The Masque of the Black Tulip

by Lauren Willig

  ‘I know this hasn’t been the most’ – Miles cast about for words – ‘regular of courtships. But, if you think you can manage it, I’d like to put the manner of our marriage behind us. After all, we have more of a chance than most couples. We rub along fairly well together. And we like each other. That’s more than most marriages have to start out with.’ Miles’s hands dropped from her face to her shoulders, holding her just far enough away so he could see her face. ‘What do you say?’

  What Henrietta wanted to say wasn’t easily translated into words. Part of her was basking in sheer relief. Having braced herself all day for the moment when Miles would present all sorts of excellent arguments for the dissolution of their marriage, having him entreat for the contrary took her completely by surprise.

  And yet…yet…there was a sting to it. It was kind, and it was sensible, but how meagre kind and sensible felt. Henrietta certainly had no hopes for effusive declarations, but, in an inexplicable way, the lukewarm affections Miles had invoked were almost more hurtful than an outright repudiation. A line from an old poem flitted through her head: ‘Give me more love or more disdain, the torrid or the frozen zone.’ She had never understood it then, but now she did; love or disdain, at least either stirred the passions. But, oh, to be treated by the object of one’s adoration with temperate fondness! It blighted any romantic illusions more surely than an outright rejection.

  Gazing wordlessly into Miles’s earnest brown eyes, Henrietta felt very small and very vulnerable. But it was, after all, not his fault if she didn’t inspire him with burning passion, and he was doing his utmost to make the best of an awkward situation – which was more than she was doing. Henrietta gathered her scattered wits together. What Miles proposed was eminently sensible. And she was, she thought to herself wryly, always sensible. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing. And maybe…in time…Henrietta squelched that thought before it could grow up. She was letting herself in for enough heartbreak as it was.

  ‘Yes,’ she said tentatively. ‘Yes. I’d like that.’

  Miles let out a gusty sigh of relief. ‘You won’t regret it, Hen.’ With one exuberant movement, he swooped down and whisked Henrietta into his arms.

  ‘What’ – Henrietta clung to his neck for dear life as he bounded up the front steps two at a time – ‘on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  Miles grinned rakishly. ‘Carrying my wife over the threshold, what else?’

  Chapter Thirty

  Nuptials: an alliance between interested parties for the furtherance of a mutual goal

  – from the Personal Codebook of the Pink Carnation

  ‘The threshold appears to be closed,’ pointed out Henrietta.

  ‘So little faith,’ complained Miles. ‘Watch and learn.’

  ‘If you even think of using me as a battering ram…’ warned Henrietta, as Miles lifted a booted foot and rammed it hard against the door.

  On the third kick, the door flew open, propelled by an indignant individual with white hair growing in tufts from either side of his forehead like the horns of an untidy devil.

  ‘In civilised establishments…’ he began strongly, chest puffing out to alarming proportions, before he registered the identity of the heedless hoodlum who had been battering at the hallowed portals of Loring House. Henrietta, held horizontal at just that level, watched with fascination as the irate personage’s chest abruptly deflated. ‘Master Miles! Master Miles?’

  The butler’s eyes flew from Miles to Henrietta and back to Miles in a state of evident alarm. The Loyal Retainers Guide to Better Buttling, while excellent with regard to tips for polishing silver and removing the cloaks of foreign dignitaries, was highly unclear as to the proper protocol for receiving prodigal sons and prone women.

  ‘Hullo, Stwyth,’ said Miles exuberantly, not in the least bit daunted. Henrietta resisted the urge to hide under his cravat. ‘This is your new mistress, Lady Henrietta.’

  Henrietta gave a sheepish little wave as Miles bore her triumphantly across the threshold beneath the nose of the flabbergasted butler.

  ‘Stwyth?’ she whispered to Miles.

  ‘He’s from Wales,’ Miles whispered back. ‘They haven’t discovered vowels yet.’

  ‘My lady,’ stuttered Stwyth. ‘Sir. We weren’t informed of your arrival. Your rooms…the house…we didn’t know…’

  ‘That’s all right, Stwyth. Neither did I,’ Miles tossed back nonchalantly over his shoulder as he strode towards the stairs. ‘But we’ll be staying here from now on.’

  The butler hastily gathered the tattered shreds of his composure, drawing himself up to his full height, which was somewhat shorter than Henrietta’s, or what Henrietta’s would have been, had she not been dangling several feet off the ground. Henrietta tried to remedy that fact by dint of rolling sideways, but Miles held firm.

  ‘May I say, sir, on behalf of the entire staff,’ announced Stwyth, trotting along behind, ‘how delighted we are that you have finally decided to make your home at Loring House.’

  ‘You may,’ acceded Miles, starting up the stairs, Henrietta squished firmly against his chest, ‘but preferably some other time. You can go, Stwyth. Go…’ What did butlers do when they weren’t opening doors? ‘Go buttle.’

  Under the crook of Miles’s arm, Henrietta saw Stwyth’s rigid features curve into what, in a lesser mortal, would have been a grin.

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ he intoned, and bowed himself hastily out of the hall.

  Henrietta turned bright red and banged her head against Miles’s cravat. ‘Oh dear,’ she moaned. ‘He knows.’

  ‘Hen?’ Miles jiggled her to make her look up. ‘We’re married. It’s allowed.’

  ‘I still don’t really feel married,’ admitted Henrietta.

  ‘We can work on that,’ said Miles, kicking open a door at the head of the stairs. ‘In fact, we will definitely work on that.’

  The door opened onto a small room furnished with a writing desk and several delicate chairs. It was hard to tell what else the room might contain, because the drapes were drawn, and most of the furniture shrouded in Holland covers to protect against dust and the ravages of time.

  Miles backed out again. ‘Damn. Wrong room.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you put me down?’ asked Henrietta plaintively, as her dangling feet narrowly escaped amputation on the doorframe.

  ‘Only’ – Miles leered dramatically down at her – ‘once I’ve found a bed.’

  Just in case she had any ideas of escaping, Miles boosted her higher into the air. Henrietta let out a squeal of protest and clasped her arms more firmly around his neck. ‘Don’t drop me!’ she demanded, laughing.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ said Miles with great satisfaction, hefting her happily in his arms. His voice softened. ‘I like it when you laugh.’

  Something in his expression made Henrietta’s throat tighten. ‘With you, or at you?’ she quipped uneasily.

  ‘Near me,’ Miles said, tightening his hold on her. He rubbed his cheek against her hair. ‘Definitely near me.’

  ‘I think that could be arranged,’ Henrietta managed, doing her utmost to refrain from blurting out embarrassing declarations of love that could only alarm Miles and put an end to their precarious entente.

  ‘I think it already has been,’ Miles countered, striding down the hall. ‘Or didn’t you hear that bit this morning?’

  ‘I was a bit distracted.’

  Miles sobered. ‘I noticed. But,’ he said firmly, stopping in front of a door at the end of the hall, ‘we are not going to think about any of that tonight. Tonight, there is just us. No French spies, no angry relatives. Agreed?’

  Henrietta was quite sure there was a flaw in that plan somewhere, a rather large flaw, having to do with someone chasing them while hurling bullets in their direction, but it was very hard to think logically when Miles looked at her like that, his brown eyes intent on hers. He was so close that she could see the little crinkle at the sides of his eyes, crinkles cau
sed by a lifetime of smiles, and the darker hue of his hair near the brow where the sun hadn’t touched it.

  ‘Do I have any choice in the matter?’ asked Henrietta with mock solemnity, wishing her voice didn’t sound quite so breathless.

  ‘You did promise to obey.’ Miles tipped her towards the doorknob. ‘Would you mind getting that, please? My hands are full.’

  ‘I’m not sure I would exactly call that a promise,’ Henrietta hedged, obediently leaning over and turning the doorknob. ‘It was really more of a…um…’

  ‘Promise,’ reiterated Miles smugly, shouldering open the door and edging sideways into the room. It smelt of dust and disuse, but in the light from the hallway, he could see that it contained the crucial item: a bed.

  ‘Strongly worded suggestion,’ Henrietta finished triumphantly, tipping her face up towards his with an expression that dared him to try to top that.

  ‘So what you’re saying,’ said Miles, with a mischievous glint in his eye that Henrietta knew of old, combined with something new and infinitely more unsettling, ‘is that I have to find other ways of making you cooperate.’

  ‘Ye-es,’ said Henrietta, noticing slightly uneasily that they were rapidly approaching the bed. Beds and wedding nights did tend to go together. She tried to look as though being borne off to a very large bed were a commonplace occurrence.

  Which, she thought with a slight pang of jealousy, for the marquise it probably was. Whether the marquise had been borne off by Miles was too distressing a question for Henrietta to consider.

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked instead.

  ‘This,’ said Miles, and kissed her before she could say anything else, kicking the door closed behind them.

  As a technique for inducing cooperation, it had much to recommend it. By the time Miles lifted his mouth from hers, Henrietta was having a very hard time remembering what they had been sparring about in the first place. She wasn’t even entirely sure about her own name.

  ‘But…’ she began dazedly, since Miles couldn’t be allowed to have the last word – or the last kiss.

  Miles grinned roguishly. ‘Not convinced yet?’ he asked rhetorically, and kissed her again, a kiss that made its predecessor feel like a discreet peck in a drawing room. His arms were warm and tight around her, pressing her so closely that Henrietta lost all sense of where her body left off and his began. The rising heat between them burnt layers of clothes into nothingness. Henrietta’s senses were filled with Miles; the scent of his hair and his skin, the sensation of his tongue filling her mouth, sealing her lips to his, the press of his waistcoat buttons against her side, and the prickle of his hair beneath her fingers, all melded into a complete cosmos, a world where nothing existed but the unit formed by their joined lips, hands, bodies. The room tilted and swayed, like a planet spinning on an astronomer’s model.

  Henrietta made a muffled noise as her back connected forcefully with something soft and springy, followed by something large and heavy landing on top of her. It abruptly dawned on her that the falling sensation had been more than the effect of Miles’s kisses.

  ‘Mmmph!’ protested Henrietta, poking at the large lump on top of her. Not being able to breathe while Miles was kissing her was one thing, having all the air forcibly squashed out of her quite another.

  The large lump rolled onto his side, taking her with him. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered into her ear, his breath reawakening all the nerves that had been squashed into silence with her precipitous descent to the bed. ‘I tripped.’

  ‘I noticed,’ replied Henrietta, although she was having trouble noticing much of anything at all as Miles pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat.

  ‘Did you?’ It was clear Miles’s mind was not on the conversation either, as his lips trailed down her collarbone, to the bodice of her dress, which was obligingly drooping far below where it ought to be. His teeth nipped at the edge of her bodice, which obediently slipped another crucial inch. Momentarily distracted, Henrietta realised that the shivers down her spine were caused by more than the sensation of Miles’s breath against bare skin. At some point, the long row of buttons that had fastened her twill travelling dress had been deftly undone.

  Henrietta’s chin dropped sharply down, nearly banging Miles on the head.

  ‘How did you do that?’ she asked incredulously. ‘I never even noticed.’

  Miles freed her arms from the dress with an expert tug. Henrietta made an automatic grab for the fabric as her bodice plunged to her waist, but Miles grabbed her hands, lifting them one by one to his lips. ‘I have many talents of which you know nothing – yet,’ he added meaningfully.

  ‘Evidently,’ said Henrietta bemusedly, as the rest of her dress followed her bodice.

  ‘Absolutely.’ The pile of fabric landed with a dusty thump by the side of the bed.

  Henrietta propped herself up on an elbow, resisting the urge to dive under the covers. Clad only in her chemise, she felt her arms were very bare. ‘Have you ever considered a career as a lady’s maid?’

  ‘I’m better at the undressing bit’ – Miles yanked his shirt over his head, revealing a very impressive expanse of chest – ‘than the dressing.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Henrietta, watching the ripple of muscles along Miles’s chest as he tugged the sleeves from his arms. She wasn’t going to think about the women he had undressed in the past. They were in the past. Gone. Finished.

  And Henrietta was seized with a determination to make quite sure there was never another. He was hers now, all hers, and even if he hadn’t married her for love, well, there was nothing that said she couldn’t do her best to seduce him, was there? Even if she had no idea how to go about it. Even Cleopatra had had to start somewhere.

  Tentatively, Henrietta placed a hand on Miles’s chest, fascinated by the way the muscles contracted in response. She ran her hands up to his shoulders, tilting her head back so that her hair flowed over her shoulders. It felt oddly sensual against her almost bare back, and she swished it back and forth.

  ‘Hen,’ whispered Miles, staring at her transfixed, in a way that made Henrietta feel lithe and beautiful and bold.

  ‘Hello,’ she said softly, tracing the line of hair on his chest down until she encountered the waistband of his breeches.

  ‘Hello to you, too,’ gasped Miles, grabbing her hands before she could go farther. Lifting them over her head, he leant in for a long kiss, trying to bring his raging passions under control. His body, unfortunately, had other ideas.

  He wanted to jump up and down and shout, ‘Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!’ but since he had the sense to realise that might alarm Henrietta – and overset the ancient bedstead – he rendered his message in a more subtle way, running a finger down the strap of her chemise until it slid down her shoulder. She shivered, looking up at him with wide, unfocused eyes.

  Miles decided subtlety was highly overrated.

  ‘You,’ pronounced Miles, ‘are wearing too many clothes.’ Grabbing the thin fabric in both hands, he tugged. Riiiiiiip. The chemise parted jaggedly down the middle.

  ‘Miles!’ gasped Henrietta.

  ‘I’ll buy you another,’ said Miles thickly, cupping her breasts in his hands. ‘Just not now,’ he added, as his head lowered to her chest. ‘Maybe next week.’

  For once, Henrietta was in no condition to argue. The sensation of Miles’s tongue teasing her nipple wiped out coherent thought, and what would undoubtedly have been a highly witty rejoinder turned instead into an inarticulate gasp, as her fingers threaded through his hair, instinctively drawing his head closer. His lips tightened, tugged, sending shivers of sensation rolling straight down to Henrietta’s toes.

  Together, they sank back into the ancient mattress, arms locked around each other, bodies fitting perfectly together. Feeling wonderfully wanton, Henrietta pressed closer to him, sensing more than hearing him groan as she brushed against the bulge in his breeches. Emboldened, she wiggled against him, enjoying the way his breath sped in her ear, and
his hands tightened on her back.

  Desperately trying to school himself to go slowly, Miles wrenched his mouth from Henrietta’s, trailing kisses along her neck, her ear, as his hands explored the tantalising arch of her waist, the generous curve of her hip. Her skin felt like silk beneath his fingers as they slid up the inside of her thigh. Somewhere between her knee and the tangle of curls between her legs, Miles had stopped breathing. He didn’t notice. What remained of his mind was concentrated on far more pressing matters.

  Spitting out a mouthful of hair he had accidentally ingested, Miles scrambled with the fastenings of his breeches, yanking them hastily over his hips. Clumsily, Henrietta tried to help, laughing breathlessly as Miles tried to kick the breeches off his legs, cursing as the fabric clung to his foot.

  ‘Laugh, will you?’ he demanded, triumphantly sending the breeches flying, and pouncing on his wife. ‘We’ll see about that.’

  Henrietta’s laugh turned into a squeal of surprise as Miles pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh. His tongue moved higher, flicking between her legs, sending quivers of sensation jilting through her. Her skin felt too tight for her body, tension building in the core of her being. She suddenly desperately needed Miles’s arms around her, his lips on hers.

  She tugged on his hair, and he surged up along the mattress to join her, his hand moving to replace her mouth. Henrietta knew she was making little mewing noises, but she couldn’t find it in her to care; she pressed herself against Miles’s fingers.

  ‘I don’t think,’ Miles’s voice came as though from a long way away, even though his mouth was right next to her ear, ‘I can wait any longer.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Henrietta, which Miles correctly interpreted as license to proceed.

  Slowly, he began to enter her. At least, he intended to go slowly, with proper deference to her virginal state. Instead, Henrietta twined her arms around his neck, making little panting noises as she moved anxiously against him, driven by the restless pressure building inside her. Murmuring her name, Miles plunged deeply into her, ripping through the thin barrier that barred his passage.