The Lure of the Moonflower Read Online Free PDF

window.
    “No?” Jack lounged back against the doorframe, his hands thrust in his pockets. “You surprise me.”
    “I doubt that.” The woman plucked the bonnet off her head, taking the dark curls with it.
    Beneath it, her own hair was a pale brown, brushed to a sheen and braided tightly around and around. Without the coquettish curls, her face had the purity of a profile on a coin, the sort of face to which men ascribed abstract sentiments: Liberty, Honor, Beauty. All she needed was some Grecian draperies and a flag.
    She dropped the bonnet on the table. “You have a reputation for keeping a cool head. Or have we been mistaken in you . . . Mr. Reid?”
    Jack straightened slowly. “I am afraid you have the advantage of me.”
    No names. That was the rule. Never names. Only aliases.
    One by one, the lady plucked the rings off her fingers, setting them each in a bowl on the table. “Your full name is Ian Reid, but no has ever called you that. Your family calls you Jack. You were born in Madras to Colonel William Reid, a Scottish-American officer in the East India Company’s army and his—”
    “Concubine?” drawled Jack.
    “—companion,” the woman corrected primly, “a Rajput lady of high birth.”
    His mother might have been a bazaar girl for all it mattered to the English community in Madras. Her high birth had meant only that she had felt her fall all the more, reduced from a princess among her own people to a cavalry officer’s kept woman.
    Jack didn’t like to talk about his mother. He liked it even less when other people talked about his mother.
    Years of taking hard knocks kept Jack’s face wooden. The only reaction was his very stillness, a stillness he knew betrayed him as much as any response. “Does this fascinating exposition have a point?”
    The cool, controlled voice went inexorably on. “You served for some years in the army of the Maratha chieftain Scindia, before Scindia’s French allies recruited you, and renamed you the Moonflower.” The last ring clattered into the bowl. The woman stretched her bare fingers, like a pianist preparing to play, before glancing over at Jack. “You fell out with the French three years ago. People tend not to like it when you work for someone else while pretending to work for them. They like it even less when you abscond with a raja’s horde of jewels.”
    Jack shrugged. “All’s fair, they say.”
    The woman raised a pale brow. “In love or in war?”
    From his limited experience, Jack didn’t see much difference between the two. Except that those one loved might hurt one the most. “They’re one and the same, princess.” His eyes lingered on her décolletage with deliberate insolence. “I had thought you would know.”
    The woman brushed that aside, continuing with her dossier. “As a result of your little escapade with the jewels, you relocated to Portugal, where you have been positioned ever since.”
    Jack tilted his hat lazily over his eyes. “You are well-informed,” he drawled. “Brava.”
    The woman’s lips turned up in a Sphinx-like smile. “It
is
what I do.”
    She sounded so pleased with herself that Jack decided that turn and turnabout was only fair play. He’d see how she liked it with the shoe on the other foot.
    “We’ve ascertained that you know all about me.” Jack straightened to his full height, favoring her with a wolfish smile. “Now let’s talk about you.”
    “I don’t—” she began imperiously, but Jack held up a hand.
    Pushing back from the wall, he prowled in a slow circle around her. “You speak French beautifully, but it’s not your native tongue. You wear your French clothes well, but they’re a costume, not a personal choice. Left to yourself, you don’t go in for furbelows.”
    His eyes went to her neck, where she wore a gold locket on a silk ribbon. The rest of her jewelry was showy, and undoubtedly made of paste. The locket was simple, and it was real.
    Jack nodded at her neck. “Except,