Unfortunately, while much nicer than her sister, Sally didn't seem the sort to know. Joan most likely would — or would, at least, know where to look — but… did historical fervor extend that far?

Probably. If it came down to it. With any luck, a bit more rooting about in Colin's archives would remove the need to resort to Joan.

I would, I admitted to myself, be very disappointed if Henrietta never discovered the identity of the Black Tulip. It would be a nice little twist to my dissertation — I could add a chapter on "The Dark Mirror: French Counterparts to English Spies" — but mostly, I just wanted to know, because if I didn't it would nag at me, like the question of what happened to the poor little Dauphin, or who killed the Princes in the Tower.

I decided to give Sally a shot, anyway. "Are there any old stories attached to the house?"

Sally shook her head. "You would have to ask Joan," she said apologetically.

"Ask Joan what?"

I started, spilling some of my wine, as Colin materialized at my elbow.

Fortunately, it was white wine. And no one noticed. At least, I hoped they didn't. My muddled brain was too busy processing Colin's sudden reappearance. One minute I was talking to Sally, the next, there he was, floating in the air above me like the Cheshire Cat. I had to turn and tilt my head to look up at him; he stood next to me, but a little behind, so that if I leaned back, just the slightest bit, my back would fit very comfortably against his side.

I stood straight enough to satisfy the most exacting headmistress, and took a little step to the side, which had the added benefit of putting me right over the spilled wine patch.

"I was just asking Sally if there are any old stories about Donwell Abbey," I said brightly.

"Are you planning to go root about in someone else's archive?" teased Colin. "Should I be jealous?"

Maybe I had been better off with him slightly behind me. The force of that smile, faced full on, was dazzling. Stop it! I told myself sternly. He was just relieved to have escaped from Joan. That did not count as flirting with me. At least, not in any way that meant anything.

He was, however, wearing a very pleasing aftershave.

"He doesn't even have any ghosts," I said to Sally dismissively.

"Shall we swap?" suggested Sally to Colin.

"You take Eloise, I get the ghost? No, thanks."

"The ghost eats less," I pointed out. "And it's quieter."

"But can it do the washing up?" asked Colin.

"You'd have to ask it," said Sally solemnly. "Have you taken Eloise down to the cloisters yet?"

Colin sent Sally a sardonic look. "And leave the party?"

"Your fault for saying yes," scolded Sally.

"There are some consolations," countered Colin.

"Cloisters?" I piped in.

Colin groaned. "It's like dangling a bone before a dog."

"I resent that," I said without heat.

"Would you prefer a carrot in front of a mule?"

"Even worse." I turned to Sally. "So there are still bits of the old abbey?"

"Would you like to see?" suggested Sally. She glanced at Colin. "You don't mind?"

Colin raised an eyebrow, looking like James Bond about to demand his martini shaken, not stirred. No one could look that debonair without working at it. "Why not?"

Giggling like naughty schoolchildren (at least Sally and I were giggling), we snuck out of the drawing room. Joan was in the midst of a group of people who all seemed to be talking and drinking with evident enjoyment, and didn't see us go. She was smiling in a genuine way that reduced her teeth from Red Riding Hood's wolf to somewhere near normal size, and the thought struck me that when not defending her territory, she probably wasn't half-bad.

Then Sally, whose tugging abilities were as well developed as her sister's, yanked on my hand, and I popped out of the drawing room into a tortured maze of back hallways. Selwick Hall was a miracle of eighteenth-century symmetry in comparison. Sally's house seemed to have been designed by the Mad Hatter in conjunction with a paranoid mole; everything was narrow and dark and had more turns than necessary. I wandered along after Colin and Sally, who were bickering amiably about a mutual acquaintance, who had some sort of weekly column that was either a load of codswollop (Colin) or an insightful commentary on modern mores (Sally).

They seemed to be on very easy and amiable terms — which did make sense, living next door to one another. I wondered if Sally was Colin's usual buffer from Joan's less-than-subtle advances. And if the presence of the older sister had prevented anything from happening with the younger.

Sally really was quite pretty. Although they both possessed the same lanky frame, Sally didn't have the glossy photo-shoot perfection of her older sister; Sally's hair was an indeterminate brown to her sister's determined blond (and just how much of that difference came out of a bottle was open to speculation), long and curly where Joan's was sleek and straight, her brow wider and her features broader. All the same, there was something much more attractive about Sally's frank, open face. She possessed that timeless girl-next-door quality that endears itself to women as well as men.

Of course, I reminded myself, she was the girl next door. Quite literally. I concentrated on keeping track of where we were, and regretted not having packed breadcrumbs in my purse. By the time it struck me that miniature Certs might fulfill the same function (and be less likely to fail prey to woodland creatures than the comestibles in the story), we had already come to a halt by a side door.

It must have once been, like the narrow back hallways, part of the servants' domain in the Upstairs, Downstairs days. Now, the back entrance was cluttered with muddy boots, old raincoats, and various other odds and ends, including a broken tennis racket and some very dirty garden gloves. Colin glanced out the door at the midnight black sky. It couldn't have been much past eight, but sunset comes early in November; it had been full dark since five.

"Torch?"

"On the shelf." Sally pointed to a large gray flashlight banded in maroon, the sort with a bulb the size of a fried egg, and a wide flat handle. This one looked like it might have once been white, but years of dust and grimy handprints had taken their toll.

"Is it far?" I asked belatedly, gathering my borrowed pashmina around my shoulders. The air from the open door bit through the thin material of Serena's dress, and made me wish I'd thought to put on stockings. I was beginning to wonder what I was getting myself into. I hadn't seen any sign of ruins as we'd driven up to the house earlier that evening, and while my enthusiasm for crumbling structures is extreme, it waned a bit in conjunction with thin fabrics, impractical heels, and the prospect of tripping over things in the dark. And, trust me, if there was something to trip over, I would find it.

Sally looked to Colin.

Colin shrugged.

"Not very," he said, in that uninformative male way that could mean anything from just down the block to somewhere in the Outer Hebrides, reachable only by snowbound mountain passes.

To do him justice, he might have been about to elaborate, but any further description was cut short by a click of heels, and a voice calling, "Sally?"

"Maybe if we ignore her?" I suggested.

"Oh, the innocence of youth," murmured Colin. I whacked him on the arm with a stray corner of pashmina. When had I developed these tendencies towards casual violence? First a glow stick, then a pashmina… Of course, there was a perfectly good explanation, but I didn't like it, so I ignored it.

Joan's voice was not as easily ignored. And it was getting closer.

"Sally!"

"Oh, bother," said Sally, throwing back her shoulders in a resigned way. "I wonder what it is now? You go on without me."

"Are you sure?"

Sally flapped her hand in dismissal. "Colin knows the way. I'll be along as soon as I can get away. Coming, Joan!"

"It's just us, then," said Colin, switching on the torch. A ghostly circle of yellow light appeared on the ground about a yard ahead, highlighting dead blades of grass with eerie precision.

"And the ghost," I pointed out.

"As a chaperone," Colin replied, shutting the door behind us, "he is not very substantial. Shall we?"

Did he feel the need for a chaperone? I decided not to enquire further; it might sound too much like flirting, and if he were already lamenting the lack of a chaperone, the last thing I wanted to do was give him the impression I was flinging myself at him.

To give him his due, he was really being more than decent to an unwanted houseguest. I had twisted his arm for an invitation, and he would have been well within his rights to leave me alone in the library. He hadn't had to make me dinner or join me for a walk or take me along to the party with him. When it came down to it, he was behaving exceptionally well, and I… well, let's just say that I wasn't all that proud of my own performance thus far.

So I let the chaperonage comment pass, and said simply, "Let's."

The thin beam of light wavered in front of us, a narrow link to warmth and light and civilization. I thought briefly, longingly, of the drinks table. But how often does one get to follow a ghost to his lair? Wrapping my borrowed pashmina more tightly around me, I stumbled along beside Colin towards the lonely cloister of the Phantom Monk.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Phantom (n.): an agent of unusual stealth and skill; the most deadly kind