A Thoroughly Compromised Lady

by Bronwyn Scott

  So she danced with Gilmore, and then with Carstairs’s son, being sure to avoid his feet whenever possible; when she couldn’t, she assured him he hadn’t hurt her toes in the least. She managed to laugh, to lightly flirt, to drink the punch they all brought her, and to avoid looking at the ballroom door in the hopes that Jack would come sailing back through when she knew very well that he wouldn’t.

  Shortly before midnight, Dulci contrived a moment alone and escaped the hot ballroom for the cooler locale of the verandah. The verandah was nearly deserted; most couples were inside dancing the supper waltz and making preparations to go into the late-night meal. Tonight was far different than the setting she’d found herself in the previous night. And far less enjoyable. The last few days had been a whirlwind of experiences and it felt good to get away by herself for a moment. She was still reeling from what had transpired with Jack. It was amazing society couldn’t tell the difference. She felt different. But apparently all the changes were internal. There was no external proof of her escapade.

  Dulci found an empty chair and sank into it, grateful for the respite. Pretending light ness and hap pi ness when one felt neither was deuced hard work.

  She closed her eyes and slowly plied her fan. She drew a deep, cleansing breath and expelled it. That was better. She had known it would come to this with Jack, this disappearing without any warning. She’d known it could come at any time, two weeks from now, or the moment they stepped back into Society, as indeed it had. Knowing didn’t make it easier to accept. Neither did knowing he’d made her no promises. She couldn’t be angry with him for breaking what had never been.

  ‘I do not think he’s coming back tonight.’

  Dulci’s eyes flew open at the sound of the accented voice, soft and close. ‘Señor Ortiz!’

  ‘I have startled you, Señorita Wycroft. That was not my intention.’ He pulled up a small chair and settled himself on it. ‘A lovely woman should never be disappointed by a man. I think you would find many of us would fix our attentions on you more firmly than the viscount’s divided ones.’ He reached for her gloved hand lying in her lap, and traced a pattern on the back of her hand.

  Calisto Ortiz was handsome and intuitive, a deadly combination when it came to a woman’s virtue. Dulci recognised it immediately. Jack carried the very same qualities. But with Ortiz, she found herself to be immune.

  ‘One can only be disappointed if there are expectations to be met in the first place.’ Dulci smiled coldly, retracting her hand, making sure her message was clear. ‘I have no expectations of Wainsbridge. Ergo, I cannot be disappointed by his abbreviated attentions.’

  Ortiz was not deterred. He merely gave a Latin shrug and sighed. He sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his dark hair. ‘Ah, so that’s how it is with Wainsbridge. He is a man who keeps his work as his mistress. What called him away tonight? Was it business with a ship? A new cargo? Investments? Perhaps a new property to consider?’ There was an insult in the enquiry—the idea that a real gentleman had no work.

  Dulci shrewdly assessed the Spaniard, careful not to give away too much with any admissions. He was flirting for a purpose and he had boldly guessed far too much about her and Jack. What did he want? Revenge for the insult Jack paid him a few nights ago? She would not know if she turned him away. Dulci rose and smoothed her skirts. ‘The Mayfield gardens are decent, Señor, and their roses are considered quite fine. I could show you, if you wished. Do you grow many roses in Venezuela?’

  ‘I would love a look. I am an avid botanist myself when I am home. I have an extensive green house.’ Ortiz offered his arm. ‘Is Wainsbridge a botanist?’

  Dulci laughed, a real laugh this time, nothing like the laughter she’d conjured up to please her dance partners. The very idea of Jack puttering with rose clip pings in a hothouse bordered on hilarious. Jack could not be caged by walls. His green house was the whole wide world.

  Chapter Eight

  The library was dark and empty, a stark contrast to the vibrant ballroom. A small lamp burned on the fireplace mantel, offering the only light. Jack shut the door and clicked the lock into place. ‘What do you need that could not possibly wait?’ He began.

  ‘I would watch your tone with me if I were you,’ Gladstone grumbled, making his way to the sofa. ‘You’re supposed to be tailing Ortiz. You’ve abandoned your post. I shudder to think what you’ve been doing instead.’ But it was evident Gladstone had a pretty good idea. He spat in disapproval, anger and envy etched into every word.

  Jack did not care for the man’s insinuation, no matter how true in fact, but not true in emotion. What he’d done was certainly not as des pi cable as Gladstone implied. There was no shame in what had transpired between he and Dulci. There was no dishonour in honest sex between a man and a woman.

  Even in the dark, Jack could find Gladstone’s lapels. He gripped them, hauling Gladstone to the wall. ‘You will not impugn Lady Dulcinea’s honour with such disgraceful aspersions.’

  ‘You forget yourself, sir,’ Gladstone growled, struggling in Jack’s grasp.

  ‘I do not forget a woman’s honour, which is more than I can say for you.’ Jack let go and stepped back. He’d like to pummel the man with his fists for the crass thoughts. ‘Do you have real news, or is this one of your jealous ploys?’

  If there was nothing to report, Jack would pummel the man, all thoughts of propriety and decorum be damned. He’d been disappointed to be pulled away from Dulci so soon. He’d known it would happen but he’d hoped for a dance or two before Gladstone caught up with him.

  They’d had two private days together, two days of protection for Dulci while he thought it all out, although she didn’t know that. He couldn’t risk not connecting with the outside world any longer. He needed to learn what might have occurred during his absence. Lacking information left him less capable of protecting her.

  Gladstone shrugged, straightening his jacket. ‘As it happens, I do have news. While you were “otherwise engaged”—’ he gave Jack a hard look ‘—a Spaniard was fished out of the Thames with his throat cut, a nasty piece of work.’ Gladstone ran a hand over his mouth as if remembering the ghastly corpse.

  ‘Normally, I’d not pay attention to such a crime, unfortunate as it is. Bodies wash up all the time from suicides to murders. But this man had been beaten long before his throat was cut and whoever did the job left a piece of identification on him. Either the murderer was not cautious or simply didn’t care. I think it was the latter, suggesting that the man didn’t live in England but was only visiting. The man was too far from home for anyone to come looking for him—’

  ‘Well?’ Jack interrupted impatiently. Gladstone was a tyrant when it came to detail and it showed in the man’s storytelling. ‘Who is the man?’

  ‘Señor Domenico Vasquez, who, we’ve discovered, rents warehouse space in Southwark.’ Gladstone paused to let the information settle.

  ‘The warehouse I trailed Ortiz to.’ Jack’s insides roiled. He fought to keep his outer façade collected. ‘I doubt there are two Spanish importers renting space in Southwark.’ Jack spoke solemnly. ‘It appears we have a match. Calisto Ortiz is a murderer.’

  ‘We have a likely suspect. I doubt he did the actual killing in any case,’ corrected Gladstone.

  Anger over Gladstone’s excessive caution fired Jack’s temper. ‘Make no mistake, Gladstone, this was not an accidental death. If he was beaten first, it was not a quick crime, done in the heat of the moment by a surprised cut-purse who didn’t mean for things to go so far.’

  Gladstone looked slightly offended. ‘No doubt you’re in a position to know such things with all your vast experience.’ His tone was not friendly and Jack knew he’d inserted a veiled jab at what he viewed as Jack’s inferior birth.

  ‘Vasquez’s death confirms much, Gladstone,’ Jack said sharply, choosing to let the insult slide. ‘Vasquez was in possession of something dangerous, something Ortiz did not want disclosed. We cannot ignore this.’


  Gladstone scoffed. ‘I must caution you, Wainsbridge, not to be so hot headed. We don’t have any proof that Ortiz committed the murder, only that Vasquez is dead and Ortiz visited the warehouse.’

  ‘Connect the damned dots,’ Jack growled in disbelief. ‘The Venezuelan delegation comes to town followed by rumours of a potential land swindle and the importer is killed on whose ship the cargo in question was suspected of vanishing. The connection seems obvious to me.’

  ‘Señor Ortiz is a Spanish nobleman, he deserves the courtesies one gentleman extends to another,’ Gladstone said severely. ‘We must tread care fully here in order to avoid creating an international incident. Of course, I don’t expect you to know anything about such a code.’

  ‘It sounds quite similar to honour among thieves,’ Jack ground out. ‘At the very least, we should have Ortiz questioned.’

  ‘Definitely not, it would expose our hand. Then the delegation would know we suspected unfair dealings on the land negotiations.’

  ‘They’ll know eventually when we confront them.’ Jack thought of the map, but now was not the time to tell Gladstone. He would wait until everyone met together tomorrow to share the map. ‘Besides, there’s a chance that knowledge could be leverage with Ortiz. The others in the delegation may not know he’s attempting to pass off a forgery as the real thing.’

  Gladstone’s voice was solid. ‘Wainsbridge, we do not take chances. That is an uncalculated risk at the moment.’

  Very well. If Gladstone would not take action, Jack would take his own measures. ‘Then our conversation is over, Gladstone. Thank you for your news.’ Jack gave him a short nod and left the room, his strides long as he hurried his return to the ballroom and Dulci. Gladstone was an over-cautious fool. All evidence pointed to Ortiz’s guilt and Gladstone was more interested in extending gentleman’s courtesies. Such courtesies made no sense when they put a murderer on the dance floor, able to strike again if he should uncover another link in the chain leading to the map.

  Jack re-entered the ballroom, scanning the floor for Dulci. He spotted Lord Gilmore leaning against a post alone and made his way to the young man’s side. ‘Have you lost her already, Gilmore?’ he said with an insouciance he didn’t feel.

  Gilmore looked shocked at the insinuation. ‘She needed a moment to herself, Wainsbridge. She went out on to the verandah.’

  Jack moved off, eager to reach the verandah. He was glad to see it fairly empty; spotting Dulci would be easy. Then he looked beyond the railing out into the garden. Good lord, Dulci was out there. With him.

  Suppositions raced through his mind. How much had Vasquez disclosed before he died? Had Vasquez given Ortiz a name? Did Ortiz know already that Dulci possessed the map? Jack prayed he did not. Damnation, ballrooms had become dangerous places.

  They’d also become confining. Jack chafed at the limitations his cir cum stance placed on him. The primal man in him wanted to rush out into the garden and drag Dulci away from Ortiz. But he could not do so without staking a public claim to Dulci, a claim he had no right to entertain. Dulci would not forgive him. And he had no wish to end up like Gladstone: a jilted, grieving suitor. It came as something of a shock to realise just how much the two days he’d spent with Dulci had affected him.

  It had started purely as a protective gambit to keep her out of the public eye. The diplomatic front would not go unmanned in his short absence. Gladstone was out there, after all. But reality had become distorted in Dulci’s arms, time a fluid, infinite entity, the concerns he lived with daily suspended and surreal in the wake of passion invoked by their love-making. There’d even been times he’d forgot about work entirely, an absolute first for him.

  A few couples strolled passed him on the verandah. Jack nodded, but did not encourage pro longed conversation. If the best he could do was play guardian from the steps, then he’d do it with diligence.

  A diligence that stung, Jack reflected. It was deuced hard to play the neutral watchdog. They were too far away for him to hear what they said, but he could see them. He could see Ortiz bend close to whisper something to Dulci. He could see Dulci give her head a coy toss.

  She stole his breath with the simplest of moves. How had she got under his skin so completely, so entirely? Really, the effect she was having on him was quite unprecedented in his experience with women.

  Now that he’d come up for air, had had time to think more objectively about what had transpired between them, he had to wonder—what in sweet heaven was he doing with her? Brandon would skewer him if he knew what his best friend was doing with his sister. But whatever Brandon would do to him for dallying with his sister, it would be far less than what Brandon would do if Jack ever tried to marry her and pull her into the murky in stability of his life. Brandon wanted more for his sister than being dragged from peril to peril in the New World, title or not.

  Of course Jack couldn’t marry her. He wasn’t a marrying man. His work for the king made any kind of real marriage impossible. Jack couldn’t imagine not being able to tell his wife where he went or what he did. The only option was to take a wife who wouldn’t care. Since he couldn’t fathom that cold arrangement, he was left with the last option: not marrying at all.

  And if he couldn’t marry her, he shouldn’t have done it at all. Certainly, Dulci had been adamant in her desires, but he was the one with all the experience. He knew the rules when it came to ladies and maidenheads. Surely he could have stopped their foray into passion’s realm if he’d wanted to. There was the rub.

  As good as it had been, he was plagued by a twinge of guilt. The bottom line was not pretty: he had seduced his friend’s sister. No, not seduced. Dulci would never stand for that. Rather, he’d taken his friend’s sister’s virginity. Never mind that she’d wanted to give it. He was supposed to know better for both of them…and yet he hadn’t.

  This was just a unique case of unmitigated lust. Dulci had not professed undying love for him and that was for the best. For the time being they were well suited. When the time came to move on, go their separate ways—and it would, he was certain—they’d have no regrets.

  That’s what he told himself anyway. In reality it was a bit more difficult to imagine. But it was the best he could do in terms of justifying his actions to his conscience—he did have one, even if it was slightly rusty from occasional use. This was lust on both their parts. They’d both satisfied whatever curiosity had spurred them. He wasn’t dealing with a lovesick girl. He was dealing with Dulci, who was level headed and knew what she wanted. It was better this way. But for now, it was deuced difficult to stand on the verandah and do nothing but watch the object of his erections…er, affections, out in the garden with a very dangerous man. His only consolation was that if he could see them, they could see him. Jack made himself as obvious as possible, standing at the railing, broad shouldered, his arms folded across his chest, his legs shoulder width apart in a commanding stance. Now, if they would only look.

  Dulci looked past Calisto Ortiz’s shoulder and smiled, hard pressed to contain a rather sudden burst of elation, unexplainable as it was, at the sight of Jack on the verandah. ‘You’re wrong, you know. He did come back. It is too bad we did not wager.’

  Ortiz chuckled. ‘Perhaps you would not have won, mi querida. Would you have wagered on his return?’ The back of his hand lightly skimmed her arm in a gentle motion Dulci found overly familiar. ‘Does this mean I must return you to your escort?’

  ‘Yes, I must not keep Wainsbridge waiting.’ Dulci pulled her arm away, grateful Ortiz had too much pride to wait to be asked to return her. A gentleman knew what a lady wanted before she re quested it.

  Nearing the verandah steps, Dulci saw Jack move towards them. For a man who shunned commitments of the interpersonal type, he was behaving quite proprietarily. Ortiz saw it too.

  ‘May I ask a boon before our erstwhile viscount reaches us? May I call on you? I have heard of your Venezuelan collection and I would be honoured to offer my humble assistance. It is rar
e to meet a woman of your intellectual refinements. I find it refreshing.’ His voice was low, concupiscent in its tone.

  Dulci glanced up at the Spaniard, genuinely moved by his comment, if not by the innuendo. How long had she waited for a man other than Jack to appreciate something more than her pretty face? Perhaps she’d been too quick to dismiss Ortiz, overly influenced by Jack’s obvious dislike of the man. ‘You are too—’

  ‘Late.’ Jack’s interruption cut across the quiet moment, brutal and blatant, his face wearing a hard look Dulci had never seen. He wasn’t looking at her but at Calisto Ortiz, with a deadly intent that went far beyond ballroom jealousy.

  ‘Pardon me, señor?’ Ortiz challenged.

  ‘I said you were too late,’ Jack repeated, his hands flexing at his side.

  Dulci felt decidedly excluded. There was something feral and male at work in the garden, something dangerous. She’d not seen Jack like this, the urbane king’s man trans formed into a warrior, possessed of a primal fierce ness.

  Out of an instinctive need for self-preservation, she stepped back from them both. Jack would have some explaining to do when she got hold of him.

  Ortiz’s eyes narrowed. He was assessing, Dulci thought, wondering if he could best Jack in some way and whether or not such a display was worth it. Would it enhance his standing with her even while it created a scandal?