A boat, Jane had said. His stepmother was her former chaperone. Jane had known he would be here. Hell, Jane had led him here.
Jack looked hard at his new stepmother. “You said something about Jane succeeding in part of her mission. What did you mean?”
“You, of course,” said his stepmother dismissively.
Before Jack could say anything, he was bowled sideways by a small female moving with great velocity.
“Jack! Jack, Jack, Jack!” His sister Lizzy flung herself at him, momentarily stunning him. Or maybe that was just the large wooden object she was holding banging into the side of his head.
Jack gave his sister a quick, reflexive squeeze before turning to glare at his father. “You brought Lizzy?”
“How could I miss the return of my favorite brother?” said Lizzy, smiling winningly at him, and Jack realized, dizzily, that she wasn’t the little girl he remembered. The wild red-brown curls were the same, but the missing front teeth had grown in and the rest of her had grown up.
He wasn’t prepared for this. He wasn’t prepared for any of this. In his head, Lizzy was still perpetually six years old.
She’s rejected offers from three viscounts and the heir to a marquisate. Jane had told him, hadn’t she? But Jack hadn’t believed it. It had been a story about someone else, not his Lizzy.
“Lizzy is in training,” said his stepmother grandly.
“For what?” demanded Jack. He noticed for the first time that the object in her hand appeared to be . . . “And why is she holding a crossbow?”
“Because I’m too small for a longbow,” said Lizzy patiently. “Don’t look so alarmed. I haven’t hit anyone by accident in months.”
“Hasn’t hit anyone on purpose either,” murmured Miles to Lady Henrietta.
Lizzy narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that a challenge?”
“No!” said everyone in unison.
Lizzy dismissed them all as irrelevant. Flinging her arms around Jack’s neck, she gave him another bone-shattering hug. “I have missed you. I’m so glad Jane brought you back.”
Like his father, Lizzy appeared to take his presence entirely for granted.
Brought him back. Jane had brought him back. Step by step, piece by piece, she had led him to this place, to this boat. The quest for the Queen, the clues along the way, all of it turned on its head, tilted sideways, transforming into something barely recognizable.
He had only Jane’s word that the man they had met in the camp near Santarém had been the Gardener. The Comte de Brillac might have been just that, the Comte de Brillac, no one in particular.
No. Jack shoved aside the crazy thoughts buzzing through his brain. It was too elaborate a ruse. If Jane had been commissioned to bring him home, she might have accomplished it through simpler means, not a wild-goose chase through half of Portugal.
He tried to conjure Jane’s image, but instead of the woman he had left in Peniche, he saw the one he had first met in Lisbon, her Sphinx-like smile, that moment when she had removed her false curls, showing a deception beneath a deception.
No, Jack told himself again. Not Jane.
To his father, Jack said in a taut voice, “Is there anyone else here for this charming reunion? Do you have Kat tucked away in the hold? Is Alex clinging to the rigging?” He forced himself to voice the words he could barely stand to think. “Is the Queen of Portugal truly at large?”
“Of course.” His stepmother thumped her parasol against the deck. “Would we lie to you?”
“I don’t know. Would you?” Anger filled Jack, all the more frustrating for being without a target.
His father made soothing noises. “Everything you’ve been told—whatever you’ve been told—it’s mostly true.”
Only his father could utter that “mostly” with such an air of guileless sincerity.
“Mostly true,” Jack repeated dangerously. “Mostly?”
His father looked imploringly at his stepmother, who stepped in, literally, between them. “The Queen of Portugal disappeared during the royal departure. The Pink Carnation was dispatched to discover her whereabouts.” She looked at Jack as though he were a field mouse caught in a snare. “While she was here, it was only efficient for Jane to retrieve you.”
“Retrieve me.” As if he were a misplaced piece of luggage. Jack was not feeling warm and filial sentiments towards his new stepmother. “What was she meant to do, deliver me trussed and bound onto the ship?”
“Wouldn’t that be a bit gratuitous?” Everyone turned to look at Miles Dorrington, who held up both hands in self-defense. “Why would you truss and bind? Surely one would do.”
“You,” said Jack’s stepmother, advancing purposefully, “are not helping.”
Miles Dorrington ducked behind his wife.
“Nothing like that,” said Jack’s father reassuringly. “We merely hoped that she might persuade you. . . .”
“Persuade me,” Jack said flatly.
Jane, kissing him in a field by the road. Jane, picking her way gingerly down those steps into the water, the torchlight glimmering over her naked body. Jane, pressing up against him, her arms around his neck.
No. No. Whatever else he believed or didn’t believe, Jack wouldn’t believe that.
“Is it so wrong,” said his father quietly, “for a man to miss his son?”
Oh, no. No, no, no. His father wasn’t putting this on him.
“If,” Jack gritted out, “if the threat is real, then why in the devil does no one seem the least bit concerned that your former charge, madam”—Jack looked pointedly at his stepmother—“is currently in the custody of the Gardener and three hundred Frenchmen?”
Lord Richard clapped a hand on his shoulder. “We are. Deuced concerned.”
“But we know Jane,” put in Lady Henrietta. “Her plans always go as planned.” She exchanged a glance with her husband. “Well, almost always. But that wasn’t her fault.” And then, as if it explained everything, “She is the Pink Carnation.”
She wasn’t just the Pink Carnation. She was also human, very, very human. She made mistakes, she doubted herself, her heels blistered, and her hair snarled. Couldn’t any of them see that?
“She’s not invincible.” Jack tried to banish the images of what might be happening even now, but they crowded around him. Sunset. He had promised her until sunset. “If something goes wrong, we need to get her out.”
Miles Dorrington looked thoughtful. “I say, we could raise the Jolly Roger and storm the fort as pirates. While they’re panicking, you sneak in and retrieve Jane.”
“Too many cannons,” said Jack tersely. “You’ll be blown to splinters before we can get inside. Next?”
Lizzy raised her crossbow. “I could—”
“No,” said Jack and his father in unison. When Jack had finished glaring at his father, he said, “Jane and I discussed this. If she’s not back by sundown, Lord Richard and I”—Jack nodded to the blond man, who nodded back—“will go after her disguised as dragoons.”
Lord Richard quickly took charge. “I’ll see that my men acquire the relevant uniforms.”
“No,” said Jack’s new stepmother.
“No?” Jack looked narrowly at his stepmother. “What do you propose, then?”
His stepmother paced decisively down the deck. “Richard”—Lord Richard leaped agilely out of range of her parasol—“will stay and mind the Bien-Aimée. If Jane isn’t back by sundown”—Jack’s stepmother regarded him imperiously—“you and I will go after her.”
“Gwen is very good at rappelling down walls,” said Jack’s father, looking at his bride with gooey eyes. “Up them, too.”
“We’re not rappelling,” said Jack. If there was anything he hated, it was rappelling. It was as showy and useless as swinging through windows on ropes. “We’re going through the door.”
; “I’ve known that girl since she was born.” His stepmother stalked towards him, parasol point glinting. “I’ve protected her from more assailants than you’ve had hot suppers. If you go, I go.”
“How lovely,” said Lady Henrietta brightly. “You can get to know each other.”
Miles Dorrington prudently lifted his wife by the waist and deposited her out of parasol range.
“We don’t know that she’ll need rescuing,” said Jack, staring down his new stepmother. “The plan might go as planned.”
His stepmother snorted. “With the Gardener? I’ll go get my pistols.”
And she departed, leaving Jack with a sick feeling at the pit of his stomach as he tried not to contemplate what the Gardener might be doing with Jane right now.
Chapter Twenty-three
Candlelight slid sensually across silver candlesticks and brocade draperies, picking out the silver threads woven into the sapphire blue satin.
The candlelight was rather unnecessary, considering that it was still broad daylight outside, but it did set the mood nicely. And to be fair, thought Jane generously, the window slits were rather small.
Bathed and perfumed, Jane sat primly on the edge of a divan. The divan had clearly been designed for sensuous lounging, but it wouldn’t do to make it too easy. Nothing would make Nicolas more suspicious than to find her too eager for his embrace.
It hadn’t surprised her—not entirely—when she hadn’t been brought immediately to Nicolas. After her announcement at the gate, there had been a brief flurry of junior officers running forth and back, which had resulted in Nicolas’s valet being sent, bowing and scraping, to escort Jane to a small and stony chamber, in which a steaming bath was waiting, along with a selection of lotions, oils, and perfumes.
Jane had been reasonably certain she would remain unmolested, but she had propped a chair against the door all the same. It wouldn’t stop it from opening, but it would give her fair warning and time to grab a wrap.
There had been a gown waiting for her as well. Jane decided not to inquire how Nicolas came to be traveling with women’s garments. She preferred not to know. Although, under the right circumstances, he would make a rather pretty girl. Jane considered the question with professional interest. If she could masquerade as a man, why not a man as a woman?
It was easier to focus on abstract speculation than to fret about what was to come, or where Jack might be now.
As Jane donned the sheer undergarments, the silk stockings, the embroidered garters, the lace-edged chemise of finest French lawn, she hoped fervently that Jack had stayed true to his word and was, even now, climbing the ladder to the Bien-Aimée.
She wasn’t sure that Jack would entirely approve of the methods she intended to use with Nicolas.
Nicolas’s valet knocked respectfully before coming in. The chamber in which she had bathed had been small and barren; the chamber to which she was escorted was not.
Nicolas always did know how to set the scene for a seduction. Jane recognized the candlesticks and the drapes. She had no doubt that she would also recognize the linen on the bed, should it come to that.
But it wouldn’t. Jane touched a finger to the bezel of her ring. The white powder contained within was designed to act quickly.
Nicolas, mercifully, preferred to seduce slowly. There would be wine and sweetmeats, barbed repartee and gestures that were almost, but not quite, caresses. Jane began running sums in her head. Ten minutes, fifteen perhaps, to get the glass of wine into his hand. Another half an hour for the drug to do its work. A fifteen-minute margin for error.
An hour, then.
It had been at least an hour since she and Jack had parted ways, possibly more. Just time enough for him to have reached the Bien-Aimée. The sun set early in December. It would take them an hour to sail to Berlengas, slightly more if the sea were rough or any complications ensued. That left her, Jane determined, roughly two hours to incapacitate Nicolas, forge the orders, and see the Queen onto a boat.
There was no decanter of wine in the room, no platter of sweetmeats, no goblets ready for filling. Nicolas, Jane thought wryly, had taken precautions. A setback, nothing more. Had he been careless, she would have mistrusted him more.
They had always been on their guard with each other, even when they had been at their most intimate.
It was the opposite of the way she felt with Jack: stripped bare, unguarded.
The door opened and Nicolas made his entrance, as theatrical as any thespian. He paused in the doorway, perusing Jane with a faint smile on his lips. Then, doffing his hat, he swept an elaborate bow. “Do I understand that you are about to make me the happiest man on earth?”
He was dressed for riding, in breeches, boots, and an impeccably cut coat. Which meant . . . absolutely nothing. He might have been riding or he might have been lounging in the next room in a brocaded dressing gown.
Jane rose to her feet. “My apologies, Nicolas.” She held out a hand to him, her smile not entirely feigned. She might despise him in absentia, but it was hard, in person, not to feel a little fond of Nicolas. Which, given all he had done and all she had seen him do, was saying a great deal. “I had to say something to make them let me in.”
Her former lover delicately raised her hand in his. Turning it over, he pressed a kiss against her palm, looking up at her from under his lashes. “Your beauty alone would open any doors.”
“There are some doors,” said Jane, gently retrieving her hand, “which are best left closed.”
Nicolas made a gesture behind his back to his lackeys, who crossed the room in procession, depositing trays and platters on a table. To Jane, he said softly, “My offer still stands.”
Jane wondered sometimes whether Nicolas realized how much he was a creature of that same ancien régime he claimed to deplore. Servants weren’t people to him; he was perfectly content to play out his love scenes before them, as if they were nothing more than wardrobes or chairs.
Serenely, Jane seated herself on the divan, arranging her skirts modestly around her legs. “As does my reply.”
“Circumstances have changed.” Nicolas flicked his wrist, indicating that his entourage should close the door behind them. He knelt beside the divan, taking Jane’s hand in his. “Has it not occurred to you, my dearest Jeanne, that I can make you a countess?”
Jane looked down at their joined hands. He wore two signets now: his own sigil and that of the Comte de Brillac. His supposed father’s arms, which he had sworn he would never wear.
Jane looked directly at him. Honesty was always the best illusion. “I have no desire for titles. I never have.”
Nicolas rose smoothly to his feet, a dimple appearing in one cheek. “Nor for riches or fame. My dear Jeanne—so charmingly incorruptible.” He didn’t touch her. That would be too crude. But his look was the equivalent of a touch. “Or . . . almost incorruptible.”
And that, thought Jane grimly, was what she got for feeling sorry for Nicolas. She wasn’t the only woman to have been lulled by that dimple, only to feel a knife in the ribs. A metaphorical knife, in her case, but a knife all the same, designed to belittle her, to weaken her.
Your virtue lies in your mind, not in what lies between your legs.
Taking strength from the memory, from Jack, Jane folded her hands in her lap. “I do not perceive myself as in any way corrupted.”
Nicolas glanced down at her, his eyebrows quirking. “Is that a compliment or a repudiation?” He strode across the room to the decanter his servants had left, Venetian glass, costly and rare. “Wine?”
“Yes, please,” said Jane demurely.
It would be too obvious if she offered to pour. She had never played Ganymede to his Jove. It was a deliberate choice, another tactic in the constant maneuvering for supremacy between them. To play the servant would be to cede a point.
Which, in this case, was
rather a disadvantage.
Her best chance, Jane decided, was to drink, lightly, of her own wine before drugging it. A circumstance would arise, she had no doubt, in which she might offer Nicolas her cup.
Leave a kiss but in the cup, the poet said. It wasn’t a kiss she had for him.
She smiled up at Nicolas as he handed the goblet to her, his fingers lingering, ever so slightly, against hers. “I should like to think that I have made something more of an impression than that.”
Nicolas’s tone was light, but there was something in his eyes that made Jane feel like a cad.
“Indelibly,” said Jane, matching his insouciant air. She feigned a sip of her wine. It was claret, not port. It was, she thought, very like Nicolas to travel with his own cellar into a region famed for its wines. “I shall always think of you as a friend.”
“Only a friend?” Nicolas arranged himself flatteringly at her feet. It was, Jane knew, a standard tableau, the young swain at the feet of his love.
She could speak her lines, or she could change the dialogue, throw him off balance. “Said the amorous shepherd to his love? Do get up, Nicolas. I’ve come to you on a serious matter.”
“What could be more serious than love?” But he rose all the same, drawing a chair to rest beside the divan. “If not for my so charming person, why are you here?”
While his eyes were fixed on her face, Jane turned her hand over her cup, releasing the hidden catch in her ring. “I’ve come for Queen Maria,” she said calmly.
Nicolas stared at her for a moment, his eyebrows rising to his carefully curled hair, and then he began to laugh. His laugh was one of his more charming attributes, a light tenor, and entirely unfeigned.
“Only you, my Jeanne. Only you.”
“Then you do have her?” Casually, Jane swirled the glass, letting the powder dissolve in the strong claret. “Would you consider releasing her into my custody? She can be of no use to you.”
“On the contrary, she is a great deal of use to me.” Nicolas cast her a heavy-lidded look that lacked some of its usual smolder. It was too practiced, too pat. “She brought you to me.”