The Lure of the Moonflower Read online

  “Can you sail a boat?”

  “No, but I can hire one and pose as crew.”

  “Do fishing boats have crews?” The fact that Jack looked as blank as she did was argument enough against the plan. He had posed as a seller of horses, not a sailor. “It’s how far to Berlengas? An hour? More? It makes no sense for you to go back and forth.”

  “All the more reason for me to stay here.”

  “And be captured? It makes more sense to gather reinforcements and wait for a signal.” Turning her back, Jane yanked the white silk gown over her head. She bent her head forward. “Will you do up my buttons?”

  Reluctantly, Jack stepped forward. “I don’t like this,” he muttered.

  Jane shivered as Jack’s knuckles brushed the tender skin at the nape of her neck. “It was your plan.”

  Jack did up the last button. His hands rested, far too briefly, on her shoulders. “I still don’t like it.”

  “It’s our best chance.” Jane turned to face him, not sure what to say now that the moment of parting had come. There was only a yard of frostbitten ground between them, but it felt like much more. Tentatively, Jane said, “If I need help, I’ll signal.”

  “If I don’t hear from you by sundown,” Jack countered, “I’ll come after you.”

  “Nicolas won’t hurt me. He fancies himself in love with me.”

  “Would you be willing to wager your life on that? The man’s a ruthless bastard.”

  “Quite literally. You didn’t know? His mother cuckolded the Comte de Brillac with an Englishman.” She was drawing this out, Jane knew, putting off the moment of parting. “Nicolas has his reasons for being what he is.”

  Jack folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t start feeling too sorry for him.”

  “I shan’t leave him in custody of the Queen, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I’m not worried about the Queen.” Jack jammed his hat down over his head. “Just—be careful.”

  Jane started to put a hand out and then thought better of it. She stood there as primly as a schoolgirl in her too-tight gown, her neck turning blue with cold. “You as well.”

  “This,” said Jack succinctly, “is ridiculous.”

  And without another word, he reached out, pulled Jane to him, and kissed her until her ears were ringing and her neck was no longer the least bit chilly.

  “Don’t take any chances,” he said gruffly.

  Jane’s hands were clutching the collar of his jacket. She forced herself to let go. “No more than necessary.”

  “No more than necessary.” Jack rested his forehead against hers, breathing in deeply. His arms closed around her, cradling her close. “Come back safely to me,” he whispered.

  And then he was gone.

  Jane watched him as he strode away, just another man and his donkey, heading for the harbor.

  It hadn’t been an I love you, but it had certainly felt like one.

  Nicolas, Jane reminded herself. She would need all her wits about her to deal with Nicolas.

  Strange to think that once her palms would have tingled and her chest would have felt tight at the prospect of sparring with Nicolas, part fear, part anticipation. Now there was no titillation, just grim resolve.

  But she couldn’t let him see that. He would need to see her equal parts eagerness and apprehension.

  Amarantha, thought Jane wryly, still in thrall to the Knight of the Silver Tower.

  Little did the knight know that his silver armor had lost its lure. Perhaps Miss Gwen should write a sequel, thought Jane wildly. Something about a moonflower.

  She didn’t need to ask directions to the fort. The large, irregular structure was hard to miss. The windowless stone walls were rather a giveaway. There was a gate set into the forbidding stone wall, manned by a bored French soldier who looked like he would far rather be playing cards.

  He stood up a little straighter as Jane approached, shouldering the musket he had left carelessly propped by the side of the door.

  “Yes?” he demanded insolently, his eyes lingering on the flesh exposed by Jane’s bodice.

  In flawless and very aristocratic French, Jane said, “Tell Monsieur le Comte de Brillac that he has a guest.”

  “Er . . .” It was clear the guard didn’t know what to make of her. “Do you have papers?”

  Yes. In a trunk somewhere on the road to Santarém.

  Jane drew herself up, doing her best imitation of the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale in a snit. “Take me to the comte. At once.”

  “But—”

  “You may tell him,” said Jane, flicking at a smudge of dirt on her sleeve, “that his fiancée is here to see him.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I held tightly to my fiancé’s hand as we picked our way carefully across the midnight grounds of Donwell Abbey.

  We didn’t dare light a flashlight; that might alert our adversary to our presence. The idea was to outsmart the kidnapper. If we were already here when he arrived, crouching in darkness, we might get the jump on him and wrest Mrs. Selwick-Alderly away before he knew what was happening.

  It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all we had. Further proof, if I’d needed it, that Colin was telling the truth about not being MI5, 6, or 23. In the spy novel he’d been writing, his hero generally defeated the villains with more firepower than cunning. Since the largest weapon at our disposal was a tractor and the only firepower a few leftover fireworks from Guy Fawkes Day, we’d been forced to default to simpler means.

  I was to do the distracting; Colin would do any wresting required. Brute strength was more in his line than mine.

  We had come prepared. Sort of. In the car I’d changed my high heels for sneakers. They didn’t do much for my DVF knock – off wrap dress, but they were much more practical for traversing the uneven terrain around the ruins of the old monastery, as I had learned the hard way on a previous occasion. I also had a sheet, with holes cut out for eyes. If worse came to worst, two could play at being the Phantom Monk of Donwell Abbey.

  Even if I looked less like a phantom monk and more like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

  Right now, in the darkness, with the remains of the old abbey looming up ahead of us, it was far too easy to believe in real ghosts. Colin had told me some of the old tales when I had first come to stay at Selwick Hall: a restless spirit, searching for his lost love, seeking revenge on the men who had driven them apart.

  Most of the abbey had disappeared over time, looted by locals who had used the stones for sheds and cow byres. But there were still a few walls intact, rising jaggedly against the night sky, punctuated by the empty arches of windows.

  Or were they empty? My imagination conjured specters in the shadows. The night was full of strange rustlings and murmurings, the calls of unfamiliar birds and the too-loud beating of my heart.

  This was really not how I’d intended to spend the night before my wedding. But we were together, I reminded myself, leaning against Colin’s side and breathing in the familiar, comforting smell of him. And maybe, just maybe, this would all turn out to be a massive misunderstanding or a prank, nothing sinister at all.

  Something crackled loudly and I nearly jumped into Colin’s arms.

  A crisps packet. That was all it was. The abbey might give the impression of being lost to time, but according to Colin it was a very popular destination for local youth, for all the obvious purposes.

  “The old refectory?” I murmured to Colin, and felt him nod against my hair.

  He paused, taking my hands in his. “Ready?”

  I hefted my sheet. “As ready as I’ll ever be.” The whole thing felt more than a little unreal.

  “Not exactly how you thought we’d be spending tonight, is it?” It was too dark to see his face, but I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “I’m wit
h you,” I said simply. “That’s a plus.”

  Colin pulled me forward into a quick, crushing embrace. “I love you,” he murmured.

  “I love you, too.” I pulled away just far enough to grin at him, high on love and nerves. “Maybe we should—I don’t know—get married or something.”

  Colin grasped my hand, the one with his ring. He’d given it to me last year, on my birthday cupcake. I’d had to lick off the icing before he could put it on my finger. Because nothing says lasting love quite like buttercream frosting.

  “Refectory?” he said, and I followed him through the treacherous ruins, skirting sinkholes that might once have been the monks’ fishpond or the results of a ten-year-old searching for treasure.

  The refectory was the only room that had retained all of its walls and some of its roof. It might look like something out of one of Mary Shelley’s nightmares, but it was the best place to ambush our quarry.

  Unfortunately, someone else appeared to have had the same idea.

  “You’re early.” A man stepped out of the shadows. His Phantom Monk costume was much better than mine. The cowl fell in long folds around his face, and a remarkably accurate-looking rope circled his waist.

  What was less accurate? The gun in one hand.

  Don’t ask me what kind of gun. The only weapon I’d ever handled was a Super Soaker. All I knew was that this one was metallic and dangerous and pointed squarely at me.

  I hadn’t been expecting a gun. One doesn’t, really, any more than one expects kidnappings the night before one’s wedding. In the back of my head I think I had assumed all along that the malefactor was Jeremy. And Jeremy, for all his other sins, was reasonably harmless.

  This man wasn’t looking particularly harmless.

  “Where’s the box?” he demanded.

  It was too dark to see his face, but I knew that voice. “Dempster? Nigel Dempster?”

  It was like pulling the mask off the zombie, only to discover that he was really the owner of the amusement park and he’d have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids and their dog.

  I should have guessed when he’d said “box.” If anyone was as obsessed with the Pink Carnation as I was, it was Nigel Dempster. He’d dated Serena to get to those papers and, when that failed, took up with Colin’s neighbor, Joan.

  I’d been so relieved at Dempster’s distracting Joan that I hadn’t inquired too closely into any ulterior motives he might have had in dating someone next door to Selwick Hall.

  But who would have thought that he cared quite that much? I had certainly never imagined that Dempster, with his carefully groomed hair and immaculate sport coats, would go to the lengths of kidnapping an elderly lady.

  Attempting to suck up to said elderly lady, yes. Plying her with tea, yes. Holding a gun on us? No.

  Which just goes to show that you never know.

  Even now, with the gun pointing straight at me, it didn’t quite compute. I know death is supposed to concentrate the mind wonderfully, but it was having the opposite effect for me. My ear itched. One of my sneakers was laced too tightly. And I felt strangely indignant at being put to all this trouble by Dempster—Dempster!—of all people.

  Adding a little gravel to his voice, Dempster growled, “Where is it?”

  “Where is my aunt?” Colin countered. Slowly, carefully, he eased away to my right, attempting to draw Dempster’s fire.

  “Safe.” Dempster wasn’t drawn. He kept the gun pointed right at my chest. “But you won’t be if you keep moving.”

  “Isn’t this a little bit extreme?” My Casper sheet was bundled underneath one arm. I hitched it a little higher. “If you had wanted access to the Pink Carnation’s trunk, you might have just asked. Instead of, you know, holding a gun on me the night before my wedding.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said our assailant, affecting a deep voice with a faint and entirely unbelievable accent.

  “Oh, come on.” In my own defense, if it were a Russian mobster or an unknown assailant of any extraction, I would have been behaving myself nicely, but this was Dempster. I’d seen the man fall to pieces over a broken nail. He was more metro than sexual. If that gun was even loaded, I’d be very surprised. “What else? You’ve been angling for those papers for years. Is it worth this”—I jabbed a finger in the general direction of his firearm—“for a book deal?”

  Colin gave me a discreet thumbs-up as he edged to the side, towards a convenient piece of loose coping.

  “This isn’t”—Dempster had forgotten he was meant to sound French—“about a book deal.”

  Huh. I believed that just about as much as I believed those were real streaks of silver at his temples. The man’s oft-repeated master plan was to soar to notoriety as the first person to unmask the legendary Pink Carnation. Interviews in the Guardian, opinion pieces in the Times, a BBC miniseries . . .

  It would be a bit like finding the real Robin Hood, only with fewer tights. The fact that the Pink Carnation was a woman provided extra bonus points. The media would be all over that and, by extension, all over Dempster.

  “Intellectual curiosity, then,” I said generously, pretending to believe him. “Look, as long as Colin and Aunt Arabella agree, we’d be happy to open our archives to you.”

  As a distraction, it was working rather nicely. Or maybe not. Dempster glared at me down the barrel of his gun. “Just bring me that damned box!”

  “Right now? Wouldn’t you rather sit down and go through the papers with a cup of coffee and a Danish?”

  “Cherry or cheese?” murmured Colin. I had the feeling he was getting a little punchy.

  “I don’t like Danish,” snapped Dempster.

  “Pain au chocolat?” I offered.

  “I don’t need catering,” said Dempster tensely. “I just need those papers.”

  I exchanged a glance with Colin. “The trunk is in the Land Rover.” It wasn’t, actually, but if we moved Dempster out into the open, we might have more of a chance.

  “Fine.” Dempster pointed the gun at Colin. “You. Go get it. She”—damn, the gun was back on me—“stays with me.”

  “The box is heavy,” I said cunningly. “It takes two people to lift.”

  “I don’t need the whole box. I just need those notebooks.”

  “Don’t you mean those papers? The Pink Carnation’s papers aren’t in notebooks; they’re loose.”

  “I don’t give a damn about the Pink Carnation!” Dempster did his best Rumpelstiltskin imitation. “Who cares that much about nineteenth-century spies?”

  “I do, actually.” I frowned at Dempster. “I thought you did, too.”

  “That was what you were meant to think. That was what you were all meant to think.” He waved his gun in exasperation. “Would it have killed you to have given me access to those papers?”

  All of this weapon waving was making me nervous. “Er—if not the Pink Carnation, then why do you want the family papers?”

  “Because,” he said, his voice as nasal and overenunciated as ever, “your aunt killed my father.”

  My eyes slid towards Colin’s. He gave a little shake of his head. He had no clue either.

  “Mrs. Selwick-Alderly killed your father?” I said. Keep ’em talking. That was what they always did on TV. Of course, on TV there was usually backup coming. I was our backup.

  It was not a reassuring thought.

  “Well, what do you call it when someone leaves you a loaded gun and the threat of exposure?” said Dempster testily. “‘Blow your brains out and we’ll keep it quiet.’ What sort of offer is that?”

  “That depends,” said Colin quietly, “on the nature of the offense.”

  “You sell a few little secrets to the Russians . . .” Dempster jabbed the gun at him. “It was all your bitch of an aunt’s fault. He made a run for
it and it all came out. Stories in the papers, boys whispering behind my back at school. She ruined him. She ruined me.”

  “Of course,” said Colin quietly. “I should have realized. The Dempster Affair.”

  “The what?” I felt like I was missing something.

  Colin kept an eye on Dempster as he explained. “In the seventies. I was only three or four. It was all over the news. A very senior MP was passing sensitive information to the Russians—”

  “Supposedly passing information to the Russians,” Dempster corrected him.

  I didn’t want to make trouble, but . . . “Have you ever considered—just for argument’s sake—that your father might actually have been conspiring with the Russians?”

  “Of course he was!” said Dempster impatiently. “The tuition at Saint Anselm was absurd.”

  “So,” I said slowly, “what you’re saying is that Mrs. Selwick-Alderly was doing her job and your father got caught red-handed.”

  “Oh, no,” said Dempster, a thin smile pursing his lips. “Quite the contrary. An excitable woman overstepped herself and accused a man of sterling reputation. A man who was then hounded to death by the media. And naturally her superiors covered it all up. MI5 doesn’t like to admit when they get it wrong.”

  There was something that didn’t quite add up. “But you just said . . .”

  Dempster looked altogether too pleased with himself. “You see, those notebooks are going to reappear—in a slightly edited form. And the author of them will be found, tragically, dead by her own hand. Out of remorse. For framing my father all those years ago.”

  Okay, I was scared now.

  Colin was standing very, very still, like a tiger poised to strike. “Where is she?” he asked quietly.

  “Still alive. For the moment.” Dempster looked impatient. “There’s no point in killing her until I know you have the notebooks.”

  It made a mad sort of sense. If she’d hidden them elsewhere, he would need her to tell him the location.

  “Do you remember any notebooks?” I said to Colin. “I was focusing on the nineteenth-century documents.”

  “Nice try,” said Dempster. “I know they’re in there. They have to be—”