Лорен Уиллиг - The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

"You want me to kill Lord Vaughn?"

Mary forgot that she was supposed to be facing forwards and was only returned to her proper position by the application of the pistol to her side. It was very frustrating having a conversation with someone back to front, especially when that someone was a homicidal French spy with a primed pistol in one hand.

With the pistol prodding her in the ribs, Mary hastily returned to what the Black Tulip deemed an acceptable position, staring straight ahead, out across the park, her view half-veiled by strands of bunting. The Black Tulip had chosen his hiding place well. From outside their dark cavern, even she in her white dress would be all but invisible.

"Lord Vaughn?" Mary repeated incredulously, addressing herself to a pigeon flapping overhead. "I thought you wanted me to kill the King!"

The pigeon expressed its opinion of that misapprehension by promptly relieving itself on the next booth over.

"My dear Miss Alsworthy, wherever would you get such an absurd idea?" The Black Tulip indulged in a rich chuckle. "Kill the King in the middle of Hyde Park? You would have to be mad."

He was calling her mad? That was rich coming from a man who skulked about in dark corners whispering melodramatic statements in peoples' ears, urging them to shorten the life span of peers of the realm.

Mary shook her head in confusion. "Please don't think me disrespectful — or disobedient," she added hastily. "But I really don't understand. I can think of many reasons one might like to kill Lord Vaughn. I can think of many reasons why I might like to kill Lord Vaughn. But I can think of very few reasons for you to wish to kill Lord Vaughn."

"Can't you?" There was a challenge in the Black Tulip's tone that made little drops of sweat break out along Mary's arms.

Well, there was that little matter of his doing errands for the Pink Carnation and attempting to plant her in the Black Tulip's service, but aside from that…

"You poor fool," said the Black Tulip, not unkindly. "Didn't you think I knew what you were about?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"When Vaughn appeared with a black-haired woman, I knew exactly what he intended. It wasn't exactly subtle. A petal to replace those I had lost. Your master made a fatal miscalculation. I have no more need for petals. Not anymore." There was a note of finality to the Black Tulip's voice that sent a chill down Mary's spine.

"Haven't you thought it might be the other way around?" Mary pressed every ounce of persuasion she had ever possessed into service. "That I might be using him to get to you?"

"Then prove it to me," said the Black Tulip pleasantly. "Prove to me that he means nothing to you. Kill Vaughn."

"I have no objection to killing Vaughn on principle," Mary lied. "I just don't really see the point. It seems like a waste of good bullets."

"Come now, Miss Alsworthy. We both know exactly what Lord Vaughn is."

"A liar, a cheater, and a cad?" Mary suggested. "A shameless seducer? A remorseless reprobate?"

"Nothing more than a clever front. An effective one, I'll grant you, but not effective enough to fool me." There was no mistaking the note of self-congratulation in the Black Tulip's voice. "Vaughn overplayed his hand in Ireland. No one but he could have gotten that information from the Marquise. And no one but the Pink Carnation could have used it.

"I have certain plans," continued the Black Tulip softly, "that are about to come to fruition. I cannot afford any interference from jumped-up floral arrangements."

"Plans?" inquired Mary innocently.

"Kill Lord Vaughn," said the Black Tulip, "and then you can be privy to my plans. Not before."

"Do I have any guarantee that you'll include me in your counsels once I kill Lord Vaughn?" demanded Mary daringly. "Or will you kill me, too, once I've rid you of your nuisance?"

"I don't deal in guarantees, Miss Alsworthy. If you want a guarantee, speak to a merchant. I will tell you this, though. The Pink Carnation is not part of my plans."

Mary noticed he had made no promises regarding her own mortality.

"Surely," she suggested, with one eye on the pistol, "you would do better to let Lord Vaughn lead you to the Pink Carnation. To kill off an accomplice might be satisfying, but wouldn't you rather pluck the entire flower?"

The Black Tulip's free hand twined in heavy loop of hair beneath her bonnet and tugged, hard, forcing her head back at an unnatural angle. "Do not attempt to play me for a fool, Miss Alsworthy."

The sharp tilt of her throat made it hard to speak. "I — don't — see — what's — so foolish," Mary rasped. "Wouldn't you rather the real spy?"

The pressure of the roots of her hair increased, pressing back until spots swam in front of her eyes from the pain. Then the Black Tulip released her so abruptly that her head snapped back, leaving her gasping hopelessly for breath, with one hand at her throat.

"You really don't know, do you?" There was a distinctly unpleasant quality to the Black Tulip's laughter.

"Know what?" she gasped, rubbing her throat. When she saw to the Black Tulip's downfall, she was going to make sure it was a painful one.

"Vaughn has played you for a fool, Miss Alsworthy."

That wasn't precisely news, but Mary suspected that the Black Tulip wasn't talking about Vaughn's matrimonial status.

"You don't mean to imply — "

He did mean. "Would Vaughn be anyone's accomplice other than his own?"

"I don't believe it," said Mary stubbornly, despite the fact that she had once voiced a similar objection to Vaughn herself. "Vaughn is not the stuff of which selfless heroes are made."

"Consider well, Miss Alsworthy. Vaughn's prolonged absences from England. His recent trips to Paris. His interference with my agents. And, of course, your charming self. Now tell me that Vaughn is acting for another."

For a moment, Mary almost wondered if he might be right. If Vaughn had lied to her about so crucial an item as a living wife, why not about other things as well? It would be an excellent cover for a spy to pose as his own accomplice. But try as she might, she couldn't make the identification stick. It was impossible to imagine Vaughn adopting a flowery sobriequet. If he had, it would have been something exotic and absurd, like the Crimson Chrysanthemum or the Remorseless Rhododendron. Not a humble flower like a pink carnation.

"I can't possibly think of a worse candidate for Pink Carnation," Mary protested. "Vaughn isn't the least bit patriotic. What about his revolutionary friends? His connections with the Common Sense Society?"

"Nothing but a sham. Don't you know your history, girl? The Vaughns have been in bed with the House of Hanover since the day the first German George hoisted himself onto the throne of England. Vaughn's grandfather slaughtered Scots at Culloden for the second George and his father served as advisor to the third." The Black Tulip's gloved hand tightened on her arm, leaving dents that would undoubtedly turn into bruises. "In return, they've received anything they could desire. Honors, titles, monopolies, concessions. Don't think your Vaughn isn't well aware of what he owes to the Crown."

"He isn't my Vaughn."

"Not for want of trying, is it?" asked the Black Tulip, in a way that made her want to jab the parasol into his toe then and there. His breath feathered against her hair as he leaned forward confidingly. "He has a wife, you know."

Oh, how she knew. But that little detail faded to triviality next to the magnitude of the Black Tulip's threats.

"Sooner or later, he will take her back. And then where will you be? Used and abandoned. One of a hundred forgotten conquests. Our interests coincide, Miss Alsworthy. I am offering you the ideal opportunity for revenge. Those don't come along every day."

Mary made a show of pretending to consider. "You do make an excellent point. If you give me some time, I'm sure I can think of a perfectly smashing plan for disposing of our mutual adversary. I want to make it something painful. And slow."

"You'll have to settle for painful."

The Black Tulip gestured with the pistol, the sunlight glinting dully off the thin iron barrel. Mary instinctively pulled away, but the Black Tulip had another target in mind. The point of the pistol settled, with all the finality of a lowered spear, on the figure of a man making his way alone through the litter of the abandoned stalls. His high crowned hat cast his face into shade, but there could be no doubt he was looking for someone, as he stalked through the debris, craning his head first one way, then the other, his lips pressed together in a tight line of annoyance. His normally immaculate cravat was askew and his urbane stroll had been abandoned in favor of a brisk stride.

His wife was nowhere to be seen.

Mary's heart tightened as she watched him stalk from one stall to the next, using his cane to wrench aside the bunting, struggling with a fierce and entirely inexplicable wave of protectiveness. She wanted to straighten his wretched cravat and smooth out the worried lines beside his lips and hustle him away to someplace where inconvenient wives and homicidal spies could never find them.

He couldn't look that awful and not have meant what he had said before. Wife or no wife.