Lauren Willig - Masque of the Black Tulip

As a precautionary measure, it was worth pursuing, but it wasn't enough. No agent of the Black Tulip's caliber would allow himself to be put off by such a tepid report. He might set about garnering extra information, but, at best, his attention would be diluted, not diverted.

Jane frowned as she perfectly realigned Delaroche's desk chair.

Removal to the country would be equally futile, in fact, perhaps more dangerous than not. So many accidents could happen in the country. A horse could shy; a shot could go awry; the wrong sort of mushroom could be added to a sauce. No. Henrietta would be safer in town, where the rules of society dictated the presence of a chaperone.

Having neatly assessed and dismissed most of the viable options in her head, Jane Wooliston settled on the only acceptable plan. They would simply have to find the Black Tulip.

It would take Delaroche some time to replace an agent of that skill. Until he managed to do so, Henrietta and Mr. Dorrington would be free from molestation, and Jane could proceed with her master plan. It would all serve very well.

There was nothing for it but to remove the Black Tulip.

Word would be sent to Henrietta and the War Office, labeled for the highest of alerts. Her own men in Paris would be sent to ferret out any scrap of information they could find relating to the identity of the Black Tulip. Fouche's files would have to be looked into.

There was no reason, resolved Jane, that they shouldn't have the Black Tulip enjoying His Majesty's hospitality within the next fortnight. It was all a matter of applying oneself logically to the problem.

A furrow appeared between Jane's pale brows. It could all be quite simple — if only the Black Tulip didn't make his move first.

Jane squelched worry as neatly as she had rifled through Delaroche's files. Her courier could be in London by the day after next. Within the next thirty-six hours, Henrietta would be warned, and, Jane hoped, modify her behavior accordingly. There were only the next thirty-six hours to be got through, and, surely, a spy so newly arrived in London would wish to survey the field before resorting to darker methods.

Having arranged the matter to her satisfaction, the Pink Carnation shuttered her lantern. She retrieved her cloak from the window and her scrap of cloth from the door. She oozed out into the night as silently as she had come, leaving Delaroche's office once again swathed in slumber, exactly as he had left it.

"Hen!" exclaimed Penelope in annoyance. "You aren't paying attention!"

"What?" asked Henrietta vaguely, looking up from the amber swirls in her teacup.

Penelope scowled. "I just asked you if you wanted arsenic in your tea, and you said, 'Yes, two, please.'"

"Oh. Sorry." Henrietta put her teacup down on the inlaid wood of her favorite table in the morning room, and smiled apologetically at her oldest friend. "I was thinking of something else."

Penelope rolled her eyes. "That much was obvious."

Henrietta succumbed to the urge to direct yet another glance at the dainty china clock on the mantelpiece. It was nearly noon. And Miles hadn't stopped by yet. Miles always stopped by on Thursday mornings. Every Thursday, Cook made ginger biscuits, for which Miles held a regard tantamount to that of Petrarch for his Laura. For Miles not to appear on a Thursday morning was tantamount to the bells of St. Paul's refusing to chime. It just didn't happen.

Unless Miles was otherwise occupied. In the arms of a dark-haired beauty, for example.

It wasn't like Miles to disappear from Almack's without stopping by to say good-bye. And yet he had done just that. Usually, he left with the Uppingtons, riding with them as far as his lodgings on Jermyn Street, and taking his leave with a joke and a tug of one of her curls. Henrietta found the latter habit decidedly less than endearing and had remonstrated with Miles about it on several occasions. But without him there… the evening felt oddly incomplete.

That Woman had disappeared around the same time. Coincidence? Henrietta deeply doubted it.

Not that it mattered one way or another. Miles was a grown man, and it wasn't as though he hadn't had mistresses before; Henrietta wasn't that naive. It was simply, Henrietta rationalized, that it would be very tedious if Miles took up with someone nasty. After all, with Richard away in Sussex, and Geoff hideously preoccupied with that vile Mary Alsworthy, Miles was her primary source of lemonade and banter at the nightly social events deemed de rigueur by the ton. If he started dancing attendance on some cold-eyed temptress, it would just be inconvenient, that was all. There was certainly nothing more to it than that.

"Oh, Pen!" Charlotte's cry broke into Henrietta's reverie. Charlotte's large gray eyes grew three sizes larger. "You weren't out on the balcony with Reggie Fitzhugh?"

"Oh, Charlotte!" mocked Penelope, adding with a wicked twinkle in her eye, "He does have ten thousand pounds a year. Surely you can't disapprove of that."

"And the mental capacity of a turnip," put in Henrietta drily, allowing herself to be diverted from her decidedly less-than-pleasing speculations.

Charlotte giggled. "I suppose all that gold does rather gild the turnip."

Penelope eyed her askance. "Gild the turnip?"

"You know, like gilding the lily. Only he's a turnip."

Henrietta shook her head to clear it of unfortunate images, and looked pointedly at Penelope. "Back to the matter at hand…"

"Don't fuss, Hen. What's the worst that could have happened?"

"Disgrace?" suggested Charlotte.

"Marriage to Mr. Fitzhugh," warned Henrietta.

"Ugh," said Penelope.

"Exactly," said Henrietta crisply.

Henrietta was about to drive the point home, when she was distracted by the sound of booted footsteps in the doorway. Jerking her chair around, she saw the object of her earlier speculations leaning win-ningly against the doorjamb. He had clearly made the kitchen his first stop; he held one of Cook's ginger biscuits in either hand and was alternating taking bites from both.

"Good morning, ladies," he pronounced with a winning smile, only slightly marred by bulging cheeks.

"You do know Richard doesn't live here anymore?" snapped Penelope.

Henrietta waved a languid hand. "Oh, that doesn't make the slightest difference to Miles. He just comes here…"

"… for the meals," Miles obligingly finished for her, swallowing a final mouthful of ginger biscuit.

Henrietta cocked her head. "You're in good spirits this morning."

"How could I not be, with three such pulchritudinous ladies arrayed before me?" Miles swept an elaborate bow.

Charlotte blushed.

Penelope snorted.

Henrietta narrowed her hazel eyes suspiciously. "Last night it was, 'Run along, children; I'm flirting.'"

Miles clasped his hands behind his back and gazed up at the elaborate piasterwork of the ceiling. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You have a new mistress?" Henrietta fished.

"Hen!" Charlotte exclaimed.

Miles wagged a finger, and pronounced, "You aren't supposed to know of such things."

Henrietta noticed that he didn't deny the allegation. "Don't you mean 'such women'?"

"Such states of affairs," Miles corrected loftily.

"Affairs are precisely what I was referring to," Henrietta said, rather more sharply than she had intended.

"Richard," Miles said ominously, "tells you altogether too much."

"If you knew half of what was whispered in the lady's retiring room, your ears would fall off in shock."

"Might be an improvement," muttered Penelope. "I don't think ears fall off just like that," put in Charlotte thoughtfully. "Whose ears are falling off?" enquired Lady Uppington, sweeping into the morning room in a rustle of emerald silk. "Miles's," said Penelope pointedly.

"Not before this evening, I hope. You will be coming with us to the Middlethorpes' ball tonight?"

"Uh…"

"Good. We'll call for you at those dreadful bachelor lodgings of yours at ten o'clock. That's ten o'clock, mind you. Not five to eleven."

"I had a problem with my cravat," protested Miles defensively. Lady Uppington emitted one of her infamous harrumphs. "Don't think I don't know your tricks by now, young man." Henrietta smothered a chuckle.

She failed to smother it well enough. Lady Uppington's shrewd green eyes lighted on her daughter. "Henrietta, darling, the lime green silk, I think, for tonight. I've just heard that Percy Ponsonby will be there — "

"I don't like Percy Ponsonby."

" — with Martin Frobisher."

"And Martin Frobisher doesn't like me."

"Don't be silly, darling, everyone likes you."

"No, he really doesn't like me."

"She spilt ratafia all over his new coat last week," explained Pen, exchanging an amused glance with Henrietta. "It was completely ruined," she added with relish.

"Pure sacrilege, ruining a coat by Weston," muttered Miles. "He said things no gentleman should say," Charlotte rose to her friend's defense.

"What did he say?" Miles asked darkly.

"Nothing like that!" snapped Henrietta. "He just made a suggestion regarding the balcony and placed his hand somewhere where his hand was not supposed to be."