— from the Personal Code Book of the Pink Carnation

Who ever knew that Hen could sing like that? A pebble ricocheted off Marcus Aurelius's head, landing with a gurgle in the water below. An affronted goldfish swished his tail reproachfully at Miles and swam off beneath a fallen bit of statuary. The Roman emperor stared superciliously at Miles down his long nose, taunting him to try again.

His aim was off tonight.

Miles gave the gravel at his feet a vicious kick that did more harm to the finish of his boots than it did the ground. Forget aim, it was his judgment that was fatally flawed. Hell, after this past week, Miles rather doubted that he possessed any of that commodity. There was a dangerous French spy on the loose, and what was Miles doing? Nothing useful, that was bloody certain. Quite the contrary, in fact. The history of the past week had been one of blunder after blunder. Were his life a novel, the chapter heading for this latest installment would undoubtedly read, "In which our hero contrives to endanger his valet and alienate his closest friend."

It took Miles a moment to realize he didn't mean Richard.

Miles sank down onto a little marble bench and buried his head in his hands. When had that happened? Of course, Richard was his closest friend, always had been. It was a matter of institutional record, like the method for calling Parliament. Yet, somehow, without Miles even realizing it, Henrietta had wiggled her way in there. Miles forced himself to cast his mind back over the past few years for the source of this decidedly disturbing development. Miles wasn't generally a proponent of retrospection, preferring to let sleeping dogs lie, live in the moment, seize the day, and any other optimistic twaddle that involved turning a blind eye to anything that might involve serious thought, or, even worse, implicate the emotions. However, even a blind man could see that his visits to Uppington House hadn't abated in the slightest despite the fact that his putative best friend had been off in France for the greater part of the past few years, not counting the odd holiday. He could blame it on Cook's superlative ginger biscuits, or humoring Lady Uppington, or any other number of innocuous excuses. But that was all they were, excuses.

When had he started relying on Hen to such a horrifying extent? He had promised Richard, years ago, that he would keep an eye on her (Richard took his protective function as elder brother deuced seriously), but somehow, keeping an eye had turned into hundreds of teas in the morning room, thousands of drives in the park, and more lemonades than Miles cared to count, much of it spilled on his boots in crowded ballrooms. Downey waxed positively vituperative about the effects of lemonade on fine leather. Today… Miles couldn't count the number of times he had automatically turned to exchange a quip or comment with Henrietta, before remembering that they weren't supposed to be speaking.

It was sheer misery.

Over the course of the long, miserable day, he had almost managed to convince himself that it would all blow over. Of course, Henrietta was angry — she had every right to be after he had kissed her at Vaughn's ball — but she would come around sooner or later, and they could go back to the way they were. And he hadn't been about to kiss her last night. Really, he hadn't. That had just been an, er, affectionate handclasp. Henrietta would calm down and life could revert to normal.

It had all seemed like such a good idea. Until she started singing.

Her first trill ripped the protective coating of habit from Miles's eyes. By the second, he was in distinct agony. This wasn't just Richard's little sister, anymore. It wasn't even Miles's companion of a thousand dull society balls. At the front of the room stood a woman with a formidable talent, a woman to be reckoned with. As a longtime connoisseur of the opera and its denizens, Miles knew that there were voices, and there were Voices. Henrietta had a Voice. Her clear tones reverberated through Miles's memory like the lingering savor of her lavender perfume, haunting in its purity.

A Voice wasn't all she had. Miles refused to even allow himself to dwell upon the way her bosom had swelled above the bodice of her dress as she drew in a deep breath before she built to the crescendo on the third reprise of tanto rigor. Miles groaned in memory, finding his breeches as uncomfortably tight now as they had been then. It wasn't the tailoring.

Looking away hadn't done any good, either. When he glanced down, there were her arms, curving gracefully towards the hands clasped at her waist, like the arms of a Raphael Venus rising from the sea, gently rounded and impossibly fair, ending in pale, delicate hands, with long, tapering fingers and smooth pink nails. Miles had never known there could be such agony in a fingernail before.

Forcing his eyes to her face had been an even bigger mistake. Her cheeks were flushed with the effort of singing, that rare wild tint he had only ever seen on Henrietta's cheeks, like rose petals beneath a fine film of snow; her skin was so translucent one could practically see the blood pounding beneath the surface. Her lips were as flushed as her cheeks, her eyes misty with music. With her lips parted in song, her head tilted slightly back, he could see her arising from a tangle of sheets, eyes dreamy, lips red from his kisses.

Miles contemplated leaping into the fishpond, but it was too shallow to do any good. Besides, he doubted any waters this side of the North Sea would be quite cold enough to dull his ardor, with the image of Hen…

Right. Enough was enough. Miles dusted his hands off against his breeches in a determined fashion. He would do what he should have done in his first place, and order his curricle to be brought round first thing tomorrow morning. He would return to London, meet with Wickham at the War Office, wring every last drop of information he could out of his taciturn superior, and then set himself seriously to the task of tracking down Downey's attacker.

Miles glanced wistfully at the lit windows of the hall, visible over the shoulder-high shrubbery. Inside, the members of the house party were filtering back into the Rose Room for tea and coffee; gaily dressed forms moved past the windowpanes singly and in groups. It was too far away to make out individuals, but all Miles could think about was…

Shooting Frenchmen, he told himself abruptly, levering himself up off the bench. Shooting lots and lots of Frenchmen. "Don't even say it," Miles warned Marcus Aurelius.

"Don't say what?"

Miles started, swerved, and nearly toppled over the bench. It wasn't the Roman emperor come to life. That, Miles could have dealt with. Long-dead historical personages, spies, phantom monks… all of those, Miles could have faced with equanimity.

The figure approaching him along the alley of beech trees might easily have been a statue stepped off her pedestal, Pygmalion's mythical lady come to life. Henrietta crossed the final few yards of the path, her white muslin gown luminous in the moonlight. The thin fabric molded itself against her legs as she walked, increasing the resemblance to the statuary of classical antiquity, but no statue had ever had that sort of effect on Miles.

"Shouldn't you be inside?" asked Miles darkly.

Henrietta checked slightly at his inhospitable tone. "I needed to speak to you. About last night — "

"You were right," Miles interrupted tersely, "we can't go back."

Henrietta squinted at him. The moonlight that illuminated the shimmering tails of the fish in the pond and picked out strange patterns in the shrubbery did nothing to illuminate Miles's expression. All she could make out was his stance, leaning against a hedge, hands in his pockets. But there was something about the tense set of his shoulders that belied the casual pose.

"That's just what I wanted to talk to you about," she announced. "I've changed my mind."

Miles' reaction wasn't quite what Henrietta had hoped. Instead of exclaiming with joy, he crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, so have I."

Henrietta frowned at him through the moonlight. "You can't."

"Why not?"

"Because — oh, for heaven's sake, Miles, I'm trying to apologize to you!"

Miles sidled away. "Don't."

"Don't?"

"Don't apologize and don't come any closer."

As if to lend force to his words, Miles resolutely turned away from her, scooped up a handful of pebbles, and began pitching them into the pond with exaggerated attention to aim.

Henrietta's eyes narrowed in sudden comprehension. She plunked her hands on her hips and glowered at Miles. "If you're trying to drive me away so I don't get in your way while you stalk the spy, I don't appreciate it."

"This is not about the bloody spy," bit out Miles. Plop! A stone landed with unnecessary force in the murky waters.

Henrietta marched militantly up to him, slippers crunching on the graveled ground, and poked him in the shoulder. Hard. "You were hoping the spy would have to pass through here on the way to the house, weren't you?"

"This." Splish. "Is not." Plop. "About." Splash. "The spy."

Miles brushed his hands off against his breeches. Henrietta grabbed him by the arm before he could sweep up another batch of projectiles, forcing him to face her.

"Am I that repugnant to you that you can't stand the sight of me?"

"Repugnant." Miles eyed her incredulously, his jaw hanging slightly open. "Oh, that's rich. Repugnant!"

Henrietta felt the full force of his mockery, and her face contorted with hurt. "You needn't belabor the point," she snapped.