The Lure of the Moonflower (22 page)

Chaperone . . . father . . . what? Jack stared at her, trying to make the individual words coalesce into meaning.

“Was?” he said.

“
Is
your father,” Jane corrected herself hastily. “He’s very well. Thriving, in fact.”

Thriving. Jack didn’t know what to say. Jane knew his father. His father was thriving. Jack felt as though he were caught in a bad dream.

Without his breeches.

“He misses you terribly.”

And with that, the paralysis that held Jack broke. “My father married your chaperone.”

“My former chaperone,” Jane corrected. Jack wasn’t sure whether that was supposed to make it better. Biting down on her lower lip, she added, “Your sister is my goddaughter.”

That certainly didn’t make it better.

“And that makes us?” Jack bit out.

“Nothing,” said Jane hastily. “Absolutely nothing. The relationship is a sentimental, rather than a legal, one.”

His father could tell the world something about sentimental rather than legal relations. But he’d gone legal this time. He’d married the woman. Jane’s chaperone. Jane’s former chaperone.

Who apparently hadn’t been doing much of a job of chaperonage if she’d been so busy canoodling with Jack’s father that she’d failed to notice that Jane was forming an attachment with a dodgy French spy.

One would think, thought Jack, breathing in the smell of hellfire and brimstone, that Jane might have found, oh, five minutes over the past three weeks to share this small piece of information. That she might, during those many nights they had shared a tent, have somehow managed to mention that she knew his family a damned sight better than he did.

What had he told her? Jack couldn’t remember. All those times he had mentioned his father, and she had sat there and let him go on. No wonder she knew his bloody dossier so well. She’d had it from the source. Plenty of people knew his father—the man did get around—but it wasn’t as though Jane and his father had just nodded to each other at a regimental ball.

She was his sister’s bloody godmother, for heaven’s sake.

Jack tasted bitter gall and wormwood. Or maybe it was just mulled wine meeting sulfur. He didn’t really care.

“Why in the
devil
didn’t you tell me this before?” The words exploded out of him.

Jane sat very still, self-containment around her naked shoulders like a cloak. “Did it matter?”

Ask a stupid question . . . Jack gave her a withering look. “What else don’t I know?”

“Your sister Kat is married,” Jane said rapidly. “To a man named Fluellen—Tommy Fluellen. They live in Wales.” When Jack didn’t smile, she kept going. “Your new sister’s name is Plumeria. Plumeria Jane Amarantha. She’s nearly two years old. And very clever.”

The pride in Jane’s voice as she spoke of Plumeria grated on Jack like salt on raw wounds. He’d known he had a new sister, but he hadn’t even known her name. All right, he hadn’t wanted to know. It hurt less if he didn’t know.

But Jane—Jane didn’t just know the bare fact of her existence. Plumeria was a person to her. She knew her. Knew her and loved her and was proud of her.

Who in the hell named a child Plumeria? It was worse than Iain.

“What about Lizzy?” Jack ground out. “I assume you know Lizzy?”

“Yes, I know Lizzy.” Lizzy. Not “your sister Lizzy.” Not Elizabeth. Just Lizzy, with an easy familiarity that told Jack more than any number of words. “Lizzy is well. In fact, she’s more than well. She’s the toast of the town. She’s rejected offers from three viscounts and the heir to a marquisate.”

She’d let him go on, telling her about his grand plans to rescue his little sister, when all the while . . . “You’re joking.”

Jane didn’t know when to quit. Her lips curved with private amusement. “I’m afraid I’m not. She’s really quite incorrigible.”

The last time Jack had seen his sister, she’d been six years old.

“With a dowry such as she has, I’m not surprised,” said Jack, his anger seeking any target it could find.

“It’s not her dowry.” A wrinkle zigzagged between Jane’s brows as she looked at him, silently reproving. Reproving. Him. “Lizzy’s conquests are of her own making. Or do you rate your sister so low?”

Jack could feel his temper rising like the steam off the water. “I rated her high enough to steal for her, as you may recall.”

“You might have spared yourself the trouble.” Jane lifted her chin, back in full princess mode. At the moment, Jack hated her and the world. “No one knows about the jewels. Your father set them aside. For you.”

“He had no right.”

“To what? To look out for your interests?”

“To disregard my wishes!”

“You weren’t there to express them.”

No, but Jane had been there. Jane, and his sisters, and this woman he’d never even met, his new stepmother.

Jack folded his arms across his chest, saying tightly, “My invitation to the wedding must have been lost in the post.” A muscle throbbed in his jaw. “If they’d let me know I’d have sent a gift. A few rubies, perhaps.”

Rubies that he might, apparently, have saved himself the trouble of stealing. Everything he’d done had been for nothing. Lizzy hadn’t needed him, didn’t need him. They none of them needed him.

Why would they? They had Jane.

Jane pressed her eyes shut, taking a long, deep breath. “Don’t,” she said quietly. “You’re only making yourself unhappy.”

Jack brushed her hand aside. “
I’m
making myself unhappy? I’m not the one who’s been hiding the fact that she’s a member of my bloody family!”

The profanity was deliberate. Jane’s back stiffened. “When was I meant to tell you? While we were fleeing from the French camp? While we were inspecting the hall of the novices?”

“What about when you were sharing the details of your affair with the Gardener?” It was a low blow, but Jack was beyond caring. “You found the time to kiss me. You couldn’t have taken two minutes to say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m your sister’s bloody godmother’?”

Jane’s face was very white in the torchlight. “This,” said Jane distinctly. “This is why I didn’t tell you. Because I knew your reaction would be . . . strong.”

What she really meant was “irrational.” He wasn’t irrational. He wasn’t his bloody mother.

“No,” said Jack, breathing heavily through his nose. “That’s not why you didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me because knowledge is power. And you like having that kind of power.”

“That’s—” She broke off, biting her lip.

“Absurd?” Jack turned his shoulder, deliberately shutting her out. His voice rich with scorn, he said, “Don’t lie to yourself. The Pink Carnation always has to know more than everyone else, don’t you, princess?”

“And you always have to be more disaffected!”

The frustration in Jane’s voice made Jack turn. If she could have spewed fire, it would have been coming out of her nostrils. She hit the water with a flat palm, the sharp report making Jack jump. “Won’t you get through your thick skull that there are people who love you? Who miss you?”

She rose to her feet, entirely unconcerned with her own nudity, too angry to care. Her hands curled into fists at her sides.

“Haven’t you spent long enough feeling sorry for yourself, Jack? You have a family who want you.” She pushed her hair back with both hands, taking a deep, shuddering breath. With difficulty, she said, “You have someone to go back to.”

She turned away, but not before Jack saw her face twist out of kilter, like the exaggerated lines of a commedia dell’arte mask, comedy melting into tragedy. She stalked towards the stairs, but not quickly enough to hide the fact that Jane, his unflappable Jane, was doing her damnedest not to cry.

“Happy Christmas,” she flung back over her shoulder.

“Oh, hell.” She always had to have the last word. Ignoring the fact that he wasn’t wearing breeches—or anything else, for that matter—he strode after her, catching her by the shoulder. “Jane.”

She wouldn’t look at him. She simply shook her head, not turning.

“Jane.” He gave her a little shake. “I didn’t mean— Oh,
hell
.”

In a strangled voice, Jane said, “It’s the sulfur.”

“It’s not the sulfur.”

Jack felt like a heel. Worse than a heel. He was the lowest of the low, the slimiest form of slime to crawl the underbelly of the earth.

Her eyes were pressed shut as though, through sheer strength of will, she might stop the tears from falling. But they leaked out all the same, slow, painful tears that cut Jack deeper than any number of heaving sobs.

Jack brushed ineffectually at the tears with his thumb. “Do you want a family?” he said hoarsely. “You can have mine. They’d probably prefer you to me.”

Jane’s swollen lids fluttered open. “Stop belittling yourself.” She looked up at Jack, looking so hopeless that it tore at his heart. “They love you. It’s you they want, not me.”

“I want you.” Jack hadn’t meant to say it. It just came out. But once it was out there, he didn’t know how to take it back, particularly since his body appeared to have recalled that they were both wet and naked and standing all too close for comfort. “What I mean is— Oh, hell.”

Jane took a long, shuddering breath that made her chest do things that reduced Jack’s mental capacity by a considerable degree. “You don’t need to try to make me feel better.”

“I don’t need to— What?” The air was cold. The water had been warm. There was a pair of very pointy nipples in very close proximity to Jack’s chest.

His name was Jack, wasn’t it? He couldn’t quite recall.

With difficulty, Jane said, “You don’t need to pretend to be attracted to me.” While Jack was still trying to make that make sense, she took a step back, towards the stairs. “I would rather be alone than pitied.”

There were a great many words that didn’t seem to mean what Jane thought they meant. “You think I’m
pretending
to be attracted to you?”

Jack would have laughed if he hadn’t had a very uncomfortably large pretense making itself felt just below the waterline.

“It’s not that it isn’t kind of you. . . .”

“Kind?” Jack didn’t know where to begin. “I’ve spent the past few weeks doing my damnedest to keep my hands off you. And if you think it’s been easy, then you’re deluding yourself. Even when I didn’t like you, I wanted you. You’re very wantable.”

“Wantable?” A flicker of amusement lightened Jane’s face. “Is that a word?”

“Desirable, then.” No, that wasn’t fair. “More than desirable. You’re . . .” He was in too deep to dig himself out, so why not be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb? Jack tried to shove his hands in his pockets before he realized he wasn’t wearing anything. “You’re wonderful. You don’t need me to tell you you’re beautiful. You can see that when you look in your mirror.”

Jane looked ruefully down at her cracked fingernails. “Not so much right now.”

“Especially right now,” said Jack firmly. “And you don’t need me to tell you you’re brilliant. All of the agents you’ve outwitted can attest to that. But you’re also”—a smudge on a cheek, a tentative glance, a wry smile, high-handed, fair-minded, maddening, intriguing—“you.”

Which, roughly translated, meant a million times too good for him. And now, on top of it, she was his sister’s godmother.

Jack waved his arms helplessly in the air. “Why in the hell do you think I slept on top of the covers last night?”

Jane took a tentative step forward. “But when I kissed you—”

“I wasn’t going to take advantage!” Since that might have come out just a bit too forcefully, Jack modulated his tone. “I know I haven’t always led the most honorable life, but that doesn’t make me a complete cad.”

“No.” There was something in Jane’s face as she looked at him that made the breath drop in Jack’s chest. “It doesn’t.”

“We have to work together,” said Jack rapidly. “How could I make any kind of advance, knowing you might be in a position where you might not be able to say no? It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Jane took another step forward, the torchlight glimmering off her wet body. “Your scruples do you credit.”

“Do they?” Jack said hoarsely, trying to remember what they were. “I should go. Now.”

“No.” Jane slid her hands up his chest, to his shoulders. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her chest pressing against his. “No, you shouldn’t.”

I
ntellectually, Jane knew Jack was right. This was folly. They were so close to the end of the mission, to finding the Queen, to bringing her home.

But for once in her life, Jane didn’t want to be led by her head. She wanted this moment, this one little moment here in the darkened bath, with the steam rising up around them, veiling them from the world, for no other reason than that she wanted it. Than that she wanted him.

So she slid her hands up his chest to his shoulders, and felt his muscles tense beneath her touch, his breath catch in his throat. His hands came around her waist, pulling her close with a jerk that should have knocked the air out of her had she been concentrating on such a mundane and wasteful thing as breathing.

Breathing, at the moment, seemed highly irrelevant.

One hand twining in her wet hair, Jack lowered his lips to hers—and stopped.

“This isn’t a thank-you for the bath, is it?” he asked darkly, his lips hovering centimeters from hers.

“If,” said Jane shakily, “I had wanted to thank you for the bath, I would have embroidered you a pair of slippers. With carnations.”

Jack’s face broke into a rogue’s grin. “In that case . . .”

The world spun dizzily as Jack swept her up in his arms, rather an impressive feat given that they were nearly the same height. But then, she had just had a firsthand view of those shoulder muscles. Fieldwork, thought Jane vaguely, did keep one fit.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, clasping her arms around Jack’s neck to keep from falling. The water lapped around Jack’s legs and her dangling feet.

“Not saying ‘you’re welcome,’” he said, and carried her up out of the bath.

•   •   •

Afterwards, a very long time afterwards, they lay together in the warm dark, on a makeshift pallet constructed of their cloaks, both tired, neither ready to sleep.

To sleep would be to invite morning. This intimacy between them was too fragile, too new, too bound to this particular place and time. Silently, Jane willed the planets to realign themselves, the sun and moon to stop their circling, to leave them just a little more time together like this, suspended between dusk and dawn.

Jane ran her finger along a line of puckered skin just below Jack’s collarbone. “Where did this come from?”

“Malpura.” Jack stared up at the ceiling, tracing lazy circles on Jane’s bare back with one hand. “It was my first time on the field. We ought to have had the advantage of surprise, but our cavalry jumped the gun and tipped them off. The left wing, where I was, was crushed. The Rajput cavalry sliced right through us. We lost hundreds of men in a matter of minutes.”

“But not you.” Jane tried to imagine what that had been like, standing there on a battlefield, watching a trained band of warriors streaming down at you, the men around you writhing, dying, doing everything you could to keep yourself alive in the melee.

For some men, this was what they craved; it was what they had trained for, what they had wanted.

But not Jack, who had wanted to be a philosopher king.

Jack’s lips twisted. “It was luck, not skill. I had no idea what I was doing. I scarcely knew one end of my musket from the other. That they were putting men like me in the field gives you a fair idea of why it was such a rout. After that,” he added, looking up at Jane, “I decided it wasn’t enough to be lucky. I drilled with that damned musket until I could fire it in my sleep.”

“What about fencing?” Jane inquired, with professional interest. Well, maybe not entirely professional. The muscles in his arms hadn’t been acquired merely by hoisting a musket.

“Saber,” Jack corrected. “Although I can wield an épée if necessary.”

Jane rested her head against that thin line where the Rajput sword had missed its mark. “We can have a bout someday.”

She could feel Jack’s lips against her hair. “Why does it not surprise me that you know your way around an épée?”

“Like you,” said Jane, her fingers exploring the area around his ribs, “I decided it wasn’t enough to be lucky. I prefer to rely on my wits when possible, but there are times when a length of steel is far more effective.”

“You would win,” said Jack bluntly. “I learned to hack, not to duel like a gentleman.”

“I have never been entirely sure there is anything gentlemanly about duels,” said Jane, smothering a yawn. “It’s merely a temper tantrum by more civilized means.” There was another ridge of hardened skin beneath her fingers. “What was this one?”

Jack lifted his chin slightly to look down. “That? Oh. Ujjain. Another defeat.” He smothered a yawn of his own. “I’m not giving you a very good idea of my fighting prowess, am I? I ought to be bragging of the battles I’ve won and the number of enemy strongholds I’ve taken.”

Jane propped herself up on one elbow. “You’re alive. Isn’t that prowess enough?” A glint in Jack’s eye made her cheeks color. “On the battlefield, I mean.”

“Mmm,” said Jack, but he let it go. Lifting a strand of her hair that had fallen across his chest, he twisted it around his finger. “Have you seen battle?”

“No.” It felt odd to be admitting it. She had thought she had lived an adventurous life, but in this, she was so much less versed than he, so much more sheltered. “This is the closest I’ve come. My work is generally conducted well behind the scenes, where the decisions are made.”

“Or,” Jack said dryly, “where rulers like to believe the decisions are made. There’s always a difficulty in translation. Look at Junot’s march. It made sense to Bonaparte on a map. It was a disaster in practice. A better general would have redirected his men.”

“A better general wouldn’t have lasted so long in Bonaparte’s service.” Jane had spent three years as a member of the consular retinue. She had seen firsthand Bonaparte’s temper tantrums when his subordinates disputed his judgment. “Bonaparte admires talent, but he admires loyalty even more. He doesn’t take well to being disobeyed.”

“That’s going to trip him up sooner or later,” said Jack, with professional detachment. “One man’s experience goes only so far. A good leader knows enough to know that he can’t be an expert at everything.”

“Very wise,” said Jane softly.

“I try,” said Jack, and Jane wondered whether he was thinking, like she, that it was a pity that he would never have a chance to try, to put those theories into practice.

Resting her head against his chest, Jane tried to imagine a different Jack, a Jack whose life had followed the path he had expected, a Jack who rose through the East India Company’s service, who might, even now, be administering a small district. Mentally she erased the weather-browned skin, the scars, the battered brown jacket and breeches, the shapeless hat with its drooping brim. In their place she clothed her make-believe Jack in a crisp cravat and somber hat. That Jack’s hands were pale and soft and stained with ink; there was a pursed look to his lips.

Jane wasn’t entirely sure she would have liked that Jack. There was something rather smug and prissy about him.

Rather as she had been before the jewels of Berar had worked their curse and sent her world crashing down around her.

She had never really thought of it that way before. Had she been that smug? That sure of herself? Unwillingly, Jane remembered a few choice words from Miss Gwen, delivered in a darkened drawing room.

A line from Shakespeare drifted through her head. “Sweet are the uses of adversity. . . .” She wouldn’t call adversity sweet, per se—there had been a great deal of bitterness in that particular cup—but it had brought her and Jack to where they were, here, together, all their scars laid bare.

If the course of their lives had run smooth, they wouldn’t be here. She would be in Paris still, in the Hotel de Balcourt, clad in the latest fashion, cameos at her throat and wrists, fluttering her lashes behind her fan at yet another tedious general, playing a game that had long since begun to lose its challenge.

The jewels of Berar would be . . . well, goodness only knew where. If Jack hadn’t stolen them from the ruins of Gawilghur, someone else would.

And Jack would be somewhere in India, wearing crisp white linen and a well-brushed hat.

Drifting in and out of sleep, Jane dreamed that she was back in her bed in the Hotel de Balcourt. Her hair was washed and braided, the linens of the bed pressed and spotless. And she reached out in sudden panic, because Jack was gone and she was alone and everything had been nothing but a dream.

Until she felt his arms close around her, pull her back against his front, one heavy leg settling over her hip. And Jane drifted to sleep, feeling strangely comforted that she wasn’t at the Hotel de Balcourt after all.

When she woke again, it was to Jack leaning over her, his lips touching her temple as he smoothed the tangled hair away from her face.

“I hate to wake you,” he said, his breath warm against her ear, “but we only have the room until dawn. We’re not meant to be here. Officially.”

Jane scrubbed the backs of her hands against her eyes. “Which means we have to leave—unofficially?”

Jack sat back on his heels. “Something like that.”

He was dressed already, back in the old brown breeches and jacket. The torch had burned out, but a faint light trickled through the opening in the ceiling. Jane was suddenly very aware of her own nudity. She appeared to have far too many limbs, all of them bare. Hastily, she scrambled to a sitting position, yanking one of the cloaks up to her chest.

“You’ve fed the donkey?”

“And acquired food for us.” He handed Jane a slightly stale biscuit. “The remains of our host’s Christmas feast.”

“You seem to have thought of everything.” Jane tried to hold the cloak in place and wiggle into her breeches at the same time, a maneuver that Jack watched with some interest.

“I could just go away if you like,” he said.

“You needn’t bother.” Dropping the cloak, Jane yanked the shirt over her head, feeling like an idiot. “It’s nothing you haven’t already seen.”

Her usually well-behaved hair was a mass of snarls. Jane tried to draw her fingers through it in lieu of a comb and stopped short, grimacing.

“Here. Let me.” Jack came up behind her, gently separating the worst of the tangles. Quietly, he said, “If I had intended seduction, I would have brought you someplace with a proper bed. Not to mention better-smelling.”

Jane had had a seduction with a proper bed and sweet-smelling perfumes. Of the two, she would take rotten eggs and a hard plank floor any day. That wasn’t what was making her cranky.

Wincing as Jack tugged at a knot, she said reluctantly, “You needn’t protest so much. I know your intentions were honorable.” That hadn’t come out as she’d intended. “Or, rather, not dishonorable.”

She bit her lip against the urge to elaborate. Assuring him that she didn’t expect a proposal would only make matters worse, by implying the contrary. They both knew that this was what it was.

“Thank you,” said Jane smartly, and snatched the long rope of her hair away from Jack. “Have you seen my hat?”

The day dawned, miraculously, bright and clear. Jane would have preferred rain. It was easier to skulk beneath one’s hat brim in the rain. It didn’t help that she kept catching Jack watching her, a little furrow between his brows, as he loaded the bags on the donkey.

“Ready?” he said, and held out a hand to help Jane mount.

Looking at him in the pale morning sunlight, Jane saw for the first time the dark circles beneath his eyes. They were both running low on sleep, but it was Jack who had borne the brunt of their trek, walking for miles while she had swayed along on donkey-back.

Not that he had shown any signs of fatigue last night.

Jane stepped hastily back, waving Jack in the general direction of the donkey. “My heel is feeling much better. If you would like to doze for a bit, I can lead Hippolyte.”

Jack let his hand drop. “Hippolyte? Not Hyacinth or Hydrangea?”

Jane tried to smile, but it came out crooked. “I would say we’ve moved well past flowers, wouldn’t you?”

The sunlight picked out the strands of copper in Jack’s dark hair. “Is Hippolytus much of an improvement?” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “As I recall, he came to a bad end.”

Jane took a deep breath, forcing herself to look Jack in the eye. “He was accused of a crime he didn’t commit. His own father condemned him.”

She wasn’t talking about Hippolytus anymore and they both knew it.

“Jane.” Jack rested both hands on her shoulders. Jane had to stiffen herself against the urge to lean into that touch, to bury her head against his shoulder and wrap her arms around his waist. Even if he did smell like rotten eggs. But then, so did she. “I committed my crimes. I took those jewels. I passed information to both sides.”

“Are you trying to scare me away?”

Jack let out his breath. “I’m trying to be honest.”

Jane pressed her eyes shut. Honesty: another word for “this wasn’t meant to be.”

Turning away towards the gate, she said in a distant voice, “How much farther to Peniche? We’ll make better time now that the weather is clear.”

“Jane.” Jack’s hand reached the gate before she could, holding it closed. “Wait.”

There was barely room to turn. Jane was caught between Jack and the gate, his proximity awakening a distracting mélange of memories from the night before.

“Yes?”

Jack said something sharp and emphatic in Portuguese that Jane had a feeling she was better off not having translated.

He fell back a step, a muscle working in his cheek. “If circumstances were different—if I were different—I would be the first man under your window with a lute.”

If she were a different sort of woman, she would have stamped her foot.

Not being the foot-stamping sort, Jane merely set her teeth and said tightly, “You don’t understand at all, do you? I’ve had men under my windows with lutes. I don’t want a lute. I don’t want sonnets. I don’t want bows or flowery compliments. None of those mean anything. I want . . . I want someone who notices that my blisters need binding.”

Jack perked up. “Are your blisters bothering you again?”