— from the Personal Codebook of the Pink Carnation

Ghosts did not have feet. It took Henrietta the space of a moment to realize that what she was seeing was not, in fact, a ghastly apparition from the spirit world, but, instead, a human with skullduggery on the mind. Despite Miles's and Richard's protestations to the contrary, there was not a phantom monk. If there were one, she rather doubted it would jaunt over from Donwell Abbey to visit the neighbors, and it would most definitely not step on twigs.

If Miles was reprising his famous appearance as the Phantom Monk of Donwell Abbey…

Henrietta levered herself off her bench and stalked towards the house, her dark blue twill traveling dress blending well with the shadows.

By the time she had made it out of the protective covering of the rose arbor, common sense had returned. It couldn't be Miles. One could make oneself seem larger, but seldom smaller, and the figure she had seen poised outside the drawing room doors had definitely been smaller and slighter than Miles.

And if it wasn't Miles… oh dear.

In her indignation over Miles, Henrietta had nearly managed to forget that they were under the surveillance of the French Ministry of

Police. It would have been much less worrisome if the hooded figure had been Miles.

Hideous images of deadly French operatives rose to taunt her, and with them, a certain indignation that the French would have the gall, the unmitigated gall, to follow them here to Selwick Hall, where they had always been safe and peaceful. It was one thing to go hunting spies; it was quite another for those spies to invade one's home. Henrietta set her chin in a stubborn expression that boded ill to Napoleon's secret police. The spy's temerity in following her here did have one advantage, though. It made him easier to catch.

Henrietta slowed her steps, making sure to stay to the shadows. She crept softly up the shallow flight of stairs up to the veranda, balancing on the very toes of her kid half-boots. Her choice of footwear had been quite sensible for a long journey, but less so for hunting Phantom Monks. The heels had an unnerving tendency to click against the stone of the veranda. Henrietta would have stopped to take them off, but the Phantom Monk had already had far too much of a head start. So she tiptoed as best she could, turning the handle of the French doors with painstaking slowness, grateful for the Axminster carpet that covered the floor of the Long Drawing Room and muffled her steps.

Henrietta paused for a moment in the middle of the Long Drawing Room, which, true to its name, ran three-quarters of the length of the back of the house. Despite its size, it was sparsely furnished, with groupings of little, light chairs and tables that could be pushed easily to the sides of the room for an impromptu dance. Henrietta's gloom-accustomed eyes surveyed the room, and found no shapes there that ought not to be. The drapes lay flat against the walls, and the low, backless settees with their scrolled ends were too flimsy to hide anyone larger than a well-fed midget. The cloaked figure had certainly not been midget-sized.

If she were a French spy, where would she hide? Henrietta had always had her doubts as to the efficacy of that line of reasoning. How could she know where a French spy would hide unless she knew what the spy wanted? If he were after Richard's correspondence, he would most likely head for either study or bedroom; if he were after either her or Miles… Henrietta nipped that thought before it could go any further. Making herself anxious wouldn't do anyone any good, except, possibly, the spy.

On the right, a door opened into the music room; on the left, another drawing room. Henrietta didn't waste time searching, either. She went straight to the flimsy white and gold doors directly across from the garden entrance, and gently pulled one just far enough to slip through into the front hall, blinking in the unaccustomed light. The candles in the gilded sconces in the wall had not yet been extinguished for the night. Henrietta hovered for a moment in the shadows beneath the overhang of the stairs.

She could hear male guffaws from the small family dining room on the left side of the hall. Miles and Richard were probably lingering over their port. Relief that they were safe transmuted rapidly into indignation. Good to know they were making themselves useful while French spies stalked the corridors of Selwick Hall, thought Henrietta tartly. And they called women the weaker vessel? Hmph. Napoleon's army could troop through the front hall, and Miles and Richard would probably go on obliviously exchanging salacious stories until they ran out of port.

On the other side of the hall, the rooms were all dark — but not entirely silent. Henrietta heard a slight rustle. It might be the breeze rustling through the curtains, or it might be something, or someone, else.

The sound had come from Richard's study.

It was all Henrietta could do not to jump up and down with excitement, but since that would defeat her ultimate purpose (jumping up and down not being a particularly stealthy activity), she controlled the impulse. Moving carefully across the marble floor, Henrietta began creeping towards Richard's study. Pressed against the wall, she crept past the dark doorway of the small drawing room where she had sat with Amy earlier, past Ethelbert, the suit of armor who lived next to the stairs, until she could see the door to Richard's study, ever so slightly ajar.

The door was so close to closed that Henrietta wouldn't have even noticed the gap, had it not been for the thin outline of light that shone weakly through the narrow gap. Richard might, of course, have simply left a candle burning, either through forgetfulness, or in preparation for a later return. He could have left a fire burning in the grate against the chill of the early June evening. From time to time, Amy liked to appropriate Richard's study for work of her own, curling up in Richard's own big chair with a proprietary air. There were half a dozen perfectly innocent explanations for that pale flicker of light. Henrietta didn't waste time on any of them.

Backtracking slightly, Henrietta caught up a heavy silver candelabrum from a marble-topped table in the hall, hurriedly snuffing the candles. She wanted it for its bludgeonlike qualities, not light. A fireplace poker would have been even better, but she couldn't count on one being easily within reach in Richard's study. She had thought of borrowing Ethelbert's sword, but even if she did manage to remove it without knocking over Ethelbert, she wouldn't have the slightest idea of how to use it.

Henrietta made her slow and careful way just to the verge of the study door. No, this was much better. With any luck, she could sneak up on the intruder from behind and — " — fell right out the window!"

"No! Not in the middle of St. James's Street!"

"And then Brummell said, 'My dear young man, if you must be a sartorial disaster, kindly refrain from making a further spectacle of yourself.' I thought Ponsonby was going to soil himself!"

The door to the small dining room on the other side of the hall burst open, unleashing a spate of loud footsteps and masculine laughter. Under the study door, the brief glimmer of light abruptly disappeared. No!

Henrietta abandoned subtlety and sprinted for the study, yanking open the door. After the light of the hall, all her eyes perceived was a sheet of unmitigated blackness. In her headlong rush, she barreled stomach-first into something sharp and hard and nearly dropped her candelabrum. Had she been run through by a Frenchman's sword?

An exploratory mission revealed that it was, in fact, only the edge of Richard's desk, and there was no loss of blood involved. But it hurt.

Gasping, Henrietta forced herself to uncurl, but it was all too clear that she was too late. The lingering smoke from a recently snuffed candle tickled her nose, but the snuffer of the candle was nowhere to be seen. As her eyes acclimated, the black blobs scattered about the room resolved themselves into recognizable pieces of furniture, chairs and tables, several busts on narrow pedestals, and the vindictive desk. Flailing wildly with her foot in the area under the desk failed to unearth a crouching spy, and other than two wing-backed chairs there was no other piece of furniture in the room large enough to hide convincingly under or behind. Bookshelves lined the walls, containing nary a single secret passage so far as Henrietta knew — and if she didn't know, the Phantom Monk wouldn't, either. Henrietta was about to look behind the chairs, just to be thorough, when she spotted something that made her quite sure the effort would be entirely wasted.

On the far side of the room, the draperies swayed in a way that suggested the open window had recently been put to good use.

Blast.

Henrietta dashed to the window, but the intruder had disappeared as thoroughly as though he had been the phantom he impersonated. Under the impartial moon, the park was silent and empty. The Phantom Monk had had plenty of time to make his escape while she grappled with Richard's desk.

Henrietta scowled at herself, She really wasn't making a terribly good showing as an intrepid spy, was she? Of course, she still thought that if it hadn't been for those two loud, raucous men, she could have taken the intruder by surprise.

Henrietta realized she was still holding the heavy silver candlestick and set it down on Richard's desk with a disgruntled thump. Blasted noisy interfering men, Addlepated great galumphing creatures. True, they made good dance partners — when they remembered to turn up for their assigned dance, that was, and didn't clomp on her foot like a dinosaur with a direction problem — but other than that, the Amazons had it right. They were more trouble than they were worth, and when it came down to it, she could bloody well dance with Penelope.