The Lure of the Moonflower

by Lauren Willig

  In retrospect, it felt so hopelessly naive.

  Jack looked up at Jane, his lips twisting in a humorless smile. “I spun a fairy tale for myself. I had a dream that my mother’s father would welcome me with open arms and proclaim me his heir. Oh, there were all sorts of versions of the tale. In one version I would burst onto the scene just as he was being menaced by a man-eating tiger and save him single-handedly, with nothing but a small dagger.”

  He looked at Jane, inviting her to share the humor of it, but she wasn’t laughing. Her gray eyes were clouded with sympathy. “Oh, Jack,” she said.

  “You haven’t even heard the best of them. My favorite was the one in which he announced that he had had men scouring Madras, searching for me, that he had been looking for me since I was a baby. And lo, all the kingdom was filled with rejoicing.”

  Jane winced at the sarcasm in his voice. “What really happened?”

  “What you would expect. He threw me out on my—” Jack caught himself with a cough. “Let’s just say he threw me out. Or rather, he had me thrown. He wasn’t going to sully his jeweled fingers doing it personally. He had retainers for tossing out the rubbish.”

  Jane’s fingers brushed his arm, just a light touch, no more substantial than the water around them. “Jack. I’m so sorry.”

  Jack smiled a crooked smile. “Don’t look so grim. It was to be expected. He’d disowned my mother. As far as he was concerned, I didn’t exist. It was rather embarrassing for him to be reminded that I did.”

  Jane’s hand rested lightly on his arm. “Pride makes people do foolish things.”

  Jack looked at her, at her shadowed gray eyes, and thought of that tombstone in a little graveyard in England.

  His hand closed over hers. “Shall we raise a toast to the dispossessed? We’ve been disinherited and survived.”

  Jane glanced down at their joined hands. All Jack could see was the water-dark fall of her hair as she said, “What about your father? Surely he would be glad to have you back.”

  “The prodigal son returneth?” There was nothing like a mention of one’s father to kill the mood. Particularly in his case. Jack removed his hand, leaning back against the wall. “My father’s married again. He’s started another family. He’s good at that.” One family disappoint you? Have another one! Jack knew he wasn’t fair, but he wasn’t interested in being fair. “I doubt he’ll be breaking out the fatted calf.”

  Jane pressed her lips together, looking far more perturbed than the situation warranted. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

  Jack rolled his head sideways. “You don’t know my father.”

  Jane moved back a little. She cocked her head, looking across at him. “I do, actually.”

  “What?” Slowly levering himself up, Jack squinted at Jane in the darkness.

  She sat pale and still as a statue at the center of a fountain, carved of marble and moonlight. “When I said my chaperone fell in love? Jack—that man was your father.”

  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.”

  Chapter Ninet
een

  Intellectually, 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.