‘You regretted it, too.’ She had been decidedly underwhelmed. Vocally so. But then he had lied when he told her he’d regretted it. ‘Or so you said.’ Did the proud set of her slim shoulders and her angrily clenched fists mean something else or was he wishing she shared his forlorn hope? The kiss had changed things and confused him more than ever. This thing between them was not just physical, not for him at least and that scared the hell out of him. ‘I don’t want to argue, Jess.’ Or get into painful discussions about things he didn’t want to be feeling. ‘But I would like to talk to you now that we are alone.’ He walked towards her and couldn’t stop himself taking her hand, wishing it didn’t feel quite so perfect in his. ‘Please—sit. It’s important.’
She sat in a chair while he lit a lamp and pulled another chair over to sit opposite her. He then regaled her with everything he knew as fully yet reassuringly as possible. When she learned about the innkeeper her face paled. ‘Will he survive?’
‘They found him in the nick of time. The physician is hopeful he will make a full recovery.’
‘Mon Dieu...this is all my fault. I never meant for anyone to get hurt because of me.’ Her fingers were worrying the fabric of her nightgown, her eyes immediately full of sadness. Once again, Flint couldn’t stop his hand taking hers and lacing his fingers around it possessively.
‘None of this is your fault, Jess. All the blame lies with Saint-Aubin. You just need to convince Hadleigh.’ But not himself any longer. No matter how much he tried to ignore it, excuse it or contradict it, Flint believed her.
She missed the significant confession in his words. ‘I swear to you, Peter I have told him everything I know.’ She stared mournfully at their interlocked hands and his eyes followed. The ghostly light made her skin seem white. The ugly abrasions made by her manacles stood out in stark contrast, causing the bile to rise in his throat.
Flint couldn’t lift his eyes from the scar. Everything it stood for made his blood boil. A visible and damning reminder of her awful life. Without thinking, the index finger of his other hand went to the spot and gently traced the mark. ‘My mother says you have whip marks all over your back, too.’
She stiffened and pulled her hand out of his, almost as if she was ashamed that he knew. ‘If Hadleigh does not believe me, I’m not sure what else I can tell him to make him believe the truth.’ The swift change of subject was deliberate. She did not want to talk about those scars. Why?
‘Have you told Hadleigh how you were beaten?’ Had he informed Hadleigh of her injuries? If he had, he couldn’t recall it. The last few days had gone by in a blur of fevered activity and his first priority had been ensuring her safety, not talking about her. The man had only ever seen Jess immaculately dressed in the altered gowns his mother had put her in. Gowns which she had ensured covered her wrists and back to maintain her dignity. ‘Perhaps he needs to see the truth for himself?’
Her face paled. ‘Absolutely not!’ Her eyes were darting around like those of a cornered fox. ‘I have been humiliated enough—now you want me to strip naked in front of that man? In front of you?’
‘Of course not. But a few inches of bare skin will prove to him that you are a victim in all this as well, Jess.’ He took her hand again, needing the contact as much as he needed to comfort her. ‘Trust me.’
‘I am hardly a victim. While I live, innocent men are dead.’ Behind the instinctive proud set of her shoulders, she felt guilty. Unworthy. And his heart ached for her. None of this was her fault. In that moment he realised that Jess was two people. The wounded, frightened, sad woman she was most of the time, burdened by misplaced guilt and constant disappointment, and the tenacious, brave, indomitable woman she wanted the world to see. Perhaps that Jess was the one she desperately wanted to be, too—a better version who had not been ground down and stamped all over. Yet to him she was. It took tremendous strength of character to keep coming back fighting when life threw that many terrible obstacles in your way. Somewhere along the line, her own self-worth had become confused. Something as tragic as it was ludicrous.
‘You blame yourself.’ It was a statement rather than a question because he could see the turmoil in her eyes.
‘Of course I blame myself! I cannot seem to stop going over every incident in my mind and wondering what I could have done differently. I was so preoccupied with my own misery...’
‘You didn’t kill them. The Boss, Saint-Aubin and their hired cut-throats did all the killing. You wrote his letters. Under extreme duress. Once I appraise Hadleigh of your wounds he will demand to see them. This is as much a part of your testimony as naming those corrupt peers—except this is solely about you. Your suffering. Your story. Irrefutable proof of your innocence.’ And absolution for Flint’s belief in it.
‘Innocent? I keep thinking I could have resisted. I could have refused. Instead... Ah, je souhaiterais...’
‘Stop torturing yourself. If you had refused, then you’d be dead, too. Instead, you are here, helping us prevent more deaths. Those scars prove how much you tried to refuse. The King’s lawyer needs to see that.’
When he had first met him, Flint had thought Hadleigh a decent sort. Beneath the determined barrister, he hoped that initial impression was true, because no decent person could look upon the evidence of Jess’s abuse with cold, indifferent eyes. Those scars proved she had done everything through force—although plainly she did not see that as he now did. He would cross that bridge later. ‘Let’s get it over with and perhaps Hadleigh will see things quite differently in the morning. In fact, if he is half the man I think he is, I am certain he will. Trust Hadleigh with the awful truth.’
Still holding her hand and ignoring the expression of dread on her paled face, he tugged her to follow him, leading her up a staircase to the bedchamber Hadleigh shared with Gray. He didn’t care that it was well past midnight and happily hammered on the door a split second before he barged in. Only Hadleigh was there, sat bolt upright in bed blinking, clearly rudely awoken from a very deep sleep.
‘What’s happened?’
‘You need to see something. Something too important to leave till the morning.’ Because once the lawyer saw it, Flint wanted the image of those whip marks to haunt the fellow till daybreak. He turned to Jess to see her face contorted in a cross between shame and fear. He squeezed her hand and hoped she would forgive him. ‘Show him your back, Jess. He needs to see what Saint-Aubin is capable of.’ His thumbs found her wrist again and soothed them tenderly, dreading the sight of the whip marks his mother had described, knowing they would thoroughly break his already severely damaged heart. ‘You know me enough to realise I wouldn’t ask you unless I thought it critical—and neither of us will judge you for them either.’
* * *
They didn’t need to judge her. Her weakness and submissiveness in front of Saint-Aubin that had led to them disgusted Jess. That painful truth was significantly worse now than it had ever been. Ever since she had learned the fate of those poor Englishmen, the weight of her many failures weighed heavy on her shoulders. No matter how many times she lectured herself, reminding herself that she had done what she had had to do to survive, yet still risked that safety to alert the British, her conscience still wondered if her weakness had been selfish and if things might have been different if she had been strong enough to refuse.
Even in the darkness Jess could see the tenderness shining out of Peter’s eyes, the heartfelt concern and the anguish. For her. Almost as if the marks she wore were as painful for him to talk about as they were for her to carry. Hadleigh lit the lamp on his nightstand, his face intrigued rather than inscrutable for once. Peter stood next to him, his jaw suddenly tight, but his expression flooded with sympathy. Because she couldn’t bear to look at either of them and see their disgust or catch a glimpse of her back by accident in the large vanity mirror, she turned to face the wall. With shaking fingers, she undid the ribbons at the neck of the nightrail
, then allowed just a few inches of the loosened fabric to fall off her shoulders.
She heard Peter’s sharp intake of breath before she felt him move up behind her. As she clutched the front of the fabric tightly to her chest, he gently exposed her whole back.
‘Oh, Jess...’ Peter’s voice sounded choked. ‘I’m going to kill him.’
‘How long have you suffered this?’ Hadleigh’s voice was deathly quiet.
‘Since I was imprisoned in Cherbourg.’
‘He had the guards beat you?’
‘He preferred to do it himself.’ Saint-Aubin had enjoyed defeating her. Revelled in it. ‘He likes to be in control.’ And she had let him. These scars proved it.
No reply.
After what seemed like an eternity of strained, palpable silence, she hastily pulled her clothing back in place, not turning till the neck was tied tight and she was certain she wouldn’t cry the heavy tears of shame that threatened to fall. Peter had stalked to the window. By the set of his shoulders and the whitened knuckles gripping the sill she could see he was angry and hoped it was at Saint-Aubin rather than at her, even though she was angry at herself for her cowering and pleading for mercy each time she had been threatened. Angry and ashamed. Wishing she could have done more, been more, than the petrified creature her mother’s callous lover had created.
Hadleigh blinked at her, uncharacteristically subdued.
‘I didn’t want to write those letters.’ But she had. ‘I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t make what I did right—but I hate that I did it...’ And her bottom lip was quivering. For a moment she tried to control it, tried to stand there proudly to explain why she had given in so quickly in the hope they might understand, but when her eyes began to sting she fled. Running along the dimly lit landing to the safety of her own bedchamber and then crumpling to a puddle on the floor in front of the door in case anyone followed her in. Needing to regroup and lick her wounds in private before she inevitably had to confess how her irrational fear of heights and the merest threat of them had allowed Saint-Aubin to control her like a marionette.
But he followed her anyway, damn him, and dared to try the door handle.
‘Jess—let me in.’
‘Please go away. I will talk about it tomorrow. I promise.’
‘You don’t have to talk about it. I simply want to see you.’ After she failed to respond, the door shifted, her nightgown sliding several inches on the highly polished floor as he pushed it from the other side. ‘You might as well let me in because I’m not going away.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
When she stalwartly refused to budge, Flint used his strength sparingly to gradually nudge the door open, needing to be with her and not caring that he didn’t feel even slightly in control of his own emotions. They were so close to the surface, hiding them or fighting them would be impossible.
By the time he stepped into the room she had shuffled to sit hunched a few feet away, her dark head pressed against her raised knees. Purposely avoiding his gaze. He closed the door and lowered himself to sit next to her, unsure what to say or do, but haunted by the horrendous evidence of her ordeal. With no helpful words of wisdom and the real and distinct possibility he might weep and howl at the moon or smash his fist into a wall, he wrapped his arm around her and simply pulled her close.
‘Are the scars ugly?’
She hadn’t looked at them? ‘Not ugly. Tragic. But they will heal, as will you. In time you will realise you did all that you could and much more than most would have dared.’
‘I hope so. I’m so tired of hating myself.’
‘Channel all that hate towards Saint-Aubin, for it is he who deserves it all.’
She burrowed her head against his chest. They sat there together in silence for several minutes, the only evidence of her distress the tears that soaked through his waistcoat and shirt and washed the last of his doubts away. After an age, her voice came out so small he had to strain his ears to hear it.
‘When I was younger, I had an accident. I fell out of a tree. I broke a few ribs which healed quickly but the fear that I experienced while falling put me off heights for good. My bedchamber in the chateau was four storeys above the ground. I began to have nightmares. Silly ones in which I was falling towards the earth at speed. One day, back when we still shared the occasional meals together, I asked Saint-Aubin and my mother if I could have a different bedchamber—there was no shortage of them. When I explained my reasons why, they both laughed at me and my request was denied. Irrational fears, according to him, couldn’t be pandered to.
‘A few months later, I spoke to Saint-Aubin out of turn one time when I heard him shouting at my mother. She was crying. Upset. I told him to leave her alone. He did not react well to my interference. He always thought me too wilful. Young ladies should be meek and compliant. Respectful of their betters. Stupidly I answered back again.’ Of course she had. Because she was a fighter. Someone who stood up to bullies—not that she could see that now. ‘He decided to teach me a lesson.’
She paused to suck in a deep breath, almost as if talking about it was an ordeal, too. Flint didn’t dare interrupt, knowing the telling would be cathartic and begin to exorcise some of the demons which haunted her.
‘He dragged me out of the room and up to the roof, pushing me closer and closer to the edge until only my toes held on and I was forced to lean out and see the ground so far below.’
Horrified, sensing there was more to come, but knowing if he risked outrage on her behalf she might clam up, Flint buried his nose in her hair and held her tighter.
‘I was so terrified I apologised and promised to never defy him again—but, alas, I continued to disappoint him and my punishments were always a variation on the same theme. By the time I was sixteen, I had learned it was easier to keep out of his way and for many years we had little to do with one another. My mother, of course, would not believe he was capable of such cruelty, so she never listened me when I attempted to tell her. As a result, our relationship deteriorated, too, and we became quite distanced. Strangers living under the same enormous roof. I genuinely had no concept of what they were involved in until my mother’s illness necessitated another translator. Most of the smugglers Saint-Aubin uses are French and the Boss is English—risking communications in French might have drawn attention from the authorities. Those messages were the glue that held the operation together, but he was—is—deeply suspicious in nature and fiercely protective of his contacts. He didn’t trust the task to anyone outside his immediate circle.
‘To begin with, he used my mother as leverage. Using her pain and medication as ransom. After she died, he lost that power. I tried to escape the chateau, so he had guards carry me to the roof and dangle me over the side until I agreed to continue. A few days later, I dodged the guards and set a fire. I wanted to burn the whole place to the ground with him inside, but failed. That’s when he moved me to the building in Cherbourg and put me in chains. Every day he would bring me the smugglers’ messages to translate and pass on to his peers and corrupt officials listed in my mother’s ledger. The first time I refused, so I was whipped, then taken to the roof. Four guards held me in the air by my arms and legs and swung me repeatedly over the edge as Saint-Aubin laughed. The pension was ringed by metal railings. I could see them as I swung over them. Falling would mean certain death—and he knew it. Knew he could control me with my fears. They pretended to drop me twice until I caved in. With hindsight, I know I was too important for him to truly carry out his threats. But then...well, the fear made me weak and he kindled that fear. Used it to make me do his bidding and tell him how much I feared him. He enjoyed that part most of all. From that day on, I endured the beatings, but always surrendered before I was dragged to the roof. But I didn’t know men were dying—I swear. Had I done...’
‘Stop it!’ Flint couldn’t bear it. ‘You didn’t kill those men, Jess. They would hav
e still died without you, can’t you see that? Except if you had been tortured to the bitter end you would have died for nothing.’ And it had been torture, he now realised. Mental as well as physical and she had endured it and rebelled against it in equal measure. Her continued courage and fortitude staggered him. ‘Saint-Aubin would have found someone else to translate all those messages and we would still be none the wiser. Scrambling for clues while those smugglers continued to run rings around us. Thanks to your bravery, and dogged determination to live, we now know exactly who and what we are dealing with. You are a fighter, Jess. Always remember that. You fought him even when you knew it was futile. You fought him every step of the way until you had no fight left. And then you found other ways to fight. Not every fight needs to be physical. You outwitted them. You managed to send those letters to us—knowing they would be intercepted. Because you risked your life, their days are numbered.’
‘Perhaps they could already be over if only I’d had the courage to defy him sooner? I wish with all my heart I had. But I was too frightened for myself. I could have told you everything on that ship in the Channel and spared you and your family all this trouble—but I didn’t. Just in case he dragged me back. I wish...’ He placed his finger over her lips to silence her. She stared up at him her miserable, her dark eyes fathomless.
‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’ Flint stroked his hand down her hair, winding his fingers in one fat tendril as he kissed the top of her head again. ‘Why second-guess yourself? There is no point to what ifs. There are too many variables and combinations, none of which you will ever truly know the outcome to.’
‘I was selfish. I was only ever thinking about myself!’
‘Not selfish. You held back. Understandable. So did I. We didn’t know each other and neither of us trusts easily. Under the circumstances, it’s a miracle you’ve come to trust me as much as you have now when every other person in your life seems to have disappointed you or mistreated you abominably. You’ve been all alone in the world. I cannot imagine how awful that feels.’ He tipped up her chin so she could witness his sincerity for herself. ‘Your guilt is misplaced, Jess. All that truly matters is the here and now. Forget the past and deal with the future as it happens.’
The Uncompromising Lord Flint Page 20
