Pride made her lash out rather when he had tabled the offer of possibly pursuing that attraction in the future—if she proved not to be the traitor he clearly still believed her to be. If he thought it that abhorrent now, and blatantly still did not believe her despite his wholly lukewarm assertion the night before that he might, then she would go to hell in a handbasket before she allowed him to see how much those offensive words had wounded. They merely justified her original plan. To escape and leave it all behind her. Why should she care about the plight of the British government, or one of their irritatingly handsome minions, when they didn’t care about her? She owed them—him—nothing. Nothing! If only she could convince her newly awakened conscience and bruised heart of that fact, she would sleep better.
After a concerted effort at searching for the secret passageway out of the castle failed, Jess had spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and second-guessing her decision to put her faith in him when he clearly had none in her. Three more hours in the company of Hadleigh made her question it further. She had only come here because of her misguided faith in Peter. Now she didn’t quite know what to think.
* * *
It was Lady Flint who rescued her for dinner after several more hours of circular questioning where he probed and she played her cards close to her chest. Despite the lawyer’s presence at dinner, the lack of Peter altered the dynamic, yet Jess was glad he wasn’t there. If she never saw him again it would be too soon.
The servants were on the cusp of clearing away the plates when the master of the house deigned to show his sanctimonious face. He strode in looking gorgeously windswept and purposeful with Gray in tow, although his handsome comrade paled into the background against Peter’s irritating golden perfection. Her silly pulse’s fluttering had her stiffening in defiance. She would not care about him, dratted man, nor continue to be offended by his hurtful words and obsession with his duty above all else. He meant nothing. If not right now, then he would mean nothing very soon. She would leave and forget him the second she was free. If it killed her, she would never remember that glorious, manipulative kiss again.
As if he knew she was thinking about him, his eyes flicked to hers briefly, then settled swiftly on his mother. Whatever intense emotion was swirling in those unfathomable green depths, she wouldn’t allow herself to attempt to decipher it, even if it did look a great deal like turmoil. She hoped it was. He deserved to suffer.
‘Excuse us for the interruption, but we need to speak to Hadleigh.’
The lawyer excused himself and the three men disappeared. Hadleigh returned five minutes later and summoned her back to the study.
Gray was sat. The man himself stood with his back to her, gazing out of the window at the waning evening sky, his hands clamped tightly behind his back. Nobody said a word until she was seated.
‘I believe you know Gray,’ Hadleigh said taking the chair behind the desk and clearly assuming command, ‘He brings interesting news from London.’
Please God let it be good. ‘Interesting for me or for you, Monsieur Hadleigh?’
‘The Excise Men found two hundred and forty-five guns on the Grubbenvorst in the secret hold you told us about. Both the Captain of that ship and the Marquis of Deal have been arrested. Captain Boucher is very tight-lipped. The Marquis of Deal is currently pondering his actions in a damp cell in Newgate, but has indicated he is very eager to talk.’
‘I dare say the threat of swinging from the Tyburn tree has loosened his lips.’ It had certainly loosened hers.
‘I confess, my lady, I am equally keen to hear his testimony. I wonder what light he will be able to shed on you and the true depth of your involvement in the Boss’s vast smuggling ring?’
She didn’t like the turn this conversation was taking. ‘Doubtless he will tell you exactly what he knows. That it is my name he sees on the bottom of the messages informing him of shipments and Saint-Aubin’s fee. Although Saint-Aubin was very specific about not having his name mentioned. If I hadn’t leaked it to you in a coded letter, you would still be none the wiser.’
‘Perhaps...’
‘Stop it, Hadleigh!’ Flint spoke for the first time since the accusatory conversation started and stalked towards her chair, ignoring the lawyer. ‘What he means to say is we are grateful for your information, Jess.’ He leaned both hands to rest on the arms, smelling sinfully of fresh air and all the things she couldn’t have, and stared directly into her eyes. His looked pained. ‘But the government requires much more before any consideration can be given to dropping the charges against you.’ His green gaze was imploring. Frustrated, although Jess got the distinct impression those frustrations were aimed at Hadleigh, not her. ‘Trust us with all you know. I beg of you. Help us to help you.’
He stepped back, his movements jerky, taking himself to lean on the fireplace impatiently, those beseeching eyes still locked on hers. Willing her to talk. For several long moments Jess went to war with herself, yet it was those stormy green eyes she wanted to hate but couldn’t which overruled all her doubts. Even if she didn’t trust Hadleigh one bit and despite her anger at his shoddy behaviour, she still wanted to believe Peter was sympathetic to her plight. It was all she had until she could escape. Holding his gaze for as long as she could, searching for the truth, some elusive glimmer of hope that he was the man her battered, needy heart told her he was and seeing nothing tangible which either confirmed or denied that, Jess finally addressed the lawyer. Let the cards fall where they may. She could do nothing else.
‘What do you want? People or ships.’
‘People,’ Hadleigh said without hesitation, ‘I want the name of the Boss and the names of every English man complicit in his endeavour.’
‘I don’t know his name. He could be one of eleven nobles I had to write to.’
‘Then let’s have the eleven.’
‘You already had Crispin Rowley and Viscount Penhurst.’ Saint-Aubin had had a massive temper tantrum on hearing of both the death of the former and arrest of the latter. ‘Rowley co-ordinated distribution in London and Penhurst controlled Sussex. The Marquis of Deal ran things out of Kent. Camborne ran Cornwall until the Crown got close and he escaped to France. Saint-Aubin put him up for a few days until he found somewhere else for him to hide.’
‘So that’s where he went.’ Peter gave her an encouraging half-smile. ‘His estate is close to Penmor. I spent the whole of May trying to link him to the Boss—then he disappeared. I assumed he fled after Penhurst’s arrest.’ That intense green gaze flickered with something that called to her foolish heart, so she staunchly looked away to avoid it, hating the way she yearned for it to be more than his professional excitement at edging ever closer to his prey.
‘Saint-Aubin tipped him off. He couldn’t risk another supply chain being destroyed. Those shipments now go to the Crooked Billet Inn just outside Penzance.’ Their eyes locked at that admission, both remembering the argument on the road. She saw his immediate understanding and the subsequent apology in his expression. ‘The inn is owned by a particularly rough smuggler by the name of Seaton. Few dare cross him as he is famously ruthless.’
‘He’ll be less ruthless in a cell in Newgate.’
True enough. And so would Saint-Aubin—which might set her free. Jess took a deep breath. If there was a chance he was telling the truth, she had to comply. It was not as if Saint-Aubin was ever likely to spare her. Especially not now that his precious Grubbenvorst was lost and both Deal and Penhurst were already in the hands of the authorities. He would know implicitly that information had come directly from her. Spilling all his secrets would at least guarantee that monster was done for if nothing else. ‘For obvious reasons, all of the men are in the south of the country with estates near the sea or rivers that run inland.’ She ran off another list of names. Every name she knew.
All three men stared at her, incredulous at the mention of so many high-rankin
g members of the House of Lords, all traitors to the Crown, until Hadleigh broke the stunned silence. ‘But which is the Boss?’
‘The truth is, any one of them—or none of them—could be the Boss. As I said, I was never privy to his name.’ But Jess had her suspicions. ‘If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the Boss was close to my mother while she lived in England. That would make the most sense as she had to have helped Saint-Aubin get his claws into the first British peers. In the early years of their marriage she and my father mostly resided in London, where doubtless she would have met all of them. After I was born, they lived largely separate lives. My father remained in Mayfair while she felt abandoned and ignored in Suffolk, pining for the life she once had in France. But she did have two regular visitors whose estates were not a million miles away. The Earl of Winterton and Viscount Gislingham. I believe the Boss has to be one of them.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Flint didn’t bother going to bed. Sleep tonight would be impossible with so much on his mind, both professional and personal. He still couldn’t quite believe the depth, scale and breadth of the information Jess had given them. A corrupt peer for every coastal county in the south, sympathetic officials who turned a blind eye to the free traders’ movements, lists of inns, ships and hauliers who aided the distribution of the smuggled brandy and the exact locations where those cargoes were offloaded. For two hours she had dispassionately rattled off detail after detail, all information completely new to them and all stored in her impressive head.
No wonder Saint-Aubin wanted her dead.
However, he was not the only one gunning for Jess. Hadleigh was not convinced she was as innocent as Flint was increasingly convinced she was. He needed more proof. Evidence that she had indeed been coerced, even though he conceded that the coded letters were a step in the right direction and her confession blew the case wide open.
Hadleigh wanted Jess moved to London as soon as possible. Something Flint had resisted vehemently, even going as far as digging his heels in and flatly refusing to let them take her by boat to the capital overnight. Regardless of her lack of romantic interest in him and the inappropriate nature of his unwanted romantic interest in her, he couldn’t stomach the idea of sending her off to the Crown without him beside her to keep a watchful eye. Here, Flint had some control over how she was treated. There he had none. Once the Home Office, Foreign Office and every other government office got involved then they would demand quick justice and a hasty trial.
That was all assuming she got there safely.
Something none of them could guarantee when both Gray and the Invisibles had had the devil of a job getting back to Penmor unnoticed because the Boss’s henchmen were everywhere. They both deemed it impossible to evacuate his family without arousing suspicion. The word was out that she had a price on her head, an eye-wateringly high price, and every ne’er-do-well and snitch was actively looking for a raven-haired temptress just in case she wasn’t the woman the British government claimed to be holding in the Tower. As Jess had repeatedly said, Saint-Aubin was no fool and, with his entire life’s work now at stake, he was making sure he covered every eventuality. With Deal now in chains, too, the remaining traitorous nobles would also be fighting for their lives. Each one must have their own loyal network at their disposal, networks which criss-crossed the entire south coast and nudged painfully close to Penmor.
Her situation was precarious.
Only yesterday, the innkeeper who had put them up that first night after Jess had jumped ship had been found near death. Brutally beaten in his own bedchamber in that tiny fishing village just a day’s ride from Portsmouth. A frightening development which he had insisted was kept from all the ladies to save them from worrying, but Flint’s gut told him the net was closing. Saint-Aubin was out there. His gut, his head and his heart knew it.
For now, the moors were deathly quiet beyond the walls, the full moon helpfully illuminating both land and sea. On the horizon he could see the dark outline of the fishing boat which watched the water. A boat fully armed and stuffed full of Excise Men. More men were hidden on the moors and others were watching the entire area closely from the vantage point of these battlements, not to mention the highly trained men who blended into the furnishings downstairs. The castle might well be quiet and dark, but more than he was wide awake guarding it. If anyone came hunting tonight they were partially ready, enough to hold off an invasion until the rest of the reinforcements arrived. Despite Penmor’s impenetrable walls, Flint would feel better with another hundred muskets on his battlements. Perhaps two hundred. All these uncomfortable new emotions were clearly making him jumpy.
He bade goodnight to the officer in charge and took the winding staircase down, intending to head to his study to while away the hours of sleeplessness ahead of him, but his feet took him towards her room instead. He needed to check she was safe and sound before he took himself off to mull. If she was awake, then he needed to tell her how much danger lurked beyond the safety of this castle. If she attempted to escape, which she was fully capable of attempting and perhaps achieving, she deserved to know the risks. He should have told her earlier about the huge price on her head and the attack at the inn, but he had been too busy licking his wounds in private and hiding behind his work with the excuse that Gray and the Invisibles had the defence of Penmor well in hand. But Jess was his responsibility and he had been avoiding her. The uncharacteristic cowardice shamed him.
Instead of the darkness he had expected, light bled around the frame of her door. Flint hesitated outside, listening. Trying to convince himself she must have fallen asleep with the lamps burning. When he heard none of the tell-tale sounds of slumber he risked a gentle tap on the door. Not loud enough to wake a sleeping person, but just enough for someone wide awake to hear. She didn’t answer and he began to walk away, only to stop dead. After Hadleigh’s interrogation he wouldn’t blame her for trying to escape.
‘Jess?’
He turned the knob and cracked the door open an inch, and oddly wasn’t the least bit surprised to find she wasn’t there. Who could blame her? He’d been informed she had gone rummaging last night, no doubt still searching for the elusive secret passageway. He had his mother’s big mouth to thank for that. With a sigh, he took the stairs down and found the sentry who was hid in the shadows. ‘Where is she?’
The Invisible responded to Flint’s whisper by pointing to the morning room. ‘She’s already been through the drawing room. I expect the dining room is next, sir.’
There were no lights on in the morning room and he wasn’t in the mood to pretend, not when he could smell her faint perfume and sense her presence, so he simply strode in and closed the door behind him, planting his feet stubbornly in the centre of his mother’s favourite Persian rug. ‘It’s not here, Jess. Any more than it is in the bedchambers or linen closets you searched yesterday.’
There was a beat of silence, then she emerged from behind the curtains. ‘I might have known you would have someone spying on me.’
The moonlight cast her in an ethereal light. The long, billowing nightdress almost silver in the darkness. Typically, all her glorious hair was unbound and hung to her waist to tempt him, while her eyes somehow seemed larger as the night time blurred her features. ‘Not someone. Many. Although technically, they are not watching you specifically. They are watching everything.’
‘I never saw a soul.’ She sounded resigned, a little petulant, but looked beautiful. ‘And I was looking. I suppose that should reassure me I am in safe hands, non?’
‘They do this for a living.’
‘Ah, but of course. This is their job.’ The hint of petulance he had noticed before increased. ‘All loyal agents of the Crown. Like you.’
‘You’re angry at me again.’
‘When am I not?’ She moved, her hands, gesticulating in the Gallic fashion which suited her so well, but in moving he saw more than those h
ands move. Beneath the proper nightgown, pert, female flesh shifted enticingly, letting his suddenly rampant body know in no uncertain terms she was completely naked beneath that single layer of fine linen. So much for manfully resisting the attraction. ‘Tonight, in case you are in any doubt, I am livid.’
‘Because I have thwarted another escape?’ Bizarrely, despite his usual allergy to feminine histrionics, he was coming to enjoy Jess’s. When she was in a temper she crackled. She was exciting and challenging and he much preferred her like this to the frightened and terrified woman she had been in the darkest moments of the last few days. Days which might well get darker before the sun shone again.
‘If you must know, I wasn’t trying to escape. I was merely trying to find the route out in case I needed it. There is a difference.’ Her hand was on the door handle, ready to flounce out. ‘Although after today and yesterday, why I have put my trust in you is beyond me!’
‘Hadleigh did give you a particularly hard time.’ One they had had several heated words about.
‘A hard time? What a quaint, English way of saying the man was a beast.’
‘I did step in to help.’
She whipped around to glare at him. ‘Yesterday! When you deigned to grace me with your presence! For a man who claimed he would be my shadow for the duration, you left me to suffer him for hours today all alone.’
‘I didn’t think you’d want me there.’ Those words slipped out before he could haul them back.
‘Liar! You couldn’t face me. You kissed me, then regretted it, so avoided me like the plague.’ She looked hurt.
The Uncompromising Lord Flint Page 19
