The Masque of the Black Tulip

by Lauren Willig

  ‘Well, that’s reassuring,’ muttered Miles. ‘I think.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ sighed Henrietta. ‘Charlotte was very cast down at Almack’s last night because no one – except the most obvious fortune hunters – asked her to dance. She didn’t say anything, but I could tell. It’s been like that all season.’

  ‘She’s very quiet,’ Miles said, attempting to exonerate his sex.

  ‘That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have feelings,’ countered Henrietta. ‘It’s very lowering for her having to spend the evening standing next to her grandmother.’

  ‘If I had to spend the evening standing next to her grandmother, I’d be low, too. The woman is a menace to society.’

  Henrietta looked at Miles expectantly. ‘Well?’

  ‘Tell her to save me the first quadrille.’

  ‘You really are a dear.’ Henrietta beamed, standing on tiptoe to press a quick kiss to Miles’s cheek. His skin was warm beneath her lips, and surprisingly soft. If he turned his head just a little bit to the right…

  Henrietta clunked back down onto her heels with such celerity that she staggered.

  ‘I know,’ Miles said smugly.

  ‘Toad,’ countered Henrietta, wrapping the insult around herself like an old and beloved blanket.

  ‘Come for a drive with me this afternoon?’ Miles asked.

  Henrietta shook her head regretfully. ‘I can’t. My new voice teacher is coming at five.’

  ‘New voice teacher?’ Miles strolled with Henrietta in the direction of the door. ‘What happened to Signor Antonio?’

  An elusive dimple appeared in Henrietta’s right cheek. ‘He and Cook had an artistic disagreement.’

  ‘An artistic disagreement?’

  ‘Signor Antonio thought that a true artiste didn’t need permission to help himself to Cook’s biscuits. Cook disagreed.’ Henrietta glanced up at Miles. ‘Cook, as you know, has a formidable way with the rolling pin.’

  ‘Not with me,’ said Miles smugly.

  ‘Braggart.’

  Miles stepped aside as a footman trotted forward to open the front door for him. ‘Jealousy does not become you, my dear.’

  Henrietta skidded to a stop just before the open door. ‘Who said I was jealous?’

  ‘Don’t try to hide it,’ Miles said knowingly. Too knowingly. ‘You know Cook likes me best.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Cook.’ Hen took a deep breath. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Are you all right, Hen? You seem a bit flustered.’

  Henrietta mustered up a smile. ‘Fine. Perfectly. Just a little… um, well…’

  Miles clapped his hat on his head. ‘See you tonight, then! Tell Cook I adore her.’

  The door slammed shut behind him. Henrietta stood there, in the marble foyer, staring at the inside of the door. She stood there so long that the footman shifted uncomfortably and asked if she wished him to open the door again. Henrietta shook her head, not altogether sure what he had asked, because her mind was somewhere else entirely, finishing that last sentence. She wasn’t sure she liked the result. In fact, she was quite sure she didn’t.

  Just a little…jealous?

  Chapter Ten

  Poetry, romantic: a detailed report provided by an agent of the War Office

  – from the Personal Codebook of the Pink Carnation

  Miles bounded cheerfully down the front steps of Uppington House. His cheek still tingled where Henrietta’s lips had pressed against it, and Miles lifted a hand to rub absently at the spot. The scent of her toilet water – some flower or another, Miles never could keep them straight – tickled his nostrils. It smelt nice. Like Henrietta. Settling his hat more firmly on his head, Miles pushed the thought aside and contemplated the sun-dappled street. Just past noon, and the rest of the day still ahead of him.

  It was, considered Miles complacently, shaping up to be an exceptionally fine day. Downey had manipulated his cravat into a Waterfall after only three ruined squares of linen; Cook’s ginger biscuits were, as always, the epitome of gingery goodness; there were rumours of a new soprano at Haymarket (Miles being, at the moment, lamentably between mistresses); and he had a spy to catch.

  Shaking a floppy lock of blond hair out of his eyes, Miles looked back at Uppington House with a smile. Even now that he had London lodgings of his own, it still felt more like home to him than anyplace else in the world.

  The first time he had ever gone up that shallow flight of steps, he had been a terrified eight-year-old with nowhere to go for Christmas. His parents had been on the Continent, his old nurse had been called away to take care of her ailing sister, and Miles had been left at loose ends until Richard suggested he accompany him home.

  Richard took his friend by the collar and tugged him forward. ‘I’ve brought Dorrington home,’ he announced helpfully.

  Lady Uppington, with fewer grey hairs, but just as imperious a disposition, bustled forward. ‘Does Dorrington’s family know he’s here?’ she asked.

  This consideration had, indeed, eluded both Richard and Miles. Richard considered a moment. ‘No.’

  Her worst fears about her son’s career as a kidnapper confirmed, Lady Uppington looked sternly at her wayward offspring. ‘You are going to have to return him.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Miles matter-of-factly, just as a chubby toddler in a frilly dress waddled into the room. ‘They don’t want me returned.’

  Before Lady Uppington could react to that startling statement, the toddler thrust the grubby doll in her arms at Miles. The china head wobbled ominously and bits of stuffing escaped out the neck. ‘Play.’

  Miles decided that if he was going to spend the holidays here, they were going to have to get a few things straight. ‘Boys,’ he informed the tot grandly, ‘do not play with dolls.’

  The toddler looked decidedly unimpressed. She shoved the doll at him again. ‘Play.’

  ‘I say, Selwick? Does your sister have any toy soldiers?’

  And that was that. Miles was firmly ensconced in the Uppington household. Lady Uppington did, early on, write a letter to the Viscountess of Loring, on the theory that the viscountess might somehow resent the appropriation of her only offspring, but the reply that returned was so riddled with references to Les Noces de Figaro and so devoid of the slightest mention of Miles, that Lady Uppington muttered a few very uncomplimentary things in the general direction of Italy, and set about relabelling Miles’s trunks. Miles received an extra-large helping of trifle that night, and a good-night hug that put him in imminent danger of asphyxiation.

  After that, it was simply understood that Miles’s Christmases and summers and anything that might come up in between were to be spent at Uppington House. Lord Uppington took him fishing and shooting, and instructed him in the rudiments of estate management. Lady Uppington scolded him and cosseted him and dragged him, squirming and complaining, to be outfitted for school. Every so often, Miles would receive a box from Europe, filled with murky bottles of mineral water, folios of sheet music, and tiny lederhosen that might have fitted him when he was two, but in all the ways that mattered, his true home was at Uppington House.

  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 co
mpared 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 endeavour; 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 dishonourable than harbouring an illicit passion for one’s best friend’s wife – except perhaps harbouring 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 with some amusement. ‘Not what you’re doing, clearly.’ He leant 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 leant 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 congé 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.

  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 rumours, 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 goggle-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.