New WIP Fic Love Will Lead You Home Part 2
Title: Love Will Lead You Home
Author: Glenda
Summary: Gwen Cooper doesn’t want to marry Captain Jack Harkness so she sends her cousin Ianto in her place. The only problem Ianto didn’t agree to help, and Jack is expecting a woman. What happens when things do go as planned? An AU that has a bit from everywhere most of it is my own creation but any characters you recognize belong to RTD, and BBC. I am making no profit from this.
Warnings: Swearing, schmoop, man love, big AU, cross dressing,
Chapter 2
Captain Jack Harkness also known as Prince Jack sat on his throne listening to his advisors drone on and on about how he should force the residents off of his land and put sheep on them. It was an ongoing issues; he refused to remove any of his people off the land King William had given him. They had worked the land for many generations. He had wanted to simply give it to them but that had given almost everyone in the castle a fit.
“Ja- My apologies Prince Jack, I must speak to you now,” Toshiko Sato said, hurrying into the main receiving room carrying a piece of paper.
“Gentlemen, please leave us,” Jack ordered. He gave a huge sigh of relief to be free of them. If he had known saving Prince Owen would have meant all this bother, he might have just let the Cybrus hoard have had him. He dropped his red robe on the golden chair. He was glad to be free of its trappings. It left him hot and sweaty in ways battle never could.
He wished his parents were back from their trip. He missed his father’s words wisdom. He can’t believe they were on a second honeymoon. Who went on a second honeymoon?
Of course, he wasn’t looking to his first one but he owed it to his adoptive parents to be the proper son they deserve. He was sure his mother would love a grandchild to play and spoil and they had gone out of their way to find a good wife in Lady Gwen Cooper.
He just wished he had a bit more of a choice about getting married. Thanks to a surprise added to his grandfather’s will, if he wasn’t married by the time he turned forty he would lose his ability to inherit the family titles and upon his father’s death, a distant cousin, Harold Saxon would become the next Earl of Tardis.
It didn’t matter all that much to him, he was kept plenty busy looking after just Cardiff and all that went with it but Saxon was a boor and a bully.
He would kick the people off the land and not lose a moment of sleep over it. To Jack and the rest of his family the tenants who lived on their land were more like family then employees or in the case of some other landowners, slaves. He would die before he would see the hundreds who lived and worked his family’s land removed to make way for sheep, cows and donkeys.
He watched as the three stooges who kept telling me he should throw off the tenants and raise animals gathered up their papers and left.
Once he and Tosh were alone he gave her a smile just reserved for friends and family. “Thanks, Tosh, they were driving me crazy, going on and on about profits and maximizing investments. Like those people aren’t worth as much as a cow.”
“I didn’t just come in to give you a break; I actually do have information for you. We just receive a cable telling us that your bride to be is on her way and should be arriving any minute.”
Jack got up from his throne. Good God that thing was hard on his backside. He sat down on the edge of the dais, letting his feet hang. He gave his personal assistant a smile. He was so grateful that he had been able to convince Toshiko Sato that not all people who called Britain home were monsters. Next to saving Owen, rescuing Tosh had been one of his greatest personal moments since it gave him the best friend he could ever have. If only he could have fallen in love with her, all of his problems would have disappeared too. But his tastes fell more to the male form.
If he only could have found someone he found suitable he could have married him but most of his past friends were from the rank and file and could barely use a fork let alone know which one was only for the shrimp.
The current crop of young men on the home front were to empty headed to keep his attention for more than a moment and most of them had no idea what to do in the bedroom. It was a shock the lack of education for supposed cultured gentlemen.
“Is Huw Jones that desperate for money? I can’t believe how much he’s asking for. No, demanding for his niece’s hand. I’ve been given lesser ransom demands for generals during battles.”
“Yet you gave in without any fight,” Tosh pointed out, sitting next to Jack.
“I need a spouse and she was the best fit. I figured if she was happy enough away from her guardian she wouldn’t put up too much of a fuss if my hands wandered a little farther afield. My mother and father thought she was the best one suited for me, and unlike most of the current ladies and some of the men in polite society I won’t go screaming into the night having to look her in the face.”
“Jack, you do not have to go through with this marriage,” Tosh said, reaching to take one of Jack’s hands in her little ones. “Wait for a little while; you still have a couple of months. You’ll find someone you can love, in time to honour that bastard’s will.”
“Language.” Jack shook his head. “I don’t think so, my sweet Toshiko. There is no one out there who is going to fit my parents’ idea of marriage material any better than Lady Gwen Cooper. I know intellectually my parents don’t care that I’m more drawn to men but they want a grandchild and there is still only one way for that to happen. Hopefully, once I’ve done my duty and given her a child she will be happy to give him or her all her devotion. And I’ll be able to go back to the front and do my duty there and be with my fellows and know that there will be someone to carry on the family name.”
“I hate to see you miserable.”
“It’s the least I can do for the people who raised me when all they had to do to be good people in the eyes of most was drop me off at a church with a few piece of silver tucked in the bassinette.”
“I’m sure they would both understand. They want you happy, no matter what.”
Jack rose to his feet and gave Tosh a one armed hug. Careful not to look improper, although most of the staff and visitors all thought Toshiko was a kept woman.
“They might, but I don’t think all the people who Saxon would have removed from their homes would. And I certainly wouldn’t. Cardiff is already full of people who have been displaced. Many are talking about leaving and heading over the sea to the colonies, or even going to the continent and fighting for Cybrus. Can’t blame them when they have starving families. No, I will do my part and marry Lady Cooper and close my eyes and do my husbandly duties, Tosh.”
“Jack, I wish you would-” Tosh was interrupted by a knock at the servant’s door.
“Yes?” Jack called out.
A young blond girl stuck her head in the room. Jack thought her name was Ellen. “Sorry to disturb you and Lady Toshiko, your highness but Lady Cooper’s carriage had been spotted at the edge of the city proper. She should be here in a few minutes.”
“Thank you, child. Go tell the others to get the welcome wagon ready.” Jack felt his chest tightening and his stomach threatening to revolt. He knew he was doing the right thing but why did the right thing always mean being miserable.
“Jack?”
“Time’s up, Tosh. My beautiful bride is about to arrive and I should be down there to meet her. How do I look?” He ran his hands over his fine pressed blue linen suit. “Not too wrinkled?”
“No, your Highness, you look fine...wonderful even. She’s very lucky to have you.”
Jack took Tosh’s hand and gave it a kiss. “If only you and I could have... You would have made the perfect princess.”
Tosh’s brown cheeks blushed. “Thank you, sir.”
A cough came from the door. “The cab is coming up the street,” Harvey, one of the footmen came to tell him.
“Tell everyone to take their places. We’ll let the chaperone out first.”
“She appears to be on her own, Sire,” Harvey said.
“Pardon?”
Harvey shifted foot to foot. The staff still seemed to expect Jack to fly off the handle like the previous Prince of Cardiff. From the few stories Jack heard about dear old Prince Hart it was no wonder he was the last of his family. His own short and miserable life being ended by a poisoned dart to the back. No one knew who delivered the blow but no one worked too hard to find out either. King William didn’t even bother to come to the funeral or send a representative.
“There appears to be only Lady Gwen in the cab, your highness. There is no guard other than the driver and no chaperone.”
“That is very odd,” Jack said to Tosh. “I was told that there would be a guard and a cousin acting as chaperone until after the wedding contract was signed and the wedding happened. Why the changes?”
“Perhaps we should ask her, your highness,” Tosh said as the horns sounded announcing Lady Gwen’s arrival.
Jack nodded his approval. He took a deep breath in trying to remember that he had been in worse battles than this.
He threw his shoulders back and had his head held high as he headed out of the main room. He didn’t wait for any of the staff to open the doors or to bow or curtsey. If he stopped he would have ran the other way right back to the front lines.
He rushed passed the guards holding open the door to where two brown horses were standing, behind them a plain black handsome cab. There was one body visible through the small window.
“I was told to send Mr. Jones’ apologies, your highness,” the driver said, doffing his cap.
“Why did you come so early?”
“I just did what I was told, your highness.”
“Of course,” Jack mumbled. He looked back at Tosh, who just nodded at the door of the cab. Taking yet another deep breath he opened the door.
“My lady Gwen, allow me to-” Jack looked up in shock at the muffled yelling he heard. There was a man, a very good looking man; his hands tied and mouth gagged wearing a horrible yellow dress.
“Tosh,” Jack called and his assistant came over as fast as she could in her long shirt.
“Yes, your hig- Who in the world is this? “
The man in question jumped and tried to shout as best as he could, waving his bound hands in front of Jack’s face. Jack had no idea who he was but he was looking forward to finding out a lot more about him.
“Quite right, let’s get you free. I’m sure you have a wonderful story to tell me about why you’re here and not my fiancée.”
As soon as his hands were free the man reached for the gag and began coughing and spitting out bits of lint from the gag.
“F...” cough “Fiancée? You’re Prince Jack?”
“I am and you are?”
“Jones. Ianto Jones, Gwen’s cousin. Where is she?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Jack said, his common sense battling against his hormones for control but he had to keep in mind that no matter how good looking this man was he the last person to have seen Gwen...alive.
“What do you mean?”
“What did you do with her?” Jack demanded.
“Nothing, I did nothing. I went up to help her pack and I was hit over the head. If you don’t believe me feel this. It’s a bloody goose egg,” Ianto said, grabbing onto Jack’s hand. It had been a long time since someone had forgotten about his station and just touched him. He could feel a large bump on the back of Ianto’s head and it was causing another bump to form lower down.
“Someone, get some ice for Mr. Jones,” Jack ordered.
“Thank you, your highness. I apologies for being so forward, it won’t happen again.”
Jack was thinking of all the ways it would happen again when he came upon a brilliant idea. “Oh, I beg to differ Mr. Jones... Ianto, I think it will happen again.” Jack gave Ianto a wolfish grin.
“What do you mean your hhhighness.”
“That I have an agreement with your father that he will provide one of his heirs to be my spouse, and without Gwen here then you become my fiancée by default.”
~~\\~~
TBC