Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

J ack came back to himself slowly—listening and feeling her breath even out against his chest. Keeping his arms wrapped around her as long as he could. Knowing the feeling of her in his arms, was everything he could have hoped. Was more than he had ever dared to dream.

He had found out how her soft breasts had felt pressed against his chest without all the intervening layers of clothing. He had explored the way her naked skin felt and looked stretched out atop him.

Like a fleeting glimpse of paradise.

He had the memory he would live on for the rest of his lonely life, in whatever corner of the globe fate took him. He waited until the last vestige of warmth had faded from the fire, and the chill of the night settled over their entwined bodies, hating that he could do nothing to make the moment last. “Come, my love,” he said when he could find his voice. “Let me see you home.”

“Must you?” She raised her head to look into his eyes. “And am I really your love?”

“You are my divine, exquisite, very fine lover,” he told her. “As I am yours.”

“Yes,” she smiled, all drowsy, naked satisfaction. “Very fine.” She reached to absently clasp his hand. “And while I might have expected that, I just never expected to like you so very, very much.”

Her friendship was a finespun, delicate thing he would treasure. “Aye.” He brought her hand to his lips to kiss. “Far better to be able to part as friends than merely sexual acquaintances.”

“There’s a cold phrase,” she said in her remarkably straightforward way. “But must we really part so quickly?”

“My plans—the Admiralty’s plans for me—cannot wait, I’m afraid. And since there are many things that we cannot choose”—he used her wording purposefully—“I can choose to try to protect you as I am able. And that means, getting you home where you belong.”

“Yes,” she finally agreed with him. “I knew this moment would come, but I still do not like it.” Flora sat up and reached for her chemise to draw over her head.

He watched her lazily, still reclining on the bed, begrudging the need for her to screen her body from his ardent gaze. “Do you need help with your stays? Your stockings. Anything?”

“Oh, certainly, if you would like to play maidservant. And I may play your valet.”

“I fear if that were to happen, we would be here a great deal longer, and your presence might be noted.”

“Yes, do good by stealth, the Bible says.” She tossed him a delightfully playful wink, and he was struck again—a bullet right to the quick—by how much he liked her.

He laughed with her, but otherwise stayed where he was upon the bed, wanting to stay forever in this daydream of intimacy between them, this lovely interlude between what came before and what was to come after.

But his indolence could not last. And Flora was already donning her stays.

“Allow me,” he said anew as he stepped behind her to lace her into the garment, dropping a kiss on the sweet curve of her neck when he finished.

She reached up to touch the spot as if she wanted to impress the feeling upon herself. “You make an admirable maid.” She smiled as she teased, clearly trying to keep the mood light as they donned the clothing they had scattered here and there about the room in their haste to get them off.

“I live to serve,” he reminded her in the same vein. “I pray you will think of me whenever you are in need of lacing.”

“My dear Captain,” she said with her hand over her heart. “I fear I will think of you far more often than that.”

He could not help but kiss her and taste the bittersweet tang of salt from the tears she was trying desperately to hide. “Come, no tears.”

“No,” she vowed, swiping them away with her sleeve. “I will be right as rain. I promise.”

“Good lass.” But he himself had to turn away to finish his dressing lest the hot sheen of tears have time to collect behind his own eyes. “I’ll call us a hackney cab,” he said as he shrugged on his greatcoat. “There’s usually one or two idling in King’s Circus.”

“Oh, let us walk, please. I will be veiled and hooded and we can surely elude anyone who might recognize you if we take the way back across Stockbridge and down the path along the Leith Water to Queensferry Road. No one will see us there.”

Once again, he was glad of her keenness of mind. “A sound path,” he agreed, “but it will be fearsome cold at this hour of the night.”

Flora looked to the small clock on his mantle ticking the hour close to four o’clock. “It will be fearsome cold in a cab without the warmth from the exercise of walking.”

He surrendered to her will. “Aye, it will. So let us walk.” He much preferred the privilege of being with her as long as possible. There would be time enough for sleep in the crowded discomfort of the mail coach. “But let me give you an extra pair of wool socks.”

“Such favors.” She looked up at him from under her eyelashes and Jack wished he had diamonds and gold to lay at her feet and not just wool stockings. “I will endeavor not to let it spoil me.”

“Impossible,” he assured her.

Everything about them was impossible. That they had finally found each other had seemed impossible mere days ago. That she would come to him and be his lover should have been impossible. But that she liked him just as much as he liked her was the most impossible thing of all.

It was nothing short of miraculous.

“Come, my love, let us away.”

They took the way she had suggested slowly despite the cold, ambling along arm in arm as if it were a summer’s day and not a bitter night in the depths of winter. As if they had all the time in the world instead of the last few moments they would ever spend together.

They took as long as possible, only reaching the tollbooth where the Queensferry Road gave way to Drumsheugh and then Kirk Brae Head as the first faint fingers of dawn began to light the eastern sky.

But it was there that their luck ran out—a crested town carriage rolled to a stop beside them. “Get in,” Lady Ivers instructed acerbically. “Quickly, now. There’s no time to lose.”

Beside him, Flora’s face turned ashen in the lamplight, but there was no sense in trying to cut and run, so he did as the lady instructed, assisting Flora into the snug carriage before he climbed up behind her and settled in for their keel hauling. “Good morning, my lady.” He tipped his hat politely. “What exquisite timing you have. Dear Miss Conway’s toes were growing cold.”

Lady Ivers smiled but did not waver in her purpose. “Don’t bother trying to charm me, Jack. It’s five-thirty in the morning and I have not had the necessary pleasure of my chocolate.”

“Our condolences, my lady,” Flora put in kindly. “Why on earth are you out and about this time of morning?”

“Because a report of an alarming nature came to me, that you, Miss Flora Conway, were not come home at the appointed hour.”

Color rose in his beloved’s pale cheeks. “Raines ought to know better than to peach me out,” Flora muttered.

“My dear girl, who did you think had trained the woman up and sent her your way when your father brought you north to Edinburgh?”

Flora looked non-plussed for only a moment. “Oh. That would have been you, my lady. Naturally.”

“Indeed. And she remains as loyal to me as she is steadfast to you. So here we are.” Lady Ivers looked at both of them evenly. “Although I know it to be impossible, because I expressly forbade it, I suppose I must wish you happy.”

“We are very happy, my lady,” Flora averred before Jack could affirm the same sentiment on his own. “But we will not marry,” she continued calmly. “I have chosen not to lay that burden amongst the many others at my dear Captain Balfour’s door.”

Jack felt the soft stab of her statement like the sharpest pike. It was nothing but charity that she should phrase her words like that—as if he had made her an offer despite the exigencies of his circumstances.

That he had not done the gentlemanly thing and made that offer, stuck in his throat like bitterest gall.

But Flora was steadfast. “I am sorry we must disappoint you, my lady. But not every story ends with a fairy tale.”

“No,” the older woman agreed on a sigh. “Not everyone has the privilege of sailing off into the sunset, though I had hopes for you two.”

A vain hope, in Jack’s opinion. “No hidden asset or saving family treasure has, or will ever be found, my lady. We are a profligate bunch we Balfours, more successful as rogues and pirates than noblemen.”

“Nonsense,” Lady Ivers very kindly disagreed. “You are the finest of men. It is a blight on this county’s history that your forebears should have made you poor.”

“But poor I am, and poor I will continue to be. And poorer still I will be in a few days’s time, if the Admiralty will take pity on me and allow me to fit out my ship on credit and the promise of my good name.”

“A few days’s time?” Lady Ivers asked. “Have we run out of rope? At Christmas?”

“Aye. Napoleon has not been idle during the season, ma’am,” Jack informed her. “And in consequence neither has the Admiralty. Time is of the essence.”

“I see. Yes, of course,” she agreed. “I had not realized things had gotten to such a juncture so soon. I had hopes that this peace would hold.” She reached out to pat Flora’s hand in solace. “So, I will not try to keep you, but I will do what I can to keep Miss Conway for you.”

“I thank you, my lady.” He kissed her hand and then bowed very politely toward Flora. “Miss Conway.”

“Jack, please. We have no secrets from Lady Ivers,” Flora said before she turned away to check under the curtains. “But unfortunately, time has run out for me, as well—we have reached my house. My home,” she said quietly. “And poor Raines is standing in the cold stable yard in wait. I must take leave of you both. My lady.” She reached for Lady Ivers’s hand. “You have my thanks. And Jack?—”

She turned to him and it was everything he could do not to take her into his arms. Not to kiss her one last time.

But her composure seemed to be hanging from as thin a thread has his. “Dearest Jack. You have my heart and all my good wishes, along with my abiding friendship.” She took up his hand a pressed a kiss to his gloved palm. “Godspeed.”

And then she all but tumbled her way out the door without waiting for the carriage to come to a stop or the step to be put down.

And she was gone.

And he, for the first time in the entirety of his life, felt completely and utterly alone.

Almost. “Well, bollocks.” Augusta Ivers heaved out a sigh. “That didn’t end as I wanted.” She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. “Let me at least conduct you back to King’s Circus Mews to collect your sea trunks.”

“I thank you.” Jack would take all the help he could get. “And perhaps I might trouble you to conduct me from there to the Grassmarket? The mail coach leaves on the dawn, but there are last minute preparations I must attend to. Notes and instructions for the lawyers. A new will to be signed so the estate, such as it is, has a clear path forward in the event of my death. You understand.”

“I do,” Lady Ivers swore solemnly. “My dear admiral did much the same whenever we went to sea. But I wonder…” She cast a speculative glance at him. “I’m for London myself in one day’s time, but my preparations are all made. Why not do me the favor of traveling with me and spare yourself the inconveniences of the public mail coach. I assure you, my equipage will make the distance in better time than the mail. And far more comfortably.”

Why not? What was one last luxury in the face of so much coming privation. Why should he not accept the one small gift fate was being generous enough to hand him. “That would be most agreeable, my lady. I accept.”

“Excellent. I like it when you fall in with my plans for you, Jack. That’s why I like you.”

Jack bowed to her in tribute. “My lady, I live to serve.”

“See that you do that, Jack. See that you do.”