The Thief's Daughter

by Victoria Cornwall

  She felt his hand briefly touch the naked curve of her waist, before sweeping up her back to cradle her neck. It left a trail of exquisite, burning embers of pleasure in its wake. His kiss followed her withdrawal and deepened, casting a spell and inviting her back to him. She stilled and allowed herself to drift into the sensuality of his kiss as he asked. Any resistance she felt dissolved in that moment and she found herself drawn back to him until his head lay back down on the pillow. They were now together, with no resistance on either side and she allowed herself to take part in this new, lovers’ game he was playing. It was a game that was foreign to her, yet natural to play.

  She heard irregular gasps and moans, and realised they came from her. Their kisses deepened still further and took on a life of their own. Jack was good and she wanted more of him. Her kisses grew more demanding and she heard his breathlessness match her own. She felt triumphant as she forgot the soldiers’ advance.

  Through the fog of pleasure, she heard a man shout. They sprang apart, surprised to see four soldiers in the room and the door swinging on its hinges.

  The first soldier stopped abruptly, causing the other three to bump into him in a disorganised line. Musket barrels clashed with hats, dislodging them at precarious angles to resemble ships sinking out at sea. The men looked at the tangled bed sheets and the partially clothed couple. The intimate scene was enough to cause two men’s faces to redden, one man to snigger and a fourth to abruptly leave. From their reactions it appeared Jenna’s plan was working, yet she felt no joy.

  She covered her breasts with her arm and quickly pulled her slip over her shoulders with trembling fingers. She dared not look at Jack, suddenly feeling shy now that reality had returned and cast a harsh light on what was taking place. Their kisses were for the soldiers to see, yet their presence now cheapened them. Jenna’s resentment muted her. Jack, though, played the role to perfection and she had to admire the anger he feigned.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he shouted at the remaining men. ‘Get out or I will report you.’

  The lead soldier hesitated and began to apologise.

  ‘We did not mean to disturb you and your wife but smugglers have been seen in Tudor Cove. We have orders to search the properties in the vicinity.’

  ‘Do I look like I have been smuggling?’ Jack asked.

  Jenna slipped from the bed and wrapped herself in a blanket. She forced herself to look at Jack. He looked dishevelled and played the frustrated lover well. She looked away.

  ‘You are right, sir. We are sorry to disturb you.’ They turned to leave when more booted footsteps mounted the stairs. The soldiers moved aside as another man in uniform approached. He was taller and older, with a commanding presence that filled the room when he entered. His gaze efficiently took in the scene with a few well-aimed glances – the bedding, the cut stays at his feet and the quiet woman wrapped in a blanket in the corner.

  Jenna felt the heat rise to her cheeks as she saw in his face the judgement he passed on her. This man was different to the young soldiers who spent their careers doing what they were directed to do. This man would not be so easily distracted and would want to know what lay hidden beneath the blanket placed over Jack’s arm. Jenna held her breath as she watched the man turn to Jack and their eyes lock. An unspoken challenge passed between them, until finally the man’s gaze dropped to the blanket over Jack’s arm.

  He knows, thought Jenna, expecting him to rip away the cloth, but to her surprise he abruptly turned to his men, gave a curt nod to the door and ordered them out.

  Suddenly Jenna and Jack found themselves alone. They looked warily at each other from across the room as they listened to the soldiers leaving. Neither spoke. Memories of their passionate kiss lingered between them like a great mythical creature that had broken its chains and been briefly set free. Jenna trembled from the shock and embarrassment of her body’s reaction to Jack’s role playing. What must he think of her? What was going on behind those dark eyes of his? Jenna was the one to look away first. She made the excuse that his wound would need cleaning. Jack agreed far too quickly and was keen to let her go.

  Jenna watched the men ride away and let the drape drop. The small amount of time that had passed was enough for her to regain her composure and see their kiss for what it was. An act to fool. It almost fooled her. She had hoped her plan would work, yet its success still surprised her. She finished buttoning her dress, then lifted the pot of boiling water from the fire and placed it on the table. Carefully she took three kitchen utensils from the boiling water and placed them onto a clean cloth. She placed it onto a tray next to clean bandages made from a sheet, a bread and milk poultice, and some boiled water for cleaning.

  She carefully carried the laden tray up to Jack’s room and placed it by his bed. She noticed beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead during her absence. Any earlier embarrassment was now well and truly extinguished by her concern for him.

  ‘They have gone. Is it very painful?’

  ‘It is getting worse by the minute.’ His face was etched with pain, but seeing her worried expression he attempted to make light of it. ‘Perhaps you should try distracting me again.’

  Jenna did not feel like laughing. ‘The time for playing games has come to an end. Your wound must be tended to.’

  ‘I will see no surgeon. He will raise too many questions and the ones I know are too quick to pick up a saw.’ He managed a slight smile. ‘I am rather attached to my arm and have no wish to lose it now.’

  ‘Which is why I brought this,’ Jenna answered, waving a hand across her tray.

  Jack looked at the knife, fork and sugar prongs and sniffed the bread and milk poultice.

  ‘What do you plan to do with that? Eat it off?’

  Jenna broke into a smile, the first in many days. His joke lightened her spirits and dispelled any awkwardness between them.

  ‘My brothers and father were often wounded during their …’

  ‘… law breaking?’

  ‘We could not afford a surgeon and even if we could it would …’

  ‘… raise too many questions?’

  Jenna nodded. It was always difficult to talk about her family’s unsavoury ways of earning a living.

  ‘So my mother learned how to tend to them and reduce the risk of infection. She found that by boiling everything it seemed to work. I don’t know why but it does.’ She carefully arranged the utensils. ‘I am going to use these to examine the wound.’

  ‘Then I hope your mother taught you well.’

  ‘It was the only thing I was willing to learn from her.’ Jenna began to undo the makeshift bandage and laid it carefully into a clean chamber pot.

  ‘It has stopped bleeding, but it must be thoroughly cleaned. If a musket ball is still in there, I need to get it out.’

  ‘Do what you need to do.’

  ‘It will be painful.’ She poured a large glass of brandy from a decanter and offered it to him. ‘It is best if you drink yourself into a stupor.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘I stay away from too much drink. It loosens the tongue and I must stay on my guard.’

  ‘And I need you to stay still or your arm will become useless and lie flaccid at your side.’

  ‘Give me my razor’s leather strap. I will bite down on that.’

  Reluctantly she handed it to him. ‘I need you to be still, Jack. Grimacing as you bite down on this will not stop your body writhing away from me. It is a natural instinct that a man cannot stop.’

  He scowled at her. ‘I will not move,’ he retorted, biting down on the strap.

  Jenna raised an eyebrow. ‘You are being foolish, but fooling no one.’ She dipped a cloth into the water in readiness to clean the wound. ‘This will hurt. Are you ready?’

  Jack prepared himself and nodded for her to continue. Jenna sighed and began to clean his wound with the cloth. Deep inside the wound she could feel the metal of the ball at the tips of her fingers. The movement caused Jack to arch and
cry out in pain.

  He spat out the strap. ‘Cat’s teeth, woman. That hurt!’

  ‘I told you it would! Have the brandy.’

  ‘I will not!’

  She attempted to clean the wound again but Jack arched again at her touch. ‘What in the devil are you doing?’

  ‘I am trying to remove the musket ball with the prongs. Keep still or more damage may be done.’

  ‘And if it is not removed?’

  ‘It will fester and eventually the fever will travel to your head.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘You will die.’

  Jack covered his brow with his forearm and thought for a moment.

  ‘You are afraid of what you might say when you are drunk?’ His silence told her what he did not voice. ‘I ran on the beach to warn you tonight. If you cannot trust me, who can you trust?’

  ‘True, you did risk your life.’

  ‘As you did for me.’

  He smiled at her. ‘We are a fine pair. Both willing to do good but ending up on the wrong side of the law.’

  ‘And you are gravely injured and I am to blame for that. It is a heavy burden to bear. Let me help you.’

  ‘The blame lies with your brother and his debts – and this musket ball in my arm.’

  ‘If you move you run the risk of having a useless arm. It will make life difficult for you.’

  ‘I can ride a horse one-handed.’

  ‘Earning a living would be difficult.’

  ‘I am not afraid of working hard.’

  ‘You will not be able to wrap your wife in a passionate embrace …’

  Jack’s jaw tightened. ‘I have no wife.’

  ‘… or lift your children high in the air to make them scream in delight.’

  ‘Give me the glass,’ he said irritably, taking it from her and gulping down its contents. He looked at her uneasily. ‘I do this against my better judgement,’ he added, reluctantly holding the glass out towards her again. Silently he watched her refill it. He took another gulp. ‘Do you miss your mother?’

  ‘I have not seen her for a long time. I am afraid I will forget what she looks like.’

  ‘It must have been hard.’

  She smiled. ‘Silas looked after me. You look surprised. I know he is a foolish scoundrel, but he has been the only constant in my life. As a child he was my playmate and protector. When I was frightened it was he who comforted me.’ Jenna thought of the day the thief-taker took her older brothers away. It was Silas who crawled from his hiding place and held her hand to comfort her. ‘People do not know Silas as I do. He has a soft heart, which he rarely shows, and he is prepared to do anything to protect me.’

  Jack emptied his glass and reached out for a refill. Jenna obliged.

  ‘I would not ask my sister to smuggle.’

  ‘Dodging the law is his way of life. It is nothing abnormal for him. It is no different than you asking a sister of yours to do a job to earn some money.’ The drinking continued; each time his glass was emptied it was immediately refilled. They lost count of how many he drank, as the aim was to have him unconscious.

  ‘You call Silas foolish, but he is no fool,’ Jack continued. ‘He knew what he was asking you to do. But you love him and love can make people do things they would otherwise not consider doing.’

  ‘You sound like you speak from experience.’

  ‘I loved my father. When he died I wanted revenge. I came close to being no better than the men who killed him.’

  ‘Did you get your revenge?’

  ‘Yes – but not in the way that you think. I killed or injured no one.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Jack looked at the contents of his glass and said nothing. ‘You are not going to tell me. You see, you are not as loose with your tongue as you say.’

  He smiled at her, saluting her with his glass. ‘You are quite a woman, Jenna. Your brother will surely miss you when you set up a house of your own and have your own family to care for.’

  ‘I have tried that and it did not work. I do not see it happening again.’

  ‘Are you adamant you will not remarry?’

  ‘No decent man would want to marry me. I have no wealth, I do not come from a respectable family and I have a brother called Silas.’

  They both smiled. ‘That is what I like about you, Jenna. You have a sharp wit.’

  ‘Some would call it a sharp tongue.’

  ‘And you are trusting and courageous.’

  ‘Naive and foolhardy,’ she countered, pouring him another glass.

  ‘Courageous – and beautiful.’ She stopped pouring. ‘It’s true,’ he insisted. ‘When I saw you running away from the crowd I thought what a courageous boy you were.’

  ‘And when did you think I was beautiful?’ she asked, carefully putting down the decanter as her heart began to thud in her chest.

  Jack dropped his head heavily back onto the pillow and looked up at the beams above. A whimsical smile lifted the corners of his lips. ‘When I discovered you were not a boy.’

  ‘I think the brandy is talking.’

  Jack laughed. ‘It is true. When I saw your big soulful eyes looking down at me with that gentle smile, I realised you were no boy. However, you have hurt my pride now that I know that your smile was no more than a trick to distract me.’

  ‘It was a thank you for helping me.’

  ‘It was a trick so I would not forget you.’ Jack closed his eyes to shut out the spinning room. ‘It worked.’ He tapped his temple. ‘You were trapped in here. Thought I was imagining you at the Mop Fayre. It took all my strength not to hire you that day,’ he mused.

  Jenna took the brandy away from his partially open hand and took a small sip herself, feeling the need for some too. She watched him over the rim of the glass, waiting for his next confession.

  ‘I had to go back again … had to find out what happened to you … couldn’t let that lecher take you …’

  ‘Thank you for stepping in.’

  He waved his hand precariously in the air. ‘Men like that have no respect for women.’

  Jenna put down the glass. She had something to say and it was important he heard it.

  ‘Jack, I want you to know that I have never undressed to trick a man before. I would not want you to think badly of me.’

  He sighed. ‘I do not think badly of you, Jenna. Henley took his men away so your plan worked.’ He tried to touch his lips but missed, the effort was too much and he let his hand fall once more. ‘I have a confession to make and you may think badly of me when I tell you.’ He was slurring his words and Jenna was afraid she would miss something. Frowning, she leaned forward.

  ‘What do you have to confess, Jack?’ she asked. Her heart began to thud again so loudly she felt he must surely hear.

  He sighed again. ‘You told me to close my eyes,’ he said slowly, each word an effort for him to form, ‘but I didn’t.’ A smile returned to his lips. ‘The temptation was too much – I peeked.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  With a lot of gentle manoeuvring and concentration, Jenna finally managed to remove the musket ball from Jack’s arm. However, infection remained the greatest threat, so she remained by his side for the rest of the night, vigilant for any signs of a fever. She sat wrapped in a blanket, hugging her knees to ward off the chill as she watched him peacefully sleep off his liquor. She thought of the risks he took to help her, and how he had saved her life with no thought of his own. She remembered his caress and their kissing, and the nice things he said in his ramblings. She hugged her knees tighter. She had almost lost him tonight and the realisation sickened her.

  At some point she fell into a fitful sleep and finally woke to a sunbeam breaking through a gap in the drapes. She got up to close them so they would not disturb Jack, but stayed a moment to look at the sea. Jack thought she was beautiful. The compliment, just one of many, pleased her to such an extent that the countryside outside the window appeared more colourful than when she usually looked
upon it. It was a ridiculous reaction to a few drunken words, but it confirmed what she suspected last night – that she was in love with the man.

  Jenna noticed a young woman striding across the grass towards the cottage. After checking Jack was still asleep, she slipped from the room and made her way quietly down the stairs to the door. She opened it before the woman could knock and their eyes locked. It was the girl from the Tolbridge Inn.

  ‘Does Jack live here?’

  Jenna, unsure of the purpose of her visit, felt protective towards Jack and ignored her question.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Melwyn. Jack said that I could come here. I need to talk to him.’

  Jenna lifted her chin. Melwyn looked prettier than Jenna had first thought. There was no simpering smile and even the scar on her cheek did not distract from her healthy glow. No wonder Jack found himself comforting her. A pretty face that is not etched with a brother’s troubles is easy to look upon.

  ‘Mr Penhale is not receiving visitors at the moment.’

  ‘So he is here,’ Melwyn said, brushing past her into the house.

  Jenna shut the door to keep in the warmth.

  ‘Tell me and I will tell him later. He is asleep and I will not disturb him.’

  Melwyn’s smile slipped from her face. ‘My words are for his ears only, not for his housekeeper’s,’ she replied curtly.

  Melwyn had put her in her place with a few well-chosen words and Jenna felt herself bristle at the truth of them. While she spent the night realising how much she loved Jack, her position in his household had, in reality, remained unchanged.

  ‘If you will not tell me, then you will have to return another time. I speak the truth when I say he is not receiving visitors.’

  Melwyn raised an eyebrow. ‘He will see me. We have an understanding.’

  Jenna imagined herself grabbing Melwyn’s hair and pushing her out of the door. She realised her feelings were not as noble as simply wanting to protect Jack. It was jealousy she felt and she saw Melwyn as a rival.

  The floorboards creaked above them. Jack was awake.

  Jenna forced a brittle smile. She could not turn her away now.