The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla

by Lauren Willig

  Wonderful. Even her stoat didn’t want her company.

  “You might have told me,” Sally said stiffly. “I had no idea I was such a burden.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Lizzy scooped up Lady Florence and dumped her back in Sally’s quiver. “You have brilliant plans. And anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t worth your time. Just think about all the scrapes we’ve been in together. Would anyone else have thought of immobilizing a spy by sitting on him?”

  “You were the one who did the sitting.” Sally’s voice felt scratchy. “And he wasn’t a spy.”

  “Yes, but he might have been,” argued Lizzy. “And you were the one who secured him with your sash. You led the way. Just as you always do.”

  The faux jewels dotting Lizzy’s bodice sparkled just a little too brightly. It was the candlelight—that was all. Sally blinked the inexplicable moisture from her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said gruffly. She felt suddenly, deeply ashamed of how much she had resented Lizzy’s success. Her friend was truer than she had been. “Thank you for being here.”

  “Each for each, that’s what we teach,” Agnes solemnly intoned the motto of Miss Climpson’s Select Seminary.

  Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Did you really think we would miss your betrothal ball?”

  “Don’t you mean my un-betrothal ball?” said Sally bitterly.

  “I didn’t know there were such things,” said Agnes.

  “Well, this one is.” Sally had never discussed with Lucien how they would end it. Should she storm off the dance floor? Cause a scene in the conservatory? She had promised to free him and free him she would.

  “You do realize,” Lizzy said craftily, “that when you cry off, it’s going to make the rumors about the duke that much worse.”

  Sally felt a momentary twinge of guilt. What was it Lucien had said? That she played with people’s lives like toys? If she hadn’t meddled, they wouldn’t be betrothed. And if they weren’t betrothed—they wouldn’t have to become unbetrothed.

  “It can’t be helped,” said Sally shortly. She rubbed her gloved hands along her bare arms. “It was going to end sooner or later. You know it’s only a pretense.”

  Even if that kiss last night hadn’t felt like a pretense at all. It had felt—well, rather as though Lucien wanted to be kissing her.

  Before he had announced that it was a mistake.

  “Mmm,” said Lizzy.

  No one could be quite so loving or quite so maddening as Lizzy. Mmm? What was “Mmm” supposed to mean? Sally glowered at her friend.

  Lizzy hefted her orb. “Don’t look at me. Your pretense is coming this way.”

  And he was. Sally watched the crowd part as the Duke of Belliston crossed the Great Hall, darkly handsome in a crimson doublet and tights and floppy shoes that ought to have looked silly, but, on Lucien, didn’t look silly at all.

  Maybe it was the tension that seemed to hover in the air around him; maybe it was the dark hair tumbling around his brow, giving him the look of a Renaissance grandee; maybe it was the effect of those tights, but no one was laughing. Far from it. Georgiana Thynne was eyeing the duke with unabashed admiration, and Delia Cartwright was batting her lashes hard enough to create a gale a county away.

  Sally felt a surge of indignation. That was her duke.

  Only, he wasn’t. Sally grasped at the embers of her anger. He didn’t want her here and she didn’t want to be here, so there.

  Or something along those lines.

  “Ladies.” Lucien’s voice matched his doublet, rich and velvet-smooth. He made an elegant leg, the tight fabric of his tights lovingly displaying every ripple of muscle.

  “Duke,” said Sally, drawing herself up to her full height. Her hair fell in a ripple of carefully contrived golden curls from a knot at the back of her head. She took comfort in the knowledge that her silk tunic glittered with hidden silver threads and the pearls at her ears and throat were the equal of anything the Belliston coffers had to offer.

  “So formal?” said her betrothed. His dark eyes met hers, and Sally felt a flush begin to creep up her throat.

  Sally fumed and smarted. He wasn’t meant to be acting all—all betrothed when they were about to be unbetrothed.

  “With reason,” Sally said tartly. And then, because she couldn’t just keep on staring at him, however tempting an option that might be, “You remember Miss Reid and Miss Wooliston, don’t you? You met them at my brother’s house.”

  “How could I forget?” Lucien favored her friends with a smile nicely calculated to indicate a certain intimacy.

  “May we be among the first to wish you happy?” said Lizzy, and Sally shot her a warning look.

  “Thank you,” said Lucien, and glanced sideways at Sally.

  Sally’s teeth dug into her lower lip. She wasn’t sure why he was looking at her like that, not when he had made his feelings quite clear this morning. Had he forgotten that she was meddlesome and their kiss was a mistake?

  Even if he had, she hadn’t.

  “Did you want something?” she said ungraciously.

  “Yes,” Lucien said, and something about the way he said it, the way he was looking at her, as though she were the only woman in the room, made Sally’s heart lurch, just a little. He held out a hand to her. “You.”

  “Me?” Sally’s chest was tight beneath her sparkling bodice.

  Lucien looked at her quizzically. “We are expected to open the dancing.”

  “Of course. Naturally. I knew that.” Sally hoisted her quiver higher on her shoulder. “If you think you can stomach my company for the length of a quadrille.”

  “I would be honored if you would favor me with one,” Lucien said, and if Sally hadn’t known better, she would even think that he meant it.

  “Hmph,” said Sally.

  Why did he have to be so nice? So thoroughly decent? It would be much more pleasant if he would behave like a cad so she could continue to warm herself at the altar of her anger, stewing in a pleasant glow of self-righteousness.

  Blast it all, couldn’t he even leave her that?

  “Don’t let us keep you!” Lizzy wielded her scepter with a dexterity worthy of her stepmother’s parasol.

  Lucien stepped hastily out of the way. “Thank you, we shan’t.” He held out an arm to Sally. “Shall we?”

  Sally took his arm, smiling and smiling and smiling. The faces around them whirled and blurred, a nightmare panoply of grotesques, all teeth and eyes. “You don’t have to pretend for Lizzy and Agnes,” she said bluntly.

  “I’m not pretending.” They took their place at the front of the set. Lucien knew he ought to relinquish her hand, but he held on to it all the same, just a moment longer than propriety allowed. They were betrothed, after all.

  For the moment.

  “You look beautiful,” Lucien said softly. There might be other women in the room, women with larger jewels and more elaborate gowns, but none could hold a candle to Sally. Her gown was made of some sort of sparkly fabric, but it was nothing against the bright curls of her hair, the graceful line of her neck, the bright blue of her eyes.

  Those eyes were currently regarding him with more than a little hostility. “You’re very kind.”

  “No, I’m not.” He was anything but kind. Which brought him to the subject both of them were avoiding. “About this morning—”

  “Think nothing of it.” Sally sank into a curtsy, her draperies drifting around her. “I’ll be gone by tomorrow. You won’t have to put up with my meddling any longer. Our association has served its purpose.”

  “Has it?” Lucien lifted her from her curtsy, moving her into the first figure of the dance. Sally twitched her fingers away from his. “I owe you an apology.”

  “Apology accepted,” said Sally curtly.

  “A real apology.” They circled away and back ag
ain. Lucien found himself thinking unkind thoughts about whichever person had invented these absurd dances, where a couple was apart as much as they were together. How was a man meant to grovel in three-second intervals? “I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful for everything you’ve done.”

  “There’s no need for you to be.” A touch of bitterness crept into Sally’s voice. “I haven’t done anything at all.”

  “You’ve done a great deal.” Lucien didn’t know how to make her see just how much she had done for him. Yes, some of it might have been rather ill-advised, but that was part of what made it so magnificent. So gallant. “You endangered your own reputation to try to save mine.”

  Sally cast him a sideways look. “I thought I merely played with people for my own sport.”

  “If I could take back those words, I would.”

  They came together, their hands pressed palm to palm.

  Lucien forced himself to say the words. “Everything you said this morning was true.” They circled and came together again. “You were right. About all of it. I have been living too much in the past. I haven’t acknowledged my responsibilities.”

  Sally bit her lip, looking back at him over her shoulder as they circled. “You had your reasons.”

  It was, Lucien thought, just like her to make excuses for him. “I had a twelve-year sulk,” he said bluntly. “You’ve made me realize just what a self-indulgent fool I’ve been.”

  “Well, then,” Sally said, and Lucien felt some of the tight knot of tension in the small of his back release, because if Sally was saying “well, then,” it meant that all wasn’t lost.

  All around them, women were sinking into curtsies. Lucien hadn’t even noticed that the music had stopped.

  It was time to press his advantage. “Can we go somewhere? Somewhere we can talk?” Lucien raised a brow. “Or I can just prostrate myself at your feet?”

  “And have someone trip over you? Don’t be silly. I can spare you a moment,” Sally said magnanimously.

  Lucien let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “How very generous of you.”

  “I try,” Sally said regally. Her rodent—er, stoat—peeped over the edge of her quiver at Lucien, yawned, and went back to sleep. “We shouldn’t go far.”

  “We are still betrothed,” Lucien reminded her, steering her out of the ballroom.

  “For the moment,” Sally reminded him.

  Lucien looked down at her, his expression inscrutable. “Are you counting the minutes?”

  “I thought you were.”

  Lucien put a hand under her arm. “Not in the way you think.”

  Somewhere, a clock chimed eleven. Like Cinderella, her deception would be over by midnight.

  They turned down a corridor, and then another one. Sally assumed that Lucien knew where he was, because she hadn’t the slightest idea. Hullingden hadn’t been designed with logic in mind.

  Sally chose a door at random. “Here,” she said. Before they wandered any farther from the Great Hall.

  She pushed open the panel and stumbled into a tropical paradise.

  Braziers burned in the corners of the room, creating a sultry warmth. Sally could practically see the heat shimmer in the air. Flowers bloomed everywhere, flowers she had never seen before, flowers for which she had no name. Some were ghost pale. Others flamed with color. Together, they filled the room with their heavy exotic perfume.

  Through the glass walls, Sally could see the lanterns that had been hung all about the gardens, shimmering like stars against the dark hedges.

  Sally turned in a slow circle, the floating edges of her Grecian tunic brushing the corners of the flower pots. “What is this place?”

  There were no lights lit, but the braziers created their own sultry light, lending a warm glow to the haze of heat.

  “It was my mother’s workroom.” Lucien ducked beneath the hanging branch of a richly flowering tree. The white petals clung to his red velvet shoulder, releasing a heady scent. “I hadn’t realized Uncle Henry had preserved it.”

  Impulsively, Sally set a hand on his arm. “Are you all right?” Belatedly, she remembered that he didn’t want or need her help. “I mean—”

  “I know.” Lucien captured her hand before she could retrieve it. “And, yes. Thanks to you.”

  “Me?” Outside, the lanterns twinkled in the cold, but inside it was all warmth and gentle darkness. The faint glow of the braziers limned Lucien’s familiar features and made the gold embroidery on his doublet burn with hidden fire.

  “I did a great deal of thinking this morning.” Lucien’s fingers twined through hers. “Some of it wasn’t particularly pleasant.”

  “Oh?” Sally was having a hard time concentrating on what he was saying, what with all the hand-holding.

  “Yes,” said Lucien. “I’ve been a self-indulgent idiot.”

  “I wouldn’t say idiot. . . .”

  “But definitely self-indulgent.” Lucien released her hand, folding his arms across his chest, and Sally tried to tell herself that she didn’t mind. “I sentenced myself to exile, telling myself I wasn’t worthy to return until I avenged my parents’ deaths. I thought that I was honoring their memory by staying away.”

  “No one can blame you for wanting vengeance,” said Sally encouragingly. “Who wouldn’t want an eye for an eye?”

  “It wasn’t vengeance,” said Lucien firmly. “It was a waste. A waste of my life and their legacy. Whatever one might say about my parents, they both lived. They pursued their own passions.”

  The word seemed to linger in the air between them, charged with all the sweetness of the tropical night.

  Aside from the fact that they were in Leicestershire in October.

  “Like these flowers?” said Sally, turning hastily away before she could do something foolish. Correction: something more foolish than she had done already.

  “Like these flowers,” Lucien agreed.

  Maybe looking away hadn’t been the wisest idea. Sally could feel Lucien’s presence behind her, so close that his breath ruffled her intricately arranged curls.

  “This was my mother’s greatest achievement. She catalogued plants no one had ever seen before.”

  Lucien’s velvet sleeve brushed Sally’s bare shoulder as he reached around her to finger the purple leaves of a plant with tiny white flowers.

  “They’re lovely,” said Sally breathlessly. “Truly lovely. It feels as though we aren’t in England at all.”

  All the way in this odd nook of the castle, they might have been on a tropical island, a million miles away, lost in a soundless sea, the lanterns in the garden mere phosphorescence on the foam. Someplace without all of the rules and strictures of society. Someplace where nothing mattered but the two of them.

  “Most of the plants are from Martinique.” With a twist of his fingers, Lucien broke off a pink flower with a profusion of petals. “They call it the Isle of Flowers.”

  Leaning forward, he tucked it into the pearl diadem that held the hair back from her brow. The petals brushed her temple, their scent a heady promise of pleasure to come.

  “Do they?” Sally ducked around Lucien’s arm, walking rapidly down the long aisle between plants.

  Before she made any more mistakes.

  They had agreed their kiss was a mistake, hadn’t they?

  Sally’s flat slippers slapped against the flagstones of the floor. It was common sense, she told herself, common sense rather than flight. She came to a halt by a large pot holding a tree adorned with unimpressive greenish-white flowers. There was something rather familiar about those shiny green leaves.

  “Lucien?” Sally used his name without meaning to. It just slipped out. Sally gestured towards the plant. “Are those the same leaves someone left in your carriage?”

  “Don’t touch that!” Lucien leapt bet
ween Sally and the manzanilla.

  “I wasn’t planning to,” said Sally. Although it was, really, rather sweet that he’d felt the need to defend her from a plant. “It’s a manzanilla, isn’t it?”

  Lucien circled the tree, which looked deeply innocuous for something with the potential to wreak so much havoc. “I hadn’t realized it was still here. I had assumed—” He rubbed a hand against his brow. “Foolish of me. It’s not as though it was the tree’s fault.”

  “It was this tree?” The plant took on a sinister aspect.

  Lucien nodded. “There aren’t many of them in England. In fact, I’m not sure there are any. . . .”

  His eyes met Sally’s as the impact of his words hit them both.

  “There might be others,” said Sally doubtfully. If there weren’t, that meant that whoever had left the manzanilla leaves in Lucien’s carriage had come from the castle. She seized on an alternative. “The castle isn’t precisely fortified. Anyone might have snuck in here.”

  “The same person who snuck in and found my father’s snuffbox?” Lucien’s face was hard in the light of the braziers. “I should have known. I just didn’t want to see it. Hal had both the motive and the means.”

  And a convenient scapegoat in the person of his cousin.

  It seemed like a very unsatisfying ending to their investigations. Hal was just so . . . ordinary. It was rather lowering to chase a legendary spy and end up with Hal. But if Hal had, indeed, killed Fanny Logan—which, as Lucien had so reasonably pointed out, he had every reason to do—then it seemed highly unlikely that there was a spy in the mix.

  Which meant that they still had no idea who had killed Lucien’s parents.

  And there was one other slight problem.

  Sally dragged her shining skirts slowly down the path between the flowers. “You do realize what this means?”

  “Yes,” said Lucien heavily. “It means my cousin is a murderer.”

  Sally waved an impatient hand. “Yes, that too.” That wasn’t the worst of it. “It means that Miss Gwen was wrong. There is no spy. It means that our betrothal—all of this”—Sally’s gesture encompassed the lanterns in the garden, festive decorations for a celebration that wasn’t—“was for nothing.”