Lauren Willig - Masque of the Black Tulip

"Not far enough," muttered Henrietta, just as her foot struck something, sending her reeling backwards just in time to evade another thrust to the heart. Flailing, her back slammed into the wall, stunning her. "So clumsy," tsked the marquise, moving in for the kill. The best swordsman fears the worst, Henrietta reminded herself, letting herself slide down the wall, as the marquise drove her weapon into the ancient wallpaper where Henrietta had been leaning a moment before. The blade bent with the force of the thrust.

Scuttling on hands and knees, Henrietta ducked around the marquise's legs as the marquise flung aside the blunted blade and reached up with a swift, vicious movement to draw another from the dark mass of her hair. Another section of hair came unmoored, slithering down the marquise's back like snakes crawling from their basket.

As if from a long way away, Henrietta could hear the thuds and grunts that betokened men in the thick of a fray. There would be no help from that quarter.

"Hen!" shouted Miles, blond head popping up momentarily from the confused mass of bodies. "You" — wham! — "all right?"

Henrietta rolled as the marquise stabbed downwards, spitting her own hair out of her mouth as she careened sideways. Through the screen of brown strands she could see the blade descending again and desperately propelled herself back in the other direction, rolling once, twice, three times, until her movement was arrested with a jarring thud, as she whammed hip-first into something hard and unstable. It rocked slightly, before settling back into place, ashes shifting and settling.

She had been tripped by her own blasted disguise. Next time, if there was a next time, she was bloody well disguising herself as a duelist. Breeches, a sword, pistols. Not a bloody, inconvenient, underfoot, why-don't-you-just-help-the-enemy bloody metal bucket and shovel, thought Henrietta hysterically as the marquise's new, and, if possible, even pointier stiletto descended in a deadly arc.

A shovel. It wasn't a pistol, or even a sword, but it was there, which counted for far more.

Grabbing the shovel out of the bucket, rocking backwards with the force of the movement, Henrietta swung it wildly upwards, knocking aside the marquise's blade, the heavy iron of the fire tool sending the slim silver blade cartwheeling through the air. From the amorphous mob of men on the other end of the room, she heard a shocked yelp of pain and a truly filthy French curse.

"Sorry!" she called out automatically.

"You, Lady Henrietta," announced the marquise, breathing heavily and looking decidedly miffed, "are proving something of a problem."

"I try," croaked Henrietta, trying to scuttle backwards and stand up all at once, a course of action that made up in desperation what it lacked in coordination.

Above her, the marquise was reaching into her hair with a practiced movement, drawing forth yet another diamond-headed implement of destruction. How many of those did the woman have? Henrietta wondered desperately. Her memory conjured an image of the marquise's elaborate coiffure, studded with diamond-headed pins. If each pin contained a stiletto — she could pin Henrietta to the wall like a butterfly on a naturalist's worktable and still have enough left to adorn her coiffure.

Unless she got close enough to the marquise to whack her over the head with the shovel, the deadly onslaught would continue unabated. She needed something else, something that would put the marquise out of commission long enough for her to do something terribly brave like run to the other side of the room and hide behind Miles.

"By Jove!" shouted Turnip gleefully from the other side of the room. "I've finally got it!"

The marquise's head shifted sharply to the side. Her face contorted with annoyance as she saw the mob of men exchanging fisticuffs with Miles, while Turnip sat triumphandy on top of Jean-Luc, waving the retrieved pistol in the air.

"Idiots!" cried the marquise in tones that could have shattered glass, flinging her arms in the air in a magisterial gesture reminiscent of Morgana Le Fey's calling down demons. "Secure the Pink Carnation!"

Two of Miles's assailants abruptly switched course and rushed at Turnip. Turnip looked alarmed and dove for the floor, trying to crawl underneath the settee. The settee bucked and shook alarmingly. Left with only two attackers, Miles took care of the problem by slamming their heads together with a truly unpleasant cracking noise.

That moment's hesitation was all Henrietta needed.

With strength fueled by desperation, Henrietta grabbed up the bucket of ashes and flung its contents flush into the marquise's face. At least, that was what she intended to do. Staggering under the weight of the heavy bucket, Henrietta's aim was anything but controlled. Propelled by its own weight, the bucket tore out of Henrietta's hands. Instead of the ashes flying upwards into the marquise's eyes, the whole bucket slammed into the marquise's elegantly garbed stomach. With a satisfying oomph, the marquise toppled backwards. Having dealt with his own attackers, Miles bounded across the room, staggered back a step, and caught the marquise before she hit the ground.

"Got her!" he exclaimed triumphantly, twisting the marquise's arms behind her back.

Shaking a floppy lock of blond hair out of his eyes, Miles looked over the marquise's head (a wise decision, since the marquise's face, had he chosen to look at it, was contorted into a Medusa's mask of pure rage) at Henrietta.

Dried blood streaked his face, much of it his own; one eye was already dangerously swollen; and a long scratch marred one cheek. Henrietta thought he looked wonderful.

Their eyes met over the kicking, spitting form of the marquise.

"Sorry I took so long," said Miles, the expression on his face belying the banality of his words.

"Well, four men," said Henrietta in much the same tone, but her cheeks were glowing and her eyes bright. "It's understandable."

The marquise glowered, and tried to kick Miles in the shin. Miles instinctively sidestepped and retaliated with a swift stomp to the marquise's foot without ever taking his eyes from Henrietta.

"I wanted to rescue you," he said softly.

"You did," Henrietta reassured him. She considered, her lips curving into a smile. "It just took you a while."

The marquise went limp.

Tugging the marquise upright by dint of pulling on her arms, Miles drank in the sight of Henrietta, eyes roving over every tangled snarl of hair, every scratch, every bruise. "I tore the house apart when I got home, and you weren't there."

The marquise rolled her eyes. "If I had wanted to hear romantic drivel, I would have gone to Drury Lane," she snapped.

Henrietta cast her a quelling look. "Nobody asked you." She turned back to Miles, lifting eager eyes to his battered face. "Go on. You were worried?" Henrietta knew it was petty and immature to fish for crumbs of affection, but she was past caring.

"Frantic," Miles admitted.

Henrietta beamed.

"Don't get any ideas," Miles warned. "If I have to go through another afternoon like that one, I'm locking you in a tower for life."

"Will you share it with me?" asked Henrietta softly, trying not to sound as though every fiber of her being was concentrated into those seemingly banal words.

Miles's battered lips quirked into a cocky grin that made his cut lip crack open again. Miles didn't seem to notice. He was just opening his mouth to speak, when a loud voice bleated from the other side of the room.

"I say!" called Turnip. "Hate to interrupt, but I'm having a spot of bother over here."

With an expression of intense annoyance, Miles broke off, turning to survey the wreckage.

Henrietta did likewise, contemplating Turnipicide. Blast, blast, blast. What had Miles been about to say? He might have missed the point entirely. He might have been about to have made a snide remark about incarcerated princesses or her inability to share or any number of things. Or not. It was very hard to interpret the expression of someone whose eye was swelling up and whose lip was trickling blood like a vampire with a drinking problem.

On the other side of the room, Jean-Luc sprawled on the carpet, a dented silver coffeepot lying beside him. Jean-Luc's skull might have been thick, but old silver was thicker. The two footmen whose heads Miles had banged together were also lying on the floor. One twitched groggily, opened an eye, saw Miles, and hastily went limp again, which Henrietta thought an entirely sensible reaction given the circumstance.

Of the two remaining, one was leaning against the wall, holding his arm at an odd angle and emitting occasional groaning noises. The final ruffian had Turnip pinned beneath the settee, and was making forays with a poker, like a cat swiping at a mouse.

Henrietta and Miles exchanged one look and both burst out laughing.

"I say," came Turnip's aggrieved voice from beneath the settee. "It's not funny!"

Henrietta laughed harder, clutching her stomach as all the tension of the long, awful day rolled out of her in peal after peal of helpless laughter.

"Steady there, old girl," said Miles, but there was enough warmth in his voice to make the laughter catch in Henrietta's throat. "Toss me a bit of rope to tie her up, will you?"

Henrietta swiped tears out of her streaming eyes, and unlooped one of the tasseled cords that held back the threadbare drapes. The curtain fell, plunging the room half into shadow.

"Will this do?" she asked.

"Brilliantly," said Miles.

"Hmph," said the marquise.

"Well, well," said an entirely different voice altogether.

In the open sitting room door, a new shadow fell across the threshold. Miles swiveled towards the door, the marquise still pinioned in his grasp. Henrietta froze, rope still dangling from her hand.

Across the threshold strolled a pair of gleaming black boots. The new visitor wore a black brocade frock coat shot through with silver. A shining quizzing glass framed in the shape of a snake swallowing its own tail dangled just below the immaculate folds of his cravat. In one hand, he carried hat and gloves, with the casual air of a gentleman paying a morning call. A sword swung jauntily from his side.

One elegant hand went to the sword at his hip with the air of a man who well knew how to use it. The light winked off the rings adorning his hand as his fingers closed around the silver hilt.

"Is this a private party, or may anyone join in?" drawled Lord Vaughn.

"Sebastian," said the marquise flatly, so flatly that Henrietta couldn't tell if she was pleased or distressed or even the least bit surprised.

The marquise's use of Lord Vaughn's first name did not bode well. The marquise had never admitted straight out to being the Black Tulip. What if she were only a lieutenant, a second in command acting on the orders of someone altogether more deadly and devious?

Miles's reaction was decidedly less ambiguous.

"Vaughn," he gritted out, tightening his grip on the marquise, who was showing a distressing inclination to use the distraction as an excuse to escape. "What in the hell are you doing here?"

"I succumbed to a gallant impulse. I perceive" — Vaughn's lazy eyes took in the dazed French operatives, the shaking settee, and the marquise, her arms pinioned by Miles — "that it was unnecessary."

Miles was in no mood for circumlocutions. "Whose side are you on?" he asked bluntly.

Vaughn extracted an enameled snuffbox from his pocket, and flipped open the lid. With an elegant gesture, he dropped a pinch of snuff upon his sleeve and sniffed delicately. "I must say, I wonder that myself sometimes."

"His own," responded the marquise, trying to yank her wrists out of Miles's grasp. "Isn't that right, Sebastian?"

"Not this time," replied Lord Vaughn, lazily surveying the room. "I find myself inexplicably drawn to altruism in my old age."

"Is that altruism on behalf of the French?" asked Henrietta, hovering protectively next to Miles.

Vaughn looked blank. "Wherever did you acquire that absurd idea?"