The Uncompromising Lord Flint

by Virginia Heath

  ‘Too dangerous. Too much chance of them realising that it isn’t you in the coach, but a slight and rather surly Scotsman who is not impressed with the prospect of wearing a frock. Poor McBride.’ He and Gray shared an amused grin at the thought. Her gaoler’s—no, her rescuer’s—green eyes danced and that dancing did disconcerting things to her already off-kilter insides. Or perhaps that was the muscles in his thighs? The indelible memory of his naked chest... ‘The Marines will escort your carriage to a heavily armed warship anchored in the harbour and sail with you, complete with a full naval escort, all the way to Tilbury. Only then will they march to the capital. It should be quite a spectacle. Meanwhile, we escape while nobody is looking.’

  Saint-Aubin would be looking. He was no fool. ‘There will be assassins watching every door.’

  ‘Something I am banking on.’ Gray passed him the tin of soot and he smeared it liberally over his own face and hair. It was the first time Jess had seen Lord Flint looking anything but dapper. However, the rough-and-ready dishevelled look suited him just as well. Perhaps better. In working men’s clothes he certainly seemed more approachable. The soot smudged away most of the aristocratic aloofness and she liked his hair rumpled. ‘I want them to be in no doubt nobody left surreptitiously.’

  There was a soft tap on the door and the bare-knuckle fighter poked his head in. ‘Everything is set. McBride is ready, although still fuming. But to his credit he looks quite bonny in a gown.’

  ‘Then let’s get on with it.’

  Jess found herself propelled from the sanctuary of her temporary bedchamber and taken to the furthest end of the narrow landing, desperate to ask a million questions, but conscious that time appeared to be of the essence. Using Gray’s cupped hands to boost his foot, Lord Flint opened the tiny loft hatch in the ceiling. Its position and poor light had rendered it almost invisible beforehand. Using only the power of his arms, he effortlessly levered himself through the hole, then his dirty blond head and one arm poked back down. Gray hoisted her to grasp it and she practically flew through the air into the cramped and airless attic beyond. When a sack and a selection of brushes joined them, she got her first insight into the plan.

  ‘We are posing as chimney sweeps?’ Which suggested heights! Of all the plans, he had to choose one involving a drop!

  ‘A perfectly legitimate reason to be on a roof. But only I am the sweep. You are my climbing boy. Every decent sweep has an apprentice to stuff up a chimney.’ His charm didn’t lessen the way her stomach clenched at the prospect. Drat him. Although despite her irrational fears Jess could see the sense of it, as long as he had another plan to get them safely off the rooftop, too.

  He stood, balancing on the joists, and helped her to her feet before the hatch was sealed again. However, instead of being plunged into darkness, a thin shaft of light lit the way and they soon emerged hunched behind an enormous smoking chimney where another man waited for them. Jess gazed around, keeping her gaze forward to combat the inevitable panic and was surprised to see how close all the rooftops were. The different shades of tiles stretched before her like a road.

  ‘There’s a fellow keeps wandering up and down the alley. You’ll have to be quick.’ Crouching low, he took them to the edge of the roof where they silently waited. Her silly eyes drifted downwards and fresh bile rose in her throat. It was a significant drop on to hard cobbles. A fall here wouldn’t break bones, it would kill.

  Exactly as Flint’s man had warned, a fearsome-looking fellow passed below. No sooner had he gone than a plank of wood was used to bridge the frightening gap between the inn and the building across the alleyway. Flint darted across it carrying the brushes, making the passage look easy when it was anything but.

  Like a fool, she looked down and dizziness swamped her. The prospect of the sheer drop very nearly cost her the remnants of her last meal. One wrong step and Jess would plummet three storeys. Ah, bon sang! Too many feet away, Lord Flint beckoned for her to follow.

  She dithered. Then set her jaw stubbornly. It was the only way. Just don’t look down. Her foot felt like lead as she planted it on the plank and her legs trembled as she edged out. Jess forced her feet to shuffle along. Forced herself to swallow past the knot of fear lodged in her throat and to remember to breathe. ‘Just six more steps, Jess. You’re almost there.’

  Six steps.

  She shuffled again.

  Five.

  ‘Take my hand.’

  She grabbed it, ridiculously grateful that those muscles in his arms had a purpose beyond the aesthetic, and practically threw herself towards him. He caught her in a hug that she wanted to melt into, offering pathetic thanks for his solid presence. Instead, she arranged her features to disguise her silly fears and hastily put some distance between both him and the perilous edge and the dangerous chasm below.

  As Lord Flint’s man quietly removed all evidence of their escape and disappeared, Flint took her hand and dragged her behind the cover of the chimney. ‘We’re going to take the roofs all along the street away from the port.’ He pointed across the sea of slate and tile before them. ‘I reckon we’ve got a good couple of hundred yards of rooftop there. When the coast is clear, we’ll find somewhere deserted to jump down and then we’ll keep walking. As soon as we’re out of Plymouth we’ll stick to the fields and the coastal paths.’ He made it sound simple.

  ‘Just us?’ She must focus on the distant future rather than the knot of irrational panic that had appeared at the words Jump down.

  ‘Only in the short term. Gray and some of his men will double back and meet us. Even if he suspects he’s been duped, Saint-Aubin will be looking for a beautiful woman and her battalion of ferocious body guards on the main roads. Not a vagabond and his son in the country lanes.’

  * * *

  Flint regretted his honesty the moment he saw her eyes soften at the word beautiful. ‘You think me beautiful?’ The tinge of awe and wonder at the compliment, as if she never received such admiration, reminded him that despite the unexpected change in circumstances he still would be foolish to trust her further than he could throw her.

  ‘Compared to most chimney sweeps? Absolutely.’ The dewy expression melted, making him see it for what it was. ‘Come on. Let’s put some distance between us and Saint-Aubin before the carriage leaves.’

  Like most commercial towns, Plymouth had grown to meet the demand, which in turn meant that buildings were crammed together as every bit of available space was utilised. Many of the rooftops butted so close to the next that one only had to scramble up a ledge or take a small step or two down. At the end of the row of houses, Flint left his charge sat huddled in a recess while he took himself to the edge, lay down on his stomach and checked the ground below.

  As one would expect at two in the afternoon, the main street was still bustling with activity, but there was no sign of the burly henchman and, to Flint’s trained eye, nothing and nobody looked amiss. Still, that didn’t mean he was prepared to take any unnecessary chances. Their desolate elevated world was currently considerably safer than the ground and it would be prudent to stick to the roofs for as long as feasibly possible. He didn’t dare attempt to cross the road. From up here that would be suicide, as the opposite building was a good ten feet away. Even with a decent run up, the chances of him making it were slim. Jess’s shorter legs didn’t stand a chance.

  Their only choice was to go left across the rooftops, a route which took them deeper into the town where there was more chance of someone seeing them. That couldn’t be helped and the chances of a random pedestrian taking the trouble to scrutinise two filthy sweeps were slight enough to be worth the risk. The gap between this roof and its neighbour was, he estimated, a little more than four feet at its narrowest. He could make that effortlessly and the minx had already proved herself to be of an athletic disposition. Using his elbows, he shuffled towards her.

  ‘There’s a bit of a jump, I’m
afraid. A few feet, but certainly doable.’ Flint pointed at the spot and she craned her neck to stare at it.

  ‘Doable?’ Was that fear in her eyes? ‘Perhaps for you, Monsieur Flint.’

  ‘If I go first and you take a bit of a run up, I’ll catch you.’

  ‘You will catch me?’ She kept taking his words and turning them into a question, her disbelief evident in the tone of her voice. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘The alternative is to clamber down to that busy street and draw unwanted attention to ourselves or sit it out here and hope the men after you don’t eventually work their way up to the roof. Of course, we might starve in the interim, what with us having few provisions aside from those brushes.’

  Her dark eyes narrowed. ‘This is not the time for sarcasm.’

  ‘Nor is it the time for indecisiveness or discussion. We have one viable exit and we need to take it now.’ Flint couldn’t be bothered to argue and hoisted the brushes on to his shoulder. Making sure the coast was clear and nobody was glancing skywards, he paused, then leapt across the gap.

  Chapter Eleven

  For a full minute she stood a few feet from the edge and wobbled. That was the only way to describe the erratic swaying, blinking and swallowing. ‘Come on! We don’t have all day!’ He held out his arms impatiently and gestured for her to jump with his hands. She ignored it. ‘What is the problem?’

  Her eyes lifted to lock with his warily. ‘Give me a moment.’

  ‘We don’t have a moment!’ Flint was quickly losing his temper until he noticed she was a bit green around the gills. Surely this fearless creature wasn’t scared of a little jump? A woman who had dived off a ship, risked her life swimming close to perilous rocks and who had scaled a small cliff in the not-so-distant past? ‘Are you scared of heights?’ He couldn’t help sounding incredulous. From what he knew of her already, she was reliably formidable. Admirably so.

  ‘Not so much heights as the drops.’ Her eyes dipped again and widened as she glanced briefly at the narrow, rubbish-filled passageway below. The wariness and genuine fear brought his damned protective streak to the fore and he felt guilty for putting her through this ordeal and for not noticing her palpable fear before now.

  ‘You won’t drop because I will catch you. Go back a few steps to force some momentum and run.’

  ‘How do I know you will catch me?’ Her expression was now pained, her eyes beseeching. Unbelievably, this fearless woman needed his reassurance.

  ‘Because that pretty head of yours is stuffed full of valuable information the government needs. And because I said so. You need to trust me, Jess.’

  After what seemed to take a great deal of effort, she nodded and took herself back several feet and inhaled. Her trim body taut, she crouched as if about to run, but her feet remained firmly planted on the roof. She couldn’t hold his gaze, her eyes kept dropping and he could see the fear was destroying her confidence with each passing second. The same awful terror he had witnessed in the carriage had returned and all because of a little jump. The unexpected vulnerability tugged at his heart and created a well of tenderness within him.

  ‘Don’t look down, sweetheart. You can do this. Look at me. I will catch you.’

  After an age she did, allowing him to see every bit of the stubborn bravery that made her so formidable struggling back to the fore. Damn, but she was spirited and tenacious! Nothing fazed her once she set her mind to it and he liked that about her. Respected her even. She faced every obstacle head on, no matter how much she feared it. He held out his arms again, smiling his encouragement this time, willing her to face her fears and trust him, his feet braced in readiness.

  ‘Jump, Jess. I promise I won’t allow you to fall.’

  ‘If you do, Monsieur Flint, and I die, then I promise you I will return as a ghost and haunt you for ever!’

  In her customary difficult fashion, no sooner had she issued that warning salvo than she dashed forward and threw herself across the gap with such force she sent them both flying backwards as he grabbed her.

  Flint’s body absorbed the brunt of the blow. The combination of the unforgiving tiles and the cannonball that was Jess pushed all the air out of his lungs in a whoosh as she landed sprawled on top of him, clearly astounded and delighted to still be alive.

  ‘You caught me!’

  ‘I said I would.’

  She was smiling down at him, her face inches from his, her cap listing on her head at an odd, erotically becoming angle. Clearly she was a woman used to being let down by others on a regular basis because his necessary and practical gesture seemed to leave her overwhelmed with more gratitude than it required—and that bothered him and made him feel quite noble at the same time. What crushing disappointments lay in this conundrum of a woman’s past? Who had let her down so badly? Was that why she was so tenacious and indomitable? She had had to be.

  ‘Thank you.’ Beneath his fingers, her body trembled slightly. ‘I shall cancel all plans to haunt you from beyond the grave.’

  Although there was no doubt she would continue to haunt him from the land of the living, his fevered dreams and errant thoughts were bound to haunt him and taunt him to distraction.

  ‘I am delighted to hear it.’

  Her uncontrived giggle was infectious and Flint found himself grinning up at her. It was a mistake. This close he could see the flecks of copper in her dark eyes. Count every long, black eyelash. The air around them shifted and for a moment the rooftop and the danger disappeared.

  One fat tendril of dark hair had escaped its pins and bobbed in time to her rapid breathing. Breathing that made him supremely aware of her full breasts flattened against his chest and certain parts of his anatomy intimately pressed against hers. The realisation simultaneously sent a hot bolt of lust the entire length of his body which settled inappropriately in his groin. Of its own accord, his gaze automatically fixed on her lips and despite valiantly trying to tear it away, he found himself staring at them covetously and seriously considered surrendering to the sultry call of temptation by pressing his mouth to hers.

  His hands appeared to have settled themselves very comfortably in the valley where her spine dipped before flaring again at her bottom. One of hers was spread warmly across his heart. He liked it. Rather a lot. When the tip of her tongue moistened those plump lips and her brown eyes darkened as she gazed down at him, Flint almost succumbed and stole a kiss before common sense returned like a hard punch in the gut.

  Aside from the insurmountable obstacle of her impending trial for treason and his own sworn duty to King and country to deliver her to that trial, kissing the tempestuous and terminally unpredictable Lady Jessamine Fane at any time would be foolhardy in the extreme. He had done that and knew the cost. Kissing her on a random rooftop while bloodthirsty assassins were desperate to hunt her down was downright stupidity.

  Besides, Flint wasn’t attracted to tempestuous women prone to emotionally charged outbursts. He certainly wasn’t attracted to traitors no matter how vulnerable or admirably tenacious or breathtakingly beautiful he found them. And he would not be seduced by the feel of her body resting upon his no matter how perfectly her petite, rounded softness melted against his and felt so very right.

  Right?

  What the blazes had got into him? He unceremoniously pushed her off and quickly rolled out of temptation’s way.

  ‘We had best get moving.’

  Avoiding her eyes while ignoring the pain in his back and the inconvenient bulge in his breeches, Flint jumped to his feet and made a hash of gathering up the blasted brushes. He dropped one of them twice before he was able to continue and found himself moving with considerable speed simply to put some distance between them. What madness had possessed him to plan an escape that left the pair of them all alone with each other for the next twenty-four hours? Perhaps more.

  He’d never walked from Plymouth to St Austell
before. It was a solid day’s ride. He had done it enough that he knew the route backwards and, because he was more inclined to take his horse as the crow flew, Flint also knew how to navigate the miles of fields and moors which stripped an hour or more off the journey time. But walking and this late in the day...good grief! They would probably have to stop for the night, somewhere well off the beaten track in case they were spotted, and then what?

  A long night of forbidden temptation loomed, drenched in an unwanted sea of confused emotions, and there was not a single thing he could do about it except resist. It was then that Flint realised he should have listened to Gray, not insisted that his second oversee the elaborate misdirection on board the boat bound for London.

  His reasons had been sound enough. If Saint-Aubin’s lackeys had been watching them, then they would need to see a familiar face to believe the decoy. Gray had argued in that case it made more sense for him to escort the prisoner, freeing Flint to stand all windswept and smug on the deck. Far more convincing, when a simple driver was more forgettable. But Flint hadn’t wanted anyone else to guard Jess and perhaps, although it pained him to acknowledge it, he had not wanted to have to share her company either. He had wanted to protect her—knowing full well he was also extremely attracted to her and had been since he had first seen her in that brig in the Channel. Two were less conspicuous than three. He had actually used those exact words to justify being her sole guardian on this leg of the journey and, being the most senior member of the King’s Elite involved in the mission, with the legacy of his impeccable service and legendary calm, flawless judgement in his favour, he got his way.

  He had let his urges overrule what was best for the good of the mission, something he would never do again, and those same urges would now torture him on the long walk ahead.

  Idiot!

  Lord save him from troublesome women and his worrying and inappropriate reaction to this one in particular!