in all the spartan beauty properly. The only signs of life not plant based were the many sea birds that swooped along the shore line and nested in the cliff.
Jess was all alone and free.
For the first time in years!
That giddy realisation caused a tiny bubble of laughter to escape her throat. She’d done it! Against all the odds and solely using her own wits and sheer damned stubbornness, she had escaped both Saint-Aubin and the British Navy. The laughter wouldn’t stop, so she took herself well away from the terrifying edge and threw her head back, allowing it free rein. A minute of indulgence. Surely she had earned that?
‘There she is!’
The shout from above caused her heart to stop. Ce n’est pas possible! But it was.
Lord Flint crested the top of the hill and was closely followed by most of the crew from the ship. The tears came then as her throat closed with the pain of defeat, like the hangman’s noose choking the last vestiges of hope and all of her foolish dreams. What did God have against her? Could he not see this was all so unfair? Or did he not care? Was her soul indelibly stained with the sins of her mother and her own weaknesses despite her best efforts to make amends? Just once, she wished that God would help her. But, of course, he didn’t. Because she was on her own.
Always had been.
Her wits returned in a whoosh to counter the blind panic, her head whipping from side to side to find the best escape route. She had got this far without help and she was not dead yet! Jess wouldn’t allow it. The sea of grass and gorse and sailors was the only way out, unless she threw herself over the rocks behind her.
‘Fan out, men! We have her cornered!’
Sadly true, but Jess had come too far to give up all hope now. Like a banshee she launched herself forward. If she could just get past them...
She used her shoulder, hunched low, to barrel into the first man, then simply kept on running, darting sideways to avoid the grasping hands of another. Like sheep, they began to herd together and follow her, closing the distance with each stride of their legs, yet still Jess ran. Her lungs burned and she could hear nothing over the sounds of her rapid heartbeat.
Someone grabbed her collar and tugged, pulling her backwards on to the ground. The strong smell of cabbage announced her assailant better than words. For him, her capture would be intensely personal. Jess twisted in an attempt to loosen his firm grip a split second before the back of his meaty hand cracked across her jaw and stars exploded behind her eyes. After that, despite all her best efforts, she could barely keep them open.
There were shouts.
Just one man shouting.
He was angry.
Livid.
‘You bastard!’
Jess heard another crack, then a dull thud. Through a fog she saw the toothless sailor lying flat on his back next to her, groaning.
Faces.
Many faces. From the past and from the grave. Her mother. Her long-forgotten father. The innocent men she had unintentionally sent to their slaughter...but only one pair of eyes. Green like the grass she lay on. Very green.
Gentle hands brushed over her forehead.
‘Jessamine? Can you hear me? Can you...?’ Jess felt another tear leak out of her eye and drizzle down her cheek. She didn’t have any fight left to stop it.
It was all so tragically unfair, but maybe fully deserved.
Her dark eyes had fluttered open and she stared into his briefly before she passed out. A bruise already marred her perfect cheek and a tiny trickle of blood oozed from the cut on her lip. Both piqued his rage and made Flint want to pummel the toothless sailor for daring to take his hand to a woman. Then he had momentarily lost control, something he rarely did, and sent the fellow flying before rushing to her aid.
Now, with her dark hair fanned out on the snowy white pillowcase and her face pale, those fresh bruises stood out in stark relief alongside the dark shadows he now saw beneath her closed eyes. In slumber, Lady Jessamine looked nothing like the calculating traitor or the confrontational termagant who had showered him in stale bread. She looked vulnerable and alone and painfully delicate.
Except she wasn’t delicate. Far from it.
It took physical and mental strength to swim close to two miles of the English Channel, fight the current and crashing waves and then scale a small cliff barefoot and, God help him, a large part of him admired her for that. She was desperate to live and who could blame her? Were he facing a date with the hangman, Flint would doubtless react in a similar manner and would fight for his life till his dying breath. Hell, he’d even swim the channel to get back to safety if push came to shove.
The utter devastation on her face when they found her again was not something that he could easily forget either. Guilt had been his first reaction before he’d ruthlessly corrected his emotions, but the weight of that guilt still lingered and plagued him. Obviously misplaced. After all, Flint had a weakness for a pretty face and a sultry pair of eyes. Lady Jessamine had both and used them mercilessly to get her own way.
Those emotive eyes had tricked him once already. The more he thought about it, the more her initial escape from the boat seemed gallingly like a preamble. During questioning, she must have spotted the only unguarded route of escape in his cabin and then what followed had been a contrived way to get back in that cabin and be left all alone.
‘I am not to be afforded the basic dignities of a human being after all.’ Those manipulative and mournful eyes had brought shame on him when he should have planted his feet firmly, shrugged and informed her that prisoners did not have the right to privacy, so she could change in his presence or remain dripping wet.
Lady Jessamine had used his chivalrous nature against him and then left him to look like the biggest of fools in front of the entire crew. Once bitten, twice shy...yet his whole being was at odds with his level head and wanted those traitorous eyes to be telling the truth.
When they had tracked her down on top of the cliff, the disbelief and the horror which had skittered across her features before she appeared to glance heavenwards in exasperation had bothered him. Still bothered him nearly three hours later, truth be told, because just one solitary tear had rolled heavily down her cheek. Flint had watched her swipe it away defiantly as she refused to surrender, almost as if she was embarrassed to be vulnerable, despite the fact it was obvious escape was futile and she was clearly exhausted.
The second fat tear had unmanned him and he had felt compelled to brush it gently away with his thumb before he began issuing orders to have her battered and prone body moved. Flint had carried her the first mile himself before men arrived with the stretcher, her slight body unhealthily slim in places beneath his hands, yet her heartbeat against his own was strong and steady and determined.
It called to him and the proud memory of it held him still. Flint hadn’t left her bedside, claiming that he was responsible for the prisoner, when in truth he had needed to stand guard over her to ensure that no more harm came to her. What the hell was that about?
Although it didn’t take a genius to work out she had come to harm before and not just from the heavy-handed sailors on the ship. After the innkeeper’s wife had undressed her and swaddled her in
