Lauren Willig - Masque of the Black Tulip

"Dammit, Hen, do you know how worried I was?" he said thickly, and, before he could think better of it, before he could remember that she was his best friend's sister and they were in the middle of a corridor in the house of a potentially deadly French spy, before he could remember anything other than that she was Hen, and she was safe, and he was so damn relieved he might bloody well burst with it, Miles wrapped his arms around her as tightly as they would go and captured her lips with his.

It took Henrietta a moment to realize that she was being well and truly kissed by Miles. His lips moved across her own with a fervor born of anxiety, molding the contours of her lips to his, squeezing her so tightly that the dreaded corset bit into her back and any air that might have remained in her lungs thought better of staying. Henrietta didn't care. She wrapped her arms around Miles's neck, clinging as tightly to him as he was to her, glorying in the feel of his warm skin through the thin linen of his shirt, the scent of sandalwood and cheroots, the soft ends of his hair tickling her fingertips.

"God, Hen," he murmured, pressing little kisses along the corner of her mouth, as if he couldn't bear to move away for even so long as it would take to speak, "you had me so worried. When I thought" — kiss — "what that man could" — kiss, kiss — "be doing to you…"

Henrietta cut off whatever he was about to say by the simple expedient of rising on her tiptoes and stopping his mouth with a kiss. His mouth tasted slightly of brandy, salty, intoxicating — not that Henrietta needed any inebriant; she was as deliciously lightheaded as she had been that night when Miles snuck her that first glass of champagne.

Miles rapidly lost any interest in continuing what he had been about to say, his lips slanting to meet hers, and his hand tangling in her hair, tilting her face to meet his. His roving fingers dislodged one of the large pearl combs that decorated her old-fashioned coiffure. It clattered on the parquet floor, the sound reverberating through Miles's dazed brain like the tolling of a thousand warning bells.

Releasing her, Miles staggered back, eyes glazed and heart hammering. Meanwhile, his brain, returned from its brief vacation, was loudly screaming, Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell. Certain other parts of his body were also clamoring for attention, but Miles ignored them. They had gotten him into enough trouble already. Oh, hell. He hadn't really just kissed Henrietta, had he? It could have been a daydream, a hallucination. Miles caught sight of Henrietta's gleaming eyes and swollen lips. That would have had to have been one bloody convincing hallucination.

"It's, um, good that you're safe," he said lamely, sticking his hands in his pockets.

"Mm-hmm," agreed Henrietta, beaming up at him with her head tilted up towards him at an angle that practically invited… Miles took an extra step back; he would have made the sign against the evil eye, too, if he'd thought it would do him any good. God help him, all he wanted to do was kiss her again. Miles found himself addressing his Maker on terms of intimacy he hadn't employed for many a year.

Since God didn't seem to want to be obliging about sending thunderbolts or the like to serve as a diversion — Miles thought glumly that he probably deserved at least one of those thunderbolts through his own thick skull — Miles took refuge in indignation.

"What," he demanded, as Henrietta stooped down to retrieve her fallen accoutrements, "were you doing wandering about by yourself like that?"

"Looking for you," she said gaily, smiling up at him.

"You couldn't have waited with the duchess?"

"Have you seen the duchess tonight?" Henrietta rocked back on her heels and stuck her pearl comb haphazardly back in her hair. "I preferred to take my chances here, thank you very much. Um, do you think you could help me up? These hoops are a nightmare."

Miles looked down. It was a mistake. From his current vantage point, all he could see was breasts. Lots and lots of breasts. Beautiful, ripe, tempting breasts mounding over the top of her square bodice. What was she trying to do, kill him?

"You were very lucky it was me," Miles said sternly, yanking her unceremoniously up off the floor. "If someone else had come upon you, they might have — "

"Kissed me?" Henrietta supplied mischievously, shaking out her skirts.

"Um, yes. I mean no. I mean…" Henrietta's grin widened. Miles scowled. Exactly when had he lost control of this conversation? "Dammit, Hen, what if it had been Martin Frobisher? Or Lord Vaughn?"

"But it wasn't," Henrietta said cheerfully.

She couldn't bring herself to spoil the moment just yet by bringing up the alarming interlude with Lord Vaughn. After all, it wasn't every day that one was delightfully and thoroughly kissed by the man one had been daydreaming about. She hadn't even had to ravish him with roses.

Henrietta chuckled to herself at the thought, utterly delighted with the world and everything in it.

Miles's scowl deepened. "I don't think you're taking this seriously enough, Hen."

"Can I be serious tomorrow instead ?"

Miles had to pace rapidly back and forth across the hallway to keep himself from grabbing her. Just for good measure, he locked his hands behind his back, since he didn't trust them to behave themselves. Just look what his lips had been doing with absolutely no direction from his brain — well, not that brain, anyway — just moments before. Miles's lips thinned.

"Damn it, Hen, this isn't a joke. You could have been killed."

He really was adorable when he was trying to be manly and commanding. Henrietta was so busy reveling in the familiar way his hair flopped across his brow and the way his muscles moved against the thin linen of his shirt as he paced, while her mind chortled, "Mine! All mine!" that it took her a moment to register the slight incongruity in the verb.

"Killed?" she repeated, wrinkling her brow. "Don't you think that's a bit of an exaggeration?"

Admittedly, there were moments when she had feared for her life in Vaughn's Chinese chamber, but the more time elapsed, the more ridiculous her worries seemed. Surely no peer of the realm would strangle a marquis' daughter in the midst of his own party, even if he were a French spy. It would be in poor taste, both socially and strategically.

Besides, Miles didn't know about any of that. She would tell him, of course. Eventually. To tell him now would add far too much credibility to his side of the argument. And Henrietta really didn't want to have a serious discussion just now. She wanted to bask in the aftermath of her first kiss (her first kiss that counted, at any rate), giggle for no reason, and maybe twirl in circles a bit for good measure.

She also wouldn't have minded kissing Miles again, but Miles's concerted glower seemed to imply that he was not currently amenable to further dalliance.

"Yes, killed," Miles repeated decisively.

He paused for a moment, thinking rapidly. Hen was a bright girl — and a stubborn one. He knew her well enough to know she wouldn't be impressed by vague warnings of danger. The War Office wouldn't like it, but… Henrietta's safety came first. Of course, that still begged the question of who would be keeping her safe from him.

Miles raked his fingers through his hair. "I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but if that's what it takes… Listen, Hen" — Miles lowered his voice — "there's a dangerous French spy on the loose."

"You know about that?" exclaimed Henrietta.

"What?" Miles's head snapped up.

"The spy." Henrietta made sure to keep her voice suitably low. She drew closer to Miles, her wide skirts brushing his breeches. Miles sidestepped like a skittish colt.

"I was going to warn you tonight, when I found you, but circumstances intervened." Henrietta rather wished those particular circumstances — the ones to do with Miles kissing her — would materialize again, but since they showed no sign of doing so, she continued. "According to my sources, there is an extremely dangerous new spy in London."

Miles sat down heavily on one of the small, gilded benches placed against the wall. Since when had Henrietta had sources?

"I won't even ask," he muttered.

Henrietta made a wry face, and joined him on the bench, her skirts frothing over his legs. "It's probably best you don't."

"Do you know anything else about this… new development?"

"All I know if that you and I are both under scrutiny, most likely in regard to our connection with Richard."

"And you still wandered off alone?"

"I needed to warn you," Henrietta said in the most sensible tone she could muster. She hurried on before Miles could plunge back into lecture, "And I also took the opportunity to do a spot of detecting along the way."

"Does your mother know about this spot of detection?" asked Miles darkly.

"That," said Henrietta, "was unkind. Mama is in Kent with the children, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her."

"No, just when you turn up dead in a ditch somewhere."

"Why a ditch?"

Miles made an inarticulate noise of extreme frustration. "That's not important."

"Then why did you mention it?"

Miles responded by banging his head into his knees. Hard.