By the time she had made it out of the protective covering of the rose arbor, common sense had returned. It couldn't be Miles. One could make oneself seem larger, but seldom smaller, and the figure she had seen poised outside the drawing room doors had definitely been smaller and slighter than Miles.
And if it wasn't Miles… oh dear.
In her indignation over Miles, Henrietta had nearly managed to forget that they were under the surveillance of the French Ministry of
Police. It would have been much less worrisome if the hooded figure had been Miles.
Hideous images of deadly French operatives rose to taunt her, and with them, a certain indignation that the French would have the gall, the unmitigated gall, to follow them here to Selwick Hall, where they had always been safe and peaceful. It was one thing to go hunting spies; it was quite another for those spies to invade one's home. Henrietta set her chin in a stubborn expression that boded ill to Napoleon's secret police. The spy's temerity in following her here did have one advantage, though. It made him easier to catch.
Henrietta slowed her steps, making sure to stay to the shadows. She crept softly up the shallow flight of stairs up to the veranda, balancing on the very toes of her kid half-boots. Her choice of footwear had been quite sensible for a long journey, but less so for hunting Phantom Monks. The heels had an unnerving tendency to click against the stone of the veranda. Henrietta would have stopped to take them off, but the Phantom Monk had already had far too much of a head start. So she tiptoed as best she could, turning the handle of the French doors with painstaking slowness, grateful for the Axminster carpet that covered the floor of the Long Drawing Room and muffled her steps.
Henrietta paused for a moment in the middle of the Long Drawing Room, which, true to its name, ran three-quarters of the length of the back of the house. Despite its size, it was sparsely furnished, with groupings of little, light chairs and tables that could be pushed easily to the sides of the room for an impromptu dance. Henrietta's gloom-accustomed eyes surveyed the room, and found no shapes there that ought not to be. The drapes lay flat against the walls, and the low, backless settees with their scrolled ends were too flimsy to hide anyone larger than a well-fed midget. The cloaked figure had certainly not been midget-sized.
If she were a French spy, where would she hide? Henrietta had always had her doubts as to the efficacy of that line of reasoning. How could she know where a French spy would hide unless she knew what the spy wanted? If he were after Richard's correspondence, he would most likely head for either study or bedroom; if he were after either her or Miles… Henrietta nipped that thought before it could go any further. Making herself anxious wouldn't do anyone any good, except, possibly, the spy.
On the right, a door opened into the music room; on the left, another drawing room. Henrietta didn't waste time searching, either. She went straight to the flimsy white and gold doors directly across from the garden entrance, and gently pulled one just far enough to slip through into the front hall, blinking in the unaccustomed light. The candles in the gilded sconces in the wall had not yet been extinguished for the night. Henrietta hovered for a moment in the shadows beneath the overhang of the stairs.
She could hear male guffaws from the small family dining room on the left side of the hall. Miles and Richard were probably lingering over their port. Relief that they were safe transmuted rapidly into indignation. Good to know they were making themselves useful while French spies stalked the corridors of Selwick Hall, thought Henrietta tartly. And they called women the weaker vessel? Hmph. Napoleon's army could troop through the front hall, and Miles and Richard would probably go on obliviously exchanging salacious stories until they ran out of port.
On the other side of the hall, the rooms were all dark — but not entirely silent. Henrietta heard a slight rustle. It might be the breeze rustling through the curtains, or it might be something, or someone, else.
The sound had come from Richard's study.
It was all Henrietta could do not to jump up and down with excitement, but since that would defeat her ultimate purpose (jumping up and down not being a particularly stealthy activity), she controlled the impulse. Moving carefully across the marble floor, Henrietta began creeping towards Richard's study. Pressed against the wall, she crept past the dark doorway of the small drawing room where she had sat with Amy earlier, past Ethelbert, the suit of armor who lived next to the stairs, until she could see the door to Richard's study, ever so slightly ajar.
The door was so close to closed that Henrietta wouldn't have even noticed the gap, had it not been for the thin outline of light that shone weakly through the narrow gap. Richard might, of course, have simply left a candle burning, either through forgetfulness, or in preparation for a later return. He could have left a fire burning in the grate against the chill of the early June evening. From time to time, Amy liked to appropriate Richard's study for work of her own, curling up in Richard's own big chair with a proprietary air. There were half a dozen perfectly innocent explanations for that pale flicker of light. Henrietta didn't waste time on any of them.
Backtracking slightly, Henrietta caught up a heavy silver candelabrum from a marble-topped table in the hall, hurriedly snuffing the candles. She wanted it for its bludgeonlike qualities, not light. A fireplace poker would have been even better, but she couldn't count on one being easily within reach in Richard's study. She had thought of borrowing Ethelbert's sword, but even if she did manage to remove it without knocking over Ethelbert, she wouldn't have the slightest idea of how to use it.
Henrietta made her slow and careful way just to the verge of the study door. No, this was much better. With any luck, she could sneak up on the intruder from behind and — " — fell right out the window!"
"No! Not in the middle of St. James's Street!"
"And then Brummell said, 'My dear young man, if you must be a sartorial disaster, kindly refrain from making a further spectacle of yourself.' I thought Ponsonby was going to soil himself!"
The door to the small dining room on the other side of the hall burst open, unleashing a spate of loud footsteps and masculine laughter. Under the study door, the brief glimmer of light abruptly disappeared. No!
Henrietta abandoned subtlety and sprinted for the study, yanking open the door. After the light of the hall, all her eyes perceived was a sheet of unmitigated blackness. In her headlong rush, she barreled stomach-first into something sharp and hard and nearly dropped her candelabrum. Had she been run through by a Frenchman's sword?
An exploratory mission revealed that it was, in fact, only the edge of Richard's desk, and there was no loss of blood involved. But it hurt.
Gasping, Henrietta forced herself to uncurl, but it was all too clear that she was too late. The lingering smoke from a recently snuffed candle tickled her nose, but the snuffer of the candle was nowhere to be seen. As her eyes acclimated, the black blobs scattered about the room resolved themselves into recognizable pieces of furniture, chairs and tables, several busts on narrow pedestals, and the vindictive desk. Flailing wildly with her foot in the area under the desk failed to unearth a crouching spy, and other than two wing-backed chairs there was no other piece of furniture in the room large enough to hide convincingly under or behind. Bookshelves lined the walls, containing nary a single secret passage so far as Henrietta knew — and if she didn't know, the Phantom Monk wouldn't, either. Henrietta was about to look behind the chairs, just to be thorough, when she spotted something that made her quite sure the effort would be entirely wasted.
On the far side of the room, the draperies swayed in a way that suggested the open window had recently been put to good use.
Blast.
Henrietta dashed to the window, but the intruder had disappeared as thoroughly as though he had been the phantom he impersonated. Under the impartial moon, the park was silent and empty. The Phantom Monk had had plenty of time to make his escape while she grappled with Richard's desk.
Henrietta scowled at herself, She
really wasn't making a terribly good showing as an intrepid spy, was she? Of course, she still thought that if it hadn't been for those two loud, raucous men, she could have taken the intruder by surprise.
Henrietta realized she was still holding the heavy silver candlestick and set it down on Richard's desk with a disgruntled thump. Blasted noisy interfering men, Addlepated great galumphing creatures. True, they made good dance partners — when they remembered to turn up for their assigned dance, that was, and didn't clomp on her foot like a dinosaur with a direction problem — but other than that, the Amazons had it right. They were more trouble than they were worth, and when it came down to it, she could bloody well dance with Penelope.
A heavy footfall in the door made Henrietta jump; she whirled to face the door, the desk at her back. The glare momentarily blinded Henrietta, so all she could see was a nimbus of light in the darkness.
For heaven's sake! One Phantom Monk was enough for any night; she didn't need more supernatural apparitions. Henrietta blinked irritably and the light resolved itself back into a candle flame.
"Who's there?" she demanded. "Hen?" replied a startled masculine voice.
"Oh," she said flatly, as Miles stepped into the room. Reminding herself of the Amazons, she lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of his candle. "It's you."
Miles looked quizzically around the dark room. "What are you doing in here, in the dark ?"
"Nothing you would care to know about." Henrietta stomped towards the door before she gave in to the urge to use the candlestick on him. That would be just how she wanted to end the day — explaining to Richard and Amy how she had come to give Miles a concussion. "Good night."
Miles grabbed her by the arm before she could stalk past, and hauled her to a stop. With one foot, he kicked the door closed and placed himself between her and it. "Hen, don't do this."
"Don't do what?" Henrietta twitched her hand out of his grasp. Miles scrubbed a hand through his hair. "You know."
"No," Henrietta said flatly, "I don't know. Maybe I would know if someone had bothered to stop by or send a note instead of disappearing for an entire week — " Henrietta heard her voice rising and hastily clamped her lips shut before she started screeching like the Queen of the Night on a bad day.
Well, she was justified, she reminded herself. It had been a bad day, and a long one, between broken coaches and ghastly apparitions and idiot men who first hid from you when you did want to see them, and then wouldn't let you leave the room when you didn't. Henrietta glowered fiercely at Miles.
Miles held his ground manfully under the force of that glare. "I need to speak to you."
"And you were unavoidably detained by armed maniacs for the past week? Tied to a chair, perhaps? Deprived of writing implements? Bound, gagged?"
Miles swallowed hard. "I was a cad?"
"No argument," said Henrietta tightly, reaching for the doorknob.
Miles looked a little frustrated. "What I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry."
"Well, that's very nice," muttered Henrietta. One little I'm sorry, for six — no, seven, if one counted most of today — days of sheer heart-scraping agony? Ha.
Miles either didn't hear her or chose not to.
"I miss you," he said earnestly. "Life is just… flatter when you're not around. I miss talking to you. I miss our rides in the park."
"Hmm," said Henrietta noncommittally, but her hand fell away from the doorknob.
"It's not the same when you're not there." Miles paced back and forth. "Hell, I even miss Almack's. Can you credit it? Almack's!"
He sounded so confused and indignant that, despite herself, despite all the waiting and disappointed hopes and angry diary entries, Henrietta felt her temper begin to melt away. This was her Miles again, not a distant stranger in her head, and there was something about his disgruntled tone that made her oddly hopeful, in a way no poetic declaration ever could.
"Lady Jersey will be flattered," said Henrietta cautiously, but a hint of a smile began to tug at the corners of her lips.
"Lady Jersey can go hang," said Miles with a vehemence that would have deeply distressed Lady Jersey had she been there to see it.
"That's not very charitable of you."
"Hen," Miles groaned, looking as though he was one moment away from banging his head against the door. "Will you let me get on with this?"
Henrietta promptly subsided, a strangle elation taking hold of her, stealing her breath and sending little tingles straight down to the tips of her fingers. She didn't even notice that Miles's perambulations had taken him well away from the door, leaving her path clear. Suddenly, storming out no longer seemed quite so imperative.
"All right," she said breathlessly.
"This rift between us," Miles waved his hands about expressively. "I don't like it."
"Neither do I," said Henrietta in a voice she scarcely recognized as her own.
"I can't do without you," Miles pressed on earnestly.
He couldn't do without her. This was Miles, Miles saying he couldn't do without her. She would have pinched herself to see if she were dreaming, asleep in the garden among the lavender and roses, with crickets chirping a lullaby, only if she were to dream such a moment, it would have been in an elegant gown of skyblue satin, with her hair arranged in charming ringlets, and Miles would be on his knees in the summer garden, not pacing like a maniac in her brother's darkened study. Yet, here she stood in her travel-stained twill, with her hair straggling limply around her face, a spot on her chin, and Miles was saying he couldn't do without her. It had to be real.
Henrietta's heart began to pound out the Hallelujah Chorus with full instrumental accompaniment.
She was in the midst of a particularly soaring high C, two seconds away from flinging her arms around Miles and bringing the chorus to crescendo with a resounding kiss, when Miles added, as though it summed up everything, "You're almost as important to me as Richard."
The orchestra broke off with a discordant screech; the chorus stuttered to a halt mid-hallelujah; and Henrietta's heart plummeted down from the vicinity of the pearly gates to land, with a loud thump, in the midst of yesterday's garbage.
"Oh." It was an effort to force even that one little syllable through her suddenly swollen throat.
You're almost as important to me as Richard.
He hadn't really said that, had he? But he hadi He must have. She couldn't possibly have made up anything quite so dreadful. Her week of bracing herself for the "You're a lovely person and someday you'll find someone who loves you" speech hadn't prepared her for this. This was worse than the "Someday you'll find someone who loves you" speech. This was worse than the "I value your friendship" speech. This was very nearly even worse than no speech at all.
"Hen," Miles finished hoarsely, grabbing both her hands in his, "I just want things to be the way they were."
His larger hands engulfed her small, stiff fingers, sending a tingle of warmth from her palm all the way up her arm. "Palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss." No wonder society compelled the wearing of gloves! The pressure of Miles's hand, palm to palm, bare skin to bare skin, felt like an illicit intimacy as they stood alone in the darkened room.
Henrietta expected Miles to release her hand. He didn't. Around them, the study was entirely quiet; even the crickets in the garden held their breath, and the leaves refused to rustle in the wind. Miles's thumb moved softly over the tender skin of her wrist, soothingly, rhythmically. Almost imperceptibly at first, his hand began to exert a steady pressure on hers, compelling her slowly towards him.
Henrietta's eyes flew to his face in consternation. Miles didn't seem to notice. His gaze was leveled directly at her lips.
If she closed her eyes… if she let herself give in to the pressure of their joined hands… if she leaned just the slightest bit closer…
He could go away and not speak to her again for another seven days.
The thought sluiced through Henrietta's confused haze of emotions as effectiv
ely as a bucket of cold water. Oh no, she thought, leaning back, away from the pull of Miles's hand and her own desires. She wasn't going to play this particular game again. He wanted things to be the way they were? Fine. He had set the rules; he could abide by them.
"No."
With just a little more force than necessary, Henrietta yanked her hands out of Miles's grasp.
Miles blinked several times, like a man coming out of a trance, staring at his empty hand as though he had never seen it before.
"No?" he echoed.
"No. It's no good." Miles was still frowning confusedly at his own hand. Henrietta's hands clenched together. Blast it, couldn't he even look at her? She added harshly, more harshly than she had intended, "We can't go back. Ever."
That got his attention. Miles looked sharply up at her. He didn't even bother to dash back the ubiquitous lock of hair that fell across his eyes. He just stared at her for a long, startled moment.
"Is that what you really want?"
"It's not a question of want," said Henrietta fiercely. "It's just the way it is."
Miles straightened, his face closing over into a nonchalant mask. He put his hands in his pockets, leaned against the desk, and raised both his eyebrows. "I take it that's that, then."
She hadn't realized how much she had been hoping for a negation, an "Actually, this friends thing was a bad idea, and I'm really quite passionately in love with you," until she didn't receive it. How could she have thought Miles was on the verge of succumbing to her dubious charms? She could probably fling off her clothes and dance a minuet around the room, and he would just say, "Hmm?"
Henrietta crossed her arms protectively over her chest and drew in a deep breath. "Yes," she said tightly, every muscle in her body tensed with the effort of trying not to cry. "I suppose it is."
Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked deliberately out the door, executing every step with painstaking precision. She did not look back.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Masque of the Black Tulip pc-2 Page 24