Lauren Willig - Masque of the Black Tulip

It was, Henrietta assured her conscience, a safe enough assignment that even her mother couldn't possibly find fault with it, or start looking about for England's last operational nunnery. It wasn't Henrietta who would be scurrying through the dark alleyways of Paris, or riding hell-for-leather down rutted French roads in a desperate attempt to reach the coast. All she had to do was sit in the morning room at Uppington House, and maintain a perfectly normal-sounding correspondence with Jane about balls, dresses, and other topics guaranteed to bore French agents to tears.

Normal-sounding was the key. While in London for Amy and Richard's wedding, Jane had spent a few days at her writing table, scribbling in a little red book. When she had finally emerged, she had presented Henrietta with a complete lexicon of absolutely everyday terms with far-from-everyday meanings.

Ever since Jane's return to Paris two weeks ago, the plan had proved tremendously effective. Even the most hardened French operative could find nothing to quicken his suspicion in an exchange about the relative merits of flowers as opposed to bows as trimming for an evening gown, and the eyes of the most determined interceptor of English letters were sure to glaze when confronted with a five-page-long description of yesterday's Venetian breakfast at Viscountess of Loring's Paris residence.

Little did they realize that "Venetian breakfast" was code for a late-night raid on the secret files of the Ministry of Police. Breakfast, after all, was supposed to take place early in the morning, and thus made a perfect analogue for "dead of night." As for Venetian… well,Delaroche's filing system was as complex and secretive as the workings of the Venetian Signoria at the height of their Renaissance decadence.

Which brought Henrietta back to the letter at hand.

Jane had begun it "My very dearest Henrietta," a salutation that signified news of the utmost importance. Henrietta sat up straighter on the settee. Jane had been rooting about in someone's study — the letter didn't specify whose — and he had been all amiability, which meant that whatever papers Jane had meant to find had been easily found, and Jane had been unmolested in her search.

"I have sent word to our Great-Uncle Archibald in Aberdeen" that was William Wickham at the War Office — "in care of Cousin Ned." Henrietta reached for the red morocco-covered codebook. "Cousin" she had seen before; it translated quite simply as "courier." Henrietta reached the proper page in the codebook. "See under Ned, Cousin," instructed Jane. Mumbling a bit to herself about people with regrettably organized minds, Henrietta flipped forward to the Ns. "Ned, Cousin: a professional courier in the service of the League."

Henrietta scowled at the little red book. Jane had sent her all the way to the Ns for that?

"Given dear Ned's propensity for falling in with the wrong sort of company," Jane continued, "I deeply fear he shall be so busy carousing and roistering about, he shall neglect to fulfill my little commission."

Having achieved some notion of the way Jane's mind worked, Henrietta flipped straight to the Cs, indulging in a small smirk as she beheld, "Company, wrong sort of," just beneath, "Company, best sort of,"

"Company, better not sought out," and "Company, convivial." Her smirk faded somewhat at the knowledge that "Company, wrong sort of" signified: "a murderous band of French agents, employed for the primary purpose of eliminating English intelligence officers." Poor Cousin Ned. Likewise, "Carousing," a page back, had nothing to do with Bacchanalian excesses, but instead meant "engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Bonaparte's minions," an activity that sounded highly unpleasant.

"But what is it?" Henrietta muttered at the unresponsive piece of paper in her hands. Had Jane discovered new plans for the invasion of England? A design for the destruction of the English fleet? It might even, mused Henrietta, be another attempt to assassinate King George. Her brother had foiled two of those, but the French kept on trying. At least, they assumed it was the French, and not the Prince of Wales trying to get back at his father for forcing him to marry Caroline of Brunswick, who bore the dubious distinction of being the smelliest princess in Europe.

"Do tell dear Uncle Archibald," continued Jane tantalizingly, after a long and tedious description of the gowns worn by half the women at the imaginary Venetian breakfast, "that a new horrid novel is even now on its way to Hatchards and should be arrived by the time you receive this epistle!"

Henrietta thumbed through Jane's little book. "Horrid Novel: a master spy of the most devious kind."

There was no entry for Hatchards, but since Hatchards bookshop was in Piccadilly, Henrietta had no doubt that Jane was trying to signify that this master spy was even now somewhere in the vicinity of London.

"I assure you, my dearest Henrietta, this is quite the horridest of horrid novels; I have never encountered one horrider. It is really quite, quite horrid."

Henrietta didn't need the codebook to grasp the import of those lines.

That there were French spies in London wasn't terribly shocking; the city was riddled with them. The papers had trumpeted the capture of a group of French spies masquerading as cravat merchants just the week before last.

Richard, in one of his last acts as the Purple Gentian, had uprooted the better part of Delaroche's personal spy network, a varied group that had comprised scullery maids, pugilists, courtesans, and even someone posing as a minor member of the royal family. (Queen Charlotte and King George had so many children that it was nearly impossible to keep track of who was who). There were spies reporting to Delaroche, spies answering to Fouche, spies for the exiled Bourbon monarchy, and spies who spied for the sake of spying and would offer their information to whomever offered them the largest pile of coin.

This spy, clearly, was something out of the ordinary.

Sitting there, with the letter crumpled in her lap, Henrietta was struck by an idea, an idea that made the corners of her lips curl up, and put a mischievous sparkle into her hazel eyes. What if… No, Henrietta shook her head. She shouldn't.

But what if…

The idea poked and prodded at her, with the insistence of a hungry ferret. Henrietta gazed raptly into space. The curl at the corners of her lips turned into a full-blown grin.

What if she were to unmask this particularly horrid spy herself?

Henrietta leaned against the side of the settee, propping her chin on her wrist. What harm could it do if there were an extra pair of eyes and ears devoted to the task? It wasn't as though she would do anything foolish, like hide the information from the War Office and set out on the task alone. Henrietta, a great devotee of sensational novels, had always maintained the liveliest contempt for those pea-witted heroines who refused to go to the proper authorities and instead insisted on hiding vital information until the villain had chased them through subterranean passageways to the edge of a storm-wracked cliff.

No, Henrietta would do exactly as Jane had requested, and deliver the decoded letter to Wickham at the War Office via her contact in the ribbon shop on Bond Street. The point, after all, was to apprehend whoever it was as quickly as possible, and Henrietta knew that the War Office's resources were far more extensive than hers, sister to a spy though she might be.

All the same, what a coup it would be if she could find the spy first! Certain people — certain people by the surname of Selwick, to be precise — would have a great big "I told you so" coming to them.

There was one slight shadow marring the shining landscape of her daydream. She didn't have the slightest notion of how to go about catching a spy. Unlike her sister-in-law Amy, Henrietta's youth had been spent playing with dolls and reading novels, not tracking the fastest way to Calais in the event that one was to be chased from Paris by French police, or learning how to transform oneself into a gnarled old onion seller. Now, there was an idea! If anyone would know how to go about tracking down France's deadliest spy with the maximum flair, it would be Amy. Among other things, on their return from France, Amy and Richard had converted Richard's Sussex estate into a clandestine academy for secret agents, laughingly referred to within the family as the Greenhouse.

There was nothing like getting advice from the experts, thought Henrietta airily as she flung letter and codebook aside and skipped across the room to her escritoire. Turning the key, she lowered the lid with an exuberant thump and yanked over a little yellow chair.

"Dearest Amy," she began, dabbing her quill enthusiastically in the inkpot. "You will be delighted to know that I have determined to follow your fine example…"

After all, Henrietta thought, writing busily, she was really doing the War Office a favor, providing them with an extra agent at no additional cost. Goodness only knew whom the War Office might assign to the task if left to themselves.

"You sent for me?" The Honorable Miles Dorrington, heir to the Viscount of Loring and general rake about town, poked his blond head around the door of William Wickham's office.

"Ah, Dorrington." Wickham didn't look up from the pile of papers he had been perusing as he gestured to a seat on the opposite side of his cluttered desk. "Just the man I wanted to see."