My Lord Jack

by Hope Tarr

  Resolved, relieved and perhaps even a wee bit pleased with himself, he swung his legs over the side of the bench and rose. “Dinna fash, lass. Betimes matters such as this have a way of working themselves out. Now finish your wee cake, or what’s left of it, for we’ve the both of us a long and busy day ahead.”

  Eighteen hours later a stiff and saddle sore Jack entered the inn’s taproom, a large box wrapped in brown paper and tied with cord tucked beneath one arm. Luicas, his apprentice and Milread’s young brother, followed behind, his spindly adolescent’s arms supporting a tower of smaller bandboxes that came up to the tip of his snubbed nose.

  As Luicas’s burdens evidenced, the foray into Edinburgh’s shopping district had borne considerable fruit. He’d come back with not one gown but two, as well as a pair of soft kid slippers and sturdy half boots to replace Claudia’s worn ones. There was also a heavy wool cape to see her through the Scottish winter, and sundry female fripperies—gloves, stockings, undergarments—it had occurred to him she might have need of.

  “Well now, I wonder what all this can be about?” Milread said in a voice meant to carry to the room’s far end where Claudia was vigorously knocking cobwebs from the corner. Putting down her own broom, she lanced Jack a conspiratorial wink, for he’d confided his plan when he’d brought Claudia to the tavern that morning.

  Claudia propped the broom against the wall and came forward and despite the fatigue that came from undertaking a two-day journey in one, Jack felt both his body and his heart lighten at the sight of her. She’d tied her hair back with an old kerchief but a few stray tendrils had escaped to curl about her temples. A streak of something—soot—marked her left cheek and her color was high from her labors.

  She looked beautiful.

  “Jack? Luicas? What is all this?” Halting in front of him, she spread her hands to indicate the box Jack held as well as the towering stack Luicas had just offloaded onto a nearby bench.

  Shy suddenly, Jack handed her the box. “I thought maybe ye could use this.”

  She hesitated then took it. “A gift…for me?”

  “Well, it’s certain it’s no for me,” Milread broke in. “Open it and let’s see what’s inside.”

  The box seesawed in Claudia’s arms, putting Jack once more in mind of how slender she was, how delicate. Heart drumming, he watched her set it carefully down upon a freshly wiped table, untie the cord with great care and then lift the lid.

  She looked up at him, face alight, and Jack suddenly felt ten feet tall rather than merely six feet four. “A gown. You bought me a gown!” She reached out to stroke the violet-colored silk then drew her hand sharply back. “Oh, but are you certain that…” She lowered her voice and, looking up at him, asked, “…you can afford it?”

  Milread nudged her way closer to have a look. “Aye, for that would be real silk, would it no?” she said, her searching glance finding its way over Claudia’s head to Jack’s face.

  The beginnings of a blush blistering his cheeks, Jack divided his gaze between the two women. “Well, I dinna exactly beggar myself, if that’s what you’re both worrit for. Nor will the Watch come abangin’ on the door to carry me away for a thief or a coiner, for everything here was paid for with the King’s own silver and gold.”

  Indeed, the four hundred pounds a year he received on retainer more than provided for his few wants and it had pleased him inordinately to put some of those funds to use in seeing Claudia properly outfitted.

  The women relaxed visibly, and Milread turned back to Claudia. “Well, then, dinna just stand about. Go upstairs tae my room and try it on.”

  Claudia set the lid back on top, then ran her palms down the front of her soiled apron. “Oh but I would not wish to soil it.”

  Milread looked from Claudia to Jack and rolled her eyes. “Just what we need about here, another fiend for cleanliness. Well, wash your face and hands if ye maun. There’s a pitcher o’ water set on the bedside table, though where that bar o’ soap Jack brought has got tae is anyone’s guess.”

  “Merci, Milread.” To Jack she said, “I will be but a moment.” Taking hold of the box with both hands, she all but skipped over to the stairs.

  Milread turned her attention to her brother, who’d subsided onto one of the benches and was yawning broadly. “Luicas, dearie, there’s a mutton pie and a black currant bun kept warm in the kitchen. I dinna suppose ye might be hungry?” She reached out and ruffled his tousled brown curls.

  “Leave off,” he said, ducking and making a face, though his tired eyes brightened at the mention of food.

  Over the lad’s head Jack and Milread exchanged knowing looks, for fifteen-year-old boys were always hungry.

  “Oh aye,” Jack said around a chuckle, “he’s like as no starved. ’Tis been at least a full hour since he last ate.” To the boy he said, “Run along, lad. I’ll no have your wasting away on my conscience.”

  The boy sprung from the bench and sped off in the direction of the backdoor.

  Arms folded beneath her bosom, Milread speared Jack a pointed look. “’Tis a bonny gown, to be sure, but mayhap a wee bit grand for the tavern?”

  Jack was not so naïve as to imagine for a moment that Milread meant to pass up comment. He thought over the answer he’d rehearsed, then said, “Aye well, ’tis only that with the lass to bide here through springtime, I thought she might find herself in need of something other than a workaday frock.” Fresh inspiration struck and, seizing upon it, he added, “Why, there’s church, for one. Ye canna expect her to wear ale-splattered skirts into the Lord’s house.”

  “Indeed no.” Milread nodded solemnly but her eyes danced. “And then there’s the cèilidh to celebrate the marriage of Duncan and Dorcas’s wee Mairi on Thursday next. Such a gown would do grand for the dancin’, d’ye no think?”

  Shifting on the balls of his feet, he hedged, “I’ve no yet decided whether or not I’m going.”

  “Och, man, a bit o’ fun would do ye the world of good.” She jerked her flaxen head to the staircase and dropped her voice. “And her, too. She’s been twitchy as a cat all day, droppin’ things right and left—more than usual even.”

  Jack had a notion that Claudia’s “twitchiness” owed more to their morning match of wits than to a lack of dancing, but he held his peace, secretly pleased that he hadn’t been the only one to leave the breakfast table muddle-headed and cross. Aware of his friend’s searching gaze, he opened his mouth to reply that perhaps it wasn’t the best of ideas to bring a prisoner of the Crown to a social gathering, when soft footfalls padding down the stairs caused both he and Milread to turn about.

  Jack felt his heart rise up and slam into his chest with such force that, without thinking, he lifted a hand to cover it. Claudia stood in the alcove, lips parted in a soft, uncertain smile. She’d removed the kerchief and brushed out her hair. It fell about her shoulders in soft, glossy waves.

  Her violet eyes looked soft, too, her gaze touching on his face before looking past him to Milread. “I think it fits, yes?”

  The gown did far more than fit. She was lovely, absolutely lovely. And he’d been right about the color. Deep lavender, it brought out her eyes and did wonderful things for her pale skin and dark hair. And it was the latest fashion, or so the dressmaker on Princes Street had assured him. The low rounded neckline, which he’d insisted be filled in with some lacy material for the sake of health and decency, not to mention sanity—his—descended into a fitted bodice that showed off its wearer’s wee waist to perfection.

  Milread clasped her hands and, in a tone that was at once admiring and wistful, announced, “Delicate as a faerie princess, aye, Jack?”

  “And you even thought of shoes!” Claudia lifted her flounced skirt to reveal low-heeled evening slippers—and a tantalizing glimpse of the slim ankles above them.

  Jack swallowed hard. “Well, I’d no have you go barefoot,” he said and then shrugged as though he hadn’t spent a full quarter of an hour agonizing over whether to purchase thes
e or the pair with buckles at the front.

  “Thank you,” she said and then, backing up a step, held her arms out from her sides to show off the Honiton lace cascading from the three-quarter-length sleeves to very best advantage. “How do I look?” she asked and her gaze, indeed all her focus, was riveted unmistakably on Jack.

  Jack took note of her subtle lifting of chin, and the sight of all that womanly confidence steeled his spine to resist. No doubt she expected him to offer up the praise that she no doubt felt to be her due. Well, he’d be damned if he’d give it to her, twice damned if he did or said anything to give her so much as an inkling of the sorry state he was in. He might be driven half mad with the lusting, his blood bubbling like liquid fire and his cock standing up like a dog begging for scraps, but he wasn’t so far gone that he’d let the wee witch make a public fool of him a second time.

  “Humph,” he grunted, keeping his gaze cool even as his sensitized flesh prickled and sputtered with the held-back heat. “I suppose ye’ll do.”

  Oh she’d do all right. Do him in if he wasn’t careful. That night, shifting position on his pallet for the umpteenth time, Jack acknowledged just why Claudia Valemont had been put into his path.

  “To drive me mad, that’s why,” he whispered into the smoky darkness.

  To torture and tease, to tempt and test, Claudia was the Delilah to his Samson, the Cleopatra to his Mark Antony. Like those ill-fated men who’d followed their hearts and lost their lives, if he gave in Claudia Valemont would end up making him very weak indeed. For once a woman like Claudia got her hooks into a man, he would be hers for life.

  Even after she was long gone.

  Until now his human acquaintances had been few and far between. Whenever the loneliness threatened to engulf him, he’d told himself this life he’d carved out for himself must be enough. He would make it enough.

  Claudia’s coming had changed all that. Being with her made him feel restless and edgy, made him yearn for pleasures he’d surrendered without ever sampling save for in the shadow land of his dreams.

  He wasn’t about to stand for it.

  Peace came neither naturally nor easily to him, but at long last it had come and by God he meant to hold on to it, which meant holding out against her. Not only her fair face and lovely body, formidable opponents both, but also her lively mind. And then there were the rare but intense flashes of vulnerability, those glimpses into all she’d suffered and survived that made his heart tremble and twist and his knees go watery and weak until he could swear he felt himself melting into a puddle at her feet.

  Unlike him, his beautiful nemesis was at peace with the world. He pulled himself up on his elbows and cast his disgusted gaze across the room to the drawn curtain. From behind its cover, the soft, regular purring—a less generous man might have called it snoring—announced that she was well and truly asleep.

  Exasperated, he flopped onto his back, folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. And that’s when he heard it: a low moan and then a strangled cry coming from the vicinity of the bed.

  “Nooooooo!”

  The scream pealing forth was so piteous, so piercing, that Elf, lying next to him on the pallet, lifted her head and, ears pinned back, let out a howl of sympathy.

  “Aye, lass,” Jack said, laying a calming hand on the hound’s tensed shoulder. “I suppose there’s no help for it—we must go to her.”

  It was his habit and his preference to sleep naked but since Claudia had arrived, he’d taken to wearing his knee-length linen drawers to bed. Glad of them now, he got to his feet, fumbling in the darkness for the tinderbox. A stubbed toe, a bashed shinbone and countless curses later, he found it atop the mantelshelf just as a sharp shriek of sheer terror shrilled from behind the bed curtain.

  “I’m coming, lass. I’m coming.”

  He struck flint against steel, lit a candle and carried the light over to the curtain. Sweeping it aside with the edge of his arm, he stepped inside. Candle held aloft, he wove his way through the maze of bandboxes and wrapped parcels to the bed where Claudia lay thrashing, dark head turning to and fro on the white pillow, one hand clawing at the wrist of the other as if seeking to break free of invisible bonds.

  Afraid she would do herself an injury, he hurried to set the candle down on the bedside table and then reached for her. “Claudia. Claudia, lass, wake up.”

  Glazed eyes opening, she screamed again and fought to push him away, her small hands slapping against his bare chest.

  Hysteria on the scaffold steps was a common reaction among the condemned and by now Jack knew just what to do. He seized hold of her shoulders, the new white muslin night rail soaked through with sweat, and lifted her off the pillow. “Wake up, now!” he commanded and shook her hard.

  She clamped her mouth closed and stared up at him, recognition gradually overtaking the fright in her eyes. Breathing hard, she managed to get out, “I-I thought y-you were the borreau, the executioner, come to carry me away…to the guillotine.”

  “I am an executioner,” he said and, looking down into her damp face and dilated eyes, felt ashamed to own it. “But I’ve no come to take ye anywhere other than to the kitchen for a cup of chamomile tea if you’ve a taste for it.”

  She shook her head and scooted back against the headboard. Dragging a shaking hand across her brow, she said, “Non, merci. But sit with me awhile?”

  Suddenly mindful that they were both the nearest thing to naked, he took his hands from her shoulders and returned them to his sides. Wearing only her thin shift and with her raven’s hair drawn into a loose braid and tied with one of the ribbons he’d bought, Claudia looked younger, softer, than she did fortified in her day clothes with their armoring of corset and petticoats.

  He’d known she was vulnerable, terrified even, and yet when he sat beside her and she cast herself into his arms, he was completely unprepared. “Oh, Jack, I am so glad you are here.”

  Tenderness washed over him like a wave, carrying with it the desperate, self-destructive urge to lay both heart and head at her feet. Helpless to resist, he took her against his chest. “Wheesht, mo luaidh, mo nighean dubh.” My darling, my dark one. Unbidden, the Celtic endearments rolled off his tongue but then only because they came straight from his heart. With one hand he cupped the back of her damp head, using the other to trace slow soothing circles across her shuddering shoulders. “’Tis only a wee nightmare ye’ve had. But if it would help ye to speak of it, I’ll gladly listen.”

  She drew back, hesitated and then slowly nodded. “I was back in Paris. Maman, Phillippe, they had been taken already and now it was my turn.”

  Phillippe? A brother, he hoped, but didn’t really think so. The jagged edge of jealousy was a sharp and unaccustomed sensation. He didn’t like it one bit and yet even as he cursed himself for a fool, he vowed he’d get from her just who this Phillippe fellow was and, more to the point, what he’d been to her. But looking down to the small, shivering woman in his arms, he allowed that now was neither the time nor the place, so he shifted the question to the back of his brain and nodded for her to continue.

  She turned her face up to his, eyes shaded with fear. “The tumbrel, they had it waiting and…and the ropes. I tried to run, Jack, I did, but my legs…They would not move. It was as if my feet they were rooted to the ground.”

  “Hush, lass, ye’re safe now. No one shall raise a hand to ye. I give ye my word.”

  A hint of a smile unearthed the dimple at the corner of her mouth. In the semidarkness it winked at him as she asked, “Not even you?”

  Relieved to see it, he smiled back. “No even me, sorely though you do try me.”

  “Bon,” she said with a bob of her dark head. “For I bruise very easily.”

  “Aye, I mind that ye do.” He reached out, ran his knuckles along the smooth plane of her cheekbone where the angry mark made by Callum’s fist had finally faded away.

  He’d intended only a light, friendly touch, but temptation was a wily thing.
It stole up on a man and then struck without warning. Mindful of how soft was her skin, how close were their faces, he told himself he must draw back and move away. Instead he moved closer, letting his hand glide down the long column of her neck to the delicate bones of clavicle and shoulder. He heard her catch her breath, registered the shiver that ran through her beneath the pads of his fingers, glanced down to her bosom, rising and falling beneath the thin shift, and knew instinctively that fear wasn’t the cause of any of it. Hangman though he was, she didn’t see him as such, at least not at the moment, and he was glad, so glad.

  She lifted her face to his. Just a notch but it was enough. Her eyes, almost black in the shadows, melted into his, offering him her mouth if only he’d find the courage to take it. And he wanted to take it. God, how he wanted to. Even as conscience warred with desire, as fear fought with need, he ran his thumb along the seam of her moist lips, thought about what she might do if he dared to slip the digit inside. But it was the taste of her that he wanted, craved. One small sampling of the feast he was missing, and mayhap he might die a happier man. He slipped his hand to the back of her neck, wet his dry bottom lip, angled his face…

  And pressed his lips to the damp hollow of her temple.

  Pulse hammering, he dropped his hand and drew back, tasting salt, tasting Claudia. His heart turned over, squeezed in on itself, and for the first time he acknowledged that the feelings rushing him went well beyond friendship, beyond even lust.

  Shaking with reaction, he started up from the bed. “I should leave you to your rest.”

  She grabbed for his hand, the fear once more upon her and sharpening every feature of her face. “Restez avec moi… Stay with me…please.”

  Jack stared down at the small white hand holding fast to his. It had been a long time since anyone—anyone human, at least—had reached for him. But even if it was only his hand that she touched and only safety that she sought, she was dangerous just the same.