Lauren Willig - Masque of the Black Tulip

The marquise ignored him, continuing to point the mother-of-pearl pistol at Henrietta.

"Kindly hand me the pistol in your belt and the knife strapped to your calf," instructed the marquise.

Henrietta looked at her quizzically. "What makes you think I have either of those things?"

"All amateur spies have pistols in their belts and knives strapped to their calves," replied the marquise acidly. "It is a tedious commonplace of the profession."

Both had been listed in Amy's helpful pamphlet, So You Want to Be a Spy, but Miles's dueling pistols were back in his old lodgings, and the staff of Loring House already thought she was crazy enough without her waltzing into the kitchen and asking to view their knife collection. There had been a dusty old pair of fencing foils propped above the mantelpiece in what might once have been Miles's father's study, but neither was the sort of piece a girl could inconspicuously pop down her bodice.

"Ah," said Henrietta, in the hopes that the marquise might be distracted until Miles could subdue her henchmen in the hallway. "But I am not an amateur spy."

She wasn't, really, she assured herself. She was more of a liaison.

"You begin to bore me, Lady Henrietta." In the sort of casual gesture with which she might have applied rouge or flipped through a program at the opera, the marquise flicked the lever that cocked the pistol.

"I don't think you want to do that," said Henrietta, slowly raising herself up on her elbows, and wishing she had had the forethought to bring a pistol of her own.

"Why not?" asked the marquise, sounding thoroughly bored.

"Because," ventured Henrietta, cautiously pushing herself up onto her knees and trying to look mysterious, "I'm more use to you alive than dead."

"Whatever might have given you that idea?" inquired the marquise, her voice as level as her gun.

Down the hall, assorted thuds and grunts suggested that Miles was still keeping the marquise's guards busy. How long would he be able to hold them off if the marquise added her pistol to the fray? Henrietta made a desperate shooing motion at Turnip. Turnip, misinterpreting, started trying to fill one of the cups from the empty coffeepot.

Seeing no aid from that quarter, she made a desperate bid to hold both the marquise's attention and her pistol point.

"I," said Henrietta very slowly, "have information for which your government" — she looked closely at the marquise, but the marquise's face revealed nothing but thinly veiled boredom — "would pay dearly."

"Do you?" the marquise's smile was dry, uninterested.

"Dead women tell no tales, you know." Henrietta warmed to her theme.

"But you, Lady Henrietta," said the marquise, "have already revealed everything I needed to know."

"I have?" Henrietta cast her mind anxiously back over the past few days. She couldn't have led the marquise to Jane — could she?

"Are you quite sure about that?" she asked desperately. "I mean, you really wouldn't want to go back to your superiors with possibly incomplete information. Think how angry they would be if you could have found out more. And what if you're mistaken? Just think about that. Are you sure? Are you quite, quite sure?"

The marquise sighed in a manner indicating the extreme ennui of one who has heard prisoners pleading for their lives before, and finds it a tedious, if necessary, corollary of her chosen profession.

"Quite" — the marquise's finger tightened on the trigger — "sure."

"Hen!"

The marquise's head swiveled to the left as Miles burst into the room, trailing four ruffians dressed as footmen. Two clung to his arms, one trailed from Miles's legs, and the fourth was ineffectually trying to leap onto his back.

Miles disposed of the last with a hearty butt of his head, whacked the man hanging onto his right arm out of the way by dint of flinging up a stiff arm to knock him backwards into the wall, used his newly freed hand to punch the guard on his left in the stomach, and dispatched the one clinging to his legs with a single well-placed kick to the head.

Four groaning Frenchmen clutched various parts of their anatomy as Miles rushed precipitously towards Henrietta, eyes for no one but her. "Dammit, Hen, are you all right?"

The marquise recovered before her minions. In one fluid movement, she hauled Henrietta up off the floor, pulled the smaller woman back against her, and shoved the point of her pistol against Henrietta's temple.

"Not so fast, Mr. Dorrington."

Miles skidded to a stop, nearly overbalancing in his haste. He had, he realized, missed a minor detail. The gun that the marquise was in the process of pointing at Henrietta. Damn.

The marquise dragged Henrietta back a step, black eyes flashing from Miles to Turnip and back again. "Neither of you gentlemen move. If you do, the lovely Lady Henrietta will no longer be quite so lovely. Do I make myself understood?"

"Perfectly," said Miles tersely, holding himself absolutely still. Henrietta's face was grimed with dust, and he could see what looked like a nasty scrape on one cheek, but there didn't seem to be any bullet holes, open gashes, or other serious wounds anywhere on her person. Yet. Miles looked directly at the marquise. "What do you want?"

The marquise tilted her dark head, drawing out the moment. "You, Mr. Dorrington, are not in any position to bargain."

"Let her go, and we'll see you safely out of the country," Miles offered recklessly, squelching any thought of what his superiors at the War Office might say to such an offer. He made an effort to keep his posture relaxed, but his eyes were intent as he scanned the marquise for the slightest sign of an opening. If her hand wavered, even for a second…

Henrietta shook her head at him, causing the marquise's hand to tighten on the trigger.

Miles stiffened in alarm. "Don't move, Hen," he begged. "Just don't move." He turned back to the marquise. "Well?"

"What are you willing to do to have her back unharmed?"

"Miles, don't!" burst out Henrietta. "You can't let her escape. And I" — her voice faltered, but she went resolutely on, chin set in a stubborn line — "I'm expendable."

"Not to me," Miles said harshly.

"How sweet," said the marquise, in a tone that implied she thought it anything but. "Are you quite finished?"

The marquise jammed the muzzle of the pistol harder against Henrietta's cheek. Henrietta squeaked. Miles tensed.

"Do go on," continued the marquise sarcastically. "Don't allow me to interrupt your little interlude. After all, it may be the last one you have."

"Havey-cavey," muttered Turnip, shaking his head. "Deuced havey-cavey."

Henrietta looked at him in exasperation, stubbing her nose against the pistol for her pains. "Now you find the situation havey-cavey?"

"I would remain quiet, if I were you, Lady Henrietta," cautioned the marquise. "And if you think I can be induced to display mercy upon a plea of true love" — on the marquise's lips, the words plummeted to something lower than myth — "you are distinctly mistaken."

"Not mercy," Miles swiftly interpolated, "but common sense. As you can see, Henrietta and I have other things to occupy ourselves, and Turnip is no harm to anyone but his horseflesh. We'll turn our backs and count to ten, and you can just go."

"Not without what I came for."

The marquise looked pointedly at Turnip Fitzhugh.

So did everyone else.

Turnip toyed with the edge of his cravat and looked bashful. "Flattered, I'm sure."

"You can drop the act now, Mr. Fitzhugh," said the marquise, digging her fingers cruelly into the flesh of Henrietta's left arm. "I've been waiting a long time for this moment."

"It can't have been that long," put in Turnip. "I've only known you this past fortnight."

"Perhaps," commented the marquise. "But I have known of you much longer, Mr. Fitzhugh. Or should I say… the Pink Carnation?"

"Oh, you shouldn't," muttered Miles, "you really shouldn't."

Henrietta frowned fiercely at him, or as fiercely as she could frown with a pistol indenting one cheek. Miles nodded slightly, to show he understood. If the marquise thought the Turnip was the Pink Carnation, it was safer to let her go on thinking that for the present. Turnip was obdurately dense enough to baffle even the most accomplished of spies. Eyes still locked with Henrietta's, Miles tilted his head slightly to the side. Henrietta narrowed her eyes at him, indicating lack of comprehension. Miles took a deep breath. Trying not to look at the deadly muzzle boring into Henrietta's face, Miles let his eyes shift sideways, his head tilt, and his shoulders sag. Lifting his head, he peered anxiously at her, silently asking if she had understood. Henrietta's eyes widened with understanding; it was all the reassurance Miles needed. He held a finger to his nose to indicate silence. Henrietta compressed her lips in an expression that said, clear as words, "I know, I know." Despite himself, Miles felt his own lips quirk into a crooked grin.

Intent on her prize, the marquise missed the entire exchange. Turnip's face went through the muscle contractions that substituted for cogitation in the Fitzhugh family. After much painstaking thought, his wrinkled brow smoothed and his face lit with comprehension.