‘I love you too much, Jack, to risk you again. I think we should go back as well. Your health requires it.’
She waited for the protest to come. Jack’s eyes were fixed on hers, his face solemn. He did not argue. ‘If we go back, I can see you safely aboard a ship to London. Where I should have sent you all along.’
Dulci shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’ll return to London. I like it here.’ Then she added, ‘With or without you, Jack, although I’d much prefer the former.’ There, she’d said it. The battle was engaged. Last night had not been the time to fight over his crisis-induced decision to push her out of his life. But now, the crisis had passed and they needed to resolve their personal future.
Jack looked to the sky, regret tingeing his features for what might have been. ‘Believe me, I want things to be different. These weeks with you here beside me, sharing this journey, have been beyond in credible. I didn’t know love could be like this, how it could bring so much pleasure and hurt so much. When I saw Ortiz lay his hands on you yesterday and attempt to use you against me, all I could think was “This is my fault. She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.” Before we came out here, I only thought I under stood the risk of having you beside me. Now I know, and the cost is far more than I can bear. I know it’s not what you want to hear—’
Dulci interrupted abruptly. ‘What about the cost of not having me beside you? Is that so negligible as to be discounted as nothing, not worth any risk?’
‘You would be alive and safe. There would be some peace in knowing you were out there in the world, somewhere.’
Dulci snorted and stood up, her anger rising with her. ‘You forgot alone. And you would be too, Jack. As for me, I don’t look forward to spending the rest of my days as an un-united half of a whole and I don’t think you do either, whether you admit it or not. I wish I didn’t love you. It would make things a lot easier.’
‘You’ve never been one for easy,’ Jack said lightly. This time his attempts to cajole her back to his side wouldn’t work.
‘You aren’t either. Which is why this response of yours is somewhat mystifying,’ Dulci said. ‘I never considered you a coward, Jack.’
She’d called him a coward and simply walked away! Granted, she’d only walked to the other side of the boat, but he couldn’t go after her just now. The reality of his choice began to sink in—how would it be when she was weeks away from him? There’d be no going after her then either. In truth, Jack knew if he let her get off this boat, there’d be no going after her, period. That was the most dismal prospect of all.
His life would be filled up with several ‘nevers’. He’d never turn around during a surveying expedition and see her standing there, telescope in one hand looking out across the land. He’d never bathe beneath a waterfall again with her, reveling in the sheer joy of being alive together. He’d never lie down beside her at night, the stars overhead, and make perfect love that left him so completely fulfilled that his demons disappeared.
The stars came out. The boats settled for the night. Jack wished Dulci would come back to him and curl up beneath their blankets. But she didn’t. She stubbornly remained as far from him as the boat allowed.
He idly rubbed at his wrist where Dulci had tied their hands together last night, the words of their ceremony drifting through his mind ‘so long as we both shall live’. The phrase had not made much sense when she’d spoken it after declaring she’d rather have him as a husband for one night than never have him at all. What else had she said? ‘There are a lot of ways to die.’
At the time, he’d been too focused on the prospect of a literal physical death to entertain the notion of an internal death, a waking death that left one with a body but no spirit. It occurred to him with a clarity that physically hurt that such a death was precisely what his choice had doomed them to. Them. Not just himself.
Dulci deserved better than that. He meant every word he’d said last night—she had earned the right to be his partner. She was capable of sharing the rigours of his life. She’d proven she did under stand the life he led and she was not ashamed of it or him. She loved him unconditionally—well, that part wasn’t entirely true. Dulci had her condition. She wanted a partnership of body and soul, no less. And he wanted to give that to her if…
Coward.
Dulci’s challenge rang in his head. His ruminations had come full circle. When had he become so bloody cautious? In his work, he was known for bold and intrepid dealings. It was time to apply those tactics to his personal life before he lost the only thing really worth fighting for. Gladstone and her other suitors were cautious men and Dulci had rejected them for it. She wanted a man bold enough to claim her, brave enough to make her his partner and, by God, Jack was going to show her that he could be that man, that her faith in him had not been wrong, just merely misplaced until he came to his senses.
Jack pushed up from the pallet, balancing himself against the exterior wall of the small supply cabin. Whoa, he was wobbly. He stood for long moments, breathing deeply, regaining his equilibrium. The world stopped tilting. He took a few tentative steps, the wobbles disappearing. He fixed his eyes on Dulci’s form and started to walk.
‘Sometimes a man is stupid,’ he said softly.
She startled a little at his voice and turned from the railing. ‘More often in some cases than others.’
Jack cleared his throat. ‘Ahem, yes, I suppose that might appear to be true.’ Somehow, in the euphoria of his decision, he’d forgot Dulci might still be in a pique.
She gave one of her head tosses, her tone dispassionate. ‘What have you come to say, Jack? If you’ve come to argue the right ness of your position one more time, I’m in no mood for it. I disagree with it entirely and I don’t see that changing.’
‘I agree,’ Jack said simply. That was one way to end an argument and in this case, a rather effective choice.
‘Agree? As in agree to disagree?’ Dulci sighed heavily. ‘I’m too tired to work out your double negatives.’
‘No, agree as in you’re right to disagree with my earlier position. I disagree with it too. You’re only across the boat and I can’t stand it. I don’t think I could survive sending you away, and frankly, I don’t want to—send you away, that is,’ Jack clarified.
Dulci’s eyes narrowed as she studied him. Jack couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. ‘What has brought this on?’ she asked, far too coolly detached for Jack’s tastes.
‘I took a good hard look at the reality I was creating for both of us. I’d only thought of it philosophically before. But when I started thinking about what it honestly meant to give you up, to never lie beside you, to not have you with me when I see land no Englishman has ever set foot on…’ Jack shook his head. ‘Well, I knew if I couldn’t stand imagining it, I surely couldn’t stand living it. Dulci, I was wrong when I said there would be peace in knowing you would be out there somewhere, safe. It wouldn’t be peace at all. It would be hell, the worst torture I could devise for myself.’
‘What exactly are you saying, Jack?’ Dulci’s eyes had lost their hardness, her voice was soft and breath less in the dark.
‘I’m saying I want you for my wife, my partner in all things. You already are, I told you as much last night.’
Dulci took a step towards him, closing the gap. She held out her hands to him, that coy smile of hers on her lips. ‘I’m already your wife too, if I recall correctly.’ She ran her thumb over his wrist.
‘Yes, you’re already my wife.’ Jack laughed, drawing her against him. ‘You and I know it, but we’ll probably want to do it again in a church just to appease the legal system.’
Dulci looked up at him, serious for the moment. ‘And the risks, Jack? What changed your mind about those?’
‘There are always risks, just different sorts. Being without you is not a risk I am willing to take any longer. But, Dulci, being my partner, being my wife, won’t stop me from wanting to protect you. A man protects what he loves.’
/> Dulci smiled at him warmly, her blue eyes dancing. ‘So does a woman, Jack.’
Epilogue
October, roughly three months later
Jack stood at the front of the sanctuary, aware that he was the focus of the collective gaze of guests assembled in the pews of St Andrew’s Kirk. Some were there out of curiosity; it wasn’t every day a viscount was married in their midst. Some were there out of friendship. But whatever their motives for attending, Jack had no eyes for them. His gaze fixed on his future moving towards him down the aisle on Governor Carmichael-Smythe’s arm: Dulci, a radiant vision in a gown of pale blue trimmed with pale yellow ribbons, a bouquet of creamy roses in her hands, her own gaze steady and unwavering for him alone, not the least distracted by the guests lining the pews.
Of course, there were notable absences, too, Jack reflected. Neither he nor Dulci had family present, nor was Robert yet returned from the mapping expedition.
They had not wanted to wait.
Robert’s date of return was ambiguous and there would be no more ships until spring even if Brandon and Nora were to brave the voyage. Jack could not fathom waiting six more months to make Dulci his wife.
Counting their return journey from the jungles and the time it had taken for him to make a few necessary arrangements—such as a house for them—it had already been three months since he and Dulci had committed to each other. The words they had shared in the dark on board their travel ling boat would for ever be etched in his mind for their potency. No vows could ever be more compelling to Jack than their promise to protect one another, this belief that protection was not a man’s duty alone.
Those words bound them together irrevocably in Jack’s eyes. In the eyes of his pagan ancestors perhaps they were bound even earlier than that in Dulci’s simple hand fasting.
Dulci neared and Jack took her hand firmly in his own, unable to contain the smile that had lurked at the corners of his mouth any longer. Today he would marry this fine woman. They would feast at the governor’s table in celebration of their nuptials and of Jack’s new post. Confident that Jack’s name would be officially cleared when Schomburgk returned, Governor Carmichael-Smythe had already appointed him to a position in the gubernatorial cabinet.
Then he would take her home to begin the most important journey of his life.
They were together. That was all that mattered. There’d been no sense in waiting for Schomburgk’s findings or a letter from the king or Brandon’s consent. Those things would come in time and would not alter their love.
Dulci turned her face up to him, her eyes shining with proof that their love lived in a kingdom of its own, ungoverned by the caprices of politics and princes. Jack bent close to her ear as the ceremony began. ‘Dulci, you’re my greatest adventure.’
She reached up on her tip-toes, oblivious to the on lookers to whisper in response, ‘And you, Jack, are mine.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8494-8
A THOROUGHLY COMPROMISED LADY
Copyright © 2010 by Nikki Poppen
First North American Publication 2011
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