The Lure of the Moonflower Page 19
There had been reasons, perhaps not good reasons, but reasons for allowing Nicolas to seduce her. She had been curious; she had been lonely; it was a consummation two and a half years in the making.
Jane couldn’t think of a single reason, good or otherwise, for kissing Jack Reid.
Except that she had.
Jack turned his head. “Almost there,” he shouted over the ringing of the bells, which were tolling out their triumphal peal.
“Yes, I gathered that,” muttered Jane.
Even without the bells, the monastery was rather hard to miss. From the rise they were descending, it looked as though someone had picked up the Abbey of Clairvaux, plunked it down in the middle of Portugal, and then, while they were at it, added a few wings.
The setting sun turned the limestone facing to gold, picking out the full glory of the Gothic facade. A fitting place, thought Jane, holding tight to the donkey’s neck, to hide a queen, if one had a queen to hide. Or so she hoped. Otherwise—
Otherwise they would continue on to Porto, she told herself. As quickly as possible.
There was a party of clerics traversing the courtyard, heading towards the porch of the church. At their head strode a man clad in vestments so rich that he could only be the abbot. A ring glittered on one hand as he gestured to his flock of black-robed companions.
Cutting in front of the group, Jack said something in Portuguese that began with padre and involved much descriptive gesturing, if not of the sort that he had used in the hut. From the gestures to the donkey, Jane gathered the prior was being spun a tale of hardships on the road, and most likely lack of room at the inn.
Jane recognized the abbot’s type at a glance. His robes had been carefully cut to disguise the effects of one too many generous suppers, but even the excellent line of his robes couldn’t hide the fleshiness of his chin and the red lines around his nose.
She had a very good view of his nose. He was currently looking down it at them, taking in their mud-spattered appearance, the peasant clothing, the donkey.
The abbot said something in Portuguese, a very differently inflected Portuguese from Jack’s, and Jane didn’t need to understand the language to know that they were being told to go around to the back, that the servants would feed them something in the kitchen.
It was true that servants did tend to know everything. And they would be well fed and warm in the kitchen. But there was also the chance that they would be fed and sent on their way again, or given a bed in the stable, like another, far better-known personage in the long-ago past, donkey and all.
Jack bowed, and began to lead Jane and the donkey away, but Jane preempted him by the simple measure of leaning over the donkey’s neck and calling in a particularly piercing voice, “Most reverend Father— Oh, dear me, is that the proper form?”
The reverend father stopped in his tracks. He turned, slowly, his surplice blowing in the breeze. “Senhora?”
She’d caught his attention, at least. And Jack’s. The latter did not look entirely pleased. He was watching her narrowly, his mobile lips set in a hard line.
Jane focused on the abbot, smiling winningly. “Forgive me, Your Excellency. I’m only lately come from England and we haven’t much in the way of monks there. Not since Henry the Eighth, you know.” She grimaced at Jack, saying plaintively, “Ought I have mentioned that? I’ve heard it’s still rather a sore point.”
Jack succumbed to a sudden fit of coughing.
The abbot ventured closer. “You are . . . English?”
His English was quite good. Jane had been counting on that, so near Porto. There were many influential Englishmen with business interests in the region who used this route, or had, before Bonaparte tendered his ultimatum to Dom Joao.
She clasped her hands to her breasts. “You speak English! Thank heavens! You can’t imagine the bother we’ve had. My husband”—she took a moment to simper in Jack’s general direction—“speaks a bit, as you can see, but we’ve been blundering along, getting into such scrapes. And I’m just longing for a hot bath. You haven’t a maid to spare, have you? I’m afraid we left mine back in London. It seemed like a good idea at the time. . . . But you see what we are reduced to!”
The abbot’s entourage were all staring shamelessly. Slowly the abbot approached Jane, bowing over her dirty hand.
“I bid you welcome to Alcobaça, Dona—”
“Fluellen.” Jane shamelessly borrowed the name of Jack’s brother-in-law. That Jack wasn’t aware he had such a brother-in-law was another matter. Jane pushed that to the back of her conscience. She lowered her voice. “My husband is Welsh, you see. That’s why my father didn’t approve. Well, that and his serving with the East India Company’s army. My father is frightfully high in the instep about that sort of thing.”
“High in the—” The abbot was looking justifiably baffled. Good. Jane wanted to keep him that way. The more bewildered he was, the less likely he was to perceive the holes in her carefully constructed story.
“Snobbish. Just because his cousin is an earl!” Jane let that sink in. “He sent me to my cousin, Lady Vaughn, to keep me from marrying my love, but as you can see, we managed to get away despite it. Didn’t we, my love?”
She held out a hand to Jack, who squeezed it a little harder than necessary. “Oh, yes, my love.”
“But, Dona Fluellen,” said the abbot. “How do you come to be in Portugal? And in such times?”
Jane allowed her husband to help her down from the donkey. “It is such a story you cannot imagine!”
“Neither can I,” muttered Jack in her ear.
Jane gave his arm a warning squeeze and fluttered her lashes enthusiastically at the abbot. “My father has interests in Porto, you see. He had come to tour the— Oh, goodness, whatever they are. Something to do with grapes?”
“Vineyards?” supplied the abbot helpfully.
“Yes, those. And really to get away from the scandal. He was very cross with us, wasn’t he, darling? But I knew, just knew, that if he had time to get to know my darling Johnny-kins, he would adore him as I do. We had the hardest time getting passage over—something about the French?—but I was quite determined, and now here we are!”
The abbot opened his mouth and then closed it again. Taking the path of least resistance, he bowed and said, “You are in good time to share our Christmas meal, Dona Fluellen.”
“You are so very kind.” Jane wrinkled her nose at her travel-stained garments. “I’m afraid I haven’t a proper gown. My baggage fell down a gorge somewhere near the Tagus while we were fleeing from a group of French soldiers. They were most impolite.”
The abbot started to offer her his arm, regarded the amount of mud adhering to her person, and thought better of it. With a sweeping gesture, he ushered them towards an entrance just west of the church. “I am quite certain we can discover something for you, Dona Fluellen.”
Clapping his hands, the abbot said something in Portuguese. Lay brothers scattered in various directions, one with the donkey. The expression on the donkey’s face, as the brother attempted to drag it in the direction of the stable, bore a remarkable resemblance to Jack.
“Brother Pedro will show you to a room in the northwest wing,” said the abbot, and fled before Jane could begin talking again.
Brother Pedro spoke no English, but communicated with Jane by means of exaggerated mime.
Jack, on the other hand, wasn’t communicating at all, by English, mime, or otherwise. He walked beside Jane with an insolent swagger that spoke his displeasure louder than any number of words.
Brother Pedro led them through a dizzying series of high-ceilinged chambers, hung with so many paintings of popes and cardinals that their individual features resolved themselves into a blur of red robes. There was a great deal of gesturing, which Jane gathered was meant to indicate prelates of more than ordinary interest.
“Turbulent— Oh!” Jane took mercy on him. “Thomas à Becket? How nice. We have him at home. Bits of him, at least. Saints do tend to scatter so.”
Brother Pedro eyed her dubiously and reverted to mime.
Meanwhile, Jack had maintained his ominous silence. Jane felt his presence like a shadow beside her. She took his arm, leaning on it as a devoted flibbertigibbet would. “Ought we remind him you speak Portuguese?” Jane murmured
Jack’s arm was iron hard beneath her hand. “And ruin the show? Besides, I’m Welsh, remember?” He glanced down at her, his expression inscrutable. “That was very clever. . . . In a single blow, you accounted for both my accent and my complexion.”
He did not sound particularly admiring.
“I’ve heard it said the Anglo-Indian accent is rather like the Welsh. Although you sound more like—” She had been going to say his father. Jane caught herself. “Yourself. You defy categorization.”
“Compliments?” Jack smiled lazily down at her, and Jane was reminded of the tiger in the royal menagerie, playing with his prey. “Is that Mrs. Fluellen speaking or Jane?”
“For the moment, the two are one and the same.” It was one of the first principles of the game they played: if one didn’t live the role, the game was lost. “Do attempt to remember that you’re meant to be madly in love.”
Jack’s eyes glittered like oil paint, bright and opaque. “Am I? Or am I just a half-pay scoundrel who managed to win the affections of a gullible heiress?”
“If you don’t mind playing the scoundrel.” It came out sounding shrewish and petty. Jane gritted her teeth. She knew better than this. She was better than this. Taking a deep breath, she said coolly, “Yes, that works rather nicely. It gives you room to leer at the serving girls and ask them leading questions.”
“Are there serving girls in monasteries?”
“I’d never thought of that. Probably not. I suppose you wouldn’t be willing to leer at the novices?”
“I’m not that sort of half-pay officer,” Jack said definitively.
“For the good of the Queen?”
“She’s not my Queen.”
“No, but she is our mission,” said Jane quietly. “For good or for ill.”
Brother Pedro opened a door. “Aqui é o seu quarto,” he said with some relief, began to say something else, gave up, and fled.
“I had expected something more . . . spartan.” The room into which they had been ushered had been decorated sometime before the previous century. The materials were sober, but rich: a surprisingly broad bed, a writing desk, a heavily carved chair. The bed was cloaked in crimson damask, as rich as good wine. There was a small door in the corner, which Jane suspected led to a dressing room, where one’s servant would sleep.
Or in this case, where either she or Jack would sleep.
Jack shrugged, dropping his hat on the crimson coverlet and turning to examine the books on the writing table. Novels, from the look of it, most likely left by a previous guest. “The monks of Alcobaça are known for having more pipes of wine in their cellar than books in their library. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.”
“I imagine we’ll find out tonight.” Jane regarded Jack’s tense back, all lines and angles. She was reminded, incongruously, of an offended feline. And she couldn’t blame him, precisely, for being angry. In an attempt at an olive branch, she said, “I thought we might learn more at the prior’s table than in the kitchen.”
Jack turned abruptly, his face darker than the twisted posts of the bed. “You might have consulted me.”
“When?” Jane’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. “In the three seconds before the prior began to speak?”
“During that last mile’s walk to the abbey, perhaps?”
During that last mile’s walk, her mind had been on other things. Jane took a deep breath, knowing herself to be in the wrong, and hating herself for it. “There wasn’t— I didn’t— The bells were so loud.”
Was that the best she could do? The bells were so loud?
Jack pressed his eyes shut, making an obvious attempt to get hold of his temper. In a controlled voice, he said, “If you had intended to change the plan, you might have told me. I don’t like surprises.”
That he was right didn’t make it easier.
Carefully, Jane said, “It is very hard to relinquish the habit of command.” Particularly when she felt in command of so little right now, not least her own emotions. Snapping her gaze away from Jack’s lips, Jane mustered a crooked smile. “Neither of us is very good at working in harness, are we?”
“I prefer not to think of myself as a mule.” Jack ran a hand through his tousled hair. “Jane—”
There was a sharp knock at the door. Servants never knocked, but apparently monks did.
“Oh, the devil with it,” said Jack savagely, and strode towards the door. He yanked it open. “Yes?”
Brother Pedro shoved a large pile of cloth into Jack’s arms, delivered a rapid monologue, and departed, carefully not looking at Jane.
“I think he believes he caught us in the middle of exercising the sacrament of marriage,” said Jack dryly. “We are instructed that water for washing is in the dressing room, and we are to be at supper in half an hour. Or something along those lines.”
Jack dumped the pile of cloth on the bed, where the garments lolled in a decidedly wanton fashion. It looked like the aftermath of a scene of passion, a silk dress, buttons all undone, tangled with a pair of breeches; silk stockings tumbling, willy-nilly, over the side of the bed; garters flung any which way.
Jane glanced guiltily over her shoulder. It hadn’t been like that with Nicolas. There had been no rending of bodices or flinging of garters. Her undressing had been executed as carefully as any lady’s maid could desire.
Did that lessen the sin, if there were no corresponding creases in one’s chemise?
Hiding her blushes, Jane leaned down and lifted what looked like—and, indeed, appeared to be—a pair of purple plum knee breeches banded in silver and gilt at the knee.
“I believe these are for you,” she said, attempting to match Jack’s dry tone, as though she handed a man his most intimate garments every day.
Jack took a step back, his brows beetling. Jane was surprised he didn’t make the sign against the evil eye. “They can’t expect me to wear this.”
“Don’t forget the jacket.” It was plum velvet, thirty years out-of-date, edged with tarnished gilt embroidery tortured into fanciful swirls and rosettes. Some grandee of a previous generation had left his court clothes behind. Either that or the abbot had exhumed a premonastic costume of his youth.
Jack looked deeply horrified. “You must be joking.”
“I might be, but I don’t believe the abbot is.” Since Jack appeared to be frozen with a raw fear that neither death nor danger had previously induced, Jane draped the garments over the screen in the corner on his behalf, adding to them a heavily embroidered white silk waistcoat and a pair of silk stockings, only lightly munched by moths. “Here. Put these on. You can’t sit at the prior’s table in all your mud.”
“It might be mud, but at least it’s not purple,” retorted Jack, but he retreated behind the screen all the same.
“Consider it imperial,” replied Jane, and felt a pang of longing for her old chaperone, Miss Gwen, and her fearsome purple parasol. For Miss Gwen, imperial and imperious were generally one and the same.
Only she wasn’t Miss Gwen anymore. She was Mrs. Colonel William Reid.
Jane glanced at
the screen behind which various bumpings and mumblings could be heard. It had seemed so sensible, back in Lisbon, to avoid the entire tangle of admitting she knew Jack’s family. Jack’s relationship with his father was, by the latter’s own admission, fraught. Jack was more likely to comply with orders if he thought of Jane as an arm of Wickham, an agent, impersonal.
And Jane had wanted the armor that came of being the Carnation and only the Carnation. To tell him about Colonel Reid and Miss Gwen, of her sister Agnes’s friendship with Lizzy, of her little goddaughter, Plumeria, all the tangled ties that bound her to his family, struck too close to the heart of her, to whatever there still was that was Jane rather than the Carnation.
That, of course, was before she kissed him by the roadside.
Grimacing at herself, Jane snatched the remaining garments off the bed and retreated to the dressing room.
The dress was, mercifully, not of the same vintage as Jack’s borrowed ensemble. Good. It was very difficult to creep stealthily in three-foot-wide panniers. The dress was several years out-of-date and musty, but it was of silk, with slippers to match. The rich fabric had been heavily embroidered by someone with a taste for lopsided carnations. Pink carnations.
Chance, Jane told herself, untying her heavy wool skirt and letting it drop to the floor. The carnation was a popular flower in Portugal.
The dress had been made for a smaller woman. The bodice squeezed in a way that would, Jane thought wryly, look very fashionable in Paris. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Loosening her hair from her braid, she twisted it into a knot at the back of her head, using some of the water from the basin to dampen the ends into curls around her face.
The curls wouldn’t curl. Giving it up as a bad job, Jane tied her locket around her throat, and, suitably armored, went forth into the bedroom and promptly tripped over her too-small silk slippers.
There was a grandee waiting for her, a grandee in a purple plum velvet coat, his brown hair brushed into a queue, his arms folded across his chest. The light of the candles glittered off silver and gold embroidery.