Masque of the Black Tulip pc-2

by Lauren Willig

  And there were those ginger biscuits.

  Miles considered going back for another handful, but decided twelve was really quite enough for one day. Besides, he had a job to do.

  With a light step and a cheerful whistle, he set off in the direction of his club. Last night, after the fiasco with the note, Miles had sat for a long while at that secluded table. After a few searing sips of gin, Miles had stopped muttering imprecations to himself, and abandoned tempting visions of self-flagellation. By halfway through the glass, he had come to the conclusion that, really, it had all turned out quite well. After all, now he had proof that Vaughn was up to something dodgy, whatever that dodginess might be. An innocent man didn't have clandestine meetings in seedy parts of town.

  As for the note… well, no one really needed to know about that, did they?

  Besides, what was one note compared with the prospect of getting whole folios of evidence? By that point, Miles was three-quarters through the glass of gin and feeling decidedly sanguine, even though the candle had guttered and gone out, and Molly the barmaid was conspicuous by her glower. Instead of resting on one note, resolved Miles, he would gather enough evidence to make a full case against Vaughn and rout out any little cronies Vaughn might have scuttling around the city.

  That one note, had he managed to steal the right one, might have been enough to implicate Vaughn — Miles squinted wistfully at the level of gin in his glass at that point, and took another swig — but it wouldn't have done anything to smoke Vaughn's accomplices out of their burrows. Where there was one mysterious hooded man, there were bound to be others; spies generally carried on their nefarious undertakings through means of an elaborate network.

  By the time the glass was empty, Miles had come up with a plan, and he would have tried to put it into execution immediately if he hadn't been just a bit not at his best at the time. He wasn't foxed, not on one glass of blue ruin — or had it been three? He couldn't remember. At any rate, he was just a little… tired. That was it. Tired.

  His trouble locating the doorknob as he exited from the tavern convinced him that his plan was best mulled upon overnight and executed in all its fullness the following day. When he could walk in a straight line again. Besides, he needed an accomplice, and he knew just where to find one.

  Turning down St. James's Street, dodging an inexpertly driven phaeton on the way, Miles strode briskly towards White's, in search of a large brandy and a partner in crime.

  It was at moments like this that Miles missed Richard. It wasn't something that Miles would ever admit to — aloud, at least — but White's felt oddly empty without his oldest friend around. Richard would have been the logical choice for accomplice in this endeavor; the two of them even had their own code, developed during their schooldays and never cracked by even the most determined of French agent. But no, Richard had to go and fall in love. Dashed inconsiderate of him.

  It wasn't that Miles disliked Amy. She seemed nice enough. Reasonably pretty, bright, clearly devoted to Richard. Not Miles's type, but that was probably a good thing, since he could imagine few things more disturbing and dishonorable than harboring an illicit passion for one's best friend's wife — except perhaps harboring an illicit passion for one's best friend's sister. So it didn't distress Miles that he couldn't quite see just what Richard saw in Amy. He couldn't have wished for better for his best friend.

  But this whole having-a-wife-around business changed a man. No matter how unobjectionable the wife in question was. Dash it all, in the old days, Richard would have been at White's, they would have split a bottle of claret, exchanged manly quips about outwitting Bonaparte, thrown a few darts, plotted the downfall of Lord Vaughn, and headed off to Gentleman Jackson's for a quick mill. And where was Richard now? Rusticating in Sussex, that was where. It was a damned waste.

  Ah well, at least Geoff was still in town, and free from feminine leg shackles. Miles went in search of his second-oldest friend. Until recently, Geoff had been in Paris with Richard, serving as second in command of the League of the Purple Gentian.

  Now he was conveniently back in London, and just the man Miles needed to help him unmask that French spy. Miles caught sight of the back of a familiar-looking head at a small table at the back of the room, and strolled in that direction.

  "Geoff?"

  The head, with its close-cropped dark hair, remained bent over the table, a quill tapping restlessly against the scratched surface.

  "Pinchingdale-Snipe?"

  Still no response.

  Miles drew closer. A low droning noise emerged from the vicinity of the tabletop, punctuated by the tapping of the quill.

  "If — tap — to love me — tap, tap — I could thee — tap, tap — entice…"

  " 'It would be very, very nice'?" suggested Miles.

  Geoff's head snapped up. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, with less than the show of pleasure one might reasonably expect from one's second-oldest friend.

  Miles regarded the splotchy piece of paper in some amusement. "Not what you're doing, clearly." He leaned an elbow on the table and scanned the verses inscribed in Geoff's tidy handwriting.

  " 'Oh peerless jewel in Albion's crown /I would I had thee for my own' ?"

  "Don't you have someplace else you would rather be?" gritted Geoff, clamping an ink-stained hand down over the piece of paper.

  "Not particularly." Miles leaned over to peer between Geoff's fingers. "Are you sure that scans, old chap?"

  "Don't you have a mistress you could go annoy? Somewhere far, far away?"

  "Not at the moment." Miles abandoned Geoff's literary attempts and propped himself casually against the table, stretching his booted legs out in front of him. "I gave Catalina her conge last week. I was late for dinner and she broke an entire tea set over my head."

  Despite himself, Geoff's lips twitched. "Sugar bowl and all?"

  "Down to the last saucer," confirmed Miles. "Artistic temperament is one thing, but having china shards underfoot all the time was growing a bit wearying. Not to mention painful."

  Miles grimaced at the recollection. It had taken hours to pick the fragments of porcelain out of the folds of his cravat. His valet, Downey, had been decidedly unamused by the process. And when it came down to a choice between his valet and his mistress… well, there was no question. No one kept linen quite as fresh as Downey.

  "Then shouldn't you go find a new one?" Geoff suggested, keeping a protective hand over his maligned verses. "I hear there's a new French opera singer performing at Haymarket tonight. If you hurry, you might be the first to proposition Madame Fiorila."

  "I've gone off opera singers for the moment. Too temperamental. Besides, I'm consigned to perdition in the form of the Middlethorpes' ball this evening. I promised Richard I'd keep an eye on Hen while he's in Sussex. Keep the young bucks at bay, that sort of thing."

  "Isn't that a bit like setting the wolf to guard the henhouse?" Geoff winced. "Damn. I didn't mean it to come out like that."

  "I don't know which is worse, your puns or your poetry."

  "I'll pretend you didn't say that."

  "That's because you know I'm a better shot than you are," Miles replied equably.

  Geoff cast his friend an exasperated look, but refrained from comment. "I'll see you at the Middlethorpes' tonight."

  "That's exactly what I was hoping you would say." Miles clapped his friend on the shoulder, then lowered his voice. "I need your help."

  Sensing the change in Miles's tone, Geoff set down his quill, took a quick look around the room to make sure it was empty, and modulated his own tone accordingly. "With what?"

  "I need you to make sure someone remains in the ballroom while I burgle his house."

  "May I ask whose house you're planning to burgle, or is that a secret? And why? This isn't for a wager, is it?" Geoff asked in long-suffering tones.

  Hmph. That had been eight years ago. And he'd given the chamber pot back after he'd won the wager. Trust Geoff to bring that up.
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  Miles refused to let himself be diverted onto the thorny pathways of self-justification. "What do you know of Lord Vaughn?" Geoff's dark brows drew together in thought. "Vaughn… He left for the Continent under mysterious circumstances while we were still at university, something to do with the death of his wife. She was an heiress, and upon her death, all of her wealth devolved to him." Geoff looked grim. "Vaughn had expensive tastes. Something didn't smell quite right about it. He put it out that she died of smallpox, but there was something dodgy about it."

  "Go on," urged Miles. "Anything else?"

  "There were other rumors, too, the usual sorts of things, about the Hellfire Club and various other secret societies. Pure hearsay, you understand. Nothing was ever substantiated."

  "Would any of those secret societies be dedicated to revolutionary activity?" Miles asked eagerly.

  There had been several revolutionary societies about in the late eighties and nineties, devotees of Tom Paine's works who had cheered on the events in France as the dawn of a brave new age. Many of the groups had been infiltrated and egged on by French operatives who sensed a breeding ground for sedition. The government had done a pretty good job of clamping down on the noisier groups, but it was, of necessity, a piecemeal process, and several had slipped through their fingers. It would tie in so neatly…

  Geoff shook his head, dashing Miles's clever theory. "No. The focus was debauchery, not politics."

  "How do you know all this?"

  Geoff raised an eyebrow. "It's my business to know all this."

  Miles scowled. That eyebrow thing was deuced infuriating and Geoff knew it.

  "I take it Vaughn is under suspicion?" prompted Geoff.

  "Up to his neck," confirmed Miles.

  "Let me know what I can do, and I'll do it."

  Geoff turned back to his poetry, and began tapping away with his quill. As far as Miles could tell, all he was creating was a charmingly abstract pattern of little dots.

  So much for that bottle of claret and some sparring at Gentleman Jackson's.

  "Some of us have a country to save," Miles muttered at Geoff's hunched back, but Geoff was too immersed in trying to get "entice" to rhyme with "delight" to notice or care.

  It wouldn't be quite so bad, reflected Miles, if Geoff were going to write lovelorn poetry, if he would at least write good lovelorn poetry. Which begged the age-old question, was there such a thing as good lovelorn poetry? Probably not, concluded Miles. Either way, it seemed like a bloody waste of time.

  Had Cupid availed himself of Bonaparte's artillery? Next thing he knew, even Reggie Fitzhugh would be google-eyed over some chit of a girl. Perhaps it was a new French tactic, mused Miles darkly. The French had slipped something into their brandy to induce otherwise reasonable men to turn into lovesick jackanapes so busy mooning over the composition of poetry — poetry! — that they wouldn't even notice a French army trooping across the Channel. Only he, Miles Dorrington, remained unaffected, the sole hope and prop of England.

  Rolling his eyes, Miles set off to find himself a nice, comfortable leather chair, where he could sit and scheme without being assaulted by iambs.

  Tonight, he would search Lord Vaughn's house. Tomorrow, he would avail himself of the registers at the Alien Office regarding recent arrivals from the Continent. Theoretically, every foreigner in London was supposed to register with the Alien Office upon arrival in the city. Vaughn's contact might have slipped in illicitly (in fact, there was a high probability that he had), or he might have been in London for several months already, relaying messages brought by someone else, more recently arrived. Even so, it was the logical place to start searching for a mysterious man with a foreign accent.

  After all, someone had to protect England.

  Chapter Eleven

  Quadrille: a deadly dance of deceit

  — from the Personal Codebook of the Pink Carnation

  By eleven o'clock that evening, Henrietta was in a state of intense irritation with both herself and the world.

  She was irritated by the silly fop who had just escorted her back to her mother (whoever had told him that a puce waistcoat was becoming with a chartreuse jacket?); she was irritated by the footman who offered her a glass of champagne; she was irritated with the cloying smell of lilacs that pervaded the ballroom; and she was irritated with the lace fringe on her cap sleeve that scratched against her arm and made her want to twitch like a demented bedlamite.

  Mostly, she was irritated with her herself.

  It had been an irritable sort of day. She had spent the afternoon starting letters, and crumpling them up; picking up books and putting them down again; staring sightlessly out the window; and being generally restless, purposeless, and cross. It had occurred to her, belatedly, that she probably would have been better off going to Charlotte's fittings with her, just to have something to do. The reflection, coming as it did three hours too late, only made her crosser.

  Most of all, more than anything else, she was irritated with herself for her detailed knowledge of the movements of one blasted Miles blasted Dorrington. Henrietta had danced ten dances, sat out another chatting with Mary Alsworthy's younger sister, Letty, pulled Pen back from the verge of the balcony and ensuing social ruin, and had a long discussion with Charlotte about the novels of Samuel Richardson and whether Lovelace was a romantic hero (Charlotte) or a treacherous cad (Henrietta) — all the while noting Miles's each and every movement.

  Since their arrival at the ball, Miles had brought her lemonade, retreated to the card room, returned half an hour later to see if she wanted anything, and engaged in a long discussion with Turnip Fitzhugh about horses. She knew that he had gone out on the balcony for twenty minutes with a cheroot and two friends, danced a duty dance with Lady Middlethorpe, and very vividly acted out bits of yesterday's boxing match for the edification of the Middlethorpes' seventeen-year-old son.

  It was infuriating; it was idiotic; it was… was that Miles over there? No. It wasn't. Henrietta realized the strange gnashing noise she heard was her own teeth.

  She was behaving, Hen told herself firmly, like a great big ninny. What she needed, she decided, twitching irritably as that diabolical ruffle brushed her arm, was distraction. Obviously, she must be quite, quite bored, or she wouldn't be playing silly games with herself over Miles, of all people. This was, after all, Miles, Henrietta reminded herself for the fiftieth time this evening. Miles. The man who had once balanced a chamber pot on the spire of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He'd nearly been excommunicated for that one. He was also the same man who had managed to fall backwards into the duck pond at Uppington Hall while playing catch with Richard's now-defunct corgi. True, he had been thirteen at the time, but Henrietta chose to remember the splashing and swearing and squawking (the last from the ducks, not Miles) instead. Not to mention his memorable performance as the Phantom Monk of Donwell Abbey. Henrietta had had nightmares for a week.

  To be fair, he'd also snuck her into the boys-only tree house, smuggled her her first champagne, and given her her favorite stuffed animal, Bunny the bunny (Henrietta had not been the most creative of small children). But Henrietta didn't want to be fair. She wanted to regain her ability to ignore Miles. She had never thought of it as a specific talent until now.

  Clearly, she needed occupation. Looking for the French spy would be the ideal diversion — Henrietta perked up a bit at the thought — but she hadn't the first notion of where to start looking. Jane's letter, after all, had merely signaled the presence of a new operative, not anything distinguishing about him. Henrietta had, in a moment of desperation that afternoon, considered tackling her contact in the ribbon shop in Bond Street on that topic, but her instructions on that score had been clear: She was never to have any more conversation with the ribbon seller than that necessitated by the purchase of ribbons. To do otherwise could jeopardize the secrecy of the whole enterprise. Besides, for all she knew, the ribbon seller was just as much in the dark as she was.

  No, her only
hope was Amy, who was bound to have some sort of idea as to where she should start. Amy always had ideas. Henrietta engaged in some desperate calculations. Even assuming that Amy sat down and replied to her letter the instant she received it — of course, it was easily possible for Amy to be distracted, leave it on her writing desk, and rediscover it a month later, but Henrietta refused to entertain that possibility — but, assuming the best, assuming Amy wrote at a speed at which no woman had written before, and handed it back to the courier before he could do more than gulp a glass of ale in the kitchens of Selwick Hall. Assuming the courier had fresh horses lined up along the way and rode as if ten highwaymen were dogging his heels. Assuming all that… it would still take at least another day, Henrietta concluded glumly.

  Blast.

  "Oh, look!" exclaimed Lady Uppington, poking Henrietta in the arm. Henrietta rubbed irritably at the spot. Splendid. Now she was itchy and bruised. "There's Miles dancing with Charlotte. Isn't that sweet of the dear boy ?"

  "Perishingly," said Henrietta sourly, following the direction of Lady Uppington's punitive finger towards the dance floor, where Miles was pacing the elegant figures of the quadrille with Charlotte.

  One could see — or, at least, Henrietta could see — that he was making a valiant effort to make conversation with Charlotte, even though he hadn't the slightest idea what to say to her. She could tell from the way his eyes narrowed ever so slightly at the corners, and the way his brows drew together in concentrated thought, as if he were working very hard on a complicated philosophical theorem. He must have devised something, a comment about the weather, most likely, because his entire face cleared with relief. His eyebrows went up, his mouth opened, and a big, engaging smile spread across his face.