The Lure of the Moonflower Read Online Free Page B

barracks, undoubtedly to call up reinforcements.
    Jack ducked sideways, down the Rua Áurea.
    A hand grabbed at his arm. Jack automatically dodged out of the way. This wasn’t his fight. And then a musical voice said, “Wait!”
    It was the courtesan—the courtesan he had noticed across the square, her curls flying, her bonnet askew.
    “Please,” she said, and she spoke in French, a cultured, aristocratic French that caught the attention of the mob around them, made them stop and stare and growl low in their throats. “I need an escort back to my lodgings.”
    He’d say she did. Her voice was already attracting unwanted attention.
    But Jack didn’t do rescues of maidens, fair or fallen. Don’t get involved—that was the only way to survive. Even when they had a figure like a statue of Aphrodite and lips painted a luscious pink.
    “Sorry, princess,” he drawled, his own French heavily accented, but serviceable. “I’m no one’s lackey.” He nodded towards the embattled French soldiers. “There’s your escort.”
    “They can’t even escort themselves.” Her pose was appropriately beseeching, the epitome of ladylike desperation, but there was, even now, in the midst of all the tumult, that strange calm about her. It was the eyes, Jack realized. Cool. Assessing. She lifted those eyes to his in a calculated gesture of supplication, her gloved hands against the breast of his rough coat. “Please. You know that the eagle nests only once.”
    All around them, the hectic exodus continued. In the distance Jack could hear the ominous clatter of horses’ hooves against the cobbles, signaling the arrival of the cavalry.
    But Jack stood where he was, frozen in the middle of the street, locked in tableau with a French courtesan. And a very pretty tableau it was. Pretty, and completely for show.
    Beneath the heavy tracing of kohl that lined her eyes and darkened her lashes, her gray eyes were shrewd, and more than a little bit amused.
    She raised her brows, waiting for him, giving him the chance to speak first. It was a damnable tactic, and one Jack used himself with some frequency.
    He didn’t much appreciate being on the other end of it.
    “The eagle,” said Jack, his gaze traveling from the plunging depths of her décolletage to her painted face, “sometimes nests in uncommon strange places.”
    The woman didn’t squirm or color. She said calmly, “The more remote the nest, the more secure the eggs.”
    “Puta!”
taunted one of the crowd, jostling towards them.
    The woman raised her voice, putting on a convincing display of arrogance tinged with fear. “I will pay for your escort. My colonel will reward you well for seeing me safely home.”
    “I’ll see her—” shouted one man, and made a graphic hand gesture.
    Loudly, in Portuguese, Jack said, “When coin is lying in the gutter, it would be foolishness not to take it, eh?” Under his breath, in French, he added, “Squeal.”
    Without waiting for a response, he scooped her up, over his shoulder. A ragged cheer rose up from their viewers, combined with some rather graphic suggestions. Jack waved his free hand, and then hastily had to clap it back over her bottom as she squirmed and bucked and squealed, putting on, he had to admit, an excellent show. That is, if she didn’t unbalance them both.
    “Easy there, princess,” called Jack, with a wink for the crowd, and, with a hard hand on her bottom, hoisted her more securely over his shoulder.
    Something banged into his collarbone, making him wince.
    Not all flounces, then. He’d eat his hat if that wasn’t a pistol tucked into her stays.
    Who—or what—in the devil was she?
    “Where to?” he asked beneath his breath, staggering just a little. The woman was slim, but she was nearly as tall as he was, and burdened with a superfluity of flounces and ruffles. The street was slick beneath his feet with mud and offal.
    “Down Rua Áurea and turn left on the Rua Assunção,” she said, as briskly as