Лорен Уиллиг - The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

"I invited him to call," she said shortly.

That piece of intelligence did little to sweeten Pinchingdale's disposition. "You summoned him."

Under other circumstances, Vaughn might have objected to being referred to in that sort of tone, but he was too busy watching Mary, who lifted her chin and skewered her former suitor with an imperious stare. "There were certain things I needed to discuss with Lord Vaughn."

Pinchingdale looked pointedly from one to the other, from Mary's tousled hair to Vaughn's rumpled linen. "A proposal of marriage, one hopes?"

For a brother-in-law, Pinchingdale was altogether too damn proprietary.

"I had heard that you prefer to deal in elopements," said Vaughn silkily.

"I am asking you, Vaughn, as one gentleman to another, to have a care for Miss Alsworthy's reputation."

Lifting his quizzing glass, Vaughn trained it on the other man with deliberate insolence. "As you did?"

The words sizzled in the air between them like a flaming gauntlet.

"Hello!" Pinchingdale's little wife stuck her freckled face around the door. "Why are the drapes closed?"

The rest of her followed her face around the edge of the door, garbed in a cheerful, flowered muslin that would have looked more the thing for the country than the town. It was a source of ongoing amazement to Vaughn that she and Mary had sprung from the same family. There was only one possible answer. Mary was quite definitely a changeling.

Rising, Vaughn acknowledged her presence with a carefully calculated bow. "So people won't shoot at us through the windows," he explained. "Naturally."

"If you would like to be shot at from within the room," said Pinchingdale shortly, "I would be more than happy to oblige."

"I don't think that would be very good for the wallpaper," said Letty, moving to slip her arm through her husband's in a gesture that was one part affection and two parts restraint.

"Blood does stain so," agreed Vaughn.

"A risk I would be willing to take," said Pinchingdale grimly, but Vaughn noticed that he made no effort to extricate his arm from his wife's. That might have been because she was holding on to it with both hands.

"You needn't bother," said Mary in a voice whose edges cut like glass. Rising with a dignity that commanded the attention of all, she placed herself deliberately between Vaughn and her former suitor. "Why kill Vaughn, when the Black Tulip is planning to do it for you?"

For all Pinchingdale's other flaws, no one could accuse him of being dim. His expression changed in a moment from anger to reluctant comprehension. He would, Vaughn had no doubt, have far rather blasted his brains out for seduction of his sister-in-law than joined forces with him over a common enemy. But Pinchingdale was nothing if not honorable, and when England called, he obeyed.

"Ireland," said Pinchingdale grimly.

"Among other things," said Vaughn, deriving great enjoyment out of watching Pinchingdale squirm. It was almost worth having received that bullet in the arm. "The Black Tulip has added two and two and emerged with forty-five. He thinks I am the Pink Carnation."

"But that's absurd!" exclaimed Letty. Flushing, she added, "I didn't mean…It's just that, well…"

"I couldn't agree more," said Vaughn genially. "I only wish the Black Tulip felt the same way."

"An ingenious story, Vaughn, but do you have any proof?"

Mary drew herself up to her full height. In her white gown, she looked like an avenging goddess who had forgotten her helmet and breastplate. "Isn't a bullet in his shoulder proof enough?"

"It isn't actually in my shoulder at the moment," clarified Vaughn helpfully. "It only stopped in passing."

Pinchingdale cast his eyes briefly up to the ceiling, as though seeking for divine intervention.

He received a response rather more quickly than one would expect. A new tread sounded in the doorway, and a footman appeared, bearing a letter on a silver salver.

"A message for his lordship," he intoned.

Pinchingdale moved to take the letter.

"His other lordship," corrected the footman hastily, thrusting the tray towards Vaughn.

Pinchingdale cast him a startled look. "How is it that you're receiving notes in my home, Vaughn?"

Scooping up the folded piece of paper, Vaughn cracked the seal. "I can only assume that whoever it was must have followed me here."

Letty reached the drapes seconds before Mary.

"I do need some light to read," said Vaughn mildly.

Without further ado, Mary snatched the letter from him and held it up to the light herself. It was short; no longer than three lines, and whatever it was made a grim smile spread across Mary's face.

"Ha," she said.

Vaughn cast her a sardonic look. "As edifying as that syllable was, would you care to elaborate further?"

Mary waved the letter in the air like a triumphal banner before relinquishing it into his outstretched hand. "This proves my theory. It's from her. She wants to see you."

"I don't follow," said Pinchingdale, as Vaughn skimmed the three lines of the note.

It was, indeed, from Anne. They had much to discuss, she said. She hinted at a deal. A deal certainly hadn't been in the cards yesterday, when she staked her claim at Mary's expense. Yesterday, when the Black Tulip seized the opportunity opened by his confusion to put a bullet through him. Unless the Black Tulip hadn't so much seized the opportunity as created it himself. With the help of Anne.

"Who is she?" asked Letty, moving straight to the meat of the matter. Her brows drew together as she cast a startled look at her husband. "It couldn't be — "

"No," said Pinchingdale. "It couldn't be the Marquise de Montval. She was quite dead."

Little did they know that dead was often a negotiable category.

Shaking out the lace of his cuffs with studied nonchalance, Vaughn braced himself for the inevitable. They would have to be told about Anne. Vaughn had a feeling that Pinchingdale was going to be even less pleased at the notion of his sister-in-law canoodling with a married man than he had been when that man was merely one's resident roué.

"If you must know…," Vaughn drawled.

"The writer is a former lady friend of Vaughn's," Mary broke in, crisply and clearly.

That was one way of putting it.

Vaughn looked at her sharply, but Mary angled her head pointedly away, refusing to meet his eye.

Pinchingdale's keen gray eyes followed them both, reaching the obvious and erroneous conclusion that the woman in question was a former mistress of Vaughn's and that Mary did not approve.

Brava, Vaughn thought. It had been beautifully done.

With her nose firmly planted in the air, Mary went on, "I believe that she has been colluding with the Black Tulip."

Pinchingdale's eyes narrowed. "You and the Black Tulip seem to share a great many of the same lady friends, Vaughn."

"Only one other," Vaughn said shortly. Something in the expression on Pinchingdale's face moved him to defend Teresa's memory. Such as it was. "She was a clever woman."

"And a vicious killer."

"Everyone has their little flaws."

Mary clapped her hands sharply together. "Boys," she said pointedly. "Might we get on?"

"Yes," Letty jumped in before the two men could shift their bad humor to Mary. "What does the note say?"

Vaughn's eyes dropped to the few sparely written lines, not at all like Anne's usual diffuse style, although it was undeniably her hand. "She asks for an assignation. This afternoon."

"Where?" asked Pinchingdale, abandoning private quarrels for the public good. At least, for the moment. Vaughn had no doubt that Pinchingdale would like nothing better than to haul out the family horsewhip the moment the Black Tulip had been safely dispatched.

The address wasn't one Vaughn recognized. "Her lodgings. They appear to be in Westminster."

"It's clearly a trap," Mary put in. "An attempt to finish what the Black Tulip failed to accomplish yesterday."

"That does seem like a reasonable conclusion," seconded Pinchingdale.

"Then what do you suggest I do about it?" Balancing his snuff box in one hand, Vaughn neatly flicked open the lid, as though the entire discussion were one of merely academic concern. "You are, after all, meant to be the expert on this sort of affair."

If Pinchingdale caught the implied insult, he chose to ignore it. "Keep the assignation," he said briefly. "Keep it, but go armed."

Letty nodded decisively. "I like it. They wouldn't expect you to walk knowingly into a trap."

"That," interjected Mary, "is because no sane person does."

Inhaling his snuff, Vaughn coughed delicately. "Then it ought to be perfect for me."

"Perfect idiocy, you mean. I'll come with you."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" said Letty matter-of-factly.

"And what might that be?" Mary asked icily.

"Lady Euphemia's play."

"Oh," said Mary.

"You are the princess," added Letty apologetically.

"Catch the prince's eye and you might be a real one," drawled Vaughn.

"Isn't there the small matter of his wife?"

"A trifling difficulty."

Mary sighed. "If only."

Vaughn went to his assignation doubly armed. He had a sword at his hip and Pinchingdale up a tree.

He hadn't intended either Pinchingdale or the tree. But whether it was for Mary's sake or, as Pinchingdale claimed, because he had as much of an interest in catching the Black Tulip as Vaughn did, Pinchingdale had insisted on following along.

"I should think," Pinchingdale had said, with a brow raised in challenge, "that you would be glad of the extra protection."

"I would," Vaughn had replied, just as dryly, "if I could be sure that you intended your bullets for the Black Tulip, rather than me."

Having ascertained that they understood each other, they had departed for Anne's lodgings in relative harmony — if, by harmony, one meant guarded silence. By prearrangement, they took separate routes, just in case anyone was watching. Vaughn went in his own carriage with the Vaughn crest emblazoned on the doors, rattling conspicuously along, while Pinchingdale took whatever shadowy and circuitous route pleased him best.

Their destination turned out to be a narrow, three-story building constructed of yellowing brick, lying hard by the jumble of medieval structures that made up Parliament. The wrought-iron railings had been painted a teal blue, presumably to complement the bright blue of the door, but the harsh elements of the English climate had already taken their toll. The peeling paint gave the railings a scabrous appearance, as though they were suffering from an acute case of leprosy. The rest of the structure appeared equally neglected. The small panes that made up the sash window were dark with accumulated grime. If Anne was, indeed, working for the Black Tulip, the French government's largesse did not extend to a generous housing allowance.

On the other hand, grimy windows had the benefit of concealing a multitude of illicit activities.

Reaching for the knocker, Vaughn lifted it fastidiously between two fingers and let it fall. The reverberations had scarcely stopped before the door was shoved open and a hand on his sleeve yanked him unceremoniously over the threshold. Behind him, the door slammed definitively into its frame.

The pressure on his bad arm made Vaughn see spots, but his other hand went unerringly to the hilt of his sword.

"There's no need for that!" said a husky voice indignantly.

As Vaughn's eyes adjusted to the gloom of the hallway, the white blur in front of him resolved itself into Anne, wearing a dress cut too low for afternoon, looking decidedly piqued to be facing several inches of cold Spanish steel. Before sheathing his sword, Vaughn took a quick inventory of his surroundings. The hallway was a narrow rectangle, windowless, furnitureless, and devoid of places to hide. A flight of stairs rose steeply to a small landing on the second story. Doors on either side opened onto sparsely furnished rooms, one on each side. They appeared to be empty. Vaughn wasn't prepared to risk his life on appearances.