‘Good morning!’ As it was still very early by society standards only his mother, two sisters and both their husbands were in the breakfast room with a very subdued Hadleigh. All except his mother were seated while she fussed around them all, loading plates as was her way. ‘I’ll have a bit of everything, please. Don’t skimp, I could eat a horse.’
Flint sat down at the head of the table next to Ophelia who was watching him with interest, so he offered her a sunny grin.
‘Somebody is cheerful this morning. Are you ill, Peter?’
He snapped open his napkin, reminding himself he was supposed to be the sensible, pragmatic and unemotional sibling, and schooled his features to their usual ironic-tinged blandness while the butler handed him yesterday’s London newspapers. ‘I am always perfectly agreeable in the mornings.’
‘You are? Since when?’
‘Since he brought a certain lady home, I’ve noticed his moods have become quite erratic,’ said Portia with a knowing smirk. ‘He’s either fuming, mooning or grinning—and we all know what that means.’
He ignored her and his eldest sister’s pointed I told you so looks to scan the headlines of The Times, pleased when he saw a story front and centre about the female traitor being held in the Tower. While they didn’t name names, there were enough juicy titbits to give credence to Jess’s incarceration there. The Marquis of Deal was named in another article outlining his arrest on suspicion of treason alongside a detailed account of the Excise Men’s shocking discovery of a veritable arsenal on the Grubbenvorst in Folkestone—weapons bound for France and destined to help Napoleon’s supporters raise another army. All stories planted by Lord Fennimore to fan the flames and give credence to Flint’s decoy.
A plate was slammed down in front of him a moment before his mother clouted him around the head. ‘Peter Othello Flint, I’m ashamed of you!’
Flint yelped as everyone else looked on stunned, while his mother sailed self-righteously to her own chair at the head of the table directly opposite him. She shot him a narrowed look which told him she knew exactly what had being going on.
Tomfoolery.
But being his mother, she would never embarrass Jess, so quickly composed her expression to one of pleasantness. ‘Could you pass the salt, please, Portia?’ A clear signal to all and sundry that she was not prepared to publicly discuss anything with anyone, but was going to flay the skin from her youngest child the second she got him alone. That was the way things were done in the Flint household. Understanding it, they all picked up their forks and continued with their breakfast as if nothing was wrong.
‘Othello?’ A grinning Hadleigh broke the tension.
‘That name does not leave this room.’
* * *
Over the course of the next twenty minutes, the rest of the family gathered and the room became noisy, yet there was still no sign of Jess and he began to feel guilty for leaving her alone in his room, knowing full well she would have to leave it at some point and dart down the landing in just her nightgown to get to hers and dress. Too late, he realised he should have woken her before he had crept out and smuggled her back to her bedchamber before the house awoke. Perhaps then he would be spared what was likely to be the most awkward conversation he had ever had with his mother.
As the clock kept ticking ever closer towards ten, another thought began to plague him. What if she had availed herself of the hidden passageway and was already miles away? The idea that he would never see her again, when he was head over heels in love with the vixen, made his chest hurt with a vengeance. Surely she wouldn’t make love to him, then leave? Not when last night had meant so very much to him...
When she suddenly appeared at the door, all wide-eyed, hesitant and guilty-looking, it took all the strength he had not to audibly sigh his relief.
‘Good morning, Jess! I trust you slept well?’ To his own ears he sounded unconvincing and hoped that he wasn’t making it plainly obvious to every curious face around the table that they had both barely slept because they had been far too busy being naked.
‘Oui... Yes...thank you.’ Her eyes flicked to his, then dropped to his mouth and a delightful blush bloomed on her cheeks as she hastily turned to his mother. ‘I am sorry I am so late, I didn’t mean to sleep in.’
‘You poor dear, you must be exhausted after your ordeal. Who could blame you for grabbing additional rest? It’s obvious to all of us that you need your rest and, thanks to my son, you’ve not been getting nearly enough.’ A loaded response if ever there was one and one that made poor Jess’s face burn crimson. ‘Sit, sit. I shall fetch you a plate.’ As his mother chose a path past him, Flint shot her some daggers in case she decided to clump him again. If she did, Jess would be mortified and the whole table would be left in no doubt that he had thoroughly ravished and ruined her.
Not that he was sorry. He sincerely hoped neither was she.
Jess chose a chair well away from him and was soon commandeered by Desdemona and Hermia, who engaged her in a stream of meaningless, inane chitchat while she waited for her food. After that she concentrated intently on her plate, allowing the disjointed and effusive family conversation to waft around her. It took several minutes before she was brave enough to look up and allowed their eyes to lock. In that beautiful, scant moment that loaded, heated, equally longing gaze made him feel like the ruler of the entire world.
As soon as he got her on his own—
‘Sorry to interrupt!’ The door slammed open to reveal Gray, Lord Fennimore and two other King’s Elite agents—Jake Warriner and Seb Leatham. All four wearing matching grave expressions.
‘What’s happened?’ Because something had. Something bad else they wouldn’t all be here. Without thinking he left his chair and was immediately at Jess’s side, ready to protect her.
‘There has been a worrying development.’ Lord Fennimore took in the sea of stunned faces around the table. ‘Something best discussed in the privacy of your study, Flint.’ He then addressed the table at large. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you all to stay here so that we can appraise you of the next steps as soon as we have decided upon them. Rest assured, your safety is paramount.’ With that he stalked out.
Flint tugged Jess to accompany the men, not wanting to leave her alone nor leave her out of any decisions. This was all about her, after all. Fennimore did not blink an eye when she was ushered into the now quite cramped study and settled in a chair.
‘There were several incidents last night. A well-armed gang marched on Newgate at midnight. Several guards were killed in the fray. Despite the remaining soldiers’ best attempts to repel them, they were overwhelmed, and the prison was compromised. By the time the situation was back in our control, both the Marquis of Deal and Viscount Penhurst were murdered.’
At Jess’s sharp intake of breath, Flint placed his hand on her shoulder to reassure her. ‘It will be all right, Jess. They still don’t know you are here.’
‘Actually, I think they do.’ Lord Fennimore’s voice was matter of fact. ‘At the same time as the incident in Newgate, another ransacked your bachelor lodgings, Flint. Hours beforehand we later learned witnesses who claimed to have seen you in London were brutally assaulted. At least two admitted they had not seen you for weeks and another, a high-ranking peer in the Foreign Office, confessed Lady Jessamine was not being held in the Tower when one of the cut-throats held his daughter hostage and threatened to slice her throat. If the smugglers know it was you who was her escort—and we have to assume that is now common knowledge—and they suspect you are not in town as we tried to make them believe, then it is only a matter of time before they come searching for you here. Even if they do not suspect Lady Jessamine is here hiding, they will suspect you know where she is—which makes you a target, Flint.’
‘Saint-Aubin was in Plymouth.’ Jess’s voice quivered. ‘He could be closer now.’
‘Why would he m
ove from the convenient escape route of the coast when the Boss would handle things in London? I certainly wouldn’t.’ Lord Fennimore addressed his agents. ‘We didn’t bother disguising our arrival. In view of the imminent fear of attack, we came by gunship with a Royal Navy escort with as many men as we could muster at short notice. I’ll tell you upfront that wasn’t many. We’ve summoned the local militia—not that we expect them to be of much use, but they will be here shortly—and as we speak a whole battalion of marines should begin making their way from the barracks in Plymouth to Penmor.’
‘Then proper reinforcements won’t be here till late this afternoon!’ And even that was with them setting a blistering pace. Flint’s heart was racing. The local militia were a rag-tag disorganised bunch at best. Poverty-stricken farmers and fishermen mostly, in need of a little extra coin to feed their families, not trained soldiers. ‘Penmor could be surrounded long before then.’ She was in danger. Grave danger and he couldn’t stand it.
‘It was built to withstand a siege. We are ready for a siege,’ Gray tried to remind him, but already Flint’s mind was whirring. But for the first time in his life it wasn’t thinking pragmatically or strategically. It was only thinking about how devastated he would be if he lost Jess. A whole flurry of terrible what ifs clouded all rational thought. Of course, Penmor was impenetrable. That’s why he had brought her here. His unwanted new feelings towards Jess were clouding his judgement and warping his reality. He needed his legendary calm more than ever now, because without it he was no use to her.
‘The first thing we need to do is bring all the men we have out on the moors inside. I’ll round them up, then secure the front entrance.’ Fortunately, Leatham stepped forward to take charge. ‘The navy have the sea covered so we don’t need to worry about a coastal assault. Warriner and Gray will organise what we have manpower and weapons wise around the battlements and in the courtyard. Once the militia arrive, we’ll divide them up and share them around so at least we can direct them. Flint, find the safest place to secure Lady Jessamine Fane and your family—we don’t want a lucky musket ball to fly over the battlements and find someone—then we’ll see you outside. We’ll need your knowledge of the castle to do this properly. Hadleigh and Lord Fennimore can guard them all.’
The sense of urgency and purpose brought all his emotions under check. ‘If I put them all upstairs in the west wing, then there is only one narrow staircase to guard and they have a means of escape if the worst comes to the worst and the defences are breached. Which they won’t be.’ Why was he suddenly convinced these ancient walls weren’t enough when they had always been more than sufficient? He willed the nagging, irrational doubt clawing at his gut away, but his beating, frightened heart knew the answer. It was her.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Jess found herself sat on the exact same four-poster bed Peter had made sinfully passionate love to her on just a few hours earlier. Except this time she was there with his mother, all five of his sisters, their respective husbands and children, the Crown Prosecutor, a curmudgeonly grey-haired man who was apparently in charge, and a trunk full of ammunition.
‘Well, isn’t this cosy,’ said Lady Flint, pouring tea. ‘We haven’t done this in years, have we, girls?’
‘You have done it before then?’ Such a concept seemed quite bizarre. ‘Napoleon?’
‘Trewin, wasn’t it, Cedric?’ Lady Flint deferred to Lord Fennimore who was staring out the window, watching the courtyard like a hawk. ‘Harry Trewin?’
‘No—it was his brother John, I believe. Harry was the one clapped in irons. Nasty family. We had the devil of a job with them, as I recall. How long were we here for?’
‘Three weeks.’ She passed Jess a teacup, smiling. ‘Cedric and my husband were Excise Men together back in the old days. Smuggling was rife in Cornwall then. Practically everyone was involved and didn’t take lightly to having the source of all their income locked up in our cellar. John Trewin whipped them all up and brought them to Penmor with his gang of cut-throats to free his brother and we were stuck here until Royal Marines could disperse the mob outside.’
‘That took them three weeks?’
‘They were different times, dear. England was newly at war with Old Boney and most of the military were off supporting Nelson somewhere, so the smugglers were able to run riot. It was shortly after that Cedric and my dear husband set up the King’s Elite.’
‘Peter’s father was a spy, too?’
‘Oh, yes! It’s quite the family business, although my husband was the first Flint to do it full time. Being here in Cornwall, where smuggling was at its most rife, and after the incident with the Trewins, it became quite apparent they needed a dedicated force to deal with the problem—and Peter’s father was not keen on another similar siege at Penmor. We ran out of bacon, milk and cheese in the first week and it put him in a very ill temper for the duration. He hated his tea without a splash of milk. To be frank, I don’t think he ever got over it.’
Jess couldn’t quite believe her ears. Once again, the danger of her situation seemed to be overshadowed by the surreal. ‘You ran out of milk?’
Lady Flint patted her hand. ‘Fear not, dear. That won’t happen this time. Once bitten twice shy, after all. I had some cows brought in and twelve haunches of bacon delivered by the butcher as soon as you arrived. This siege I am fully prepared for.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
The militia arrived shortly after three and, as Flint had expected, a shoddy, disorganised bunch they were, too. The commanding officer was a scruffy fellow with a deep Cornish accent and a uninterested manner who was more suited to netting pilchards than soldiering. If the man had been any more unconcerned he would be asleep. His platoon of forty men was equally as lackadaisical and ridiculously slow to follow instructions, treating the deployment as more of a nice day out than a matter of the utmost urgency. Leatham, Gray and Warriner did their best to mobilise them effectively, but they seemed more interested in eating the food his mother had insisted be delivered to them than manning their assigned posts. That’s what happened when a ramshackle fighting force was made out of fishermen and farmers. Their presence did not make Flint feel better.
Anxiously, he paced the battlements looking for any signs of movement on the moors or the promised battalion of marines, but so far there was nothing to see but the still and tranquil sunny day.
But his gut told him danger lurked. As each hour passed, that feeling of impending doom grew stronger and stronger, although he couldn’t put his finger on why.
‘Stop pacing, will you?’ Gray had been staring out to the horizon through a telescope, which he closed with an irritated snap. ‘We’ve got the whole area covered. The moors are as desolate as they always are and even if they do come, they’ve got to either scale a forty-foot sheer cliff or jump over a forty-foot chasm to get here. And then they’ll still need to breach the walls. You’re making me nervous.’
‘Something doesn’t feel right.’
‘He’s worried about Lady Jessamine.’ Warriner nudged Leatham and winked. ‘She’s made him go all peculiar.’
‘I did notice the distinct frisson between them. Touching, I thought. Do you think that frisson is clouding his judgement?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Definitely.’ Gray pulled the telescope back open and glared through it again. ‘And if you want my opinion, it’s been a worrying trend of late. You’ve all gone soft. The lot of you. What happened to the merry band of confirmed bachelors I joined? The one where we were all perfectly content to remain blissfully single for ever? Avengers of justice, duty before all else? First Warriner discards his rakish ways for a life of eternal monogamy, then Leatham does the unthinkable and not only speaks to a woman, he marries her, and now Flint—the last bastion of everything sacred in the temple of the great unwed—looks like he’s done for, too. It’s a blasted tragedy, I tell you. Either that, or a stra
nge disease has afflicted you all for which there is no cure. In which case, I’m off down to the courtyard to break up that useless bunch down there.’
He pointed to where a shabby group of militiamen were still stood laughing and gossiping around a water barrel when he’d only tried to move them on ten minutes previously. ‘The last thing I want to do is catch your terminal ailment. It will be a cold day in hell before I fall foul of the parson’s trap.’ He slapped the telescope into Leatham’s hand and stalked off, leaving them all silent. It didn’t last long.
‘The fact she’s about to go on trial for treason is a sticking point in their relationship, to be sure.’ Warriner continued to address only Leatham in a bid to annoy Flint. He had to grit his teeth not to bite back, knowing they’d have a field day if he did. ‘The poor man must be in bits about that. Hadleigh says Flint’s determined to prove the chit innocent, so much so I believe they’ve almost come to blows on the topic.’
‘Proof indeed that he is in a quandary.’
‘Not that he’ll discuss it with us. His two oldest and dearest friends.’
‘Indeed,’ said Leatham, focusing the telescope and then pointing it directly in Flint’s face. ‘He’s always been a very closed-mouth fellow. Why would he confide such an important conundrum to us, or, heaven forbid, ask us to help him in his noble quest, when he failed to appraise us of his middle name in all the nine years we have known him? Peter Othello Flint. Who knew?’
Oh, how Flint hated that name. ‘I’m going to kill Hadleigh! And Jess is not a blasted traitor!’ Like a fool, he was only adding fuel to the fire, yet couldn’t seem to stop. He prodded Warriner in the chest. ‘But that does not mean I’ve gone peculiar!’
The Uncompromising Lord Flint Page 22
