A Thoroughly Compromised Lady

by Bronwyn Scott

  ‘I have breakfast and coffee laid out in the family dining room. I’ll send someone to your lodgings for fresh clothes.’ She peered closely at Jack. He seemed to sway where he stood. ‘Are you all right?’

  Jack managed a wry half-smile. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me coffee can’t cure.’

  Coffee, a bath and clean clothes did indeed work wonders on Jack. Dulci wondered at his reserves of stamina hours later as he briefed a small team of men, Gladstone included, in the ruins of her collection room, leading them through the burglary.

  ‘There can be no question that the intruders had a specific destination and goal in mind.’ Jack flashed a sharp look at Gladstone. Dulci recalled Jack’s scepticism the prior evening over Gladstone’s reluctance to officially name Calisto Ortiz as the prime suspect in Vasquez’s murder.

  ‘This room is set at the back of the house and is two storeys from the ground. The intruders came here instead of choosing rooms on the lower level, which would have been accessible with much more ease and without the risk of waking the occupants. It is unlikely someone sleeping on the third floor would have heard a disturbance on the lower level.’

  Dulci noted how care fully Jack worded his hypothesis, delicately skirting away from any word that would imply ‘we’. Unless called to it, Jack was doing his best to steer attention away from his presence in a bedchamber in an unmarried woman’s home.

  The three other men nodded their heads, following Jack’s explanations. Dulci marvelled at how easily or perhaps willingly the men were led. It was a curious trait of the English to simply ignore what did not please them. If anyone deduced Jack had already been on the premises, no one mentioned it out loud. True to English custom, if it wasn’t said, then it didn’t happen.

  ‘Did the intruder escape with the map?’ one of them asked.

  ‘No, the map is safe.’ Jack’s answer was direct and short.

  ‘Do we have any idea who sent these men?’ asked another.

  ‘I have ideas.’ Jack shot Gladstone a cool look. ‘We have the second intruder in custody. He’s been sent to a safe house where he awaits interrogation later this afternoon. I am confident we’ll have the answers we seek by evening.’

  Dulci hid a shudder. An interrogation sounded exceedingly brutal. She wanted to protest that such extremes weren’t necessary, but of course they were. To not extract the needed information from the captured intruder was the height of folly. Was Jack going to do the interrogation? He’d said ‘we’, implying he and one other. She’d never thought Jack capable of cold-blooded violence. His appearance seemed so immaculate and, well, clean, nothing out of place, nothing disturbed by any unruly conduct as if he moved in a world apart from the rest of them. But then, Calisto Ortiz had not looked like a murderer any more than Jack looked like an interrogator. So this was what he did for the king. This was his work.

  ‘Gentlemen, if you’ll follow me into the drawing room, there is one more matter we must discuss,’ Jack led them down the hall towards the large room at the front. Dulci trailed in their wake, giving instructions to waiting servants that tea should be brought to the drawing room and perhaps something a bit stronger.

  ‘The other item is Lady Dulcinea’s need for protection,’ Jack began once everyone was settled with tea and sandwiches. He strode meaning fully in front of the long windows, looking out to the busy street beyond the Stockport House gates, all eyes in the room riveted on him.

  There was no doubt that Jack was in charge. The unprepossessing Gladstone had faded in to the upholstery of his chair without meaning to. A tremulous thrill darted unbidden through Dulci. There was something undeniably appealing about a man in command, even if that man was Jack and had much to answer for; she’d almost forgot for a moment, but his next words stirred her temper.

  ‘We must operate on the premise that our culprit will try again in the wake of this initial failure to recover the map. That puts Lady Dulcinea at risk. That risk in creases if our culprit treats her with the same assumption as he treated Señor Vasquez—that Vasquez not only possessed the map, but knew its purpose.’

  She might as well be just anyone Jack was responsible for guarding for all the impassive objectivity he was showing, not the woman he’d lain naked with discovering the dratted map. She wondered what these men might say if they knew precisely the cir cum stances under which the good Viscount Wainsbridge came across the map.

  ‘The house and Lady Dulcinea must be under surveillance at all times until this situation is resolved.’ Jack nodded to one of the men. ‘Morrison, I will leave it to you to work out a schedule. I will station myself here as well as much as I am able. We have our jobs, gentlemen. Let’s work swiftly and competently; the empire and our monarch depend on us.’

  ‘To say nothing of Lady Dulcinea,’ Gladstone said, rising from his chair with a smile that relieved some of her irritability.

  ‘Gladstone, we must be away,’ Jack snapped, striding towards them. ‘The interrogation, man. They’re waiting for us.’

  ‘Might I have a word before you go?’ Dulci asked.

  ‘I am afraid not, Lady Dulcinea.’ Jack smiled indulgently, coldly. There was nothing of her clever, teasing lover in that smile. ‘You can give your daily schedule to Morrison. I’ll return later. I will contact your brother unless you prefer to do it yourself. He should be informed.’

  The limit of Dulci’s tolerance had been reached. Reached and exceeded. She would not stand here and be treated like a hapless female a moment longer. ‘Do not mistake me for a school room miss. I appreciate your concern, but I am fully capable of looking after myself. It was me, after all, who knocked out our captive with a candlestick last night.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, Lady Dulcinea,’ Jack said through a thin smile. ‘I can hardly forget it.’

  Jack doubted he’d ever be able to shake the image of her dashing across the room, her pink-silk dressing gown billowing behind her, her hair loose, oblivious to the amazingly sensual image she created, streaks of moon light turning the thin night gown she wore beneath the robe gossamer. If it was truly only lust he’d have only noticed the fine fullness of her breasts in that moment. But his thoughts had been obsessed over her safety—how could he protect her when she insisted on putting herself in the centre of the action?

  Jack sank back against the carriage seat, not caring that he shared the space with Gladstone. Jack could not recall being this tired in quite some time. Dulci was going to be the death of him. Had she no idea how many times she’d pushed him to the brink of fear last night? The very idea that she’d thought herself capable of taking on a man who out weighed her by at least two stone was enough to stun him, her success at doing so not with standing.

  The remembrance of the man’s retaliation was nearly enough to finish him off. The only thing more frightening than Dulci’s ‘moon light charge of the candlestick’ against an intruder was seeing the other intruder leap for Dulci, having no scruples about attacking a woman.

  Jack, who’d faced down worse than two mediocre burglars, had been scared, not of the act itself; he knew how to handle combat of all nature. He’d been scared because Dulci was at the heart of the risk. He was not used to such an emotion being attached to his work. What drove that fear for Dulci was frightening in itself. He’d worked with partners before and never been frightened for them in such situations. This was not fear invoked by simple lust for another. While he wouldn’t name it, he would admit that he felt something stronger than lust for Dulci.

  He would not bother himself with the effort of naming that feeling right now. To do so would be imprudent and hasty until he was absolutely sure what that feeling was. Some might rashly name it love, but Jack was unwilling to do so on short acquaintance, both with the sentiment and the woman to whom he might attach the emotion.

  Indeed, he wasn’t even sure ‘love’ was the right word or feeling. Just because a man sneezed didn’t mean he was catching cold. Then again, a part of his con science nagged, this might be it, this migh
t be love. If so, it was a deuced rotten time to work that out and he would put off admitting it to himself as long as he could. There was a lot left to work out before his con science could say ‘I told you so’.

  In any case, if or when he ever decided to use the term, he would exercise the utmost caution. Love meant promises and he was a man who promised nothing.

  All his philosophising could not change the reality of his emotions, which had simmered under the merest veneer of control since he’d seen the intruder lunge for Dulci.

  Jack’s gut had tightened with rage at the sight and remained clenched with raw, barely leashed anger. That man was going to pay. Jack had followed him into the night, exhausting every lead, every potential, fuelled by his anger. All to no avail. The crafty burglar had gone to ground; his head start out of the window had been enough to elude Jack in London’s dark alleys. Jack had returned to Stockport House exhausted and empty handed.

  He wouldn’t be empty handed much longer. He had every confidence the interrogation would confirm all he suspected. Then he could get back to Dulci. She’d played her part beautifully today in a lovely demure dress of pale blue and lace. No one could have looked at her today and accused her of spending two intimate nights with him. He laughed silently at his mental joke. Dulci did everything beautifully. She couldn’t help it. And it had paid off. Her image of quiet innocence and his objective politeness had carried the day. No one had questioned his presence in her home at the unseemly hour of four in the morning.

  But Dulci was angry and Jack knew he had a reckoning coming. Monarchs and maps aside, Dulci felt betrayed. He knew what she thought; he could have told her sooner when they first discovered the map and he hadn’t. He’d wanted to be sure. But he’d waited too long and now she suspected his motives in their brief affair. Well, there would have to be time for sorting that out after… Jack heaved a sigh, fighting the urge to close his eyes. This was an old pattern too in his life. Everything was put off until after. The only problem was that ‘after’ kept getting pushed further down the line. It was something of a revelation to realise that he wanted ‘after’ to be ‘now’ where Dulci was concerned.

  ‘Well done today, Wainsbridge,’ Gladstone huffed across from him. Jack did not mistake his opening as a compliment, but merely arched his eyebrow.

  ‘You’ve managed to avoid scandal.’ There it was, Gladstone’s real reason for conversation.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Jack said coolly, pretending to be con founded by Gladstone’s reference. If the man was going to bring up certain omissions, he would have to be blatant.

  Gladstone’s eyes narrowed. ‘You were in Lady Dulcinea’s house, sleeping in her guest room, I hope, although that hope seems misplaced.’

  ‘Indeed I was.’ Jack sat up ramrod straight. ‘Lady Dulcinea was in need of immediate protection after you and I met at the Mayfield ball. When I returned to the ballroom, she was in the company of Calisto Ortiz. I escorted her straight home, but I could not leave her. Seeing that she is an old family friend, I saw no harm in staying at a home in which I’ve been welcomed for several years. It would have been her brother’s wish if he’d known she was at risk.’

  ‘You cleverly disguised that today.’

  ‘For Lady Dulcinea’s benefit,’ Jack said staunchly, rather enjoying putting Gladstone’s lurid imaginings to rest. ‘Sometimes honourable intentions get lost in social translation. I had no wish for an in ac cu rate telling to circulate in society.’

  ‘Where I come from, Wainsbridge, when a virtuous woman’s honour is compromised, a gentleman does the right thing and marries her, especially if he is party to the compromising in the first place. He knows what needs to be done without society’s prompt.’ Gladstone took the high ground. ‘Then there is no need for a network of lies and half-truths.’

  Jack smiled politely. ‘Neither I nor Lady Dulcinea have any intention of marrying, each other or otherwise, as I am sure you are well aware.’

  Gladstone glowered the rest of the way, but at least, Jack mused, he was silent.

  Chapter Ten

  More bungling! Calisto Ortiz could hardly concentrate on Adalberto Vargas’s words during the afternoon meeting at their leased head quarters, someone’s currently unused town house. Vargas was laying out the agenda of their opening discussions with the British. After two weeks of parties and a ‘getting to know you’ phase, the time to settle down to business had finally come. Much of the business slated for discussion was de rigeur, such as the status of the Spanish missionaries along the Orinoco.

  In fact, many of these yearly reports were usually handled by the Venezuelan government and the Governor of British Guiana, Sir Carmichael-Smythe. There was seldom a need to bother London with the mundane mechanics of colonial relations. This year, with boundaries in question, it had been deemed more expedient to go straight to London rather than relying on correspondence by steamer.

  Such a strategy suited Ortiz perfectly. He’d rather pass off his map of boundaries, drawn by a biased surveyor, among people thou sands of miles away who’d never set foot in South America than among people who actually lived there and were somewhat more familiar with the terrain. It would be easier to argue the former boundaries had been flawed, that the river ran at a different angle than the results previously reported.

  It was all wishful thinking as of yet, seeing that he didn’t have his map to hand. The map was proof that British Guiana had over stepped its physical boundaries. Without it, Vargas could only make polite overtures about ‘looking into the situation’. That would take time, years even, given the distance and the expense and organisation of mounting an official expedition. The Ortiz family didn’t have years. They wanted to mine the gold now, but as long as the territory remained in British hands, all the gold would belong to the British, too, no matter who mined it.

  Vargas didn’t know about the map. If he did, Vargas would object strenuously. The man was a traditionalist to his core. Calisto had planned on introducing the map on the eve of negotiations, presenting it humbly as a patriotic gift to Vargas. ‘Here’s a map my family commissioned once of the region,’ he’d say simply, adding, ‘I do believe it will help your negotiation since it clearly lays out the grounds in contention.’ In one short sentence, the map would become valid proof that the territory belonged to Venezuela. Vargas would not doubt the map or even consider that the map might have been the result of money changing hands. He might even get some type of useful commendation for it.

  All this could still come to pass if he could get to the map. But now, the risk was greater. Wainsbridge was sure to alert those involved that the map was a fraud and the insinuation that the map was not legitimate would cause Vargas to worry. The intruder Wainsbridge had caught in Lady Dulcinea’s home had surely sung like a night in gale under the pressures of the Foreign Office. By now, Wainsbridge knew everything he’d once suspected. But a few well-placed words could mitigate Wainsbridge’s claims. That wasn’t what worried him.

  What worried Ortiz most was that Wainsbridge had turned out to be rather more than he appeared. Calisto’s instincts had been correct there.

  He idly tapped a finger on the brown folder beneath his hand. The dossier had come before lunch. The viscount actively worked in a quiet but prominent capacity for the king himself. He was also something of an expert on the South American region, having been there with Schomburgk a few years back. Wainsbridge potentially knew too much about the region. He would know what was skewed on the map. He might even guess why. For those faults, Wainsbridge would have to die. Vasquez had died for much less.

  Calisto Ortiz smiled with satisfaction. At the other end of the table, Vargas nodded at him, and Ortiz realised Vargas, pompous old windbag that he was, thought Ortiz was smiling at him. There’d been too much bungling already. Ortiz would handle Wainsbridge’s demise. He wouldn’t per son ally kill the man with his own hands, of course. After all, why do it himself when there were others who’d be glad to do it for him?

&nbs
p; Jack stepped down from the carriage in front of Stockport House, tired and world weary. Dulci had lit the lamps. She’d stayed in for the evening. She’d waited for him. The thought was both comforting and un settling.

  Late spring twilight had descended and the night was mild, a perfect evening for courtship if one didn’t have any other pressing matters to consider. Jack always did. It was the trademark of his life now. He took a moment to pause and drink it in. It was quiet here. Stockport House was set back from the street, away from the road noise. One could see the street, but one didn’t have to hear it. Crickets chirped in the hedges, reminding Jack of home, the small manor house in the north country where he’d grown up. He closed his eyes. He could smell the roses and honeysuckle planted along the drive and his heart ached for simpler days and simpler pleasures.

  It wasn’t fair to paint those days as a halcyon past. Those days hadn’t been perfect either but this, whatever it was he’d become now, hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped. He hardly knew the man he’d become any more, this man who carried a knife in his boot and interrogated mercilessly. Jack opened his eyes. Enough of that maudlin sentiment. If wishes were horses…

  Jack laughed roughly. If wishes were horses, Dulci would be riding pillion behind him, her arms wrapped about his waist, her cheek pressed to his back, her hair streaming in the wind as they charged into the unknown. That was all he’d ever really wanted—someone to share his adventures.

  To discover that Dulci was that someone was both hopeful and hopeless. How could he drag Dulci into the wilds he explored? An explorer’s life was necessarily devoid of the luxuries she enjoyed without thought. And there were dangers too: disease, hostile peoples, poisonous insects, to name a few. While she might be game for such an adventure, would she be game for what it would do to her life? Unless he married her. That might be the one useful thing to come out of his title—he could make her a viscountess at least. Brandon would have to agree first and Jack couldn’t see that happening. Brandon would want more for his sister than a wandering viscount, even if the wandering viscount was his best friend.