Lauren Willig - [Pink Carnation 04]

by The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

  Onstage, Turnip’s bearers had dropped their tow ropes with more than a little relief, depositing Turnip right in the center of the stage.

  Funny that she had never noticed before just how much Turnip sounded like Tulip. All that wanted changing was the middle.

  It was hard to imagine anyone who looked less like a deadly spy than Turnip Fitzhugh. According to the script, Turnip was meant to be Brutus, founder of Britain, who had fled the rack of Troy to found a mighty kingdom in a new land. With his toga falling off one shoulder (much to the appreciation of some of the older women in the audience, including Aunt Imogen), and his face screwed up in a squint as he tried to read Lady Euphemia’s lips as she mouthed his lines at him, Turnip looked more like one of Shakespeare’s rude mechanicals than a mythic hero.

  Hitching up his toga, Turnip proclaimed, “I am bravest Brutus. From funny Troy I flee.”

  “Sunny Troy!” hissed Lady Euphemia.

  Turnip nodded vigorously. “From funny, sunny Troy I flee,” he declaimed proudly. “Go I now to a new place, where King I shall see—er, be.”

  “Heaven help England,” muttered someone in the audience.

  From the look on Lady Euphemia’s face, Turnip’s dynasty was destined to be a short-lived one.

  In the wings behind him, Mary could see the other actors queuing up and servants who had been pressed into service as stagehands bustling about with scenery and props for the coming scenes. It was an eclectic collection of props, ranging from a very large ham haunch (for Henry VIII), to a scaffold (for King Charles), and finally an immense bust of George III (for George III), garlanded with flowers and balanced on a wheeled plinth. If the royal family did put in their promised appearance, the bust was due to be ceremonially rolled out, accompanied by fireworks and the entire cast singing “God Save the King” in three-part harmony.

  Despite the absence of the royal family, George III was already on the move. Over Turnip’s artistically bared shoulder, Mary saw His Majesty’s head go past, nose first, making for the back of the stage with a speed that resulted in a near collision with a miniature version of the Spanish Armada.

  The servant wheeling him was bent nearly double with the effort. That was curious in itself, since the statue was made of plaster, hollow inside. Lady Euphemia had originally intended to fill it with doves, which would burst out and flap picturesquely around His Majesty. At least, that had been the plan until St. George had pointed out that if the doves didn’t expire from their captivity and make a nasty stench inside the sculpture, one was likely to soil the royal shoulders. Lady Euphemia had regretfully reconsidered, and the bust remained empty.

  Or it should have been. Then why was the man having such trouble? His neck was pulled so far into the neck of his livery that it looked like his stock was eating his chin and a white wig with rolled curls on the side effectively shielded the rest of his face. But in his efforts, the wig had slipped, revealing a sliver of close-cropped black hair, a gaunt cheek, and a long aquiline nose.

  Creeping as close to the stage as she dared, Mary squinted across the way. The man had moved into the shadows, bearing the King’s bust along with him, but his profile was unmistakable. The sallow skin, the long nose, the oddly sunken cheeks that made her think of John the Baptist in the wilderness…

  What in the blazes was Mr. Rathbone, vice-chairman of the Common Sense Society, doing in the wings of Lady Euphemia McPhee’s pet theatre, dressed in the McPhee livery, making off with the head of George III?

  Mary rather doubted that he’d had an abrupt reversal of fortune and decided to go into service.

  He might, of course, be indulging in a bit of amateur espionage, gathering information to send off to his sister society in France, that society with the long name that Vaughn had reeled off with such nonchalance.

  As Vaughn did everything.

  Mary hastily recalled her mind from the recollection of Vaughn’s other talents, and back to Rathbone, not nearly so pleasant a subject, but far more pressing. The cast of Lady Euphemia’s fiasco was replete with the sisters, daughters, and wives of men of influence, the scape-grace younger brothers of members of Parliament, the cousins of the King’s advisors. Any one of them might let something slip in the casual chatter as he waited in the wings, any one might have information he wasn’t supposed to have.

  But why make off with the King’s head? Was he using it as a shield? An excuse for his presence? An act of petty sabotage? The last seemed the most likely. It would be just like Rathbone and his group of petty revolutionaries to expend their energies in symbolic statements, like replacing the King’s bust with one of Bonaparte, or sticking a large red, white, and blue cockade in the royal wig.

  No matter what he was doing, it couldn’t be good. Mary took quick inventory of events on the stage. At the rate Turnip was blundering along, she had a good ten minutes at least, as long as Lady Euphemia didn’t bludgeon Turnip to death with the script before he got to the end of his part.

  Oh, well. If that happened, it should take them some time to clean the blood off the stage.

  Setting her pasteboard circlet more firmly on her brow, Mary slipped quietly through the wings, weaving her way past Charles II’s spaniels, who nipped at her heels, and a pillow-stuffed Henry VIII, who attempted to nip at something else entirely. Mary gave him the sort of look reserved by princesses of Briton for impertinent mortals.

  There were plenty of men in the McPhee livery scuttling about, but no large plaster head. Casting a glance over her shoulder to make sure no one noticed her departure, Mary slid into the narrow space behind the backdrop, where spare scenery was propped against the wall and props laid out on a long, wooden table.

  Rathbone was there, bent over the plaster head, running a long piece of string out of the royal nostrils.

  Mary paused at the very edge of the backdrop, considering her next move. Despite his gaunt frame, Rathbone was still considerably taller than she was; she still hadn’t forgotten the discomfort of being backed into a corner by him at the Common Sense Society. And there they had been surrounded by people. Revolutionaries, but people, nonetheless.

  He might not be too happy to be surprised at his task. And if he were the Black Tulip…Mary surreptitiously rubbed her hands along her arms. She still bore the bruises.

  Glancing quickly around, her gaze fell on the table of props. The swords were all pasteboard, flimsy things that would bend at a touch, and Robin Hood’s bow had a broken string. But in the midst of it all hulked Henry VIII’s ham haunch.

  Mary crept closer, resting one hand on the bony end. Beneath its pink and red paint, the ham haunch was solid wood. The narrow end made a convenient handle. Closing her hands around it, Mary hefted it experimentally in the air. Muttering to himself at his task, Rathbone never turned around. Adjusting her grip, Mary raised the ham haunch over her head, and swung it down.

  The haunch connected with Rathbone’s head with a satisfying crunch, bowling him over sideways. He thudded against the bare boards of the floor and was still.

  Gathering up her draperies, Mary leaned forward to inspect him for signs of sentience. He seemed most convincingly inert. Still alive—she could tell that from the uneven rasp of his breath—but his closed lids and the darkening bruise on his temple suggested that he wouldn’t be a bother to her for quite some time. Laying the ham haunch within easy reach, just in case she needed it again, Mary knelt down beside the fallen man and used two fingers to peel back one eyelid. The pupil stared straight ahead, devoid of recognition.

  Feeling rather smug, Mary rose, brushing her hands on her skirt. If she’d only had a ham haunch to hand the other day when the Black Tulip appeared…Ah, well, one couldn’t be expected to foresee every eventuality.

  Bending over, Mary lifted the string that had fallen from Rathbone’s hand when he toppled over. The waxed twine was oddly gritty to the touch, dotted with dark flecks like bits of sand.

  Grimacing, Mary rubbed her fingers together to dislodge the residue. Di
rt? Or something else? Either way, she didn’t like the feel of it on her fingers.

  For whatever reason, Rathbone had threaded the string through the enlarged nostrils of the larger-than-life-size bust. Twisting sideways, Mary peered into the royal nose. There was something inside, several somethings, in fact.

  Straightening her aching back, Mary eyed the bust. There had to be some other way to get to the inside. Whatever was in there was too large to have been shoved in by the nose. And Lady Euphemia’s doves would have needed an outlet, too, short of striking the King’s head with a mallet. That would hardly be a spectacle calculated to please the King, seeing his head broken open in effigy.

  Of course! Shoving her own hair hastily out of the way, Mary reached for the tail of the King’s wig. The headpiece lifted easily off, revealing the cavity below. Inside, in the large, empty space between the King’s ears, someone had packed a curious contraption contrived of three small wooden barrels, banded together with metal strips, nestled in against four cylindrical flasks sealed with wax. The whole had been padded around with shreds of paper and cloth, like the nest of a very peculiar bird. The string Rathbone had been unrolling with such care had its origin in the barrel in the middle.

  Utterly baffled, Mary frowned down at the King’s head. Whatever the contraption was, it was clearly not meant to be in there. But what was it?

  “That is,” said a voice behind her conversationally, “what is commonly known as an infernal machine.”

  Chapter Thirty

  …his form had not yet lost

  All her original brightness, nor appeared

  Less than Archangel….

  —John Milton, Paradise Lost, I

  Mary dropped the plaster wig.

  It clattered ominously behind her as she whirled to face the newcomer. Eight feet tall, he loomed in front of her, a martial apparition straight out of a stained-glass window. A red Crusader’s cross burned against a cloth of gold tunic. Plumes bristled from a silver helmet, a regular cascade of crimson plumes, soaring into the air like the flames of a bonfire. In one gloved hand, a long spear reared halfway to the ceiling, its point towering a head above its bearer.

  Mary pressed back hard against the statue, the royal nose jammed uncomfortably against her spine, until the apparition swept off his plumed helmet, reducing his height by a good foot and providing her with a view of a familiar and welcome face.

  “Oh, Mr. St. George!” Mary said with a sigh of relief. “Were you looking for me? I hope I haven’t missed our cue.”

  Without the distracting red plumes, St. George dwindled comfortably to his usual dimensions. Dressed as his mythic namesake, he was decked out in a sleeveless tabard over a flowing shirt and a pair of very tight black tights. Like Aunt Imogen, Lady Euphemia appreciated a good leg, and St. George was in possession of two of them, if not quite so good as Vaughn’s. The tights ended in a pair of ridiculous turned-up shoes, with the toes curled up into points, another of Lady Euphemia’s pseudo-medieval creations.

  Mary smiled warmly at St. George, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the body on the floor. If she could hustle him back into the wings, away from the fallen man and the mysteriously laden statue…

  Her luck seemed to be out. Setting down his helmet, St. George squinted at Rathbone’s crumpled form. Bending, he picked up the discarded ham haunch, turning it curiously over. Mary watched uneasily as he hefted it in one hand, as though testing its weight.

  “Yours, I believe?” he said pleasantly.

  “Only borrowed,” Mary said, rapidly considering and discarding various explanations and excuses. “I believe it’s meant to be Henry the Eighth’s.”

  Unfortunately, St. George wasn’t moved to discuss Henry VIII’s gustatory habits. He continued to look at her, so quizzically that Mary felt herself flushing beneath the paint Lady Euphemia had smeared on her face.

  With an aborted gesture at Rathbone’s body, she said quickly. “I saw someone skulking around backstage. I was so rattled that I struck out without thinking. Silly me.” She attempted a laugh, but it came out as hollow as the plaster head of George III.

  “Is that Mr. Rathbone?” asked St. George neutrally.

  “Yes,” admitted Mary, her back still blocking the King’s effigy. “I’m afraid your sister is going to be without an escort tonight.”

  St. George waved that consideration aside. Strolling in a circle around Mary, he nodded at the giant head behind her. “I take it you found Rathbone playing with that?”

  “The very thing,” Mary agreed, as St. George lifted the lid and peered into the innards. “What was it you called it?”

  “An infernal machine,” St. George explained helpfully, replacing the King’s queue neatly in its place and hiding the mysterious bundles once more from view. “Like the one someone used to try to blow Bonaparte to bits four years ago.”

  “You mean it’s an incendiary device,” Mary translated, taking an automatic step away from his Majesty’s otherwise benign face.

  “I prefer the term infernal machine,” said St. George. He didn’t move from his own position, his hand resting familiarly on top of the King’s head, like a man with a pet mastiff. “It has a far more winning ring to it, don’t you think?”

  There was something rather odd about the way he was looking at her, not with the boyish admiration he had shown over the past several weeks, but with a fixed intensity that made Mary distinctly nervous.

  It occurred to Mary, for the first time, that every time she had seen Mr. Rathbone, it had been in the company of Mr. St. George. It was St. George’s sister Rathbone was meant to be courting; a sister Mary had never seen, much less met.

  “Certainly a more sinister one.” Keeping her face and voice pleasant, Mary took what she hoped was an inconspicuous step in the direction of her trusty ham haunch. “I hadn’t realized you knew so much about mechanical devices, Mr. St. George.”

  “I don’t,” he said, with his old self-deprecating smile. “That was what Mr. Rathbone was for.”

  “I—see.”

  She didn’t like what she saw at all.

  “You do see, don’t you?” He was still smiling, his teeth very white in the dim corridor. “You see altogether too much, Miss Alsworthy. And at very inconvenient moments.”

  “I can un-see it, if you like,” said Mary brightly, edging towards the ham haunch. “It’s dreadfully dim back here, you know. It makes it terribly hard to see anything at all. I’m very good at not seeing what doesn’t need to be seen.”

  Reversing his grip on his spear, St. George brought it down it so that the bar stood as a barrier between Mary and exit, effectively cutting her off. The pennant on the end, emblazoned with a St. George cross, fluttered in a parody of patriotism.

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that, Miss Alsworthy,” he said, with genuine regret. “Pity. I would as soon destroy a work of art.”

  Reaching across the bar, he grazed two knuckles across her cheek in a fleeting caress.

  It was all Mary could do not to flinch from his touch, but long experience had taught her to hold her ground.

  “Then why do so?” she suggested, in her throatiest voice.

  Undulating forwards, she would have insinuated herself up against him, but the banded shaft of the spear stood between them, catching her hard in the stomach. Suppressing her involuntary gasp, she ran a finger teasingly along the embroidered line of the red cross on his tabard. “Let there be no more games between us, no more pretense. I know who you are. And you know who I am.”

  Letting her eyes go limpid, she slid her the flat of her palm up his chest in a deliberately provocative caress. It didn’t have much effect on her captor, but if there was a pistol hidden on his person, it was exceptionally well disguised. “Isn’t it time you admitted me to your counsels…mon seigneur?”

  “No,” he said simply, but he made no move to back away. Mary took that as a good sign.

  Mary pressed closer, flirting as though her life depended on it. Whi
ch it did. It was not an uplifting thought. The only glimmer of hope she could find in the situation was that if the Black Tulip was backstage with her, he couldn’t be stalking Vaughn. Which meant that Vaughn was safe. At least, for the moment.

  Mary redoubled her efforts, shrugging her shoulders together to make her tunic dip in the middle. If that didn’t soften him, she didn’t know what would. She lowered her voice, made it soft and caressing, “Think of all the trouble you could have saved, mon seigneur, if only you had confided in me. Had you told me your plans, I would never have incapacitated your agent.”

  With a casual movement, St. George took her hand and removed it from his chest, with as much emotion as if he were plucking off a burr. Holding it high in the air, his hand closed around hers in a bruising grip.

  “Yes,” he said. “You would have.”

  Mary let her lashes dip down to veil her eyes—a necessary gesture to keep him from seeing the fear that filled them. “You still doubt me, mon seigneur?”

  St. George’s lips twisted in a cynical expression that sat oddly on his genial features. “Oh, there’s no doubt, Miss Alsworthy. I know exactly who you serve.”

  “Myself mostly.” Mary tilted her head coquettishly, sending her long, straight hair swishing against his arm, releasing a faint scent of exotic French perfume, calculated to enslave the senses. “But you, if you’ll let me.”

  “No, Miss Alsworthy, there’s no more arguing it. You failed your test. You failed your test yesterday, when you refused to pull the trigger.”

  “A momentary hesitation,” Mary protested. “I haven’t much experience of guns.”

  “You serve him,” countered St. George, unimpressed. He added, with a chilling combination of scorn and pity, “You serve him because you’ve fallen in love with him. Others have made that mistake before you. With the same result.”

  Mary opened her mouth to argue, but something in his face blunted her words. There would be no more arguing. The Black Tulip had made up his mind.