A Thoroughly Compromised Lady

by Bronwyn Scott

  ‘Brilliant!’ William slapped his leg jovially. ‘I like how you think, Wainsbridge. You’re a man of action.’ He turned sharp eyes on Gladstone. ‘This is the perfect solution, the perfect proof. Do you see it, Gladstone?’ William winked at Jack. ‘Killing two birds with one stone, eh?’

  Jack nodded, elation and relief filling him simultaneously after the stress of the afternoon. The map would serve two purposes. First, it would define the currently ambiguous borders of ownership between Venezuela and British Guiana, preventing future contentions. Second, it would absolve him of Ortiz’s flimsy claim that he wanted to start a war. No one would create one map and then deliberately draw up another, contradictory one.

  He would create an honest map that showed no need to quibble over territory because Britain already possessed it right fully. Now, the burden of initiating hostilities would fall to the Venezuelans. They would be the invaders, not the British. If there was a war, Britain would not start it. And he would be clear in the process, his reputation intact. He would not be the man who betrayed Britain by giving away land. In the process, if he happened to find the man who’d been paid to draw up Ortiz’s faulty map, so be it. That would be all to the better. If the man could be found, and testimony could be obtained, it would be further exoneration for him.

  ‘How soon can you leave, Jack?’ William asked.

  ‘How soon would you like?’

  ‘There’s a ship departing at dawn. You could be in Guiana by the end of July. We could have a map in hand by the new year.’ William mused out loud, ‘Perhaps even a letter of some merit in the post by late autumn.’

  Jack knew William was thinking of timing. Negotiations had just opened today. They would last three months at least—three months of ponderous discussion over con tracts and words, polite, diplomatic haggling over titles and positions to be doled out. In all likelihood, discussions would last longer, some of the issues lingering to be dealt with during the Michaelmas session of Parliament. If so, the border discussion could be effectively tabled and then brought back as soon as he sent news.

  He could see William’s hidden agenda too. If he moved fast enough, there’d be a chance to discredit Ortiz before the delegation left England. Jack smiled. ‘Dawn will be fine, your Majesty.’

  Jack wasted no time departing. There were only five hours to make preparations. He would not worry about supplies for the expedition. It would be better to purchase supplies once he reached British Guiana and Robert would be able to help with that. The king would send a packet of papers to the ship, including a writ of purchase and an introduction. They would be waiting for him. All he needed was a quick stop at his rooms to gather his personal tools, pen a few necessary notes. Most of all, he had to see Dulci regardless of the time of night.

  He needed to say goodbye.

  Again.

  He wouldn’t disappear with nothing more than a note, although he knew leaving would probably destroy any hope of exploring the possibilities between them. He would be gone a year at least. She could not be expected to wait for a man who wasn’t sure what it was he could offer her.

  By the time Jack approached his rooms on Jermyn Street, he knew he was being followed. Jack slowed his steps and whirled on the shadow, taking him by surprise. Jack grabbed him by the arm, surprised himself to find the shadow was nothing more than a skinny street boy. But that didn’t weaken Jack’s grip. Small boys were not weaponless or any less harmless for their size. He’d been a small boy once too. ‘You’ve been trailing me since St James’s.’

  ‘I don’t mean anythin’ by it, guv’nor.’ The boy twisted and turned in Jack’s iron hand. ‘I’m to give you this note.’

  Jack took the note and flipped it open one handed, not wanting to let go of the boy. He scanned it, his blood chilling. ‘Get on with you, then, you’ve done your job.’ He let the boy go. He knew all he needed. There was nothing the boy could tell him. He was just steps away from his door, from his compass and his mapping kit, but there was no time, not even the few minutes it would take to grab them. It might already be too late. There was no time to think, no time to do anything but run.

  Dulci awoke with a start, a sixth sense pricking her into wakefulness. Her room was dark, still and yet it felt disturbed, altered in some small way. A cool breeze fanned her face. Dulci turned towards the window. The window was open, her curtains blowing lightly in the breeze. Worry and fear came to her. Dulci scrambled upright. That window had been closed. She specifically remembered shutting it when she’d gone to bed. Then she saw it, in the shadows, the figure of a man. Dulci opened her mouth to scream, but the figure was faster, closer than he’d appeared. He was on her in a moment, a hand clapped over her mouth, his voice at her ear, his scent in her nostrils.

  His scent.

  Almond.

  Jack.

  ‘Shh, Dulci, it’s me. Don’t scream. Just listen.’ His whispered voice was firm. ‘I need you to get up and dress quickly, simply. You are in danger and there isn’t time to explain.’

  The tone of his voice brooked no argument, brooked no exception. The fierce ness in his eyes, the perspiration of his body, told her far more about the supposed danger than his words. The danger was real. Immaculate Jack was dripping with sweat as if he’d run across London in the dark. She had to trust there’d be time for explanations later.

  Dulci nodded her complicity and went to her wardrobe, swiftly pulling out a carriage dress and jacket. She dressed quickly, one eye on Jack, who was moving about her room with a satchel he’d grabbed from the dressing room. He was pulling out drawers on her vanity, throwing items in the bag.

  ‘The journal’s on my bedside table,’ Dulci whispered loudly, forcing her feet into serviceable half-boots. Jack had been running. She might be running too. She tried to focus only on the immediate, not on the nebulous danger that awaited her out there.

  ‘My gun’s down stairs in the study.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘There’s no time. Can you climb?’ He motioned to the window. She saw the outline of a ladder and nodded, swallowing her trepidation. Climbing down in a skirt from three storeys up was tricky business, much harder than climbing up.

  ‘Good girl. Let’s go.’ Jack squeezed her hand in reassurance. ‘Let me go down first.’ He tossed the satchel to the ground, swung a long leg over the window sill and disappeared.

  Dulci took a deep breath and glanced once more about her room. Jack had not been neat in his haste. Drawers lay on the floor, objects strewn on the carpet. Did she imagine it or was there a sound down stairs at the front door? What kind of danger was it that knocked on the door? It would take Roundhouse a few minutes to be roused and answer the summons if there truly was one. But she had to move fast.

  Dulci made her descent without mishap, years of climbing trees as a child with Jack and Brandon paying off. Jack steadied her at the bottom, his hand at her waist, comforting and alluring in spite of the peril.

  ‘Now what?’ Dulci quirked a saucy smile in Jack’s direction.

  ‘Now we run, out the garden gate, into the alley and down to the docks. If we can find a hackney, we’ll take it.’

  ‘Jack, I thought I heard someone down stairs at the door.’

  Jack nodded. ‘Then we’ll have to run fast.’

  ‘Not the world’s most sophisticated plan,’ Dulci managed to remark, choking back the fear that came with the reality that Jack had only been ahead of the danger by a handful of minutes.

  ‘No, but it will work.’

  Inside the house, loud voices could be heard.

  Dulci was seized with concern. ‘The servants! Will they be harmed?’ Involuntarily she stepped towards the house.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do, Dulci.’ Jack grabbed her hand and they ran, across the dewy garden, out the gate into the night. The idea of danger stalking them was never far from her mind, but even the danger, whatever it was, could not obliterate the excitement of running. Her hair flew loose, her cloak billowed behind her like a Gothi
c heroine and exhilaration filled her. She was running, with Jack, through alleys and back streets, running so fast cut-purses didn’t bother them, running so fast nothing could touch them. At some point her exhilaration over whelmed her and Dulci laughed out loud as they raced through the dark city, rev el ling in the thrill, the adventure, and, yes, even the danger.

  Somewhere between Mayfair and the docks, Jack hailed a hackney waiting for a late-night fare, a gentleman stumbling home from his clubs. He bundled her inside and they lay on the seats, gasping for breath and laughing.

  They caught their breaths and with them, sobriety. Dulci remembered all the things about this escapade that weren’t laughable. ‘Tell me, Jack, where are we going?’ For surely they were going somewhere. Their destination sealed it.

  ‘Do you remember when you said you’d wager I could walk out your door and be on a ship in twenty minutes with only the clothes on my back?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dulci suddenly became wary, cautious.

  ‘Well, we’re about to find out if you’re right.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Where are we going?’ Dulci asked again, her trepidation growing in the absence of a direct answer. For all her love of adventure, Jack knew this news met with a burgeoning sense of panic on her part and rightly so. She’d been pulled from bed and forced to flee her home.

  ‘We are going to British Guiana to save your neck and to save my reputation.’ His plan had been instantaneous and the best he could do under short notice.

  Dulci sank back against the seat, letting the shock of the news settle over her in waves. Jack watched her closely. Maybe the past few days had been too much. He supposed even Dulci must have limits.

  ‘Don’t worry, Jack, I won’t go to pieces on you,’ she said with her best ballroom élan.

  Jack smiled broadly in relief. ‘I never thought you would, m’dear.’

  ‘In that case, don’t you think you’d better tell me all about the danger? I’ve run through the night with you and beyond my misplaced affections for you, I still don’t know why.’ Dulci’s blue eyes sparked deliciously in the dim confines of the hackney. Trust his Dulci to maintain her sense of humour and wit in the face of crisis. Jack decided then and there that describing imminent peril to a woman one has just rescued was a deuced awkward time to be aroused. But Jack could do nothing about it. He was unmistakably aroused.

  He’d like nothing better than to throw her across the carriage seat and take her before they reached the docks, but they weren’t out of trouble yet. They were merely in a hiatus and so his desire would have to be put on hold as well until they were safely ensconced on board his Majesty’s ship and out to sea. Then he’d have weeks stretching before him with nothing else to do.

  Jack reached inside his coat and pulled the note. He passed it to Dulci. ‘This is what brought me rushing to your side.’

  Dulci scanned it; the note was brief and overt in its purpose. ‘Ortiz, I assume? He thought to abduct me in order to gain a confession from you.’ She folded the note and handed it back to him.

  ‘It would have been a very private form of blackmail.’ The unspoken details of Ortiz’s intentions created lurid images best left unexplored in Jack’s mind: Dulci taken unawares by rough invaders in her home, spirited away to some secret location and held there until he capitulated to Ortiz’s request for a confession to the heinous activities Ortiz had charged him with. What choice would he have? He could not go to anyone for help without jeopardising Dulci’s reputation, whether or not anything sinister occurred.

  He could only guess what Ortiz might deign to put Dulci through; the man clearly coveted her. Jack had seen the desire rise in the man’s eyes the first night, before any of these contretemps had begun. The man clearly detested him. Lust for Dulci and dislike of him was a powerful combination, which might motivate all nature of sins.

  And, of course, if Ortiz held Dulci, it would be an effective tool for keeping Jack in England. If Ortiz knew Dulci was worth ransoming, he would also know Jack could never leave her behind.

  Yet was taking Dulci with him any better? It saved her from the terrors of abduction, but it might also have only put off the inevitable: Dulci teetered on the brink of social disaster. The Incomparable was about to fall, something petty-minded débutantes and jealous matrons with daughters to marry off had secretly wished for years. If not tonight, then later, when it was learned she had accompanied a man unchaperoned, not even with a maid, to British Guiana. A lone, unmarried woman on a ship manned by males, into a brutal, savage land, was not something society could overlook and he would be the instrument of her downfall.

  After years of wild living and questionable escapades she’d managed to carry off with discreet aplomb, her fall would be by his hand. She would hate him when she realised what he had done. Still, he reasoned it was better to have a bridge to cross later than a bridge already burned.

  Jack peered out of the small window. The environs hailed their approach to the dock district. He tensed, wondering if they should get out and walk the rest of the distance to the ship. Two lone figures in the dark could slip and slide among the shadows, hardly noticeable. But they’d also be prey for other lone figures that could also slip among the shadows. He hadn’t come this far today to end up skewered in the stews. If no one had picked up their hackney yet, they’d be better off to stay with it.

  ‘You’re smiling.’ Dulci’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  ‘I’m thinking about how I’ve lived much longer than I expected today.’

  ‘That’s not funny, Jack. Why do you suppose Ortiz hates you so much?’

  ‘I am all that stands between him and success. As long as I am a legitimate player in this game, he cannot have what he wants. I know the territory he wants to claim. He had not counted on that. He’d expected everyone in London to have only a two-dimensional understanding from mediocre maps, that we’d all be easy to trick. It’s why the negotiations are happening here and not with the governor—too many experts there. Secondly, I caught him at his trick. We found his map before he could introduce it, so his hand was forced.’

  ‘But his story is stupid,’ Dulci said frankly. ‘By blaming you for trying to frame him with a bad map, he has taken away his chance to claim the land he wants. He’s admitted the boundaries are false, merely put there to induce a war.’

  Jack smiled. ‘Well, he has ruined his chances in that regard. All he can do now is cover his tracks. He’s desperate to keep me in the country because if I go, I might find the proof that he deliberately paid someone for a faulty map and then there will be no place for him and his tattered honour to hide. I do imagine Ortiz will have many enemies if the full extent of his shenanigans comes out.’

  ‘So now he’s a desperate man.’

  ‘Very much so.’

  Dulci mused out loud, ‘That will make him more dangerous, more unpredictable.’

  ‘That’s been my experience when it comes to desperate men.’ Jack was grim. The next step was gaining the ship without mishap. Ortiz had eyes and ears everywhere. If he knew Jack was leaving and knew that the ruse to snatch Dulci had failed, the man might make a last stand at the wharves. So far, they’d encountered no one, but why chase them through London if Ortiz knew their final destination?

  He could not reconnoitre in the hackney. It was time to get out and walk and plan. Jack banged on the side of the carriage. ‘We’ll get out here.’

  The stench of the docks was over powering. The smell of fish, fresh or otherwise, mingled with other unsavoury odours created when the scents of sea and land combine. Beside him, Dulci tried unsuccessfully to look unaffected. He laughed and handed her his hand kerchief. ‘Apparently the docks you visit don’t stink.’

  Dulci tossed him a nasty look, but she didn’t cringe. He gave her credit for that, but by God she’d stick out like a virgin in a whore house just by nature; her proud carriage, the haughty cock of her head, marked her as a lady of the highest reaches. He would need to address tha
t immediately. Fine clothes, both his and hers, could be covered with cloaks. Manners could be masked. It was time to get to work.

  ‘Come on, Dulci, we’re going shopping.’ The look on her face was price less. There was something to be said for keeping Dulci Wycroft off balance.

  ‘Here?’ For all her bravado, she couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering to the nearby building fronts, none of which looked like a suitable place for the purchase of haberdashery.

  Jack reached for her hand. ‘I’ve always imagined you’d be a fine actress if given the chance, m’dear.’

  Jack steered them towards a ram shackle building full of light and noise in spite of the hour nearing three in the morning. Men spilled from the building, rough men, with gin on their breaths and bawdy women on their arms. Jack didn’t want to go in. He was looking for a hanger-on, a gin whore on a side street near the establishment. He found one huddled in the alley. ‘Perfect,’ he muttered under his breath to no one in particular. But Dulci heard him.

  ‘Depends on one’s perception.’

  ‘Stay here.’ Jack left Dulci at the mouth of the alley. He’d have to work quickly to ensure no one stumbled across Dulci alone.

  ‘Good evening.’ Jack approached the doxy, dazzling her with a smile while trying to overlook the fetid odour of her and the stink of drink.

  She was all immediate attention, able to recognise Jack as a fine gentleman even in a drunken stupor. She swayed her hips, a hand moving to undo the string of her blouse and show off the jiggling cleavage further. ‘What can I do you for, guv’nor? You’re a handsome one, aren’t you? Perhaps I could do you for free?’

  ‘You are kindness itself, good woman. I am only looking for a cloak. Might I buy yours?’ Jack rolled a gleaming coin across his knuckles.

  She eyed it enviously, already calculating the cloak’s worth against the amount of gin she could purchase with such a coin. ‘You can have the cloak. Are you sure there’s nothing else you want?’