4
" Jane’s been captured?” Lady Henrietta surged forward like the statue on the prow of a ship.
“She’s gone in,” Jack corrected shortly. “Voluntarily.”
“And you let her?” Lady Henrietta’s eyes were as wide as they could go.
A dry cackle came from the hatch that led to the nether regions of the yacht. “Have you ever seen anyone ‘let’ Jane do anything?”
A parasol emerged first, a purple parasol, the point hitting the deck with a force that made Miles jump. The newcomer strode forward, blindingly purple skirts swishing around her legs. Jack had never seen that much purple all in one place before. It was like being assaulted by an aubergine.
“If Jane is there, it’s because she chose to be there,” said the newcomer definitively. Jack wasn’t sure whether to appreciate or resent her support. “Jane does or she doesn’t. I would as soon try to yoke an aardvark.”
Lady Henrietta cocked her head. “Does one yoke aardvarks?”
“No,” said Jack shortly, putting an abrupt end to what might otherwise have become a fascinating and largely pointless discourse on natural history. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
5
" What is love?
Jane had asked Nicolas, when he had professed that emotion, unasked. It hadn’t been coyness. It had been a genuine question.
She knew what the poets said of love; she knew what great men and women had sacrificed in the name of that elusive emotion. Towers had toppled; fleets had been launched. But Jane had always wondered if they had all felt a bit sheepish about it afterwards, if what they had lauded as love was merely, in fact, the grip of a strong infatuation, lust fueled by inaccessibility. The prize, when won, lost its luster; infatuation turned to indifference. The famous beauty had a shrill voice; the great lover stinted his servants. Love was a chimera, an ideal.
Maybe you just aren’t capable of feeling it
, Nicolas had tossed back at her, one of those golden barbs that cut deeper than she had ever allowed herself to acknowledge.
But he had been wrong. And so had she. Love wasn’t an ideal; it was messy and muddy and fraught with inconsistencies. It was a hard arm around her shoulders when she slipped and might have fallen, a reluctant nod in the middle of an argument. It was the slouch of Jack’s shoulders and the crooked line of his smile. It was knowing that whatever hardships befell them, they would stumble through it together. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
7
" If you don’t mind my interrupting your no doubt fascinating private conversation,” said Richard, lifting a blond brow, “there have been some inquiries as to why our guest is not bound.”
“Or trussed,” contributed Henrietta.
“I have,” said Nicolas, spreading his arms wide, “attempted to explain, but your comrades, my love, seem reluctant to listen. I would prefer not to have rope marks on this coat, if it is all the same.”
“There must be some shackles in the dungeon,” said Henrietta darkly.
“Rust stains,” said Nicolas politely, “are very difficult to get out. My valet would be most cross. And one does not like to encounter Gaston when he is cross.”
Miles nodded knowingly. “Valets, eh? "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
9
" Jack reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The perfume was growing on him. “How are your blisters?”
It didn’t work. “They sting,” said Jane shortly. “But I didn’t mind that. I didn’t mind any of it. As I would have told you if you had only
listened.”
Jack pressed his eyes shut. Somehow he had gone from being noble and wronged to just being wrong. He wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. “I thought you wanted a bath and a proper bed.”
“There is,” said Jane dangerously, “a vast difference between wanting a proper bed and requiring coronets on my sheets. Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t care what sort of bed it was as long as you were in it?”
The words rang through the small room. Jack’s throat felt sore, swollen. He couldn’t seem to force words out, even if there had been any words to say. Jane’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, her bosom swelling distractingly over the low neckline of her white gauze gown.
“Jane—” Jack managed, but it was too late.
Jane jerked away, knocking over a bag of meal in the process. “I don’t need another man to put me on a pedestal. I have enough of those already.” She wrenched open the door to the drilling ground, the sky flaming red and orange behind her. “Congratulations on a successful mission, Moonflower.”
And the door slammed, taking with it Jane and the last of the light. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
11
" Jane leaned her head against a rough bit of brickwork. She couldn’t say that she hadn’t been warned. She’d known what Jack was before they began working together.
But she hadn’t known all the other things he was: the kindness, the fundamental decency of him. Beneath the layer of deliberate devil-may-care, his moral code was as stern as hers, and he was, she realized, a great deal better at seeing to the needs of others.
She tried to remember the frustrating bits, the moments when they had clashed. But all she could remember was Jack adapting to her change of plans. Jack taking charge when her plan had failed. Jack challenging her, making her think more carefully, and then, when she’d charted their course, covering her back without question. Caring for her.
When she was with him, she felt the weight of being the Pink Carnation lift off her shoulders. She didn’t have to be perfect. She didn’t have to have all the answers. Because Jack was there with her. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
14
" He glanced at the woman in purple, who was smirking fondly at Jack’s father in a way that filled Jack with darkest foreboding. “We wanted to surprise you.”
Jack looked from his father to the woman in purple. He thought he knew what was coming and he didn’t like it. “We?”
His father slid his arm through that of the woman in purple. He cleared his throat. “Jack, may I present my wife, your new—”
“Felicitations.” If his father thought he was going to call this woman mother, he had to be mad. But then, that was his father, wasn’t it? He always saw the world as he wished it to be. It was stupid, at Jack’s age, to feel disappointment. Jack nodded crisply to his new stepmother. “Congratulations, madam. Had I been informed, I would have sent a gift.”
“That didn’t sound terribly celebratory,” whispered Lady Henrietta to her husband. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
15
" 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. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
17
" 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. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
18
" 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. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
19
" 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. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
20
" She won’t come that way.”
Jack’s stepmother stepped out beside him on the large terrace in front of the fortress. All around them, the setting sun painted the sky a brilliant red and purple that only accentuated the jagged cliffs of the isle of Berlengas, jutting out into the sea around them. The wind had risen, slapping the waves into a frenzy. Whitecapped, they dashed themselves against the base of the narrow causeway that connected the Forte São João Batista with the island.
“I know that,” said Jack quickly, but despite himself, his eyes turned again to that narrow and twisting stone bridge, the shadows playing tricks on him, presenting him with the image of a carriage, the echo of horses’ hooves against the stone.
His stepmother was right: anyone would be mad to attempt the bridge at dusk in a high wind. Under the very best of conditions it would be dangerous. And these were not the best of conditions.
If Jane came at all, she would come by sea.
“She will come,” said Jack fiercely. “She knows what she’s doing.”
His stepmother furled her parasol, tucking it under her arm. “Most of the time.” Before Jack could retort, she added in a voice like vinegar, “I care about her, too, you know. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
