The Masque of the Black Tulip

Chapter Fifteen

"Quite." Miles cast a winning smile in the general direction of the woman sitting next to him. "Absolutely."

To say that Miles was slightly preoccupied would have been akin to saying that the Prince Regent had a slight penchant for spending money. Despite the lavish charms of the woman next to him, his mind was on other things entirely. An opera singer, to be precise.

True to his resolution, Miles had made his way to the opera house in Haymarket that afternoon, to have a little chat with the newly arrived Madame Fiorila. A little bit of preliminary intelligence gathering had netted Miles the information that her first performance had taken place three nights before, to a packed house. The previous night, she had been engaged for a private party — not, Miles's informant had hastened to add, that kind of private party. It had been an evening of song arranged by an elderly noblewoman with musical pretensions.

Decking himself out in his most dandified attire, Miles had set out for the opera house in the guise of eager swain, prepared to woo out of Madame Fiorila any information she might have about Lord Vaughn, Paris, and the mysterious address in the rue Nigoise. In one hand he carried an elaborate bunch of flowers, in the other, a playbill from Tuesday night's performance (acquired from the ever-obliging Turnip Fitzhugh), to add verisimilitude to his story that he had seen her sing and been overcome by her beauty and charm. Dash it all, he hoped she was beautiful; otherwise his story might be somewhat lacking. If she was a matronly woman with a bosom like a feather bolster, his smitten state might be somewhat harder to explain.

It never came to that point. Madame Fiorila, the porter informed him, was receiving no callers. She was indisposed. A sixpence failed to change the porter's message. A half-crown didn't do any better, but did elicit the information that Madame Fiorila had abruptly cancelled her performance for that night and all of her engagements for the next week. She was, reiterated the porter, indisposed. Miles had left the flowers, along with his card, urging the porter to inform him if there were any change in the lady's condition.

Another lead lost. Of course, there were still her lodgings to locate and inspect, and numerous other avenues he could explore, but it was a dashed nuisance not being able to see her in person. At least then he might have a better idea of whether Vaughn's interest was professional or amorous.

A stop at the Alien Office to discover the identity of Vaughn's hooded companion had proved no more fruitful. It had not been, Miles reflected, the best of days. Madame Fiorila had proved elusive, the Alien Office barren, and he still had no inkling at all as to the identity of last night's assailant.

Miles's first assumption, based largely on the sight of a silver-headed cane plowing towards his head, had been that his attacker was Vaughn. But Geoff, confronted at Pinchingdale House at an ungodly hour of the morning (before noon, at any rate), had decisively denied that possibility. Several times. With increasing emphasis. No, he hadn't let Vaughn out of his sight. No, he was really quite sure. No, Vaughn couldn't have left the room without his knowing. Would Miles like him to find a Bible somewhere to swear on?

Miles had politely turned down the offer of a Bible. Really, Geoff was dashed touchy these days.

Geoff had also mentioned, as proof of his complete concentration on the movements of Vaughn, that Vaughn had indeed approached Henrietta, solicited her hand for a dance, and reiterated his hopes that she would grace his humble abode that evening.

Too many bloody men were showing interest in Henrietta. First Frobisher, now Vaughn. If Miles had known that keeping her out of the arms of her amorous suitors was going to be a full-time job, he would have told Richard to keep an eye on her himself. All that was needed was for Prinny to take an interest in Hen, and then they'd really be in for it.

Could she just try to be a little less attractive?

For a start, she could pull her hair back more sternly. Those little wisps at the nape of her neck practically invited caresses. Then there were her gowns. The gowns definitely had to go. Miles jerked harder than he'd intended on the reins. Not like that. The gowns definitely had to stay on. There would be no mental removing of clothing. None at all. He'd just pretend that little thought sequence hadn't happened. What he meant was the gowns needed to be replaced, preferably with something of a thick, heavy material that wouldn't cling to her legs when she walked. And whatever it was, it had better bloody well button straight up to the neck. Dammit all, what was Lady Uppington thinking, letting Hen go around half-exposed like that?

Miles tugged at his cravat.

"Unseasonably warm day for May, isn't it?" he said to the marquise.

At least, that's what he opened his mouth to say to the marquise. Miles's mouth remained open, but no sound came out. As he'd turned to look at his companion, his eye caught a glimpse of a very familiar forehead.

Good God, was that… Henrietta? Miles blinked a few times, wondering if there was any truth to the old wives' tale that if you thought about a person hard enough they'd appear. She certainly looked pretty solid for a figment of his imagination. And green. Very green.

As Miles tried to puzzle that one out, Henrietta's eyes met his. Her hazel eyes widened, and an expression of indescribable horror flashed across her face. Before he could lift his hand in greeting, Henrietta's forehead disappeared. Just like that. One minute it was there, the next minute it wasn't.

Pulling back on the reins, Miles drew his team to an expert stop.

“Is something wrong?” enquired the marquise, with just a bit of an edge to her voice.

Miles didn’t answer right away. He was too busy leaning as far as he could over the edge of the phaeton without tipping the whole contraption over. He had seen Henrietta, hadn’t he? At least, a small piece of Henrietta, poking over the edge of that bush. Miles peered more closely. Now, the bush just looked like… a bush. Green. Bushy. In fact, it bore a remarkable resemblance to that prickly thing he’d tumbled into last night. It didn’t in the least bit resemble Henrietta.

Miles frowned. Had he descended to imagining things? True, he wasn’t his usual well-rested and collected self — Miles ignored the little voice in his head that snorted at the latter half of that statement; it was bad enough to conjure Hen up behind bushes without her voice joining in, too — but, seeing people who weren’t there? Maybe he should cut back on the claret.

Just as Miles was about to consign himself to a dark little hole in Bedlam, he saw it. A shape that could not possibly belong to shrubbery. In fact, it looked remarkably like a well-rounded derriere.

The possessor of the attribute in question hunched facedown behind the hedge, clinging desperately to the timeless delusion that if she couldn’t see anyone, no one could see her.

“I,” muttered Henrietta through a mouthful of grass, “am an idiot. I am a great big idiot.”

She spat out a small bug that had ventured into her mouth, and continued her litany of misery in tight-lipped silence. Maybe, she told her self, maybe, if she was truly fortunate, Miles hadn’t seen her after all. Maybe, she thought, on a tide of rising optimism, he had been too pre occupied with the horses to notice. Maybe, even if he had noticed, he would convince himself he had imagined it. People were, after all, very good at not seeing what they didn’t expect to see, and goodness only knew Miles wouldn’t expect to find her crouching behind a bush. Maybe…

Two sets of hooves clomped to a halt right in front of Henrietta’s hedge.

Maybe she should emigrate to Australia under an assumed name. Preferably within the next five seconds.

“Why, Mr. Dorrington!” the marquise exclaimed in tones of alarm ing sweetness, “Isn’t that your little friend behind that hedge?”

Someone groaned. Henrietta realized it had been her.

Further down the hedge, loyal Charlotte had already popped up, and was saying brightly, “Hello, Mr. Dorrington! How lovely, and, um, unexpected to see you.”

Henrietta tentatively tilted her head. With the one eye that wasn’t buried in the grass, Hen could see Charlotte’s hand, under cover of the foliage, making little flapping motions, urging her to stay down. Seeking reinforcements, Charlotte dragged Penelope up by the arm.

“Penelope and I were just… um…“

Henrietta couldn’t see what was going on in the curricle, but just picturing it made her wince. The marquise’s brows arched in an expres sion of supercilious disbelief. Miles, half amused, half confused. Penelope and Charlotte standing there behind the hedge like a leprechaun honor guard.

“Would you be so kind as to tell Henrietta I’m here?” Miles was saying politely.

Oh, blast. Blast, blast, blast.

Henrietta rose very slowly, brushing grass and dirt and debris off her knees, fervently hoping she didn’t have any twigs in her hair, or dirt smudges on her cheeks, just to make her humiliation complete

“Hello,” she said hopelessly. It was just as she’d imagined; the marquise in all her perfection eyeing her as she would an oversized insect, and Miles, blast him, with a look of barely contained amusement pasted all over his transparent face. “We were..

“I know,” Miles helpfully filled in for her. “Just, um. Charlotte told me. By the way, you have a twig in your hair”

“How unique,” contributed the marquise.

Henrietta lifted her chin. The twig came unmoored and bobbed distractingly against her cheek. “We were just on a nature walk,” she said brightly, brushing away the twig “To look at…um…”

“Nature!” finished Charlotte.

Penelope, the traitor, snickered into her green lace handkerchief

Hmph. If Henrietta didn't know better, she might have suspected Penelope of setting up the entire humiliating fiasco as a means of making sure that Miles couldn't see her without doubling over in laughter. Being discovered upside down behind a bush was not exactly conducive to inspiring burning passion. But Penelope wasn't capable of anything that devious. Was she?

"Nature," repeated the marquise, who had clearly not had any truck with that particular commodity. Her eye dwelled tellingly on the green smears marring Henrietta's kid gloves.

Taking a deep breath and gritting her teeth, Henrietta patted the side of the hedge, and said in her best governess voice, "Did you know that this is an exceedingly rare species of bush?"

Miles looked quizzically at the prickly green mass. "Really?"

"Yes! It's called, um…"

"Shrubbus verdantusl" supplied Charlotte eagerly. "Is it any relation to Hedgus pricklianus?" inquired Miles. "Don't be silly," said Henrietta loftily. "There's no such thing as Hedgus pricklianus."

"Right." Miles nodded very solemnly, but Henrietta could see his lips twitching with suppressed laughter. "Not like Shrubbus — what was it again? — victorious? that well-known botanical wonder."

Would it be an impediment to their future married bliss if she clouted him over the head with a fallen tree branch?

Miles was starting to make little snorting noises, like a dragon about to blow. "How" — sputter — "clever of you to disguise yourselves so that you don't scare away the shrubbery."

"Touchy things, hedges," agreed Henrietta.

The snorts and sputters took over. Even the horses joined in, bucking and snorting, until Miles recovered enough to grab for the reins, still clutching his ribs with his spare hand. Henrietta caught Miles's eye as he rolled with mirth, and reluctantly grinned back. Oh, fine, so it was funny.

Penelope gave her a "This is what you want to fall in love with you?" look.

"What in the blazes are you really doing out here?" asked Miles, when he'd calmed the horses. "Aren't you supposed to be having a voice lesson?"

"Oh, no." Henrietta fell back a step, one grass-stained hand to her lips like an actress in a bad melodrama. "What time is it?"

Penelope fished the pretty enamel watch she wore on a chain around her neck out of her bodice and flicked it open. "Six-fifteen."

"Oh no, oh no, oh no," repeated Henrietta. She looked frantically from side to side, as though a magic carpet might suddenly appear out of the air and whisk her back to Uppington House. "I was supposed to be home fifteen minutes ago."

Miles leaned over the side of the phaeton, hair flopping in typical disarray across his face. "I can drive you home, if you'd like."

Next to him, the marquise emitted a delicate but forceful sniff.

That decided it. "Thank you," said Henrietta firmly. "I would be most grateful. Unless…"

She looked quizzically at her two best friends.

Penelope shook her head and flapped a hand at her in a gesture of dismissal. "You go ahead." She looked at Charlotte. "We'll finish our nature walk."

"So many shrubs still unexplored!" chimed in Charlotte.

Thank you, Henrietta mouthed, as Miles swung down from the phaeton. With a hand on her elbow, he boosted her up into the high equipage next to the marquise, who was studiedly looking the other way, as though engrossed in the glories of the landscape.

Having gotten Henrietta settled in the curricle, Miles climbed up to resume his seat. There was just one problem. There was no seat to resume. The phaeton had been designed for two, not three.

"Could you scoot over?"

Henrietta slid down the seat the half-inch or so that separated her from the marquise, leaving a grand total of three inches for Miles. "I don't think there's any more room to scoot," she said apologetically. "I can always get out and walk."

The horses were beginning to grow restless at being kept standing so long.

"Never mind." Miles plunged into the seat. Henrietta let out an unintentional whoosh of air as she careened into the marquise. The marquise said nothing, but her lips got very tight and her eyes very narrow.

"See? All cozy," said Miles heartily, twitching the reins to set the horses moving. Hen gave him a wry look. The marquise sat very straight, and arranged her violet-gloved hands in her lap, looking anything but cozy. Scrunched between the two of them, Henrietta felt like a recalcitrant child who had been caught eavesdropping and was being hauled home. Which, she admitted unhappily, wasn't all that far from the truth. The thought was not an uplifting one.

"What lovely gloves," Henrietta ventured, in an attempt to paint a thin veneer of sociability over the situation. She scrunched her own grass-stained gloves into the folds of her skirt, hoping the marquise wouldn't notice. "Did you bring them with you from Paris?"

"I brought very little with me from Paris," replied the marquise frostily. "Revolutions leave one little time to pack."

"Oh," said Henrietta, wishing she had never spoken at all. "Naturally."

"Everything was taken from us — the chateau, the townhouse, the paintings, even my jewels. I fled Paris with barely the clothes on my back."

On the marquise's lips, her flight sounded more sultry than sordid, conjuring images of artfully tattered rags fluttering from barely concealed curves, Venus in distress fleeing her shell. Henrietta's heart sunk somewhere beneath the horses' hooves, each thud of their shoes against the cobbles a pressure against her chest. How could she have hoped to compete?

"It sounds dreadful," Henrietta said woodenly. "How did you contrive to escape?"

To add injury to insult, the marquise's hipbone was sharper than any hipbone had a right to be, and, wiggle though she might, Henrietta couldn't seem to get away from it. Every time she managed to evade the marquise, there was Miles on her other side, glowering at the reins as though they had done something to offend him.

As Henrietta struggled to maintain a polite conversation with the marquise — and avoid being skewered — Miles went from quiet to cross to surly. If they were alone, Henrietta would have poked him, and demanded to know what was wrong. As it was, she couldn't get her hand free to poke him even if she wanted to. It was stuck somewhere between her skirt and Miles's thigh. The strap of her reticule bit into her fingers, which were rapidly growing numb.

Henrietta gave her hand an experimental tug.

Miles growled.

"Did I scratch you?" Henrietta said over a description of the charms of the dead marquis and the dead marquis' chateaux.

"No," grumbled Miles, somehow managing to utter the syllable without ever opening his mouth.

"Are you all right?" Henrietta twisted in her seat to look at Miles. Miles continued to look at the reins.

Miles was having a difficult time remembering the meaning of "all right." He was broiling in his own private hell. For once, it was nothing to do with the French. It was entirely Henrietta.

Devil take it, he'd ridden with Henrietta dozens of times before — hundreds! He'd never had the slightest bit of difficulty keeping his mind out of uncomfortable places that made his cravat — and other bits of his attire — feel suddenly too tight. Of course, on those other rides, there hadn't been three people in a seat meant for two. On those other rides, Henrietta hadn't been pressed intimately against him, so intimately that he could feel every curve of hip and thigh outlined with burning accuracy against him. Miles tried scooting, subtly, to the side, but there was nowhere at all to scoot; they were welded closer together than a pickpocket to a purse.

Just when Miles thought that there was nothing more unbearable than the feel of her jammed up against his side, the blasted vehicle swayed. A warmly rounded bit of Henrietta's anatomy brushed against his left arm. Then, she wiggled again.

And Miles realized it could get worse. Much worse. He was in that peculiar circle of Dante's Inferno reserved for those who had been caught thinking lustful thoughts about their best friend's sisters. True, he couldn't recall Dante mentioning that one specifically, but he was certain it had to be in there. This was his punishment for dwelling on certain details of Henrietta's appearance that he shouldn't have been dwelling on. In fitting punishment, measure for measure, breast for breast, he now had to endure their proximity in excruciating detail, and the worst of it was, he couldn't do a single thing about it.

The five-minute drive to Uppington House had never felt longer.

"Ungh," Miles responded, which Henrietta, from her experience with the vagaries of male communication, took as "No, I'm in a vile mood, but I can't admit it, so leave me alone."

Henrietta had the unhappy feeling she knew the cause of his ill humor. And it wasn't the horses, the reins, or the state of the war with France. It was an unwanted presence in the middle of his curricle, separating him from the seductive marquise and her roving hands.

Henrietta would have complied, and left him alone — if there was any way she could have fled the curricle entirely that wouldn't have involved a suicidal leap and a painful death being crushed by carriage wheels, she would have done so — but just then she felt something slip from her squished fingers and fall with a dull thud on the footrest.

Oh, blast, that was her reticule.

There was no way she could unobtrusively lean down and scoop it up. Even if her right hand wasn't trapped between her and Miles, it would be uncouth to bend over like that in an open carriage in the middle of a well-traveled street. On the other hand, she didn't want to just leave it lying there. What if the carriage swerved abruptly, and it fell out? Her mother would never let her hear the end of it. Maybe if she just managed to slide her foot through the loop, and then she could ever so subtly lift her foot until it was at a level where she could quietly pluck it up with no one the wiser.

Henrietta started feeling around the baseboard with one booted foot. It would be much easier if she could look down, but between her skirts and the marquise's, she couldn't see anything, anyway.

The marquise was commenting on the beauties of the spring, and Henrietta, exploring a likely shaped lump with her toe, made an equally banal response. For all of her beauty, the marquise was really an incredibly boring woman. Maybe, Henrietta thought absently, feeling around the lump, it was all because she was beautiful; she'd never had to try to be interesting. If only she could impress the fact of the marquise's dullness upon Miles in a way that didn't come out sounding hopelessly spiteful. That would be a conundrum for later; for now, she was fairly sure she'd found her reticule, and just needed to try to jolt it around so that she could get her foot through the loop. But it wasn't moving.

Maybe it was stuck against something.

Blast it all, the loop had to be somewhere. Henrietta started feeling for the top of the little bag.

Miles leaped halfway out of his seat.

Ooops. Maybe that hadn't been the reticule.

"What in the name of Hades do you think you're doing?" Miles roared. A nearby horse reared. Heads turned in passing carriages. Curtains twitched.

The marquise looked like she wished she were in anybody else's carriage.

"I dropped my reticule," Henrietta said, somewhat breathlessly. Miles had landed on her. "I was trying to pick it up."

"With your foot?" Miles slid off Henrietta's lap and shoved himself as far against the opposite side of the carriage as he could go.

"My hand was stuck," explained Henrietta reasonably, wiggling the erring appendage.

"Ungh," said Miles.

Henrietta wasn't quite sure how to interpret that grunt.

"I think," said the marquise darkly, "I should like to go home now."

"Don't worry, you're next," Miles said shortly. His curt tone would have done much to raise Henrietta's spirits if it hadn't been the exact same tone he'd been using with her.

Miles yanked the horses to a stop in front of Uppington House and leaped out of the phaeton with all the alacrity of an early Christian martyr dodging a lion. He grabbed Henrietta around the waist and swung her down from the carriage, setting her down in front of her house with a jarring thud. Leaning back into the carriage, he snatched up the offending reticule.

Henrietta took the reticule from him, saying very carefully, "Thank you for the ride home."

Miles unbent enough to give her a sheepish half-smile. Henrietta's heart stirred and ached with thwarted affection.

" 'S'all right," he said. "I'll see you tonight. Aren't you late?"

Oh, blast, she kept forgetting about her music lesson. Calling a quick good-bye over her shoulder, Henrietta scurried up the steps of Uppington House. As Winthrop opened the door for her, she heard the sound of Miles's horses resuming their journey. Hopefully straight to drop the marquise off home.

Henrietta didn't let herself dwell on the thought. She dropped her reticule on a table in the hall, and rushed into the music room. The harp loomed uncovered and unused; the pianoforte, with its intricately painted lid and golden legs, sat mute. There was no sign of Signor Marconi.

Henrietta glanced at the gilded clock on the mantle. Both hands were pointing delicately at the six. She was half an hour late. He'd probably given up and left. Blast! Just over from the Continent, Marconi was in great demand, and she'd counted herself lucky to secure lessons with him. Now, with her romantic folly, she had probably just convinced Miles she was mad and lost her voice teacher all in one fell swoop. Urgh.

Making annoyed noises at herself, Henrietta scurried back out into the hall.

"Signor Marconi?" she called, just in case he might have been shown into one of the drawing rooms to wait.

There was a rustle of sound from the morning room. Expelling her breath in a long sigh of relief, Henrietta raced down the hall, and careened around the doorframe, babbling breathlessly, "Signor Marconi? I'm so dreadfully sorry to be so late! I was delayed in — "

She broke off abruptly. Henrietta's surge of relief was replaced by confusion as the source of the rustling noise became clear.

The black-garbed figure of Signor Marconi was bent over her opened escritoire, papers in each hand.