Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

F lora had no choice but to take the hand of the groom who thankfully appeared by her side to lead her back to the carriage. Which she couldn’t see because her eyes were filled with stinging tears.

“Tears?” Augusta Ivers reached out to help Flora out of the infernal, raw wind and into the cocooning shelter of the upholstered coach. “He’s not coming?” She craned her head out the window to search the quay. “Whatever happened?”

“He’s not coming,” Flora confirmed. “Though he does love me. And he will marry me. When he comes back. If he comes back.”

The dam of emotion Flora had kept in check through her sheer unbridled hope began to give way. Heat built in her eyes and pain gripped her throat. “Because I just know, now that I’ve found him and there is nothing standing in our way, he’s surely going to go get himself killed.”

Lady Ivers was having none of it. “You mustn’t think like that. It won’t do!” she counseled even as she gathered Flora to her side. “You must be the braver version of yourself, my dear girl—for your own sake as well as his. You must believe in him. You must.”

“Yes, I will. I do.” Flora gathered her aplomb and steadied her nerve. “I will conquer myself—for my own sake as well as his. You may depend upon that.”

“That’s my girl.” Lady Ivers hugged her to her side.

“Yes,” Flora said again, more to convince herself that her ladyship. “He will prevail. We will prevail. We will be together.” She dried her tears and set her face toward the road. “Let us get on with it.”

Despite her conviction, the journey back to Edinburgh was miserable, made more miserable by the inclement winter weather that doused them in freezing rain and set the countryside in frozen glass. But at least it matched her mood—from euphoria to brittle despair in one short, frenetic week.

Hope seemed impossible.

Flora reluctantly returned to the house on Kirk Brae Head to fret and wait and be miserable at home, where she at least had the comfort—and frustration—of the familiar. Every day she scanned the newspapers for some fresh news. And every day that she found it, she wished she had not.

Bonaparte was up to his old tricks, finding ways around enforcement of the Treaty of Amiens—and several other continental treaties, to boot—prompting the reactivation of the British blockade of the French coast. In response, Bonaparte made plain his renewed preparations for an invasion of Britain. The British Navy, it was being reported, were strengthening their Channel fleet, as well as massing ships at Great Yarmouth on the North Sea and at Malta, preparing to confront the Danes or the Dutch or the Italians, or repel the Russians, or prevent either from joining the much-feared emperor.

In other words, Jack was going directly into harm’s way.

Every day it took hours for Flora to calm each fresh anxiety so she might feel and act herself. Thankfully, Maisie was a frequent visitor, as were Lady Ivers and Lady Cairn. They cheered and chuffed and encouraged her plans for a new house and her kept company and generally tried their best not to leave Flora too much time to brood and worry.

“Flora, dear, won’t you come over to my studio—I’ve a fresh canvas in the works for the Countess of Argyle that I should like your opinion on. You have a wonderful eye for color and style. I’ve put her in a very lovely pale green, but with all the trees in the landscape behind, I am now wondering if she might be shown to better advantage in blue.”

“Yes, certainly, I will come as soon as may be,” Flora answered. Anything to keep her from sitting at home, occupied only by her thoughts. “And I’ll bring Raines—it’s her eyes that have trained mine.”

And speaking of Raines, the bell at the door announced another visitor.

“That will be Archie, come to see me home,” Maisie said. “How about dinner tomorrow evening, just the three of us—you, me, and Archie—after you visit the studio? An intimate little family dinner.”

“That sounds lovely,” Flora answered. “Yes, I’d love to,” she repeated to convince herself as much as Maisie. “Thank you—thank you both,” she said to her sister as well as Lady Ivers. “I know I’ve been a rather pathetic bundle of nerves these past weeks.”

“Not at’ll,” Lady Ivers rejoined, as Maisie said. “No more than you have done for me—for years. I am happy to, at least in some small way, re-pay that debt.” She came forward in her uneven way to hug her sister. “You will get through this. You will conquer this.”

“I hope you are right, but at the moment, I am nothing but regret that I did not do something more.”

“What more were you to have done?” Lady Ivers asked.

“I don’t know,” Flora answered. “Something… more . Something that would have kept him with me.”

“Well,” a deep male voice said. “I’m here with you now.”

His voice was so clear and so familiar, it was as if she had conjured him out of her dreams. So real she had to turn around. And stare at the figure in the doorway.

And there he was.

Tall and dashing, however rough and weathered. Water coursed off his hat into his face, even as he belatedly swept it from his head and stood there, dripping upon the carpet.

If at their very first meeting she had seen something weary in the set of his mouth and something sad in the corners of his dark brown eyes, there was now, despite his sodden appearance, nothing but blazing hope.

Flora opened her mouth to speak or scream or do anything but gape at him as if he were a ghost. “Jack.” His name was the barest whisper. “You came back.”

“Yes. As you see.” His smile stretched up one corner of his mouth. “And as I promised.”

“Yes.” She nodded at him, perhaps a little vehemently. But still, she didn’t move—she was afraid to. Afraid her legs would give out from under her. “How have you come? How long can you stay?”

“Well.” He put one hand to his hip. “I have come in the hope that I might take you up on your very generous offer.”

Relief, and some far more violent emotion, made her giddy. “My offer to love and keep you for all the rest of your days?”

“Yes, that particular offer, exactly.” He nodded but did not come any closer. “But I suppose it’s a bad sign that you haven’t flown across the room and thrown yourself into my arms. Does this mean you’ve found someone else in the short time we’ve been part?—”

“Jack.” This time, the sound that she made of his name was something more akin to a screech, unmannerly and unladylike. But she did not care. Because she had finally convinced her body to follow her mind’s dictates and launched herself across the room like a softer, but no less volatile, cannonball. Because her rogue was home at last. “Jack. Jack. Jack.”

Somehow, he absorbed the force of her blow and weathered the storm of her kisses. “Yes, Flora. Yes.”

“You came home.” She drank in the taste of him, cold and clean. And the smell of him, salt, and rain and still, under all, that hint of starch.

He took her face between his hands. “Yes, Flora, yes.”

She kissed him in answer. “Promise me you’ll never leave.”

“I’ll never leave,” he vowed.

More kisses in reward. “Never again.”

“Never.”

She clung to him, holding on to his warm, solid body. Breathing in his rain-dampened, starchy scent. Feeling the rise and fall of his breath within him.

She dashed away tears. “How did you do it?”

“Defeat the Dutch? Well, tactics, primarily. And following Nelson instead of the Admiral. Much more effective Nelson’s way.”

“I don’t care about Nelson.”

“Well, that is a surprise. He’s the hero of the day,” Lady Ivers, who Flora had frankly forgotten in the face of Jack’s return.

“I don’t care about heroes,” Flora told them both. “I care about you.”

“Well, that is very good to hear,” Jack teased. “Nelson may have gotten the glory, but I have got the girl. I have definitely got the better part of that deal.”

“Are you really home for good?”

“Aye,” he confirmed by raising her hand to his lips for a kiss. “I am really home for good. If you’ll have me.”

Relief was like a balm for her soul, easing and exciting her all at the same time. “I’d have it no other way.”

“Are you sure you’re going to feel that way when I use up all your fortune paying back the earldom’s debts?” he asked.

Oh!” She pushed herself away only enough to take his hands. “As to that, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been reorganizing your finances—at least on paper—and I think I have come up with a structure that will allow us to live more comfortably. I’ve made an offer and renegotiated the loans with the bankers, since I am now one of the principal shareholders of both banks that hold the notes on Kinloch.”

He gaped at her. “You’ve done what?”

“Found my purpose. Better arithmetic,” she tried to assure him. “Re-negotiated interest rates. Ensured that the banks will earn a better rate of return refinancing your debt than they would if they bankrupted you.”

He was clearly stunned. “I thought they already had—bankrupted me.”

“Not entirely. There was room for improvement once I showed them where that room was. I’ve found my purpose, Jack.”

He began to laugh—a strange, coughing sort of nigh-on maniacal laugh.

Flora began to get nervous. “Jack?”

“Do you know,” he began, “When you came to my ship in Plymouth Harbor and said you had come to save me, I thought you were mad. Utterly, completely mad. But now I know that it was I who was mad from the beginning. Mad for you. Utterly, completely, delightfully mad.”

“Does that mean you are going to marry me?”

“If you’ll still have me, yes. As soon as possible. Tomorrow. Today.”

“Tuesday next, on Christmas Eve.” Flora made up her mind. “So I can get cook to do a proper wedding breakfast. With my sister and my friends there.”

“Especially Lady Ivers,” put in that lady, who Flora had frankly forgotten in the bliss of her reunion.

“Especially, our Lady Ivers,” Flora agreed. “I hope you will stand in the place of mother of the bride, if you will?”

“My dear girl.” Lady Ivers came to embrace them both. “I would not have it any other way.”

“And I for one wouldn’t have it any other way, either.”

Jack laughed and kissed Flora’s hand, and almost everything was right with the world. What was wrong was that he said, “Well, now that that has been settled, I suppose I ought to take my leave and see my solicitors about opening up my house and?—”

Flora grasped at his hand. “You’re not leaving? Not so soon? Not just yet.” She began to think up excuses, concerns, reasons for him to stay. “Please. I need your help here. I’ve already made plans for a new house for us. Right in front of yours, in Kings Circus. But it’s not quite ready. With the—” Her reason had fled her. Just as it always did in his presence. “Just please don’t go,” she finished. “I haven’t had near enough time just to look at you.”

He smiled. His eyes crinkled at the corners and his mouth swept up on one side, and Flora didn’t think there was anything else in the world that she had rather see than his dear, smiling face.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he laughed. “I’ve waited months to be able to come to you and I am damn well not letting go of you now.”

“No,” Flora agreed. “You are not. You must be with me always.”

“Aye, aye,” he swore like the sailor he was. “From this moment on. Forgive me, my lady, my sister-to-be.” He sketched a brief bow to Lady Ivers and Maisie before he swept Flora up in his arms. “We have pressing business that needs must be attended to this moment…”

And he proceeded to carry her off toward the stair as if she weighed nothing. As if all the weariness of the road and the efforts of travel were nothing to him. “I promise,” he whispered into her ear as he took the stairs two at a time, “I shall not waste a moment more.”