The Lure of the Moonflower (13 page)

There were four or five houses clustered close together, all low and built of stone. The scent of peat smoke hung heavy in the air.

“Are we stopping here?” Jane didn’t know whether to hope the answer was yes or no. She wasn’t sure she could get off the donkey. They would have to pry her off in Porto. Or perhaps she would just stay this way forever, frozen, a cautionary tale to other agents.

“If they’ll have us.” Jack held out a hand to her.

“I’m—I’m not sure I can.” Her legs didn’t seem to want to move properly. Jane’s cheeks burned with cold and humiliation. “I appear to be stuck.”

Without a word, Jack lifted her off the donkey’s back, staggering a bit as they both got tangled in her skirts. Jane clutched at his shoulders as her numb legs refused to take her weight.

“All right, then?” Jack’s hands closed around her waist with surprising gentleness.

Jane was aching in muscles she hadn’t known she possessed. Jack, on the other hand, looked no more winded than if he had taken a brief stroll along a pleasure garden.

Trying to hide the effort it cost her, Jane took a wobbly step back.

“Thank you for your assistance,” said Jane formally, to somewhere in the vicinity of Jack’s shoulder.

Jack gave a curt nod. And then paused. “It’s no shame to admit to needing aid.”

Jane raised her eyes to his. “Would you?”

She hadn’t meant it as a snub. But Jack seemed to take it so. “Let’s alert our hosts to the presence of our company, shall we?”

Jane held out a hand to stop him. “What do we do with the donkey? Is there a stable?”

“Yes. It’s called the house.”

A woman had emerged, wearing a black scarf over her head and the same wide wool skirt as Jane. She was rapidly followed by the man of the house, who greeted Jack with a resonant “Rodrigo!”

A rapid conversation ensued, in which Jane’s Portuguese grammar did her very little good. People in real life tended not to confine themselves to such phrases as “Have you seen the pen of the mother of my aunt?” The man’s thumb jerked in the direction of the donkey and also at Jane. Jane rather hoped the derisory comments being made were intended for the donkey, and not for her.

After what seemed a very long time, but was perhaps five minutes, they were ushered across the threshold—all three of them.

“What was that about?” Jane murmured, as Jack tugged on the donkey’s lead.

“They wanted to know why I had no horses and only this sorry beast. I told them I’d sold them all for a profit and acquired you in exchange. Don’t worry,” he added blandly. “They were very expensive horses.”

Jane looked at him suspiciously. “You didn’t really.”

“I didn’t really.” Jack lowered his voice. “I told them that you’re the daughter of an English merchant in Lisbon. I’m doing him a favor by getting you to his quinta outside Porto.”

It wasn’t a bad story. If that was actually what he’d told them. “How chivalrous.”

Jack grinned, white teeth showing between red lips. “I might also have implied that I had other interests in the arrangement.”

“All pecuniary, I hope.” Jane’s sotto voce protest turned into a fit of coughing as a wave of thick smoke assaulted her nose. Through watering eyes, she managed, “Is there something wrong with the chimney?”

“There is none. And we’re letting the heat out.” Jack kicked the door shut behind them and the smoke rose up and around them, along with a multitude of smells that Jane had never experienced before in quite such intense concentration: cooking smells, people smells, animal smells, and, above it all, the choking scent of burning peat.

The room was small and square, crowded with a confusion of people and animals. A pile of peat burned sullenly against the wall. There was no hearth, no chimney, no windows. Jane’s eyes stung with the smoke. A small child tugged shyly at her skirt and then ran away again, hiding behind her brother. Someone brought Jane a stool and a bowl of soup. It was a thin broth, bits of winter-withered vegetables and chunks of bread bobbing on the surface, but Jane couldn’t recall anything that had ever looked so delectable.

She murmured her thanks and sat down, hard. After the donkey, the stool that had been provided for her was a miracle of comfort, the stone wall of the hut softer than any settee.

Jack seemed to be everywhere at once, bringing in the donkey, joking with the man of the house, speaking gravely to the lady, turning small children upside down to the delight of all. Jane stayed where she was, baring her teeth in a smile whenever anyone looked at her.

The woman of the house ladled something into a bowl and handed it to Jack. He made a courtly bow, saying,
“Muito agradecidos, senhora,”
before carrying it off to the corner where Jane sat on her stool.

“I’ve already had some,” said Jane regretfully, resisting the urge to snatch the bowl from his hands. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been so hungry, but she wasn’t sure the hospitality of the house would stretch to seconds.

“It’s not soup.” Jack crouched down at Jane’s feet, setting the bowl down next to him. “Which is the foot with the blister?”

Instinctively, Jane pulled her foot back. “It’s not so bad. Thanks to Daisy.”

“Daisy?” Jack held out a hand, and this time Jane put her foot forward.

“Daisy the donkey.” Jane gritted her teeth as Jack wiggled the boot off her foot. Her stocking was clinging to her heel, cloth and blood crusted together. “You don’t like it?”

“Alliteration is the cheapest form of literary device.” Jack bathed her heel with quick, efficient movements.

“Do you have a better suggestion?” Jane just managed to keep her voice steady as he applied the steaming cloth to raw skin.

“Yes.” Jack set the bowl aside and drew the brandy flask from his jacket. “Donkey. Or, if you’re feeling so moved, ‘Ho, you!’”

Jane jerked as he poured the alcohol over her heel. “It seems . . . rather . . . rude.”

“You don’t get much ruder than a donkey.” Jack handed the flask up to her. “You’d best drink some of this, too.”

Jane hesitated a moment and then set the flask to her lips. She’d tasted spirits before—it was necessary when masquerading as an officer—but always from a glass. It felt strangely intimate, drinking directly from Jack’s flask, placing her lips where his had been.

As comrades did, Jane reminded herself. As comrades did.

She had never had a comrade before, not really. She had had colleagues, yes, and underlings, but not someone in whom she placed her trust, who relied on her and on whom she relied in equal measure. Even with Miss Gwen and her own cousin Amy, Jane had always been very aware of retaining the reins in her own hands. She had never doubted their loyalty, but she knew their weaknesses too well to allow them full control of their missions. When it came down to it, she had never met anyone she trusted as she would trust herself.

Jack patted the wound dry with a clean cloth. One of his cravats, Jane suspected, although she didn’t ask. She was enough in his debt already.

Jack’s bent head, hatless, was nearly in Jane’s lap. Jane stared down at it, indistinct in the smoke, and remembered the last time a man had knelt before her. But for such very different reasons.

She tried to imagine Nicolas bathing her foot, Nicolas taking such care over her, but there were limits even to imagination. Nicolas would have sent his valet. He would never have taken on so lowly a task himself.

Carefully, Jack wrapped the cloth around her foot. “That should give you some relief.” He sat back on his heels, looking up at her. “That and the brandy.”

She was still holding the flask, Jane realized, and there was considerably less in it than there had been before.

“Thank you.” She offered it back to him. The room was unsteady, but Jane knew it wasn’t due to the brandy. It was smoke and fatigue and a stomach only partly placated by the
sopa magra
. “I’ve had more than I ought.”

Jack pushed himself up to his feet. His hand settled briefly on her shoulder. “The terrain we covered—it’s not easy even for those who know it.”

For a moment she thought she might have misheard. Jane blinked up at him. “You are . . . kind.”

There were so many things she had expected of Jack Reid. That he would be difficult, yes. Insubordinate, crude, rough around the edges. All of that. But never kindness.

Jack shrugged uncomfortably. “You won’t say that when you have to get back on that blasted mule tomorrow.” He lowered his voice, even though they were speaking in English. “I have news for you. A party of monks passed this way a week since, heading towards Alcobaça Monastery.”

Jane sat a little straighter. “That’s hardly unusual, surely?”

“These monks,” said Jack, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the wall, “had with them a palanquin bearing a saint’s statue of miraculous power.”

“Aren’t they all?” Jane had been raised to disdain such popish practices. After a year in Italy, she could admire the beauty of the objects themselves, but their worship made her uncomfortable.

Would you genuflect at a Roman mass or take their host?

Jack Reid had been right. He had a talent for finding weaknesses in her she didn’t know she possessed.

Jack raised a brow. “A saint’s statue of such power that it can speak and move? If you know another such, princess, let me know, and we can make a tidy sum traveling the country, soliciting donations.”

“Did you say speak?” Jane tried to control her rising excitement. “Such things could be counterfeited, especially when those watching wished to believe. . . .”

“The saint,” said Jack, “called out, ‘
Ai, Jesus
.’”

Queen Maria’s favorite phrase. Her pitiful cries of, ‘
Ai, Jesus
,’ were said to echo along the halls of the Queen’s pavilion in Queluz.

But it was a common enough phrase for all that. Jane looked sharply up at Jack. “How do we know?”

“Our hostess’s oldest boy heard it. He was most impressed.”

“Did he see anything?” Jane was getting a crook in her neck tilting her head back.

Jack settled down on his haunches next to her. “The palanquin was heavily veiled in velvet. The monks blessed him and told him to be off, that the statue was of such great holiness that even to gain the smallest glimpse would burn out his eyes with holy wonder. Or something like that.”

“I see.” Jane rested her heavy head against the wall, caution warring with instinct. “They would take a great risk, traveling so openly. . . .”

Jack coughed. “A woman I met not so long ago in Lisbon rather forcibly expressed the opinion that it was safest to hide in plain sight. I believe you might know her?”

Jane grimaced. “I’m not sure that woman knew what she was talking about,” she muttered. Had it been only two weeks ago? It felt like years. Opening her eyes, she asked warily, “Which saint was this, precisely?”

“Our mother Mary.” Jack indulged in a smug smile. “The exact words were, ‘Our mother Maria, Queen of us all.’”

T
he Pink Carnation shook her head. “It’s too easy.”

No, not the Pink Carnation. Jane. If asked, Jack would have guessed at something longer and grander, something that spoke of marble halls and centuries of breeding, a name that served as armor against the world.

But here, in the dim light, with her hair escaping from its braids, her cheeks windburned and her features blurred by the red glow of the peat fire, she looked like a Jane. The brandy had taken some of the tension out of her shoulders, relaxed her as Jack had never seen her relaxed before.

In her red bodice and full skirt, she might look like a shepherdess who had lost her flock, but her voice was still crisp, precise. “Would they really tell people they were carrying the Queen if it were the Queen? It seems sloppy.”

So much for Little Bo Peep. And he’d best remember that, Jack reminded himself. Whatever guise she wore in the field, she was still a dangerous quantity. “You’re thinking like a trained agent. Don’t. Imagine yourself an amateur conspirator.”

“That might be too great an exercise in imagination.” Jane looked at Jack, her expression serious. “It does change us, doesn’t it? What we do.”

What we do.
Her words sang in Jack’s blood like a ballad, the sort where exiles stood on distant shores, where warriors returned from war to find themselves without a home, like the songs sung in the taverns of Lisbon, songs of love and loss. Above all, of loss.

Jack thought of the past five years, of the shifts and evasions, the demurrals and the outright lies. Looking over his shoulder, always. Looking over both shoulders. Never sure who was friend and who was foe, doubting everything and everyone because none knew better than he how false appearances could be.

No, they didn’t tell you any of that. They didn’t tell you about sleeping with one hand on your pistol. They didn’t tell you about the little pieces of yourself that died, bit by bit. They didn’t explain what it was to lie even to those closest to you. Which, after a time, became a relative term. There was no close. Even the most intimate relationships became fraught with danger.

Especially the most intimate relationships.

He’d lied to Jane. This hut wasn’t a chance-found shelter; the information hadn’t been collected at random. Their hostess, Cristina, was one of his informants. If Cristina’s husband guessed that Rodrigo the horse trader was more than he seemed, he turned a blind eye. Rodrigo paid generously for his lodging, and if he had an ear for gossip, well, what was wrong with that? There were dozens of houses from Lisbon to Porto where Rodrigo the horse trader was recognized and welcomed, where Jack picked up snippets here and snippets there.

He shouldn’t have brought Jane here. With a sudden chill, Jack realized that he was already letting emotion corrupt his judgment. It would have made far more sense to bunk in the rough as they had the night before. But he had looked at Jane, clinging so stoically to the donkey’s back, her face white with strain, and had yielded to the impulse to bring her here, where there would be a roof over her head, water for washing, and warm food in her belly.

And, in doing so, endangered Cristina and her family.

No. He’d laid his false trails well. Even if the Gardener found his way here, he’d hardly suspect a humble goatherd’s wife. The Gardener ran a very different sort of network.

Even so, though. It had been a lapse in judgment. And Jack thought he knew why.

“It’s a living,” Jack said brusquely, levering himself to his feet, the wall rough beneath his palm. The fire was burning low and their host and hostess had already retreated to bed. The only bed. “We’d best get some sleep.”

A lamb bleated in the corner of the room. The donkey brayed in response.

“If you can,” added Jack.

Jane glanced uncertainly around the room. “Where do we sleep?”

Taking her cloak, Jack shook it out onto the floor, gesturing to it with a flourish. “Here.”

Jane turned her head sharply. “Together?”

They had shared a tent for the past two weeks. But then they had been master and servant. Not to mention that Jane had been dressed as a man, her hair hidden beneath a wig, her breasts bound flat beneath her green uniform coat.

Now . . . Despite himself, Jack’s eyes dipped to the low bodice of Jane’s peasant costume. “Flat” was not the operative word.

“Along with a family of six,” Jack said dryly. He held out a hand to her to help Jane off the stool. “And your favorite donkey as chaperone.”

Her touch seemed to burn as she put her hand in his. A man, Jack told himself—he would just pretend she was a man.

A man in a very low bodice.

“It’s nice to know,” said Jane solemnly, as she lowered herself onto the cloak, “that the proprieties are being observed.”

Jack’s thoughts at the moment were anything but proper. Family of six, he reminded himself. Donkey.

“Oh, certainly,” he said mockingly. “I’m certain we’ll start a trend in the drawing rooms of Lisbon. Donkey as duenna.”

As if realizing it was being discussed, the donkey let out an indignant bray.

Jane’s lips twitched. “I don’t think Dulcibella likes that idea.”

Jack dropped to the floor next to her, pounding his jacket into something resembling a pillow. “I don’t think it likes being called Dulcibella.”

The donkey brayed loudly in agreement.

A sharp comment rose from the large bed in the corner.

“
Perdão
,” called Jack, lifting himself up on one arm.
“Perdão, senhor.”

Jane turned onto her side, her full skirts tangling around her legs, hay crunching beneath her cloak. “What did he say?”

Jack settled back down on the cloak beside her. “He politely reminded us that other people might be attempting to sleep.”

Jane’s face was only inches from his, her cheek resting on one hand. “I’m guessing that wasn’t quite it.”

It hadn’t been. “I didn’t want to singe your tender ears.”

Jane’s lips quirked ruefully. “I’ve most likely heard worse.”

Because she was posing as a man, Jack imagined she had. It was hard to reconcile the two; even though he had seen her in the role, even though he had seen her pretending to piss against a wall, there was something that seemed to set her apart, untouchable, in the world but not of it.

Jack lifted a finger to her lips. Not porcelain after all, but red and warm. They parted slightly as his finger touched the delicate skin.

“Not from my lips,” he said softly.

Jane’s eyes dropped to Jack’s lips. “No,” was all she said, but there was something in her voice that made Jack go hot and cold and hot again.

His finger moved from her lip to her cheek, sliding up her cheekbone, smoothing a fine strand of hair back behind her ear. The room was dim, lit only by the embers of the peat fire, making sensation all the more intense. He could hear the soft sound of her breath, feel her waiting tension.

One movement. That was all it would take. Just the whisper of a movement and those lips would be against his, her body pressed against his, trembling. There was hay beneath Jane’s cloak, prickly, perhaps, but soft enough. They could sink down together on the cloak in the warm darkness and—

“What the . . . ?” The donkey butted Jack hard in the backside. He sat up abruptly, glowering at the donkey. “What do you think you are, a goat?”

Jane sat up too, removing a wisp of straw from her hair with fingers that weren’t entirely steady. “A chaperone,” she said, in a subdued voice. “And a rather effective one.”

He was an idiot. A thousand times an idiot. One didn’t kiss fellow agents.

Particularly not a fellow agent who might once have been—might, in fact, still be—mistress of the Gardener.

“We should get some sleep,” Jack said brusquely. He gave the donkey a gratuitous shove. “You mind your manners and I’ll mind mine.”

The donkey released a blast of foul breath right into Jack’s face. In the familial bed, the baby began to wail. A sheep took up the cry, bleating its opinion of everyone concerned.

“Good night,” said Jane softly. Over the scents of peat and donkey, Jack caught just the faintest whiff of lavender, and the soft rustle of hay as Jane burrowed deeper into the folds of her cloak.

It was going to be a long night.

•   •   •

They were on their way again at dawn, Jane moving gingerly as she rose from her pallet. There was straw in her hair and clinging to the bodice of her dress. She looked, thought Jack grumpily, as though she’d been thoroughly ravished.

“Is there water for washing?” she asked hopefully, making an attempt to coil her braid back into place. The heavy tail of hair flopped promptly back down her shoulder.

“Why? Do you have an appointment at court?” Jack retorted, and then felt like the worst sort of cad. “You’re fine as you are.”

Jane regarded him skeptically. “I have soot on my face.”

“Consider it the latest fashion.” Jack felt a glimmer of sympathy as she very carefully wrapped her cloak around her shoulders. She wasn’t used to this sort of travel, but she had soldiered on all the same. “This isn’t Lisbon, princess. You’re going to get dirty.”

Jane grimaced at her hands, once so white and smooth, the nails now cracked and dirty. “Truer words . . . ,” she murmured. She glanced up at Jack. “When in Rome?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Jack blandly. “I’ve never been.”

Jane rolled her eyes, but he saw her shoulders relax.

“Here.” Jack handed Jane a chunk of coarse black bread, redolent of garlic and olive oil. “Breakfast.”

He half expected her to balk at it, but she didn’t. It left him feeling oddly frustrated. It was easier when she lived down to his preconceptions of her.

“We have a decision to make before we leave.” Jane took a dainty bite of her bread. Jack watched, transfixed, as her white teeth sank into the dark bread. “Do we make for Porto or Alcobaça?”

Jack swallowed a bite of bread with a throat gone dry. There was something very wrong with him if he found her eating bread erotic.

“Do you really want my advice?” he challenged her. “Or was that just a rhetorical question?”

Jane cast him a wry, sideways glance. “I thought we had both agreed that it would have gone better for us had I heeded your advice before.”

Jack opened his mouth to utter a ringing
I told you so
, but the words turned to ash on his tongue. Instead he said grudgingly, “You did the best you could with the resources at your disposal.”

“You were the resource at my disposal, Mr. Reid.” Jane sat with her back very straight, every inch the lady, even with straw in her hair and soot on her chin. “It was my duty to use you properly.”

Jack choked on his bread.

“Alcobaça,” he said desperately. The word came out like a cough. Jack cleared his throat and tried again. “I would make for Alcobaça. Even if the statue was just a statue, it’s not far out of our way. And,” he added, “you’ll have a wash and a proper bed.”

Jane plucked a piece of straw from her bodice and regarded it with an arched brow. “I’m not sure I’d know what to do with one, it’s been so long.”

I can tell you what to do with one.

What in the devil was wrong with him? Clumsily, Jack lurched to his feet. “We’d best go. Time’s wasting.”

Without waiting to see if Jane followed, Jack hoisted his haversack on his shoulder and strode across the hut to Cristina, who had a baby in her lap and a toddler clinging to her skirts.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he said, and dropped a handful of
reis
into her palm. “My companion and I are very grateful for the food and shelter.”

“But this is too much,” Cristina protested. The protest was, Jack knew, for her husband’s benefit. The pay was for the information as much as the lodging, and for that he had paid fairly.

Jack waved her protests aside. “The pay is commensurate with the inconvenience.” He grinned at her. “I would make amends for our donkey.”

A hint of amusement showed in Cristina’s dark eyes. “It was not the donkey. I wish you luck, Rodrigo.”

If he had been a younger man, he would have squirmed. As it was, all Jack could say was,
“Muito agradecidos.”

There was a shadow at his elbow. Jane, not wanting to be left out. She bowed her head to their hostess. Slowly and carefully, she echoed,
“Muito agradecidos.”

Jack opened his mouth to correct her—she had used the male form—and then closed it again.

Cristina tucked the coin away in her bodice.
“Vai com Deus, senhor, senhora.”

It had been a long time since Jack had believed in any sort of gods, but it never hurt to have insurance.
“Fica com Deus,”
he replied politely.

“Go with God?” murmured Jane, as they led the donkey from the hut into a gray dawn that seemed nonetheless very bright after the dark interior of the hut.

“And stay with God.” Jack took the donkey’s lead from Jane, putting his hands around her waist to boost her onto the donkey’s back. “It’s customary.”

“Somewhat more heartfelt than that, I think.” They walked in silence for a few yards before Jane added quietly, “That was generous payment you made them.”

Jack wasn’t sure which was worse: being caught out in an act of charity, or being caught out in what only seemed like an act of charity. Jack kept his attention on his feet, navigating the uncertain terrain. “These people have little enough. And they’ll have less when Bonaparte’s men come through.”

“So you try to right the balance?”

He could feel her gaze like a knife between his shoulder blades. “Everyone needs a hobby,” Jack said flippantly. “It would be boring to be entirely a villain.”

He could have told her that he knew what it was to be hungry. He could have told her that he knew what it was to scrounge for coin. Only, in his case, he had brought it on himself. His father might not have been wealthy, but they’d always had enough.

No, it had been Jack’s own bloody-mindedness that had sent him out into the streets, on a quest that turned out, in the end, to be as pointless as any of Don Quixote’s windmills.

Even then, even when Jack was at his most alone, his most miserable, there had been a home waiting for him, if only he had been willing to swallow his pride and play the prodigal. If he had found pride a sour dish, well, that was his own doing and no one else’s. He wasn’t going to bow his head and crave his father’s pardon, return to a nest in which he had always been the cuckoo.