She looked scandalous, sultry and, to his shame, Flint’s body had never wanted a woman more. But he wouldn’t be waylaid by the physical. Beneath the perfect veneer, the wood was rotten. He gripped his pen so firmly as he formed the next letters, it would take a miracle to prevent the crew hearing the sound of it squeaking against the parchment up in the crow’s nest. Sheer pride made him grit his teeth and continue regardless. Let her think he was furious, which he really was now—but at his own uncontrollable and wholly unwanted lust rather than at her.
Arrogant to the last, without waiting for an invitation, she wandered to the comfortable armchair across his cabin and lowered herself into it. For good measure, she crossed one delectable leg over the other and lounged with an elbow propped upon the arm and stared at the top of his head insolently.
Totally relaxed.
Totally galling, when he could feel the intoxicating power of those beautiful eyes all the way down to his toes.
Flint waited another couple of seconds before he carefully laid the quill down and faced her, his face a perfect mask of blandness that took all his years of training to muster. ‘Your friend—The Boss—I need his name.’
‘Straight to the point? No small talk, Monsieur Flint?’ Dropping his honorific was an obvious insult, not that he cared. In his line of work, where he was paid to be a chameleon, he rarely got to use it anyway.
‘You are to stand trial for treason, Lady Jessamine. A crime, as I am sure you are well aware, which carries the death penalty. Your co-operation now might encourage the courts to be lenient with their sentence should you be found guilty.’
She snorted and tossed her head dismissively. ‘There will be no leniency nor a fair trial. Your courts will hang me regardless of what I say or do not say. I have been tried and found guilty already. Non?’
‘Perhaps that is the way they do things in France, but back home...’
‘Spare me your superior English lies. I am not a fool, Monsieur Flint. My confession makes your job much easier, yet it will not help me. You have your supposed witnesses so I am doomed either way. Whether it is by an English hangman or a French assassin, my life is soon to be taken from me.’ Her dark eyes locked with his and held. Beneath the façade of insolence he saw sadness and fear and wished he hadn’t. She was easier to hate when devoid of all human feelings. Knowing she possessed some made it difficult to offer false hope.
‘Confession is good for the soul, or so I am told. You will meet your maker knowing you repented at the end.’
‘My maker knows the truth already, Monsieur Flint. I have nothing to prove to him.’
‘Perhaps you do not understand the gravity of what you have done? Are you aware of the consequences of your actions?’ He didn’t bother pausing for an answer. ‘This year alone, eighteen men have been murdered thanks to you. Granted, many of them had it coming. Seduced by the easy riches that come from smuggling, they were lured to participate in high treason and reaped the rewards. When you dance with the Devil, you inevitably get burned. However, ten of those men were servants of the Crown whose only crime was doing their duty. They were murdered in cold blood.’
‘Not by me. I am merely the messenger!’
Instantly annoyed and determined to control it, Flint stood and braced his arms to loom across the desk. ‘They were simply doing their duty, yet your people reacted as true cowards always do. They killed innocent men to save their own corrupt skins.’ He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. He didn’t need the list. Their names were engraved on his heart for ever, but he appreciated the gravitas of an official document as well as the bolster to his resolve to remain unmoved by her.
‘Allow me to tell you about them. Let’s start with Customs Officer Richard Pruitt. His throat was cut when he boarded one of your ships before Christmas last. He is survived by his wife and three small daughters, none of whom are old enough to remember their brave father.’ Flint refused to look at her to see if his words had hit their mark.
‘Then there was Corporal Henry Edwards and young Jack Bright of the Essex militia, who likely stumbled across a boat unloading while doing their routine night patrol of the sea wall at Canvey Island. I say likely as we’ll never know what happened, except to say with some certainty that your smugglers garrotted both and tossed their bodies over the wall into the estuary. Edwards washed up on the beach in Southend a few days later. Bright’s rotting corpse served as fish food for three weeks before he floated up the Thames to be found bobbing in Tilbury dock. One had a fiancée, the other an aged mother who relied on his income.’ A quick glance showed that her face had blanched, but she still met his gaze dead on. ‘Shall I continue?’
She shrugged and turned her head away from his gaze. ‘You will do as you please. No doubt.’
‘You have blood on your hands, Lady Jessamine.’
Her mouth opened as if to speak, then clamped shut, her eyes now fixated on a spot on the floor. Temper had him reeling off three more names just as coldly. Each was met with stoic silence. Her body was as still as a statue and her composure just as hard. ‘Are you proud of yourself, Lady Jessamine? Do you feel no shame for what you have done? No compassion for the lives you have destroyed? The widows and innocent children left bereft and impoverished by your greed and avarice?’
Her head whipped around and those untrustworthy eyes were swimming with unshed tears. ‘You know nothing about me, Monsieur Flint! Nothing! And I shall tell you nothing. You can name every dead man. Every member of his family. Blame me for every travesty. And I shall reward you with my silence. My secrets are mine to take to the grave! A grave I am fully aware I might lie in soon.’
One fat tear trickled over her ridiculously long and dark lower lashes and dripped down her cheek. Flint had seen enough female tears to be unaffected, but the matter-of-fact way she swiped it away and proudly set her shoulders got to him.
His words had hurt her. Deeply. He knew it with the same certainty that he knew his own mind. Lady Jessamine had a conscience. Something he didn’t want to know. ‘Tell me his name.’
Her eyes lifted to his. They were miserable. ‘I don’t know it. I am just the messenger.’ And, God help him, against Lord Fennimore’s voice screaming in his head, Flint believed her.
‘You’re lying.’ Of course she was—Flint had now changed his opinion. Behind the beautiful, deceitful face, she had a soul as black as pitch and blood on her hands.
Her eyes drifted back to the riveting spot on the floor and her slim shoulders slumped for the first time since he had seen her. ‘Have it your way. You will regardless.’
Alone, in the relative privacy of her cell, Jess fought the tears. Hearing those names, imagining every man and picturing his family, literally broke her heart. Ah, quelle horreur! She had always known the smugglers were ruthless, known deep down that there were others suffering worse than she was, but personalising it made those dark, shadowy, distant thoughts starkly real. She hated Lord Flint for holding the mirror up to her face and forcing her to acknowledge the gravity of it all. For the last year she had loathed herself. Hated what she was forced to do and hated that she continued to bend to Saint-Aubin’s will because she was weak. For the whole time she had plotted