Lauren Willig - Masque of the Black Tulip

While the dowagers gossiped on, in the Hotel de Balcourt, two women rapidly packed by candlelight. In a stable not far from the Tulleries, a man in a flowing shirt smacked his hand sharply against the rump of a horse. "No delay!" he called after the caped and hooded courier. The courier, one of three in possession of the identity of the

Black Tulip, waved a hand in enthusiastic assent. With clear roads, and favorable winds, he might even be in London by evening of the following day.

And in London, the deadliest of all spies plotted one final move. By the following evening, it would all be over…

Miles strode jauntily past the guards on duty at 10 Crown Street, a posy of primroses in his hand and a beatific smile on his face. One of the guards nudged the other. "Who's he come courting?" he asked sarcastically, eliciting an appreciative snicker from his fellow.

Miles didn't notice. Miles was too happy to notice. In fact, he rather doubted that all of Bonaparte's artillery, ranged along the breadth of Pall Mall, could fright him out of his good humor just now. Miles shook his head in bemusement as he wove through the press of busy people in the corridor. What, after all, had changed? His best friend still hated him. A dangerous French spy was still on the loose in the streets of London. He had to somehow explain to Lord and Lady Uppington that he had — well, if not exactly eloped with their daughter, at least entered into a marriage so precipitate as to cause heads to wag until some greater scandal diverted the attention of the ton. That thought alone ought to have been enough to dampen even Miles's buoyant spirits.

Yet, even the prospect of confronting the Uppingtons — Lady Uppington expostulating, Lord Uppington grim — faded back into a dim backdrop when considered next to the image of Henrietta as he had left her, one pale arm flung over her head, hair any which way on the pillow, and mouth open as if she were about to say something, even while she slept. Miles grinned, remembering last night's spate of adjectives. One thing was for certain, life with Henrietta would never want for words.

Miles announced himself to Wickham's harried subordinate, who advised him to take a seat, and disappeared back into the inner sanctum.

Miles sat, and, despite telling himself he really ought to be thinking about useful topics, like spies, the catching of, went back to grinning besottedly. The person sitting next to him shuffled his chair discreetly in the opposite direction.

Amazing how three little words could cause such bother.

There were so many treacherous verbal trinities, mused Miles. I owe you. Pass the decanter. And, of course, Out that window! which, in Miles's experience, had caused more pain and ruined clothing than any other three words. Miles dragged in a deep breath. No matter how many trilogies he dredged up, there was no avoiding it. Those were not the three words at issue.

Somewhere along the line, he had fallen in love with Henrietta.

How in the hell had that happened? It didn't seem quite fair. He had just been going along his ordinary business; he hadn't gone mooning about like Geoff, or trysting with women under a secret identity like Richard, both of which could be reasonably assumed to end in uncomfortable romantic attachments while Cupid clutched his bow and doubled over with derisive laughter. But, yet, there he was. Grinning like a madman despite having been threatened with castration by his best friend and shot at by French agents; concocting romantic dinners instead of cunning plans; and, in his weaker moments, actually contemplating poetry. Fortunately for him, Henrietta, and the Western poetic tradition, the result of his contemplation was brief and decisive. He couldn't write it.

But he could make Henrietta happy, Miles assured himself. On the walk over to the War Office, he had given deep and serious thought to this weighty topic. There was, of course, always jewelry. It had been Miles's past experience that nothing said, "Thank you for a splendid night of passion," quite like a strand of emeralds. There were only two slight drawbacks to that plan. First, Henrietta already had a strand of emeralds, complete with matching bracelet and earrings. And, even if she hadn't… well, Miles couldn't quite put it into words, but the techniques one used to placate a mistress were perhaps not best suited to wooing a wife. He needed something more personal, more tender, more… damn. He couldn't even come up with appropriate adjectives, much less a dashing gesture that would sweep Henrietta off her feet. Aside from picking her up. He quite liked picking her up.

But this, he reminded himself selflessly, was supposed to be about Henrietta and what she would like, which also unfortunately ruled out boxing matches, trips to Tattersalls, and — Miles's personal favorite — the removal of clothing. From what he knew of females, they were generally more intrigued by the acquisition of clothing than the removal of it. Miles shook his head at the waste of time and fabric. Fig leaves. Now, there was a form of fashion he could support. Of course, some of those dresses of Henrietta's weren't half bad, the ones with the filmy skirts that outlined the length of her legs as she walked, and the scooped bodices that — ergh. Miles cast a guilty glance around the room and placed his hat on his lap with exaggerated nonchalance, wishing that current fashion didn't mandate breeches that were quite so damnably form-fitting.

Miles resolutely turned his mind to safer topics. He did vaguely remember hearing someone going on at a ball once about flowers speaking the language of love. Miles dubiously regarded the squished posy of primroses, already turning slightly brownish around the edges. They didn't say anything to him other than, "Water me!" He supposed there might be a metaphor in there somewhere — love needing nourishment, and all that sort of drivel, but from what he knew about gardening, nourishing flowers involved a great deal of compost, which even Miles was quite sure was about as far from romance as one could get. "Oh my love is like a dung heap" was far more likely to get a chamber pot flung at his head than cries of rapture.

Miles shook his head. He briefly considered nipping out of the War Office and running over to Hatchards for one of those romantic novels Henrietta seemed to find so engrossing, but rapidly rejected the idea. After all, even if he managed to find an appropriate book, how would he know where to look? He doubted they had an appropriate index, with entries like "Wives, for the wooing of," or convenient chapter headings, such as "How to Deliver a Declaration of Love in Ten Easy

Lessons." Miles cringed, imagining the derisive laughter sure to follow his possession of such a publication.

A dinner a deux, Miles decided. That was the ticket. There would be champagne, and oysters, and chocolate — not all at once, he concluded, after some consideration. Miles adjusted his mental image slightly and added some grapes, for the peeling of. He could feed them to Henrietta one by one, and if one, or two, or ten just happened to slip into her bodice and need retrieving, well, they were slippery things, peeled grapes. Those Romans certainly knew what they were doing, thought Miles happily. Peeled grapes… a couch big enough for two… maybe some custard…

Wickham's aide reappeared, loudly clearing his throat. Miles rose with a start, spilling an entire bucket of mental grapes, none of them, unfortunately, anywhere near Henrietta's bodice.

"He'll see you now," the aide said in harried tones, chivvying Miles towards the office. "But make it quick."

Miles nodded in acknowledgment and bounded through the door into Wickham's office. Someone had replaced the map on the wall since his last visit, evidently employing a stronger pin. The map quivered a bit as the door slammed shut behind him, but remained in its place.

Miles dragged his accustomed chair in front of Wickham's desk. "Good morning, sir!"

Wickham's shrewd eyes traveled from Miles's beaming countenance to the somewhat wilted primroses. "I can see that you think it is," he replied, adding, "For me, are they?"

Confused, Miles looked down at his hand, started, flushed, opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked as flustered as a strapping man of sporting tendencies can contrive to look.

"Er, no," he said, shifting the primroses hastily behind his back. "I've just been married!"

"Congratulations," said Wickham dryly. "I wish you both very happy. I take it you did not come to see me simply to inform me of your recent nuptials?"

"No." Miles's expression took on a more serious cast as he scooted his chair closer to Wickham's desk. "I have reason to believe the Black Tulip is Lord Vaughn."

The spymaster eyed him dispassionately. "Do you?"

Miles nodded grimly, and proceeded to start at the beginning. "Someone crept into Selwick Hall this weekend disguised as the Phantom Monk of Don well Abbey."

Wickham cast Miles a faintly quizzical glance.

Miles waved his hand dismissively, realized he was still holding the despised posy, and hastily stuck it under his chair. "A local tale. It doesn't signify, sir." He leaned forward in his chair. "At first, I thought our phantom was only after Selwick's papers — "

"A reasonable assumption," murmured Wickham.

"Thank you, sir. The evidence appeared to bear that out. We found the papers in Selwick's desk disarranged, but nothing else in the house had been disturbed, and there were no signs of activity anywhere in the grounds." Miles paused slightly, remembering exactly what sort of activities had been occurring in the grounds.

Wickham's keen eyes narrowed. "And in Selwick's desk?"

"Only estate papers, sir. Selwick has always been quite careful not to leave sensitive documents lying about."

"I assume that isn't the extent of your tale." Wickham glanced at the clock on his desk, Atlas supporting not the world, but the time.

"Right." Miles took the hint and hurried rapidly through the rest. "We stopped at an inn, where my companion overheard Lord Vaughn in conversation with the opera singer, Mme Fiorila — at least, I'm fairly certain it was Mme Fiorila," Miles corrected himself. "Upon leaving the inn, we noticed we were being followed. Since the London-to-Brighton road is a popular one, I initially thought nothing of it, until their coachman drew a gun. We evaded pursuit, and returned to London. So you see" — Miles thumped enthusiastically on the desk, making Atlas jump — "it must have been Vaughn! Who else would have known to follow us from the inn?"

"One point requires clarification, Mr. Dorrington. Who is 'we' ?" enquired Wickham. "Were you with Selwick at the time?"

Miles flushed. "Er, no. At least, not with that Selwick. I was with his sister, Lady Henrietta."

Wickham responded to that extraneous detail with an attention he had failed to display to anything else Miles had said thus far. He sat bolt-upright in his chair, fixing Miles with the stare that had been known to make French agents leap out third-story windows and hardened English operatives slink beneath their capes.

"Lady Henrietta Selwick?" he repeated sharply.

"Ye-es," affirmed Miles, regarding his superior with some confusion. "You know, Selwick's younger sister?" It didn't seem quite the time to impart the news that she now bore another title; Wickham's expression was more funereal than bridal.

"That, Mr. Dorrington," said Wickham harshly, "is bad news. Very bad news, indeed."

"Bad news?" Miles was half out of his chair, grasping the edge of Wickham's desk.

Wickham had already levered himself out of his desk chair and was striding towards the door. "It means," he explained, reaching for the door handle, "that Lady Henrietta is in grave danger."

Something sharp was poking Henrietta in the arm.

Making sleepy noises of protest, Henrietta rolled over and buried her face into the fluffy depths of the feather pillow. She flung out an arm, and wiggled deeper into the sheets. But there was an odd, musty smell to the pillow, not like her own lavender-scented linen, and the sheets felt strange against her bare skin.