The Masque of the Black Tulip

Chapter Thirty-One

Even the gauze draped over the candle flames could not dim the glitter of diamonds threaded through ladies' curls and broad shoulders laden with epaulettes in the Yellow Salon of the Tuileries Palace. Dowagers chattered, military men guffawed, and fans spoke their own whispery language in secluded corners of the room. The usual swarm of dandies, beauties, and Bonapartes clustered at Josephine Bonaparte's Thursday night salon, appraising one another's clothes and exchanging the latest on-dits.

Among the throng moved the Pink Carnation, gliding seamlessly between groups, picking up and storing information with all the industry of an ant at a picnic. Jane had left off her black breeches. She had left off her white cap and itchy hair dye. And she had made sure to leave off the odiferous shawl that accompanied her guise as fishmonger's wife.

Tonight she wore a disguise of quite a different sort: She came as herself.

Her dress was both modest and modish. Amid garish diamonds and a veritable portrait gallery of cameos worn at the fingers, the neck, the ears, even the toes, Jane's only ornament was a modest enameled locket, bearing the picture of a small, pink flower. Flowers, after all, were an eminently appropriate ornament for a young girl.

Who would possibly suspect Miss Jane Wooliston, cousin to Edouard Balcourt — why, that was he over there, my dear; yes, the puffy-faced man in the puce cravat, such a toady to the First Consul, but then, really, who wasn't nowadays? — of posing the slightest danger to the French Republic? She was, agreed the dowagers, a most pretty, mannered girl. She knew when to speak and when to be silent, showed a most pleasing deference to her elders, and her manner in dealing with the masculine gender combined a quiet wit with an absolute lack of flirtatious contrivances. So unlike those fast young things one saw nowadays! This last was usually said with a glare in the direction of Bonaparte's sisters, Pauline and Caroline, of whom "fast" was the least of what was whispered from fan to fan.

The old ladies approved of her, and gossiped in her presence without reserve. The young dandies liked her for quite another reason; among a people so susceptible to physical beauty, at a time so much in the sway of the ideals of classical antiquity, Jane's beautifully boned face and aloof mien put them in mind of Roman carvings and they regarded Jane much as they would a particularly fine piece of statuary, beautiful to look upon and largely deaf. Jane had picked up quite a number of useful tidbits of information that way.

Just now, however, Jane was making a masterful effort to evade the garrulous matrons, love-struck young bucks, and budding poets she had so successfully cultivated. Her one interest was to leave the salon as rapidly — and as discreedy — as possible. Her lips remained curved in a guileless smile as her brain rapidly assimilated the information she had just acquired, information so unexpected, so alarming, as to be scarcely credible.

But there could be no doubt. All the pieces fell evenly into place, like the fragments of a Roman mosaic reconstituted into a vivid tableau. In this instance, the picture was as unpleasant as it was shocking. They had, all of them, been looking in entirely the wrong direction. In the meantime, the deadliest spy in London, the one person who above all ought to have been observed and curtailed, roamed free.

Henrietta must be warned. At once.

Jane smiled sweetly at Captain Desmoreau, who showed a stubborn refusal to leave her side, and told him she was really quite perishing of thirst. Would he be so kind… ?

He would. Desmoreau set off into the throng. Rising, Jane wended — , her way past a cluster of dowagers merrily ripping apart reputations like so much disorderly tatting, past the gloomy Louis Bonaparte, complaining about his myriad phantom illnesses, past the admiring circle who thronged Bonaparte's wife, Josephine, her step steady, her expression serene, a Galatea with no other purpose but to adorn a pedestal at the Bonapartes' court.

The door was in sight. Four more paces, and she could escape into the hallways, and thence to her cousin's house, to pack for a hasty journal for England. This was not a task Jane cared to entrust to another. Couriers had an unfortunate habit of disappearing en route. Three paces. Jane's mind was already leaping ahead. She would ride dressed in male clothes; it would be faster than taking the coach and cause less comment. She would have Miss Gwen put it about that she had taken sick and was keeping to her bed. Something nasty, something contagious, something that would ward off well-wishers. Two paces. She would cross at Honfleur rather than Calais; the port was less closely watched, and she had a fisherman in her pay, on the condition that his boat be at her disposal whenever she should need it. One pace left…

"My goddess!" A white-shirted figure lolled dramatically in her path, waistcoat open and sleeves billowing. Augustus Whittlesby, English expatriate and author of the most execrable effusions of verse ever to assault the ear, flung himself at Jane's feet in an aspect of adoration. "My muse! My peerless patroness of sesquipedality!"

"Good evening, sir," Jane replied for the benefit of any listeners, adding softly, "Not now, Mr. Whittlesby!"

He pressed a languid hand to his forehead, ruffles billowing about his face. "I swoon, I perish, I expire at your feet, if you will not do your humble servant the inestimable honor of giving ear to my latest ode in praise of your prodigious pulchritude." For her ear alone, he muttered, mouth hidden from the company beneath the flowing muslin of his sleeve, "You really must hear this, Miss Wooliston."

Jane's face tightened, but she knew better than to object when her fellow agent spoke in such a tone. Having perfected his role years ago, Whittlesby almost never broke character, and would certainly not do so in the heart of the enemy's lair, Bonaparte's palace, for any but the most pressing reasons. Placing a hand on Whittlesby's arm, she said sternly, "One moment only, Mr. Whittlesby. My cousin grows alarmed if I stay out too late."

Whittlesby flourished a bow that ended somewhere in the vicinity of Jane's silk slippers. Taking her arm and leading her through the door, into a small anteroom, he said loudly, for the benefit of those behind them, "I assure you, my ardent angel, you shall not regret this small mercy." In a harsh whisper, he added, "Orders. From England."

"Mr. Whittlesby, you do me too much honor with these effusions. What are they?"

"Honor itself pales before such divinity," declaimed Whittlesby. He bowed over Jane's hand. Jane leaned forward slightly. "Trouble," he muttered. "In Ireland. Wickham wants you there."

"Honor may pale, but you put me to the blush, sir," protested Jane, making a show of retrieving her hand. "I can't. I return to England tonight."

"Oh, the beauty of your blush! Blessed, blithe, bounteous blush! Like the dew-touched petals of the fairest rose, spreading their bounty to the awe-struck sun." Whittlesby flung himself to his knees before her, lifting his face in exaggerated awe. "My orders were clear and urgent. Tonight. A carriage will be waiting. Bring your chaperone."

A shadow of a frown passed along Jane's serene face as she extended a gracious hand to the prostrate poet. "Only a heart of stone could resist such a plea, Mr. Whittlesby, and mine, alas, is of far more malleable matter."

Whittlesby pressed his forehead to her hand in humble obeisance, and extracted a roll of parchment tied with pink ribbons from the billowing muslin folds of his shirt. Flourishing it in the air to make sure that anyone in the salon watching might have a good view, he pressed the roll into Jane's hand.

"Every third word of every third line," he muttered. While Whittlesby's verse always served as vehicle, the code changed each time. The Ministry of Police knew Whittlesby only as a writer of bad poetry — it was a measure of Whitdesby's devotion to the cause that he was, in fact, quite a proficient poet, and had, before the war, entertained genuine ambitions in that direction — but the agents of the English Crown were taking no chances.

"I assure you, Mr. Whittlesby, I shall read it with the utmost care," replied Jane, making a great show of unrolling the paper so that anyone could see the irregular lines of verse scrolled across page. "I need a message sent."

Whittlesby staggered, and dropped to the ground, overcome with rapture at her acquiescence. "Done. To whom?"

"Come, come, sir! Steady yourself! How can I enjoy your ode with your collapse upon my conscience?" Bending over him in feigned concern, Jane outlined her wishes in a rapid whisper.

Whittlesby's eyes widened. "Good God! Who would have — "

"No, no, Mr. Whittlesby, say no more. I am quite overcome by your compliments." Jane extended a hand to help him up, her back to the salon. Her face was pale and serious as she said softly, "You must not fail."

Whittesby lifted Jane's gloved hand to his lips. "Fail my muse?" he said, with a twinkle of humor as his eyes flicked up at Jane. "Never."

Jane's eyes lacked an answering twinkle. "Some things, Mr. Whittlesby, are too serious for poetry."

"I will do my utmost," promised Whittlesby.

"I never expected less," said Jane austerely. Her fine lawn skirts flicked around the turn of the doorway, and were gone.

Within five minutes, the word had passed around Mme Bonaparte's salon. That tedious English poet had so distracted poor Miss Wooliston that she had departed for home under pretext of a headache — and who wouldn't, my dear? Really, the man was a pest; and his verse! The less said about his verse, better. As for Whittlesby, at least one should be spared his effusions for the remainder of the evening. He had departed mere moments after to Miss Wooliston, to succor flagging inspiration, he said. The dowagers knew what that meant. Inspiration, indeed! More like the bottom of a bottle. Disgraceful, quite disgraceful. But what could one expect of an Englishman and a poet?

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…