The Lure of the Moonflower (32 page)

Legend has it that Naksidil was Josephine Bonaparte’s cousin, Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, who was captured at sea and sold to Barbary pirates at the age of eleven. As far as I can tell, the legend is purely a legend, despite a number of historical novels that treat the identification as fact. Unfortunately, the timing just doesn’t seem to work. Aimée du Buc de Rivéry was kidnapped in 1788. Naksidil Sultan’s son, Mahmud II, was born circa 1785. Proponents of the Aimée theory argue that Mahmud was actually born in 1789. It seems more likely, as some historians claim, that Naksidil was not French at all, but from the Caucacus region. Although the Aimée theory is certainly more dramatic. . . .

For the purpose of this novel, though, it seemed fun and fitting (given that the first Pink book takes place at Bonaparte’s court) to hint at the story that Naksidil was Josephine’s cousin.

A CONVERSATION WITH THE COMTE DE BRILLAC, AKA THE CHEVALIER DE LA TOUR D’ARGENT, AKA THE GARDENER—BUT LET’S JUST CALL HIM NICOLAS, SHALL WE?

“Author? Author?”

I can hear myself being summoned. The character has a faint French accent and a roguish pair of hazel eyes.

“Oh, Monsieur le Comte! Hi. You do know the book is over, right?”

I look over my shoulder to make sure he’s not being pursued by any other characters. Henrietta, after all, still holds a grudge. And you know what Henrietta is like when she holds a grudge. She’s worse than Miles without a ginger biscuit.

The comte, aka Nicolas, seems less than pleased with me. “What, may I ask, happened to my Grand Revelation?”

“Your what?”

“My Big Secret? The one to which you have been building for oh so many books?” He casts me a decidedly inimical look. “Don’t make me take this to the guild.”

I’ve had my run-ins with the Pink Carnation characters’ guild before. Miss Gwen is fond of filing complaints. Too much purple, not enough purple, the poor quality of parasols . . .

“Ah,” I say. “Right. Sorry about that. You see, I’d thought we were going to do this big showdown scene on Berlengas at the end of the book and you could do your reveal then, but . . . It just didn’t work out. Sorry.”

“What does it mean, this ‘it just didn’t work out’? First you cancel my novella, and now you take away my scene?”

“Well,” I say apologetically, “I ran it by my little sister and my college roommate, and they both agreed that doing your Big Reveal would take too much attention away from Jack and Jane and their happily-ever-after. So I cut it.”

Nicolas looks sulky. “I do not care about their happily-ever-after. Jane, she was supposed to be happily ever after with
me
.”

“Actually, you’re going to be very happily ever after with Jack’s little sister Lizzy.” Nicolas looks somewhat aghast. “I know, I know—family Christmases are going to be a little awkward for a while, what with the whole Jack-and-Jane thing, but trust me: it’ll be worth it. You and Lizzy? You two are meant for each other. And does it make you feel better to know that you’re going to do very, very well out of the Bourbon Restoration? Lizzy is going to adore being your countess. It’ll be great. I promise.”

Nicolas looks partially mollified. “That, it is good news. But you promised me the Big Reveal.”

And since a promise is a promise . . . Pink Readers, brace yourselves.

Remember those hazel eyes of Nicolas’s, which get mentioned with annoying frequency, starting in
The Temptation of the Night Jasmine
? (Yes, he was that Frenchman.) And the fact that Henrietta finds something really annoyingly familiar about him?

The Marquess of Uppington is Nicolas’s father.

Which makes him . . . Richard and Henrietta’s illegitimate half brother. (He’s also their brother Charles’s illegitimate half brother, but since Charles has managed to keep his head down and stay out of this whole flower-named exercise, I think we can pretty much ignore him for the moment.)

Originally, this news was meant to come out in a novella about Jane and Nicolas, “The Pink Carnation in Love,” in which the whole topic—and what it meant for Nicolas’s childhood—could be explored in rather more depth. But since I got rather behind schedule, that never happened. I had also intended, one of these days, to write a series about Lord and Lady Uppington in their youth, in which we would learn Lord Uppington’s side of it. But . . . see “behind schedule,” above.

So here’s the short version: like the second Duke and Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, on whom I based Lord and Lady Uppington, the Uppingtons had an arranged marriage when Lady Uppington was scarcely out of the schoolroom. (She had just turned fourteen.) Lord Uppington, who was seven years older, very aware of his own consequence, and less than thrilled with his incredibly outspoken, juvenile, prank-pulling bride, went abroad, serving in a diplomatic capacity in France. While there, he had an affair with a sophisticated older woman, the Comtesse de Brillac. The Comtesse de Brillac was very unhappily married to the comte, who was a brute and a bully.

Edward, Marquess of Uppington, returned to England entirely unaware that the comtesse was carrying his child. Back in England, he proceeded to fall in love with his own wife, much to both their surprises. (And they solved many mysteries together—or will, if I ever get around to writing that series.) His affair with the comtesse was an unimportant blip in his past, part of the PH era (pre-Honoria).

So, there you go. The Chevalier, aka the Gardener, aka the Comte de Brillac, aka that mysterious Frenchman in
Night Jasmine
, aka Nicolas, is really Henrietta and Richard’s half brother. And, given that he’s going to marry Lizzy, this is something they’re going to have to learn and to come to terms with.

But not within this book.

THE LURE OF THE MOONFLOWER: THE LOST EPILOGUE

Speaking of things that didn’t happen within this book . . .

Originally I’d planned a final Jack-and-Jane chapter, a wedding scene to parallel the wedding of Colin and Eloise. In this planned epilogue (which I persisted in thinking of as an epilogue, even though it was slated to come before the final Colin and Eloise chapter), Jack was going to have staged a reconciliation between Jane and her parents. I wanted to tie up that last, lingering loose end so that Jane and Jack could sail happily off into the sunset together.

Also, Pink Carnation wedding. Enough said.

But epilogues and I have a checkered history, by which I mean I never seem to use them. So far I’ve written three epilogues: one for the first Pink book,
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
, one for my second stand-alone novel,
That Summer
, and now one for the final Pink book,
The Lure of the Moonflower
. (There’s some nice symmetry there, no?)

The Curse of the Epilogue continues. As soon as I started writing Jack and Jane’s epilogue (aka chapter twenty-seven), I knew it just wasn’t going to work. Too much cute, too much too much. So away it went. I replaced that lost epilogue, eventually, with a very different chapter twenty-seven. But I’m not calling that one an epilogue—because, clearly, if I did, I would then have to get rid of it.

Here, for your amusement, is a fragment of the lost epilogue of
The Lure of the Moonflower
:

T
here were two dukes, a dowager duchess, a marquess, and a viscount in attendance at the wedding of Miss Jane Wooliston and Jack Reid. There was also a man in a carnation-embroidered waistcoat who appeared to go by the name of Turnip, a small child named Parsnip, a butler dressed as a pirate, and, much to Jack’s annoyance, a French count who had once gone by the name of the Gardener and who now appeared to be flirting outrageously with Jack’s sister Lizzy.

The Earl and Countess of Vaughn sent regrets and a silver tea service.

“What are we meant to do with this?” muttered Jack.

“Drink tea?” said Jane. She hefted the solid silver tray. “Or possibly beat off assailants.”

Their trunks were already packed—new trunks, Jane’s old one having been left behind somewhere on the road to Santarém. As for Jack, the last time he had traveled with a trunk had been when his father sent him off to school in Calcutta. Since then he had traveled light, his worldly goods fitting in a pack on his back.

There was something strangely satisfying about seeing his breeches folded in with Jane’s gowns and false mustaches. Something solid and lasting. They had designed the trunks together, with the maximum number of false panels, mock keyholes, and other devices designed to frustrate and annoy.

As soon as the last of the lobster patties had been devoured, the happy couple was to depart for Constantinople, where they would infiltrate the court of the Sultan disguised as a ci-devant French aristocrat and her feckless soldier-of-fortune husband.

Jack had only one stipulation: there would be no plum velvet involved in the deception. Jane had, with some persuading, agreed.

What with all the persuasion, it hadn’t occurred to Jack until later that he’d left himself open to bottle green, periwinkle, and other shades of velvet.

She was a tricky one, that Pink Carnation. Jack was rather proud of her for bamboozling him. Not that he had any intention of wearing a velvet frock coat, bottle-green or otherwise. And he was quite sure he could persuade his wife on that point.

Wife. Even with the vicar’s blessing still echoing in his ears, Jack couldn’t quite believe she was really his.

Along with a rather large extended circle of family and friends. The transition from his old life to this—well, it took some getting used to.

“I do wish you weren’t leaving so soon,” said Jane’s cousin Amy wistfully. She grimaced and rubbed her stomach as a little Selwick-to-be kicked in agreement. Jack was having trouble keeping track of all the various offspring running about as it was. There appeared to be a vast number of them, all underfoot. “We’ve only just— Percy! Give Plumeria back that basket!”

Amy’s son looked at her with wide-eyed innocence. “But, Mummy—”

Percy’s words turned into a startled
oomph
as he was tackled by a small purple fury. Carnation petals scattered everywhere.

Jack’s newest sister might come up only to his knees, but she had a mean right hook.

Amy turned calmly back to Jane. “We’ve only just got you back.”

“I shall return.” Jane looped an arm through Jack’s. They watched together as Jack’s father separated the brawling children, carrying them off, one under each arm. “In a few years.”

Amy turned to Jack. “I am sorry about that frog in your bed. Percy meant it as a wedding present.”

“Hmm?” Jack had been looking at the door. “Think nothing of it. I’m just glad it wasn’t a snake.”

He hated snakes.

•   •   •

On that note, just in case you were wondering . . . any resemblance between Jack and various characters played by Harrison Ford is more than coincidental.

The epilogue went on a bit after the snakes line, but once we started getting into lines from
Raiders of the Lost Ark
, I knew that the epilogue had passed the point of no return.

Just in case you were wondering, though, Jack does track down Jane’s parents. They arrive late at the wedding, but they do make it. Because Jack is that kind of guy.

And they all live happily ever after.

A CONVERSATION WITH LAUREN WILLIG

Q. Was this how the first Pink book came to be? Did you write it because your advisor refused to accept your dissertation?

A. The answer is no, again no, and absolutely no. When I realized, a few books ago, that the series really needed to start wrapping up, it occurred to me that it might be fun to go all meta, bring everything full circle, and make Eloise the “author” of
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
.

It also solved a very real problem for me (and for Eloise), which was how she and Colin could reconcile their careers in such a way that they could wind up in the same place with neither feeling like they had sacrificed too much or abandoned their principles. I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—have Eloise give up her career for a guy, but I also couldn’t see Colin following Eloise around the United States from junior faculty job to junior faculty job.

Confession: over the course of this series, a happily-ever-after for Eloise and Colin was never a given. Until the end of
The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla
, I had no more idea than you all did what was going to happen with them. So it was a great relief to me when Eloise’s career change shifted the dynamic and brought a relatively realistic happy ending in view for them.

As to how the first Pink book really came to be . . . Well, I’ve spoken at great length about that elsewhere, but the thumbnail version is that I started writing it as a means of dissertation avoidance right after I passed my general exams back in 2001. It was an advisor-sanctioned form of dissertation avoidance: my advisor had advised me to take the post-Generals summer off and take a rest. For “rest,” I read “go write a novel.” I continued to amuse myself with Amy and Richard’s story through my research year in England (during which I found no private collections of family papers), and finished it up when I returned to the States in the spring of 2003. Unlike Eloise’s fictional advisor, my advisor was nothing but supportive, urging me to keep going with the dissertation even after I’d made the decision to jump ship and move down the block to the law school.

The one particular in which our stories dovetail? Like Eloise, I had a friend who handed the manuscript to an agent, after which everything moved fairly rapidly. In real life, though, I got the call from that agent in late summer 2003, the manuscript was sold to Penguin in the fall of 2003, edited and revised over the course of that year, and, at long last, published in February of 2005.

Because I hadn’t originally planned to sync Eloise’s story line with mine, astute readers of the Pink series may have noticed that Eloise’s draft of
The
Secret History of the Pink Carnation
is first purchased by a publisher in June of 2005—four months
after
the publication of the actual book.

As they say, details, details . . .

Q. Is there anything you would have done differently?

A. Hindsight is always 20/20, right? When I wrote Pink I, I intended it as a one-off. I never planned it as a series, which means that the series as we know it is a rather ad hoc, trial-and-error affair. For me, that was part of the fun of it. I loved stumbling on new plotlines and getting to know characters who might or might not be important down the road. But it did also mean the occasional meander or missed opportunity.

As I mentioned above, Eloise’s time line is out of sync with the real-life publication of
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
. Had I known that she was going to “write” the book, I would have moved her story line a year earlier, starting in 2002 rather than in 2003.

The largest change I would have made? In retrospect, it would have made the most sense to have Pink XI be Tommy Fluellen and Kat Reid’s book rather than Sally Fitzhugh’s. Tommy Fluellen was a side character in Pink V,
The Temptation of the Night Jasmine
. Kat Reid is Colonel Reid’s oldest daughter (Jack’s big sister). Their story line would have followed very logically off Colonel Reid’s book,
The Passion of the Purple Plumeria
, and led perfectly into Jack’s. But that only occurred to me months after Pink XI,
The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla
, was already in print—about a different pair of characters.

Q. Did you always know that the last book would be Jane’s book?

A. Yes, but as with everything, there were some changes along the way. Originally I’d thought that if I were very, very lucky, the series might stretch to three books. I’d entertained thoughts of pairing Jane with Geoff for that highly hypothetical book three—but by the time I was two-thirds of the way through
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
, it became clear that Geoff and Jane had all the sexual tension of cooked spaghetti. Without sauce.

By the time Pink I came out, back in February of 2005, I knew that Geoff was going to Ireland for his book, and I was very, very sure that Jane’s book was going to be set in Portugal at the beginning of the Peninsular War—around, oh, book six or so, if I could keep the series going that long.

I had an image of an adventurer sitting in a rocky landscape, his slouch hat pulled down low, the remains of a campfire in front of him, tipping his hat back as a very put-together lady in a frilled gown approached. He would say something like “Who the hell are you?” And Jane would reply, “Your contact.” All I knew about this man was that he was a soldier of fortune, he looked a bit like Harrison Ford as Han Solo, and his name was probably Lucien.

And that was where my image of Jane’s book remained until summer 2008, when I was writing Pink VI,
The Betrayal of the Blood Lily
. Jack Reid slouched onto the scene—and I recognized him immediately. His name might not be Lucien, but I knew, just knew, that this was the man I’d seen across the campfire from Jane. They were going to drive each other crazy. (And his father, Colonel Reid, was destined for Miss Gwen. I’d figured that out somewhere after chapter two of
Blood Lily
, so it was already a given in my head.) It was perfect.

These things are always perfect—until you start writing them.

As you can see, while Jack and Jane are very much the people I knew they would be, that original campfire scene went the way of the dodo. As did pretty much everything else I had planned for them along the way.

There are two Pink XIIs. There’s the book you’re holding in your hand. And there’s the book I meant to write. My original plan for Pink XII (and when I say “original,” I mean the plan I concocted when I began writing this in 2014, not the thousand vaguely imagined plans I entertained over the past fourteen years) involved a foil for Jane, a Portuguese marquesa who would be ally, suspect, and rival. She would also be a way to get some Portuguese history in there and have a glimpse of the elegant, cultured world of the Portuguese aristocracy. The idea was for her to be one of Jack’s contacts. When Jane approached Jack about tracking the Queen, he naturally would suggest they stop in and see the marquesa on the way to Porto. It would be at her house that they would encounter the Gardener, aka the Comte de Brillac.

But then Jane went and pulled that stunt at the tavern, posing as a French soldier, and the next thing I knew, Jack and Jane’s book had taken a very different, much more rough-and-tumble path. Instead of traveling by the marquesa’s carriage, they acquired a donkey.

Part of me wishes I could write that book, too, just to see how it would turn out. But I’m not sure Jack and Jane would let me. They had very strong feelings about the progress of their book—most of them entirely contrary to the wishes and plans of their author.

Q. Will you ever write another Pink book?

A. I never say never. Well, hardly ever. The truth is, I just don’t know. Are there Pink books I want to write? Absolutely. Kat and Tommy’s story is still waiting to be told, Lizzy and Nicolas are just taunting me with the prospect of their romance, and I never did get around to that mystery novel featuring Colin and Eloise, or that prequel series about the elder Uppingtons.

But the market changes and so do authors. I’ve been writing this series for a very long time now—through grad school, law school, practice at a firm, multiple moves, a marriage, a baby—and it was time to try something new. I tried to juggle the stand-alone novels and the Pinks, but it was tough, and proved to me that, for the time being, at least, I need to focus on either one or the other.

Q. What happens to all of the characters after the series ends?

A. I started to write pocket histories of all of them, which is when I realized, Wow, there have been an awful lot of Pink books and an awful lot of heroes and heroines.

Some of them, like Laure and Andre or Mary and Vaughn, have their future history recounted in the Eloise sections of their own books. So I’ve left those out and just concentrated on those characters whose futures haven’t been explored. As far as I can remember. After twelve books, one does start to get a bit blurry. . . .

Richard and Amy continue to run that spy school, and, to everyone’s surprise, make such a success of it that it becomes genuinely secret and shadowy and has to be moved from the grounds of Selwick Hall to an Undisclosed Location. The school continues within the family well into the reign of Victoria, although, given the whole secretive and shadowy thing—and they do become very good at secretive and shadowy—it’s hard to tell just how long it lasts. Either way, the spy tradition continues strong in the family up through the present day. Even if Colin is not, in fact, a spy.

Miles never does succeed in getting that ginger biscuit recipe out of Cook. (Clearly this was a cunning ploy on the part of Lady Uppington to ensure that her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren could never stray too far from Uppington House.) Henrietta continues meddling happily in the lives of her friends, and, not to put too fine a point on it, eventually turns into her mother. Only slightly taller. Miles eventually succeeds to his father’s title, and Viscount and Viscountess Loring are always in great demand on the social circuit.

Geoff and Letty are enormously prolific in every possible way. When not looking after their nine children, Geoff is busy with the House of Lords and a seat in the Duke of Wellington’s cabinet. He also takes a great interest in the police force being formed by Sir Robert Peel. Letty, in the meantime, has written the
Practical Viscountess’s Book of Household Advice
, a book that absolutely mortifies her older sister, Lady Vaughn, who feels that no member of the peerage should have anything to do with a) practicality, b) household advice, or c) books.

Robert, to everyone’s surprise (but most especially that of the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale), warms to the idea of being duke and begins to experiment with ways to improve the lives of the tenantry. With Charlotte’s assistance, he plots out a series of model farms—although Charlotte does secure his promise that she will not have to wear traditional shepherdess costume. At least, not in public.

Aside from a few brief visits to England, Penelope and Alex live out the rest of their lives in India, where Alex is commissioner of a small (and imaginary) district, Karnatabad. Although Penelope finds herself unable to carry a child to term, she adopts five children from a nearby village whose parents died of cholera, shocking the English community, especially the wife of Alex’s assistant district commissioner. While shocking the English community was the main point, both Penelope and Alex become deeply attached to their wards and consider them their true sons and daughters.

Turnip remains Turnip and lives happily ever after with the Arabella, who loves him, their five children, and a large supply of raspberry jam.

Sally Fitzhugh adores being Duchess of Belliston. And the Duke of Belliston adores the Duchess of Belliston—although his feelings are slightly less warm, and rather more fuzzy, in regard to her pet stoat.

Agnes Wooliston shocks everyone by coming out of her shell with a vengeance as a very early supporter of women’s suffrage, deeply influencing Jeremy Bentham’s 1817
Plan of Parliamentary Reform
. She strongly lobbies journalist (and later MP) Augustus Whittlesby for his support for votes for women. Augustus tries, but is deeply outnumbered during the debates over the Reform Act of 1832.

Parsnip Fitzhugh (née Jane) grows up best friends with Plumeria Reid and Emmeline Pinchingdale-Snipe. Don’t even think of asking about the Season of 1825. Or, for that matter, the Season of 1826. You just don’t want to know. . . .

Plumeria Reid, after causing the maximum amount of scandal and bother, eventually marries Percy Selwick, a match that surprises no one except, potentially, the two parties primarily involved.

But what can one expect of a son of Amy and a daughter of Miss Gwen?

Have I left out anyone or anything important? If so, just e-mail me through my Web site, www.laurenwillig.com, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Q. What are you working on now?

A. Right now, Beatriz Williams, Karen White, and I are just polishing up the manuscript of
The Forgotten Room
, a novel set around a Gilded Age mansion in New York, the women who live there in 1892, 1920, and 1944, and the secret that connects them all.
The Forgotten Room
will appear in stores in January of 2016. We had a blast writing it, and we already have our heads together over another one.

Once the
Forgotten Room
revisions are done, I’ll be hunkering down over my fourth stand-alone novel, a multigenerational family saga sweeping from Gilded Age New York to Belle Époque Paris, the Roaring Twenties, and World War II France.

For more on those and all the other books, just stop by my Web site, www.laurenwillig.com, or visit me on my Facebook author page, http://www.facebook.com/LaurenWillig.