A Thoroughly Compromised Lady

by Bronwyn Scott

  Those factors alone were enormous obstacles to his simple wish. They didn’t begin to even en com pass Dulci’s needs or his. How could she love a man she didn’t know? He barely knew himself or even if he was capable of love. Certainly he was capable of falling into love. But sustaining it?

  Jack climbed the steps and was met by Roundhouse at the door. Roundhouse informed him Dulci was in the garden, Morrison and Tredwick were in the library playing chess, alert to any suspicious behaviour. Two other men were in the garden with Dulci in case anyone attempted to penetrate the house from the garden gate on the alley side.

  How much more did Dulci hate him for making her home a prison, a fortress? Stockport House had always been her refuge, the place where she could fence and collect without casting aspersions on her gender. But he’d had no choice. He could not leave the home un guarded. It had been a convenient stroke of luck that he’d been there last night. The consequences of Dulci having discovered the intruders alone did not bear thinking about.

  Jack stepped out into the gardens and breathed the fresh night air. He spied Dulci immediately. She sat at a small table, engaged in taking notes from a book. She’d changed her gown again, this time into a simple dinner dress of pale green. Her hair was done in an elegant twist, leaving her neck exposed and delicate. One could not help but be drawn to the single strand of pearls that lay at the base of her neck, innocent and unassuming where her pulse beat beneath them. Jack felt his desire rise. Even in the midst of his exhaustion, he wanted her. He wanted to touch her, to feather kisses down her neck, to feel her body beneath his hands. He would get lost in her and he would be able to forget all else.

  ‘Jack.’ Dulci had looked up and spotted him. ‘You’re back. I thought we’d dine alfresco.’ Her greeting was polite, perhaps a bit stiff, wary. There was little warmth to it. She might have been greeting any acquaintance. She made a gesture and servants immediately began setting out dinner trays.

  Jack marvelled at the efficiency. Regardless of her greeting, she’d been planning this, waiting for him. That had to mean something. Linen was spread, wine was poured. His plate was filled. Servants disappeared. There was a hardness in Dulci’s eyes when she looked at him.

  ‘I would ask you how it went, or how your day was, but that hardly seems appropriate given the circumstances. After all, it isn’t as if you’re coming home from a hard day’s work trying a case.’

  Jack raised his glass in a toast. ‘Hard work, none the less. No less difficult for its form.’ Behind those blue eyes of hers, she was thinking the worst of him.

  ‘Interrogation isn’t torture, Dulci,’ he said in low tones, careful not to be over heard. ‘I gave him a meal and a glass of ale and sat down to talk with him while he ate. That is all.’

  ‘You gave food to a starving man. I am sure he hadn’t eaten for a while,’ Dulci accused.

  Jack sipped his chilled wine. ‘He committed a crime, against you. He deserved worse than cold chicken and conversation with me.’ He could hear the emotion edging his voice.

  ‘Heaven forbid I should be entitled to a higher sense of justice than other citizens.’

  Jack set his wine glass down force fully, liquid slopping over the rim, his anger breaking loose. ‘Did you want me to announce how the map was discovered? Did you want me to say we found it dressed in blankets in between bouts of lovemaking? I had to be objective today. I could not let any of them suspect for a moment that I’d run through London half-naked for you, that I’d been scared beyond belief when the intruder went for you and you fell before I could get there.’ Jack paused. ‘What do you think would happen, Dulci, if anyone guessed at what we’ve been doing?’

  For once, Dulci had the good grace to look penitent. ‘I would not trap you, Jack. I would expect nothing. I would shoulder my part of the blame.’

  Jack snorted. ‘That would be all of the blame. It’s always the woman’s fault.’

  Dulci chose to ignore him and turned the conversation in an entirely different direction. ‘My honour aside, what did you learn today?’

  ‘The man was sent by Ortiz. Everything is as we thought. Gladstone had to eat a small slice of humble pie.’

  ‘Well, then, that’s it,’ Dulci said with a satisfied half-smile. ‘The proper officials know the map is a fake. Even if Ortiz recovered it by some miraculous means, he can hardly introduce it into the talks now that everyone knows. It’s over.’

  How nice it must be to live in Dulci’s black-and-white world. She expected blunt straight for ward ness from everyone around her and gave it in return. It was hard for her to conceive of the spaces between where black and white weren’t so obvious. Jack’s world, however, was a bit greyer. He did not think it was over.

  ‘We must be alert in case Ortiz tries something else.’

  Dulci’s gaze sharpened. ‘Ortiz is not to be arrested?’

  ‘We can’t. He has diplomatic immunity. The Venezuelan government can choose to try him upon his return, but we can do nothing.’

  ‘So he’s on the loose, able to extract revenge.’

  ‘Possibly. Your safety depends on complete honesty. I will not mince words with you. Ortiz may decide that, as a woman, you should be spared his wrath, that you could not under stand the significance of the map.’ Jack flashed her a wry smile. ‘For once, Dulci, your gender might be the saving of you.’

  ‘You think Ortiz will target you instead.’ Dulci divined instantly the hidden message in his words. A flicker of worry flamed in her blue eyes. Jack took it as a good sign. She might be angry, but she hadn’t given up on him entirely.

  ‘Yes,’ Jack said simply. ‘I am sure by now that he has a dossier compiled on me and he knows my back ground. He’s too astute to not take the standard measures. He will know I’ve been to South America and that should worry him greatly. That I’ve turned up in the midst of this negotiation will confirm his suspicions. He knows, no matter what you knew or didn’t, that I knew. I knew what he was after and why he was after it.’

  ‘Then you’ve come to say goodbye.’ Dulci looked away, making a great show of fussing with her napkin beside her plate.

  Jack nodded. ‘Among other things that need saying.’ He gestured to the men walking the garden, motioning they could retire inside. ‘Walk with me, Dulci.’ He didn’t want to explain what was in his heart at the same table where they’d talked of murder and conspiracies.

  Dulci took his arm, but she dreaded what he was going to say. In a way, what was to come was far worse than hearing the sordid details of Calisto Ortiz’s gory schemes to retrieve a map. ‘The hydrangeas bloomed this week.’ Dulci pointed to a large pot of blue-and-pink flowers set on the pathway. ‘They were late this year. Brandon would have had a fit.’

  Beside her, Jack laughed softly. ‘Brandon loves to order nature around. Taming the wild suits him.’

  ‘I threatened to let the garden go its own way this year since he wasn’t coming to town.’ Dulci reached out to touch a petal on the climbing roses. It was nice to talk with Jack this way, without a ballroom of people staring, without innuendo and the double meanings that wrapped most of their conversations. Yet, such a simple discussion seemed surreal. Dulci tilted her head in Jack’s direction. ‘How is it possible after all that has happened that we can stand here speaking about flowers and Brandon? It’s almost too ordinary. My world has been turned upside down and yet it still looks the same, still acts the same. I changed my gown for dinner, I gave orders to the servants, I worked on my notes. Calamity has struck. Shouldn’t everything be different?’

  She studied Jack shrewdly. ‘Do you ever get used to it? I am suddenly struck with the realisation that this is what life is like for you on any given day. How do you waltz into ballrooms and make witty conversation every night as if you’ve nothing more to worry about?’ Why hadn’t she seen it before, the duality of his life since receiving his title and what it must mean for him? It was more than the secrecy.

  ‘You adapt,’ was all Jack said. ‘This will
pass and your life will return to normal.’ He was watching her in that way of his, the heat in his eyes being stoked to life. But there were things that needed to be dealt with before she could fan those coals.

  ‘And your life, Jack?’ They moved on down the path to sit on a bench by a statue of a water nymph surrounded by greenery and ferns, water spouting from the jug she carried into a pool of pebbles.

  ‘My life will go on much as it has.’

  ‘You’re awfully miserly with your conversation tonight,’ Dulci scolded. ‘You said there were things that needed saying and yet we haven’t said anything at all in that regard.’

  ‘You’re the one who wanted to talk about hydrangeas,’ Jack reminded her. But she sensed a challenge beneath the scold.

  ‘Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to talk about,’ Dulci answered softly. Jack was leaving, never mind that he’d still be in London. He was leaving her. He would go back to his quarters and he would keep his distance in order to ensure her safety. Then he’d be off on another project for the king. What good could come from talking about other things, confusing things? Maybe she’d be better off remembering this moment with him: a peaceful moment where they’d walked and talked together without artifice instead of clouding it with ambiguous promises.

  ‘You and I are a lot alike, Dulci. We’ve never been good at doing what we’re supposed to. I know what you’re thinking, what you’re debating in that active mind of yours.’ He shook his head. ‘Only a coward would let us leave here with nothing more than a discussion of hydrangeas and roses to remember.’

  ‘Jack, you don’t need to explain anything. I’ve got it worked out. I had all day to think.’ Dulci tried to stall, tried to protect herself. Jack’s eyes were growing darker with desire and, Lord help her, in spite of all her misgivings, her need was rising too, the need to be in this man’s arms, to let his strength surround her, to empower her, to forget the danger for a little while.

  ‘I cannot leave knowing that you think what occurred between us was all work, some kind of subterfuge I employed to get to the map.’ Jack’s voice was at her ear, his mouth nipping gently at her lobe, his hand pushing back her hair. His lips were at her neck now and Dulci arched against him instinctively, wanting to be nearer. It was awkward being side by side, she couldn’t get close enough.

  ‘Tell me you know better, Dulci.’ Jack breathed heavy and hoarse, dragging her on to his lap, helping her to straddle his thighs. ‘Tell me you know our love-making is not an act of artifice. Tell me you know it’s honest.’

  The desire in his darkened eyes was arresting and potent, the window to his soul open, offering a glimpse into the depths of his character, a swirling mix of the complex and the desperate. Dulci could not deny him; indeed, her need of him was greater because of it.

  ‘Yes, Jack. It’s honest,’ Dulci whispered, her arms around his neck, her breasts pressed against his chest, her mouth covering his, glorying in the taste of supper’s sweet wine. Jack groaned his pleasure, letting her take the kiss where she willed, giving his mouth over to her while he worked pleasure of his own beneath her skirts, hands moving up her thighs, at their apex thumbs gently brushing damp curls, drawing back her secret lips to the tight bud hidden within, one thumb gently skimming until Dulci cried out, begging for a firmer stroke, begging for completion.

  But Jack would not relent. ‘Let me worship you, Dulci,’ he begged, his own arousal powerful and obvious beneath her buttocks. Dulci slipped a hand between them, answering his erotic strokes with delicious strokes of her own, finding the head of his shaft beneath his trousers.

  ‘You’re an enchantress, Dulci.’ Jack was hoarse, rocking hard against her, needing both his hands to steady himself on the bench. She reached for the fall of his trousers, releasing his hot member, glorying in the fulfilling power of arousing this man to such heights his very control was in question. Tonight she’d take him, riding him astride in the newly risen moon light.

  Dulci moved to push him back on the stone bench, but Jack had other ideas. ‘No, tonight I want to cover you.’ His voice was ragged, beyond desire. Dulci thought she heard a new desperation in it. There was wildness in his eyes as he rolled her beneath him, careful of the stone’s hardness on her back.

  He joined her intimately and immediately, their foreplay having served its purpose, both of them wet and ready when Jack plunged into her. There was no need to be delicate. Dulci didn’t want gentle tonight. On that bench, with only nature as a witness, she wanted a release to the madness that raged inside them both. She wanted a release for the anger and despair, perhaps even a release for the impotence that had roiled inside of her all day. Most of all, she wanted Jack without doubt, without the world intruding. In these moments, with her legs wrapped about him, embracing him tightly, she could protect him from the demons in his soul, from the desperation he’d let her glimpse tonight, desperation she hadn’t known was there. The knowledge of such things in creased her ecstasy. Paradise was within reach, peace was within reach.

  She raised her hips, feeling his own hips grind against hers, the tempo of Jack’s rhythm speeding towards completion, the pressure growing in his body, his muscled arms trembling as they held his weight, and knew his crisis would soon be upon him. Her own release neared, so very close she thought she’d scream from the wanting of it. Then they were there together, Jack’s climax thundering deep inside her, pulsing in waves, releasing the most intimate of tides at the shore of her womb. This was completion.

  They lay still, letting their breathing return to normal, their excited hearts regain their usual pace. Dulci relished the feel of Jack’s head at her shoulder, his hand lying quiet on her stomach. Something intangible marked tonight. Their love-making had taken on a different cast, driven by something she couldn’t name yet.

  After a while, Jack rose and adjusted his clothing. He reached down to help her up and straighten her skirts. The desperation she thought she’d viewed in his eyes was effectively driven back. His eyes, his face, held a look of firm resolve as if something had been decided and there was no going back.

  His teasing smile was on his lips. But his voice was soft, a near-whisper full of sincerity. ‘This will definitely be more memorable than a conversation about hydrangeas and roses.’

  At the intimate sound of his voice, something warm blossomed in the feminine core of her. She felt complete, wrapped in the shared memory of their passion conjured up by his voice. She was well and thoroughly seduced. But it was more than seduction. What she felt for Jack in that moment was far beyond the abilities of lust to sustain. She loved him. The realisation nearly brought her to her knees. All her defences, logic and hard cold reality, had failed to protect her. Against her better intentions, she’d fallen in love with the most unlikely of candidates for her heart: a man who would not give her his.

  ‘You’re trembling, Dulci. Don’t worry, you’re safe now.’ Jack lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss upon it, his eyes holding hers with a million unspoken messages tumbling in them. That was when Dulci understood; Jack thought he was going to die.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was empirically true that one never feels more alive than when faced with imminent mortality. Jack dressed in preparation for the opening negotiations, life surging through him, his senses imbued with a sharper, more vital quality. Jack worked a gold cuff into place, his eyes moving outside past the heavy curtains drawn back to let in the morning light.

  The sun shone brilliantly. It was going to be a nice day in spite of the fact that nice things weren’t going to happen. It was hard to believe anything bad could happen on sunny days. Hard to believe anyone could die on a sunny day. Those sorts of things ought to be reserved for rainy, gloomy days.

  Jack reached for the second cuff link, remembering. He’d believed such fantasy as a child. Growing up just outside Manchester, there were plenty of grey days and in his house there’d been plenty of bad things that happened on them. Sunshine had meant freedom. Nothing bad h
appened on sunny days. Sunshine meant running in the meadows and fishing in the rivers with Brandon, perfect days in an imperfect life.

  Satisfied with his cuffs, Jack reached for a long strip of white linen and wound it around his neck, beginning the laborious process of tying a cravat. He’d dreamed of her last night, not surprising considering the circumstances and their rather torrid farewell.

  Even now in the morning light, Dulci haunted him. He could not name why or how the endless wanting of her had started, but he craved her with the intensity of an opium addict. After the madness at Christmas he’d taken the necessary precautions. He’d tried long absences. He’d tried other women. All to no avail. His methods only seemed to increase the craving and he’d ended up right back where he’d started from.

  And why not? Dulci was a rare treasure to be appreciated for far more than her fairy-tale princess beauty: the dark hair, the pale skin and cherry lips. He was drawn to her wildness, to the sub stance of her. Perhaps he was drawn to her because she was like him. He might not know her favourite colour, or know the name of her dressmaker or any of the mundane little facts that besotted fools who imagine them selves in love know about their beloved. But he knew her elementally. He knew what drove her wildness.

  She was like him in all the ways that mattered. She knew him. She knew his family home, an awkward cold place devoid of familial love. She knew stories about him growing up. And she still cared for him, although he was playing fast and loose with that affection.

  Jack tied a firm knot at his throat with a strong jerk of his hands. She knew him and he knew her, perhaps not in the traditional way people knew each other in London society, but in a way that spoke to the core of him. He might still be attempting to name this depth of feeling Dulci invoked in him, but he knew with a certainty that he was willing to die to save her. If Ortiz harmed her, a light would go out of the world, and Jack knew a part of himself would go out of the world with it. As long as one of the two survived… If given the choice, Jack preferred it be Dulci.