A Thoroughly Compromised Lady

by Bronwyn Scott

  ‘Jack and I were as brown as natives and smelled worse than hogs when we got back after spending a month smeared with that paste.’

  Jack raised his glass across the table from Schomburgk. ‘Thanks to the paste we survived. Without it, we would have been eaten alive.’

  ‘To the paste, disgusting as it was.’ Schomburgk joined him in making a great show of drinking their toast.

  Schomburgk turned to her. ‘All joking aside, Lady Dulcinea, Jack saved my life on more than one occasion. It’s one thing to tell stories in hind sight, full of high spirits. It’s another to remember the moments of true desperation. I came down with a fever. I thought I was done for. I’ve never felt so weak, so helpless. I couldn’t move a single muscle in my body to save myself. I was delirious and out of my mind. But Jack carried me to safety and nursed me through the fever at great risk to himself. Those are the less glorious moments of an explorer’s life.’

  Jack. Schomburgk had used Jack’s given name all night. They must be fast friends indeed, no casual acquaintance. Dulci could name two people in En gland who called him Jack. Dulci sipped her wine, a rich excellent red from France, and studied the two gentlemen: Schomburgk lean and slender to the point of emaciation from his travails in foreign lands, his skin tanned to a leathery consistency; Jack the epitome of the perfectly groomed gentleman, his golden hair shining beneath the chandelier.

  It was hard to picture Jack muddy, covered in the paste they de scribed and stinking, carrying Schomburgk through the forest to safety. And yet the image was not surprising. He’d come for her against Ortiz, come to her rescue when it could have jeopardised his chance to sail and clear his name from the slander Ortiz heaped on it. He’d stood by her brother, Brandon, when he was in need of a stalwart friend even unto the point of challenging the law. Schomburgk’s story illuminated for her something that she had here to fore over looked: Jack took great risks where his friends were concerned, where his love was concerned.

  Jack caught her staring, a small secret smile quirking his lips. He reached for his wine glass. He nodded his head in her direction in the most minute of gestures as if to say he knew precisely what she was thinking and it was about him.

  Arrogant man! But two could play this seductive, clan destine game. Dulci averted her gaze in feigned innocence, her hand alternately plucking and smoothing the white lace fichu at her bodice in a self-conscious gesture of modest reticence.

  She felt Jack’s eyes on her from across the table, but it was Schomburgk beside her who held her attention. ‘I under stand you’ve met the Arawak people during your travels. I’m writing an article about them in hopes of seeing it published with the Royal Geographic Society.’

  Schomburgk’s eyes lit up at her show of genuine interest. ‘I’m fascinated by their life style and I am worried about that life style as well. I fear that European colonisation will pose a grave threat to their future. Their culture is so different that adopting new ways of living will prove to be too foreign.’

  When Dulci showed continued interest, he went on. ‘The most immediate threat comes in the form of land ownership. Each tribe is ruled by a cacique and he is advised by nitayanos, his nobles. These elders are the ones who hold the knowledge about the tribe’s boundaries and are the memory of the tribe. They’re the ones who know if any agreements have been made with other tribes, they negotiate new treaties and are the memory keepers of tribal law.’

  Schomburgk shook his head. ‘Nothing is written down. All law, all rules, survive simply by memory. The concept of a written contract or a map is so entirely outside the scope of the Arawak imagining that it makes understanding their significance impossible.’

  Dulci nodded, the ramifications of how an oral tradition would interact with European traditions that relied heavily on written word clear. ‘They will be lost.’

  ‘I very much fear it,’ Schomburgk averred.

  ‘Robert is a great advocate for the rights of indigenous people. His efforts are to be com mended,’ Governor Carmichael-Smythe voiced from the head of the table, his friendly affection for their guest obvious. Like Robert Schomburgk, Governor Carmichael-Smythe was also lauded by many for his efforts in the fair treatment and emancipation of the slaves in his colonies.

  Dulci was about to comment on the Arawak when a stockinged foot slipped up her skirt, nuzzling her ankle bone with delicious, tickling strokes. It was terribly difficult to concentrate and she had to cede the conversation to others. She shot Jack a scolding look under cover of servants serving up the fish course.

  Jack answered with an innocent look of his own as if to say he hadn’t a clue what he’d done to distress her while his foot moved up her leg. ‘Ah, Atlantic salmon,’ Jack exclaimed benignly over the course. ‘Robert, when you come to England, we must go fishing together. There’s a river I know that serves up the best trout.’ Jack shot a glance at Dulci. ‘Tickling trout is an enjoyable pastime, and a delicious one too. Do you enjoy tickling, Lady Dulcinea?’ He was all conversational innocence while his foot made naughty overtures beneath her skirts.

  ‘On occasion,’ Dulci answered, her eyes meeting Jack’s evenly, a little smile playing on her lips. She kicked off her slipper under the table and went on the offensive, nudging Jack’s foot away while she ran her toes the length of his calf.

  ‘Perhaps you prefer to be the tickler,’ Jack remarked.

  Lady Carmichael-Smythe coughed delicately and sipped her wine, looking from Jack to Dulci.

  Jack changed the subject. ‘I’ve heard you mean to go back out and do some mapping.’

  ‘I do mean to, very shortly. Within the week, actually. As you know, I am a devout student of Alexander Humboldt who mapped a large portion of this region around the Orinoco River. But it has come to my attention that Humboldt did not map the Essequibo river basin or the Corentyne.’ He nodded in Jack’s direction. ‘Those are the boundaries you’re concerned about and rightly so. Until they are determined, there’s all kinds of mischief that can be wrought regarding the peoples and re sources of that region.’ He turned to Dulci by way of explanation. ‘Guiana has outlawed slavery recently, but Venezuela and Brazil have not. Peoples living in Guyanese territory have no fear of slavery, but slavers crossing into our territory thinking they’re still in their own lands have taken free peoples as slaves. Then it becomes a border discussion when determining whose laws apply.’

  The conversation turned political after that, focusing on the governor’s latest work in that regard. Lady Carmichael-Smythe eventually rose, signalling it was time to leave the gentlemen to their brandy and cigars.

  The men didn’t leave them for long. They were soon joined in the blue drawing room by the three men and the tea cart. Jack came to stand beside her, wicked intent gleaming from his eyes. ‘Did I toe the line sufficiently during dinner?’ he said sotto voce for her ears alone.

  ‘You certainly toed something. You’re a naughty boy, Jack,’ Dulci replied, sipping her tea and trying to ignore the sensual breath against her ear.

  ‘Bad boys often make good men,’ Jack answered easily. ‘Per haps you would accompany me out to the verandah and I can show you just how good.’

  After all their flirtations, Jack could still make her cheeks burn. ‘I think I could use some fresh air.’ Dulci set down the delicate tea cup, feeling the heat from her cheeks.

  ‘There, that’s better.’ Jack shut the French-paned door behind them. ‘Now, as for you, Lady Dulcinea, you might be cooler if you wore fewer clothes.’ His eyes sparked with their green mischief and he reached for the fichu. ‘Starting with this. Now it’s my turn to tease.’ Jack drew the scrap of cloth by one end, trailing the lace lightly over one sea-foam silk-clad breast. Dulci shivered in involuntary delight, her nipple hardening beneath her gown at the tantalising contact.

  ‘So you do like being tickled,’ Jack whispered huskily, one hand about her waist, drawing her close. ‘How are you, Dulci? I’ve missed you.’ He stole a kiss, long and lingering.

  �
��They’ll be sure to see,’ Dulci pro tested before he could launch another.

  ‘Only if they’re looking.’ Jack chuckled. ‘My sweet hypocrite, you don’t mind breaking the rules, you just mind getting caught.’ Jack winked. ‘I don’t think any of them are bad mannered enough to look. We’re safe.’

  He might be safe, but she certainly wasn’t. Dulci knew she’d be far safer inside next to the tea cart. Instead she was out on the verandah with a wolf in sheep’s clothing; Jack dressed up as a gentleman was every woman’s fairy tale and he worked on her like a tonic, his eyes, his body promising all nature of happy ever afters.

  ‘You’re incorrigible, Jack. You’ve hauled me out here to kiss me. Should I be flattered or do you think I’ll come at your beck and call?’ This was his chance. Dulci had been proposed to enough to know how to provide any willing gentleman the perfect opening for his declaration. If Jack was looking for a way to profess his changing feelings, this was it.

  A considering glance swept Jack’s face, shadowing his hot eyes. For a moment she thought she had him. The back of his knuckles gently stroked her cheek.

  ‘I have no answer for you. Your question is un answerable. If I say you should be flattered, you will fly at me and call me arrogant to my core. If I say I think you’re at my call, you’ll think I find you fast. I do not think you’re fast, Dulci.’

  Hardly the declaration she was looking for. Dulci twined her arms about his neck and pressed her body flat against his. ‘I think you are.’

  ‘You think I’m fast?’ Jack arched a blond eyebrow in a mock display of wounded pride.

  ‘Absolutely.’ Dulci moved her hand between them to discreetly stroke his length, finding his desire stirring, hardening beneath her hand. ‘I heard the most intriguing speculation today,’ she whispered provocatively. ‘I heard that dancing ability is a fair judge of a man’s skill at bedsport.’

  Jack’s hand lingered on her breast, his hand making a small caressing motion over her nipple. ‘Just speculation? In true scientific method, perhaps we should test this hypothesis. Why don’t you save me a dance tomorrow night and we’ll find out?’

  A figure moved behind them in the doorway. ‘Ah, Lady Carmichael-Smythe believes we’ve been out here long enough, guardian of your virtue as she is,’ Jack said ruefully and Dulci stepped away, taking her fichu from Jack and tucking it into her low bodice.

  ‘I liked the dress better without it,’ Jack groused. ‘Go on in, I’ll be along in a minute.’

  Jack leaned on the railing, taking in the spectacular view that reached all the way to the harbour as if he were really seeing it. All his thoughts, all his senses, were focused on Dulci and his failure this evening.

  He had not told Dulci what he’d meant to tell her: he was leaving with Robert the day after the ball. Robert had all his supplies ready and was willing to wait two days for Jack to join the expedition. Jack knew he could not be luckier. Schomburgk was heading out in the very direction he himself needed to go to complete the king’s commission. Robert’s presence would validate the expedition on an entirely higher plane. With Robert’s reputation as an explorer and scholar behind the results of the mapping, no one could doubt the integrity of his findings. There would be no grounds on which to argue that it was merely his crooked map against Ortiz’s.

  But Dulci would be angry. Furious.

  There was no question of her going. Jack hoped the stories he and Robert shared over supper would work to subtly dissuade her from wanting to go. Her desire for such an adventure no doubt sprang from a fanciful notion of what that adventure entailed.

  He under stood that initial untried image of exploring. He’d had a similar image, too, when he’d first set out: meeting the natives, sitting cross-legged with chieftains and engaging in parley, trading goods, eating strange foods and seeing spectacular places.

  The reality was far from that. There were insects and all sorts of dangers on the ground where one sat cross-legged with chieftains and the food, while living up to the ‘strange’ expectations, always tasted far worse than anything conjured up in prior imaginings. But one ate it to survive. One smeared mud and animal grease on oneself as well to survive. A man got to a point where nothing else mattered. A man learned he was capable of anything to survive. He didn’t want that for Dulci. If she’d seen him when they’d emerged into civilisation after Anegada, she wouldn’t have recognised him: gaunt, sun burned, ragged remnants of trousers hanging off his hips, a dirty beard covering his jaw. No, he didn’t want that for his beautiful Dulci. Georgetown was as far as she was going.

  He’d wanted to tell her tonight. He didn’t want to wait until the ball. He had other plans for the ball that didn’t include making Dulci angry.

  But his well-laid plans had gone astray the moment she’d sat down at the dinner table looking delectable in her borrowed finery, her dark hair piled high on her head, showing off her lovely neck and the slope of her bosom, artfully covered by that damn fichu. The whole presence of the fichu introduced the idea that the bodice was too low to begin with and Jack had spent most of the meal trying to follow the conversation while visualising Dulci’s gown without the offending modesty piece.

  If women knew what men really thought about fichus, they might dispose of the flimsy pieces altogether. Jack was strongly of the opinion that fichus didn’t preserve decency as much as they promoted indecency in male thought patterns. Then again, maybe women knew and they did it on purpose. Dulci had known precisely what she was doing at the dinner table with her hand skimming her chest, fluttering so modestly at her neckline.

  It had succeeded, to say nothing of her deft footwork beneath the table. He was so aroused by the time she left the men to brandy and cigars, Jack had forgone the cigar and swallowed Carmichael-Smythe’s fine brandy in one fell gulp. It was no surprise the verandah had turned into a lovers’ interlude instead.

  Now, everything hinged on tomorrow night. There’d be no chance to tell her tomorrow morning. In the morning, he was off to pound the first nail in Ortiz’s political coffin. That was the other news he’d meant to share. He’d located the map-maker. In the morning, he’d pay the man a visit and gain his confession by whatever means necessary.

  The door behind him opened again and Robert Schomburgk stepped out, taking up a silent post beside Jack. ‘You didn’t tell her, did you?’

  ‘No.’

  Robert had the good grace to leave the easy rejoinder alone. ‘It’s a beautiful night.’ Robert breathed in a healthy lungful of air.

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  He was in different to the sweet smell of hyacinth and the special warmth of a tropical night, to the flickering lantern lights bobbing on ships in the distance and the stars glistening overhead in the night sky.

  Even if he wasn’t in different, he still could not have pierced the darkness and seen the rowboat lowered from the big ship anchored at the mouth of the harbour and rowed by a tall, dark-cloaked man towards the Demerara river on the west side of town.

  Calisto Ortiz had arrived.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Morning sun shone warm through the windows of the breakfast room. Dulci helped herself to the dishes on the sideboard containing English specialties and the lovely pyramid of fresh fruits unique to this part of the world and so readily available. This was fast becoming her favourite time of day. She rose early here to ride before the sun became too hot. Afterwards, she was still the only person abroad in the house and had the luxury of eating in quiet, alone with her thoughts.

  She had not realised how much she enjoyed the private time. In London, the town house usually teemed with various Wycrofts. This Season had been something of an exception in that regard. Her four sisters and Brandon were all otherwise occupied. Dulci plucked a kiwi from the colourful pyramid. Jack had posted a letter from her when they docked in Spain. Surely it would have reached Brandon by now and he would know she was well and that she was with Jack. She’d wanted to dispel the initial panic he would no doub
t have felt in the wake of Jack’s hurried note from the ship when they departed.

  A servant stepped forwards to pour tea for her as she settled at the empty table. What would he say about his sister carrying on with his best friend? It wasn’t that Brandon would mind them falling in love and having a traditional courtship. Jack was as good as a brother already to Brandon. The sticking point was whether or not Brandon would insist on the relationship being honourable in society’s eyes. He would insist on marriage.

  She and Jack had to be free to make their own terms with one another. She did not want Jack coerced and she certainly didn’t want herself coerced.

  Dulci buttered her toast and bit into it with relish, savouring the simple pleasure of toast with butter melting across the surface. It would be the only simple thing today. She’d known in advance the day would be complicated, full of last-minute preparations for the ball. Any day of such an event was bound to be so. Lady Carmichael-Smythe wanted her to help oversee all the particulars. There would be flowers and food, deco rations and details. But then there would be tonight. There would be dancing and Jack. She would be at her charming best in order to hold his attention. Tonight he could not bury himself in business and pretend to ignore her. Tonight she would make sure he gave pursuit. A glimmer of a smile hovered on her lips. Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor outside the room. Dulci quickly schooled her features, concentrating hard on her eggs.

  ‘Good morning, Dulci.’ Jack sounded surprised, his step faltering. ‘I’d not expected to see anyone up so early given the long day ahead. I thought everyone would be sleeping a little later to marshal their strength for the big night.’ Jack helped himself to some eggs and sausage and settled across from her at the table.

  ‘I went riding. I like to ride in the morning. It’s better for seeing the birds. There’s such a marvellous variety here. The colours are extraordinary.’ Jack was being awfully convivial, almost too friendly.