He was also kind to small children and animals. Ah, but would he write a love letter — oh, fine, a love word — to a discontented puppy? No, Henrietta slowly concluded, but, then, puppies couldn't read, so, to a puppy, a spare bone really might be quite the same thing. And one word was such a little bone…

Henrietta flopped over, whapping her face into the pillow. Hard.

Such thoughts were entirely, whap, entirely, whap, counterproductive. A flushed but resolute Henrietta emerged from the feathers. Pushing her hair back out of her face, and brushing aside a stray feather that had gotten caught in the tangles, she clambered out of bed, winding the bedsheet around her as she went. Enough tormenting herself with silly speculations that couldn't possibly be resolved. She had a house to be organized (Henrietta scrunched her nose, remembering the mustv smell of the pillow; airing the linens was definitely in order), servants to be reviewed (Henrietta turned another color entirely, remembering her first meeting with the staff the night before, while not on her own feet), and a letter to be written to her parents.

Henrietta's hands stilled on the edges of the sheet at the thought of her parents. Servants first, she decided. She could work her way gradually up to dealing with her parents over the course of the afternoon. She would be willing to wager that Richard had already written them, had probably written to them before the thrum of Miles's carriage wheels had echoed away down the drive. Whatever Richard had written was bound to portray the weekend's events — and the morals of the characters concerned — in a less-than-flattering light. Henrietta wasn't sure if what had happened was amenable to flattering lights, but if there was one, she intended to find it. Estrangement from her parents… it just wasn't to be thought of. It would be as dreadful for Miles as it would be for her.

Henrietta reached out her hand to ring for her maid to help her dress. There was one slight flaw to that plan. She didn't have a maid. Nor, for that matter, did she have any clothes.

She eyed yesterday's travel-stained dress with disfavor, picking it up with two fingers. The skirt was liberally streaked with dirt; there were splatters of goodness knew what (Henrietta certainly didn't want to know) on the hem, a tear in the bodice, and — merciful heavens, was that a leaf of cabbage stuck to the sleeve?

"I just don't want to know," muttered Henrietta, shaking the dress by the other arm until the offending vegetation fell off onto the red-and-blue-figured carpet.

Henrietta contemplated raiding the wardrobes of Loring. House, but couldn't help but suspect that she and Miles's mother would have radically different tastes in clothes. And while the classical mode was still in style, going about draped in a sheet struck her as not only risque, but draughty. Yesterday's clothes would have to do, until she could go to Uppington House to fetch more.

Grimacing, Henrietta wiggled into the begrimed garments, managing to reach just enough buttons to prevent the dress from plummeting Drecioitouslv. There was a tarnished silver brush on the dressing table.

and Henrietta used it to attack the knots and snarls that had sprung up all over her head. Henrietta blushed at the recollection of how some of those tangles had developed. She could feel Miles hands running through her hair, his lips on hers, his… er. Henrietta glanced guiltily around.

"Silly," she muttered to herself.

At any rate, she thought, moving onto safer ground, a good number of those tangles dated back to their precipitate flight from the inn. The memory of the faceless black coach behind them was enough to make Henrietta's happy pink glow fade away entirely.

Miles seemed so sure that it was Vaughn.

Frowning, Henrietta pulled the brush slowly through her hair, working her way through the tangles.

Everything pointed to Vaughn. That undue attention he had only displayed upon hearing she was the sister of the Purple Gentian, that strange episode in the Chinese chamber, and his habit of cryptic conversation. He had told her he hadn't been to France for many years. Yet, yesterday, he had spoken of returning to France as if after a brief absence. He was on the trail of a mysterious female, and, most damning of all, was in a position to have followed her and Miles out of the inn.

And yet… something rang a false note, like a song sung slightly flat. Henrietta frowned into the mirror, trying to isolate the source of her discontent, drawing her mind back to the narrow stairwell, the muffled voices heard through the chinks of the door frame.

With her faculty of sight obstructed by the door, Henrietta had been entirely concentrated upon Vaughn's voice, every last timbre and hint of emotion. Voices were something of which Henrietta had made rather a study. Vaughn had been frustrated, he had been irate, but there was no tang of malice in it. Instead, she had heard an ineffable weariness that inspired the sort of sympathy one felt for Lear tossed out upon the heath, a strong and stubborn man brought to the end of his endurance. Henrietta wrinkled her nose, giving her hair an unnecessarily vigorous stroke with the brush. Such flights of fancy were entirely extraneous to a properly ordered investigation.

A man could smile and smile and still be a villain; he could have a voice resonant with sorrow and still be plotting to murder Jane and overthrow the English throne. But Henrietta was quite convinced that Vaughn was not. Henrietta grimaced; she could imagine what Miles would make of that argument.

If not Vaughn, who? After all, who else had been at the inn to know of their presence? Turnip? The notion was as laughable as Turnip's infamous collection of carnation-colored waistcoats.

But the thought of Turnip reminded her of something else. Or rather, of somebody else.

Henrietta paused with the brush suspended in midair and stared unseeing into the mirror, hazel eyes crinkling around the corners in concentration as the elusive memory that had been teasing her snapped into place. A man in dandified clothes with a thin black mustache, stepping aside to allow her to pass. He had been there, hovering close by their table, when she barreled down the stairs, standing ever so casually by the fireplace. Watching.

Despite the overshadowing hat and the immense folds of the cravat, there had been something familiar about him. Of course, she cautioned herself, she had been quite overset and distracted at the time, first by the tension with Miles, and then by the encounter with Vaughn. None of her senses had been at their sharpest.

And yet… Henrietta put the brush down with a definitive click on the dressing table. It was certainly worth investigating. And if her hunch was mistaken, Miles need never know. She had no grand plans for swooping in and making grand accusations, no aspirations towards daring escapades. Those were more in Amy's style than hers. As Henrietta had learned the previous day, she really had no taste for danger.

But she wouldn't be in any danger, decided Henrietta, sweeping back her hair. She would just snoop about a bit, and return home. What could be safer?

And she knew just how to go about it…


Miles bounded out of his chair and grabbed Wickham by the elbow before he could open the door. "Grave danger?"

"Danger to Lady Henrietta, to the Pink Carnation, and to the whole of our enterprises in France," Wickham said gravely. Removing his elbow from Miles's limp grasp, he opened the door and shouted, "Thomas!"

Miles stared in frozen horror at his superior. "Why?" he demanded. "What danger?"

Wickham frowned at him. "All in good time. Ah, Thomas, arrange for a detail of soldiers to be sent to Uppington House — "

"Loring House," corrected Miles tersely.

That momentarily achieved Wickham's attention. "Loring House?"

"Married," Miles said briefly.

Wickham assimilated that information with a brief flicker of his eyelids. "Indeed." He turned back to his secretary, whose eyes were darting nervously from one man to another. "Send a detail of soldiers to Loring House — "

"Wait," Miles interrupted again.

"Yes?" snapped Wickham.

"Lady Henrietta. No one knows she's at Loring House. Isn't she safer without a troop of soldiers announcing her presence? If I can keep her there quietly, make sure she doesn't leave the house — "

"Thomas!" The secretary snapped to attention. "I want two men guarding Loring House. They are to be dressed as gardeners." Wickham turned to Miles. "Loring House does have a garden, I take it?"

Miles nodded meekly.

"If Lady Henrietta makes any attempt to leave the house, she is to be returned to it. If someone other than Mr. Dorrington, Lady Henrietta, or their staff attempts to enter the house, they are to be prevented. Any suspicious behavior is to be reported to me at once. At once. The safety of the realm depends upon it. Is that understood?"

It was understood.

Wickham's secretary scurried off. Miles intercepted Wickham before he could return to his desk, implicitly dismissing Miles.

"What happened?" Miles demanded.

Wickham freed his arm from Miles's hand, proceeding to his desk at a measured pace that did nothing for Miles's nerves. "Lady Henrietta's contact — "

"Hen has a contact?" muttered Miles.

"Lady Henrietta's contact," Wickham continued, glaring pointedly at Miles to show he would brook no further interruptions, "disappeared late last week from her shop in Bond Street. We found her yesterday. In the Thames."

Miles swallowed hard.