Лорен Уиллиг - The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

"Well said, ma belle."

She didn't want to be his beauty. His careless words — was anything the Black Tulip said careless? — about her predecessor danced back before her. He might have only meant her prior counterpart, but Mary knew better. Whoever her predecessor had been, the Black Tulip meant the word literally. Deceased. Dead.

Like Bluebeard's wives, the Black Tulip's beauties had an uneasy time of it.

How had Bluebeard's last wife escaped? Mary rooted about in her memory of half-remembered nursery tales. It was something to do with a tower. Sister Anne, Sister Anne…That was it. Her loyal sister had stood watch in the tower, waiting for their brothers to come charging to the rescue. The beleaguered wife had called out to her sister, again and again, until her rescuers reached the castle, just in the nick of time.

Given that Mary had deliberately evaded her sister, she didn't think that was going to help her much. There was nothing for it but to try her luck with Bluebeard.

"Does that mean — you will accept me?" She didn't have to feign the slight tremor in her voice.

He enjoyed her fear, she could tell. Resting both hands again on her shoulders, his voice was rich with satisfaction as he mulled aloud, "I believe a trial is in order. A test of your loyalty."

"What would you have me do?" No matter how she bent her eyes, she couldn't see more than the very tips of his fingers, the black of his gloves blending with the black of her cloak.

The Black Tulip thought for a long moment, his palms pressing against Mary's shoulders. Mary sat very still, scarcely breathing beneath his weight. A trial — or a sacrifice? She had, after all, spoken of wanting revenge. What better way of testing her loyalty, that putting her to a test of her word.

Mary's fingernails bit into her palms.

"How may I serve, mon seigneur?" she asked softly, sounding as docile as she knew how.

The Black Tulip's fingers tapped thoughtfully against her shoulders. "The King proposes to review volunteers in Hyde Park the week after next — the twenty-sixth of October."

"Meet me in Hyde Park on the day for further instructions. You may," he added as an afterthought, "bring an escort. In fact, you should. The crowd will be rough."

"How will I know you?" Mary asked. "Won't you at least give some identifying characteristic, some sign?"

The Black Tulip laughed low in his throat, ruffling the back of Mary's hair. "Oh, don't worry. I'll make myself known."

The last thing Mary heard, before the world went black, was the Black Tulip's voice, in a whisper as lingering as a kiss.

"You won't be able to mistake me."

Whoever the Black Tulip was, he wasn't Vaughn.

It took Mary some time to extract herself from the black cloth the Tulip had taken the precaution of tossing over her head. It was a simple trick, but an effective one. In her panic at her sudden blindness, she had flailed out, expecting worse to come. Nothing did. Instead of a rope around her arms or a knife against her throat, Mary found herself striking at empty air.

By the time she plucked the piece of cloth from her eyes, the Black Tulip was long gone. As a means of frustrating pursuit, it was crude but effective.

She would be prepared for that trick next time, too.

Mary dropped the piece of black cloth beside the bench with unconcealed distaste, scrubbing her palms against her skirt. Straightening slowly, Mary drew her cloak more tightly about her, wishing she could climb into a tub of boiling water and scrub. Her throat stung where the Black Tulip had favored her with his iron caress, and she could still feel the imprint of his hands upon her shoulders.

With her companion gone, the little summerhouse felt echoingly empty, like a stage after the actors had gone. The pillars holding up the roof shone ghostly white against the night sky and the marble bench glowed palely against the leaf-littered surface of the floor. There was no indication that anyone else had ever been there — nothing except for the discarded pile of black cloth, bunched like a noxious toad beside the bench, and a slight disruption in the debris behind the bench, where the Black Tulip must have knelt. He had left behind no footprint or conveniently dropped handkerchief. No telltale buckle or jewel winked at Mary from among the dirt and cracked twigs.

Using the roof of the Orchestra as her guide, Mary tramped single-mindedly through the closely planted shrubbery, heading in the direction of the Grove. She craved bright lights and loud voices, shrill laughter and strong perfume. She wanted people around her, and lights so bright they hurt her eyes. But most of all, she wanted Vaughn. He would smile that twisted smile of his, and the Black Tulip would be reduced to his proper place, a man among men and no less foolish than any of them. There was something so comfortable about the fellowship of Vaughn's cynicism, which relegated everyone else to their places in the vast human comedy while she and Vaughn sat enthroned as audience, above the madding throng. She wanted the warmth of his hand on her arm; the reassurance of his lean swordsman's body by her side.

She very much wanted that barrier, or any barrier, between her and the Black Tulip. There was simply something…wrong about him. It wasn't the casual violence of his hands on her shoulders and throat that chilled her. She had known vicious men before, the sort of men who tried to lure one out onto a balcony and were inclined to get rough when repulsed. An animal, lashing out as an animal did, she could shrug aside. But the Black Tulip's concentrated control, the methodical nature of his actions…those made her glance back over her shoulder as she forged through the underbrush, wondering just what she had gotten herself into.

Breaking through a gap in the hedges, Mary found herself just where she had meant to be, on the edge of the Grove, with music drifting from the Orchestra and the smell of ham and spiced punch from the supper boxes. The narrow path spat her out near the Pillared Salon, almost exactly opposite the place where she had entered the Grand Walk what felt like a very long time ago.

Near the Orchestra, which stood in the center of the Grove, Mary could make out the broad form of Turnip Fitzhugh, bold in carnation pink, nodding his head appreciatively in time to a spirited rendition of "When Sappho Tuned the Lyre," but of Lord Vaughn and his silver cane there was no sign. Unless…Mary's eyes narrowed as she caught a flash of familiar silver just beside the entrance to the Pillared Salon. He and his companion stood in the shadow of the building, apart from the groups of people milling about the orchestra and supper boxes. Whatever it was they were discussing, it must have been absorbing; Vaughn's head was bent intently towards his companion. It wasn't Mrs. Fustian — those purple plumes would have been unmistakable — and the woman was too short to be the gangly Miss Fustian. Vaughn was no more than medium height but the blond head of the woman next to him barely reached the bottom of his chin.

"Miss Alsworthy!" Mary recoiled as a hand lightly descended on her shoulder.

But this hand bore a white glove, not a black, and the arm it was attached to quickly retreated at Mary's alarmed reaction.

"I do beg your pardon," said Mr. St. George, biting his lip in contrition. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Mr. St. George!" said Mary brightly, doing her best to get her breathing back under control. "I hadn't realized you were at Vauxhall this evening."

St. George shrugged his shoulders self-deprecatingly. "I've been told it's one of the sights one simply must see before leaving London. So here I am."

"Leaving?" echoed Mary, her eye on the blonde beside Vaughn. "I do hope that doesn't mean that you will be leaving us."

"I am glad to hear you say that," said St. George earnestly. "But I do have responsibilities in Warwickshire that will demand my presence presently. I mean, presently demand my presence. Presently."

"Hmmm," said Mary, thinking absently that what he lacked was presence of mind. Who was that woman next to Vaughn? It was hard to make out anything of her features, due to the mask that covered her face from her eyebrows to the bridge of her nose, but even a hooded black cloak couldn't disguise a figure as prettily curved as that of the pink-cheeked shepherdess in the large Hayman painting behind her. "Will you pardon me? I must ask Lord Vaughn if he has seen my sister."

"We have that in common, then," said St. George pleasantly, strolling along with her towards the Pillared Salon. "I seem to have misplaced mine as well. Oh yes," he added, in response to the question Mary might have asked had she been paying him any attention at all. "She came with that Rathbone fellow."

Belatedly recalling her duty, Mary made a noncommittal noise in reply.

"The very thing." St. George grinned wryly down at her, taking inattention for distaste. "I feel much the same way. I would be delighted if she would only return to the governesses. The turtles, even," he added with a gusty sigh.

For once, even amphibians had ceased to be diverting. As Mary watched, the woman pressed something into Vaughn's palm. It disappeared just as quickly into Vaughn's waistcoat pocket, so quickly that Mary had only a glimpse of something pale against the figured fabric of Vaughn's waistcoat before it was gone.