keep you safe from harm. You have my word. It seemed prudent to go in completely the opposite direction to where Saint-Aubin, the Royal Navy and the whole of Plymouth would think we’d go. My house here in Cornwall seemed like the logical place to bring you when we have no clear idea of exactly who we can trust. I should have told you all that yesterday, but in all the confusion I didn’t and for that I am also sorry.’
The Uncompromising Lord Flint Page 12
