The Lure of the Moonflower (28 page)

Jack kept one eye on the Gardener, who was watching them all with detached amusement. “Are you sure it’s the Queen in there? He might have the bottom of the boat packed full of grenadiers.”

Jane gave him a quelling look. “The only thing in the bottom of that boat is fish. I checked.”

“Pity.” Miss Gwen gave a little smirk. “I was hoping for men in loincloths.”

Jane eyed her former chaperone askance. “They’re French, not Greek. And it’s December.”

And Jack still didn’t like it. He circled Jane, pacing closer to the Gardener. There was a trick; there had to be a trick. “He might be sending his men after us.”

The Gardener raised his brows, enjoying himself just a little too much. “You could shoot me before they get here.”

“Excellent suggestion,” said Jack, and cocked his pistol.

J
ane applied pressure to Jack’s arm. He grimaced and dropped his pistol.

“Stop,” Jane said, trying to stare down two bristling men at the same time. “Both of you.”

“Why?” demanded Miss Gwen, retrieving the fallen weapon. “It was just getting entertaining.”

“You,” said Jane, “were not meant to be here.”

Even as she said it, she realized it was a pointless objection. Miss Gwen would be where Miss Gwen wanted to be, whether one had invited her or not. And that wasn’t the main concern. It belatedly occurred to Jane that she had done exactly what she had promised Jack she wouldn’t: she had changed the plan without telling him. Again.

Circumstances had demanded. But that seemed a somewhat weaker argument here, with Nicolas inflaming Jack’s temper just by being himself and Miss Gwen happily fanning the flames for her own amusement.

Silencing her former chaperone with a look, Jane turned to Jack, who was rubbing his wounded biceps. “It’s all right,” she said quickly. “Nicolas is working with us now. For the moment.”

The twilight played tricks with Jane’s eyes, blurring Jack’s features, but she could see his throat work, feel the tension in his shoulders as he said tersely, “Do you trust him?”

Jane pictured Desgoules, sprawled on the floor. “I trust him to look out for his own interests.”

“In that interest,” said Nicolas, in an amused voice behind her, “might we go inside? I am rather fond of this hat. I have no desire to make a sacrifice of it to Poseidon.”

He offered an arm to Jane, but dropped it as Miss Gwen prodded him in the back with Jack’s pistol, making him stagger. “All right. But don’t try anything funny.”

Nicolas glanced back at Miss Gwen. “Is that really quite necessary?”

“Yes,” snapped Miss Gwen, and prodded him again.

Nicolas rolled his eyes at Jane, inviting her to share in the ridiculousness of it. There had, it was true, been a time when she might have smiled back. Right now Jane wished him to perdition.

“We accomplished our mission.” Jane took Jack’s arm as they followed Miss Gwen and Nicolas to the door in the wall, walking half bent over against the force of the wind. “We have the Queen. Surely that is cause for satisfaction.”

“Satisfaction, is it?” Jane could feel the muscles of Jack’s arm tense, hard as iron beneath her fingers. “You smell like a French brothel.”

Was that really to the point? “At least I don’t smell like donkey.”

Jack glowered at Nicolas’s back. “Why is he here?”

She had already explained this. Twice. “Because,” said Jane, as Jack stood aside so she could precede him through the door, “it was easier to move Queen Maria with his connivance than without it.”

She would have liked to tell Jack the whole story—Desgoules, the crosses and double crosses—but Jack’s expression was hard as the rock of the fort. “And what was the price of that connivance?”

It took Jane a moment for the meaning of those words to sink in. It was like a stiletto blow; one didn’t realize one had been stabbed until after the blade was already in place.

Jane struggled with a feeling of betrayal. Sharply, she said, “Not what you’re implying.”

The wind slammed the door sharply shut behind them.

Jack thrust his fingers into his hair. He had, Jane realized, lost his hat, probably on that windy platform above the sea. “I was worried about you.” The words came out half apology, half accusation. “And I don’t trust him.”

“Few do.” There was no reason for her to feel this bewildered or hurt. But she did. Jane tried to keep her voice level. “But you might have trusted me.”

“I did. I do.” The correction was just a moment too late. The words came up out of the pit of Jack’s chest, ragged and raw. “I hate the thought of you together—working together.”

She couldn’t change her past any more than he could. “It was for the best. Should I have risked your life and Richard’s to spare your feelings?”

It was the wrong thing to say; Jane knew it the moment the words were out of her mouth. Jack jerked back as though he had been slapped. “Oh, certainly, don’t let my tender emotions get in the way of your mission.”

He reached to tug down a hat that wasn’t there and clutched at empty air.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I—” Jane stopped, flustered, all too aware that both Miss Gwen and her former lover were watching them with considerable interest. “Shouldn’t someone be seeing to the comfort of Her Majesty?”

Jack took a step back, away from her. “I’ll go. I don’t seem to be needed here.”

But you are
, Jane wanted to say, but Nicolas spoke first. “Yes, do, Moonflower. Jeanne—”

He was interrupted by a new voice, a voice that rang off the stones of the guardroom to the fort as only a trained lyric soprano could.

“
You
,” said Henrietta, regarding the Gardener with the sort of venom usually reserved for people who ignore the queue at lending libraries. “What are you doing here?”

The Gardener doffed his hat. “Lady Henrietta. How lovely to see you again.”

Jane couldn’t echo the sentiment. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Henrietta; Henrietta was like a sister to her, or at least the closer kind of cousin. But she wasn’t exactly the person Jane would have chosen for a sensitive mission to a French-occupied country.

And where Henrietta was . . .

“Hullo! Did I hear voices?” Miles careened into his wife’s back.

Catching sight of the Gardener and his wife’s Medusa stare, Miles prudently backed up a step.

“Does anyone have any port on hand?” Miles inquired of no one in particular. “And perhaps a biscuit.”

Lady Henrietta plunked her hands on her hips. “You’re going to feed him?”

“No,” said Miles, hiding behind his floppy hair. “For me. I feel in need of fortification.”

He wasn’t the only one in need of fortification. Jane’s simple plan was turning into a French farce.

In an undertone, she said, “What are Miles and Henrietta doing here?”

Jack’s face was as closed as the pages of an uncut book. “Don’t ask me. They are your people.”

“Don’t worry,” called out a voice from the balcony. “I have him in my sights.”

Lizzy gave a cheerful wave, making the crossbow wobble drunkenly.

“Not all my people,” said Jane.

“Ah, yes,” said Jack. “That. Did you ever think to mention that you were assigned to retrieve me? Trussed, not bound.”

Colonel Reid ventured out beneath the balcony. “Lizzy, my love, why don’t you put that down and join us?”

Jane turned resolutely away from Lizzy and her crossbow. “I never—” Jack gave her a hard look. Jane reconsidered her answer. “Well, yes, I was meant to ask you to visit your father, but certainly not against your will.”

“No,” said Jack, his eyes opaque as centuries-old amber. “You had only to persuade me.”

The memory of the hot spring wavered between them, the smell of sulfur, the mist in the air.

“Not like that. Never like that.” Jane gathered the remaining shreds of her dignity. “I never wanted— Miss Gwen asked me to convey the request. I was of two minds. I didn’t know you. And when I did know you . . .”

Jack folded his arms across his chest. “What?”

“It wasn’t my choice to make.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, all the noise and commotion around them fading to nothing. A muscle pulsed in Jack’s cheek.

Jack gave a short, sharp nod. “Thank you.”

Jane felt as though she had been through a wringer. Limp with relief, she said, “I had thought we would have more time—time to tell you myself, before—”

“Jane? Jane!”

“What?” Both Jack and Jane turned at the same time.

“If you don’t mind my interrupting your no doubt fascinating private conversation,” said Richard, lifting a blond brow, “there have been some inquiries as to why our guest is not bound.”

“Or trussed,” contributed Henrietta.

“I have,” said Nicolas, spreading his arms wide, “attempted to explain, but your comrades, my love, seem reluctant to listen. I would prefer not to have rope marks on this coat, if it is all the same.”

“There must be some shackles in the dungeon,” said Henrietta darkly.

“Rust stains,” said Nicolas politely, “are very difficult to get out. My valet would be most cross. And one does not like to encounter Gaston when he is cross.”

Miles nodded knowingly. “Valets, eh?”

“Don’t worry,” said Lizzy brightly, dancing into the chamber in a peculiar costume that was part Robin Hood and part Paris frock. “I have my crossbow.”

Nicolas regarded the costume appreciatively. “That is a most unusual ensemble, mademoiselle. But becoming.”

“I know,” said Lizzy. “And I still have my crossbow.”

Nicolas bowed his head in acknowledgment.

“Does anyone have any rope?” demanded Henrietta.

Jane felt a headache coming on. She wished they would all just go away, and preferably take Nicolas with them. “No rope. Our guest”—she gave Nicolas a hard look, willing him to behave himself—“is not bound because Monsieur le Comte de Brillac has expressed a desire to become our ally.”

Miss Gwen snorted. “Oh, is that what he’s calling himself now?”

Miles looked at Miss Gwen with interest. “Do you mean the count thingy, or ally?”

Nicolas stepped into the middle of the room with the grace of a born performer. “Both, I assure you, are true. The title of Comte de Brillac comes to me from my mother’s husband. Ally, I hope, is a title I may earn.” He bowed towards the door, where four marines were staggering beneath the burden of an unconscious Braganza. “May Her Majesty Queen Maria be the first token of my good intentions.”

“Rather a large token,” muttered Miles.

“The size of the token,” said Nicolas, with a courtly bow, “is a representation of the sincerity of my commitment.”

Or of Queen Maria’s fondness for
biscoitos
, but Jane decided not to press that point.

“Monsieur le Comte de Brillac,” said Jane, raising her voice to drown out further commentary from her unwanted entourage, “has offered his services to His Majesty King Louis the Eighteenth. Which means”—she was all too aware of Jack’s silent presence beside her, his arms folded uncompromisingly across his chest—“that our interests are now aligned.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, missy. Snakes don’t change their scales, no matter how many times he”—Miss Gwen poked her sword parasol in the Gardener’s general direction—“changes his name. What has it been? Four names so far? Five? It’s getting hard to keep track. Make up your mind already.”

“I have.” Nicolas affected a convincing gravity. “When the Bourbons have been restored to their rightful throne, I shall return to my lands at Brillac and devote myself to rebuilding all that has been shattered.”

“Noble sentiments,” said Richard, his voice hard.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, read between the lines,” said Miss Gwen. “He wants Louis the Eighteenth to give him his land back. It’s not the least bit noble.”

“Noble, ignoble, does it matter?” Nicolas was his most maddening when he was his most philosophical. “All of us are creatures of both dark and light. If one does a good deed for a dark motive, does the motive matter?”

There was a time when Jane had found those sorts of musings a sign of an elevated intellect. Most likely because Nicolas had usually been looking smolderingly at her while he uttered them. Right now, the philosophy and the smoldering both grated on her nerves.

“Fine,” said Jack, speaking for the first time. “Put him on a boat and ship him to Louis. He has what he wants; we have what we want.”

“Not quite everything,” said Nicolas. He paused for dramatic effect, waiting until all eyes were on him before turning and looking at Jane, an intimate, heavy-lidded look designed just for her—and his audience. Holding out both hands to her, he said in a voice designed to carry, “It is traditional, is it not, for an alliance to be sealed with a marriage?”

Taking Jane’s hands, he drew her forward, into the center of the room, where everyone could have the best possible view.

Jane’s hands were cold, cold as ice. She drew them away, frozen with the wrongness of it. “Nicolas—don’t. Please.”

She cast an anxious glance over her shoulder at Jack, who was doing his best impression of a stone boulder.

Nicolas tugged on her hand, claiming her attention. “Surely now,” he said softly, smiling up at her in a way that would once have made her all fluttery, “there can be no obstacle to our union.”

“Aside from good taste and common sense,” said Henrietta hotly.

“He’s not bad-looking,” commented Miss Gwen. “If you like reptiles.”

Dropping to the floor at Jane’s feet, Nicolas drew the signet from his finger. Not his personal signet, the one he used as the Gardener, but the sigil of the counts of Brillac.

Once, a very long time ago, Jane had imagined this moment, had imagined a world in which she and Nicolas might be together.

That, however, was before she had known him.

And before she had known Jack.

“Well, my Jeanne?” Nicolas said whimsically, proffering the ring. “Will you make me the happiest of men?”

Gold glittered in the torchlight. On the edge of the circle, Jack turned on his heel and stalked off.

Yanking her skirt away, Jane said sharply, “Did you really believe that making a public spectacle of me would change my answer?”

From the side of the room, there was the faint click of a door closing.

The dimple was very apparent in Nicolas’s cheek as he smiled up at her. “I live in hope.”

“Don’t,” said Jane crisply. “Not on that score.”

“That,” said Henrietta, “in case you didn’t notice, was a no.”

Nicolas rose easily to his feet. “I prefer to think of it as a ‘perhaps later.’”

“It was a no,” said Jane, and turned on her heel, not sure whom she wanted to shake more: Nicolas for refusing to take no for an answer, or Jack for walking away.

Jack had made his way through a door at the side of the armory, not out to the drilling ground and battlements, but into one of the many cells that honeycombed the side of the fort, once home to monks, now used as storerooms. Jane let herself in without bothering to knock. She found Jack standing by the narrow slit of a window, surrounded by burlap bags of meal, staring out to sea.