for the guards. ‘I wish to speak to Monsieur Flint. Tout de suite! Take me to him!’
‘I can fetch him.’ The toothless sailor folded his arms belligerently. ‘Then again perhaps I can’t. I don’t take orders from you, traitor.’
‘Suit yourself. But I shall tell his lordship you refused to allow him to hear my confession when we dock. I doubt he will take it well. He is an important man, non? One your Captain takes orders from...’
As she had hoped the man scurried off and several fraught minutes ticked by before he returned. ‘Lord Flint will see you in his cabin.’
Jess stood patiently while the sailor unlocked the bars and allowed him to grab her upper arm without tugging it away or complaining. Only her complete compliance would lull him into a false sense of security. That and the shameless display of flesh on show. She had rolled up the breeches to sit on her knee. All the spare fabric in the billowing shirt had been gathered up so that her figure was on full show and the upper swells of her breasts were clearly visible above the wide V of the open collar. He had allowed her to linger on the deck the last time because his shipmates had enjoyed the spectacle of a scantily clad woman. For her plan to succeed, she needed to be a spectacle once again.
He climbed the steep steps first and offered his hand down the hatch to assist her. She took it with her mother’s smile, making sure she emerged into the late afternoon sunlight gracefully. Then took a moment to stretch.
Men were such predictable creatures. Every eye swivelled to her, raking her body up and down. Some had the good grace to be surreptitious. Most openly ogled. One bold seaman winked and she winked back, causing much bawdy laughter and back slapping. To them she was sport and did not deserve the gentlemanly good manners reserved for ladies. One or two made rude gestures in the air, miming what they would like to do to her. Beyond, the Captain and his officers joined in the laughter. They wanted to humiliate her, too.
That was fine by Jess. Humiliation had gone hand in hand with incarceration for over a year, yet they had all failed to crush her soul. For this next bit to work, she needed them to be lusty dogs.
A burly man near the rail played right into her hands. ‘If you get lonesome down in the brig or fancy making it your last request, I’d be happy to keep you company.’ He raised his eyebrows suggestively. ‘A decent bit of English might do you good after all those Frenchies.’ He bucked his hips, the message clear.
She let her eyes take in the broad chest and muscled, folded arms before shrugging off her toothless chaperon and walking slowly towards him.
‘What is your name, handsome?’
Flint heard the whooping and catcalling and shot to his feet. Whatever she had done, he couldn’t sit by and allow the crew to abuse her like that. He was still riddled with misplaced guilt for reminding her she would be hanged. There had been genuine terror in her lovely eyes then and that fear, and the knowledge he had put it there, did not make him feel like much of a man. His fingers reached the door handle the same moment the noises beyond changed from bawdy to shocked, as the laughter quickly turned to what sounded like blind panic.
He strode on deck into chaos. The entire crew seemed to have simultaneously run starboard. All along the rail, men clamoured to peer over the edge. Those that couldn’t find a spot ran left and right like startled deer. ‘What the blazes is going on?’ He caught the arm of an officer.
‘The prisoner has escaped!’
As they were in the middle of the English Channel it didn’t take a genius to work out where the minx had escaped to. Even so, Flint pushed his way to the rail and was rewarded with the sight of Lady Jessamine speeding through the waves. The blasted woman swam like a fish.
Next to him, he could hear the Captain issuing rapid orders. A couple of sailors were in the midst of lowering a rowing boat. Another was untangling the ladder to toss over the side. Someone else was hunting down rope. She had caught them on the hop and now the lot of them were behaving like headless chickens without a single working brain between them. Meanwhile, she was putting some serious distance between herself and the frigate.
On a withering sigh, Flint shrugged out of his coat and tugged off his boots. Catching her was the first priority. He’d worry about getting her back on the boat afterwards. As soon as the last button was undone on his waistcoat he dragged himself to sit atop the rail to stare in disgust at the briny water below. Lord, how he loathed sea bathing. The lauded benefits of salt water never outweighed the awfulness of the experience. It stung the eyes and tasted foul. Almost as foul as the knowledge that she was in the sea in the first place because he had been soft. Damned woman. That would teach him to feel mercy towards the vixen. She was every inch the duplicitous, self-serving, self-centred, untrustworthy traitor he knew her to be. Another harsh lesson learned.
The icy water came as a shock, robbing him of the ability to breathe for long moments until he acclimatised. Then he set off after the veritable mermaid in the distance, his anger at both of them propelling him more effectively than the inept sailors in the wobbling dinghy could row. She was fast, but thanks to his strong arms and longer legs he was faster. Despite that, it took him a good ten minutes to come within twenty feet of her.
Sensing someone close by, she turned and then panicked, breaking her stroke to cough up the wave she had accidentally swallowed. Flint used it to try to talk some sense into her.
‘This is pointless. Land is a good five miles away!’
Undeterred, she set off again, her bare feet splashing wildly as she kicked for all she was worth. Twice he came within a hair’s breadth of one and twice she evaded his grasping fingers. On the third attempt, he caught her ankle and earned a kick in the stomach that winded him and made him swallow a mouthful of seawater as well. It was then that his anger turned into outright rage and he lunged once more, plunging them both underwater, but this time he wrapped his arm tightly around her waist and held her firmly against his body.
‘Salaud! Let go of me!’
She wriggled like a hooked salmon and was twice as slippery. Her flailing knee came within inches of his groin before he twisted her out of the way. Backwards she was marginally less dangerous, but only marginally. She lashed out, using her nails like claws, scraping them hard whenever they encountered him. Her black hair, floating on the surface like seaweed, felt like a whip as it lashed repeatedly against his face. ‘Hold still, damn it!’ The hand he was using to help keep them both afloat joined the other around her body, pinning her arms against her ribs. Still she fought him.
‘English pig! Imbécile! Tout ça ne sert à rien!’
‘We are both going to drown!’
‘At least I will take you with me!’
Flint managed to move his hand a split second before her teeth clamped around it and tilted his weight so that she was lying on her back down the length of his body. Then, with the last strength he possessed, he kicked towards the rowboat.
It took the three of them to get her into the thing as it rocked dangerously from side to side. Once they did, he happily allowed one of the sailors to tie her hands behind her back while the other restrained her. There was no telling what damage the wench could do in such a confined space otherwise. Tethered and impotent, that riotous mane of hair plastered all over her face and shoulders, she
