The Masque of the Black Tulip

Chapter Six

Miles wheeled off in the direction of the refreshments, taking care to put considerable distance between himself and the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale. And the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale's little yippy dog. Miles and that dog had an unhappy history — unhappy for Miles, at any rate.

Miles was just casting a backwards glance over his shoulder to make sure that the canine from hell hadn't scented him (it could move bloody fast when it wanted to, and it generally wanted to when Miles was in range), when there was a throaty "Oh!" and something warm and wet trickled down the side of his leg. Miles turned, expecting another pastel-clad debutante.

Instead, he found himself facing a sultry vision in black. Her dark hair was pulled simply back at the crown, and allowed to fall in long, loose curls that teased the edge of a bodice as low as anything being worn in Paris. The stark hairstyle illuminated the fine bones of her face, the sort of bones that in ladies more advanced in age are generally referred to as elegant, high of cheek and pointed of chin. But there was nothing aged about the woman in front of Miles. Her skin was orchid pale against the jetty loops of her hair, but it was the pallor of a carefully protected complexion, not illness or age, and her lips, so red they might have been rouged, arched in invitation.

Against the pink and white prettiness of the young girls in their first season, she was as exotic as a tulip in a field of primroses, a stark study in light and shadow against a wall of watercolors.

"I'm so sorry," the same husky voice said, as Miles did an involuntary hop at the touch of the liquid, his shoes squelching in the sticky puddle of orgeat beneath his feet.

"Quite all right." Miles could feel the orgeat seeping between his toes. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"But your breeches — "

"It doesn't signify," said Miles, adding gallantly. "May I fetch you another glass?"

The woman smiled, a slow smile that began at the corners of her lips and worked its way up through her cheekbones, but never quite to her eyes. "I'm not entirely displeased to be relieved of the stuff. I prefer my refreshments to be… stronger."

The glance she cast Miles's shoulders suggested that she was referring to more than just beverages.

"You've found yourself in the wrong place, then," replied Miles frankly. Almack's, after all, was known for its weak beverages and even more lackluster company. Unless one was passionately fond of Lady Jersey, and Miles didn't think this woman fell into the Lady Jersey idolizing faction.

Lashes as dark as her hair swooped down to veil bottomless eyes. "Every now and again, one finds exceptions to any general rule."

"That depends," Miles drawled, "on just how far one is willing to bend the rules."

"Until they break." The last consonant hung delicately in the air.

Miles favored her with his most rakish glance. "Like a maiden's heart?"

She drew a long-nailed finger delicately along the fringe of her fan. "Or a man's resolve."

On the other side of the room, Henrietta snatched the Dowager Duchess's lorgnette, and peered through the crowd. There, quite definitely, was Miles — his blond head was unmistakable. No one else's hair could attain quite that degree of disarray in an airless ballroom. And he was also unmistakably in conversation.

With a woman.

Henrietta held the lorgnette away from her eye, inspected to make sure it was in proper working order, and then tried again. The woman was still there.

Henrietta was justifiably perplexed. Over the many times Miles had been dragooned into escorting her, a comfortable pattern had emerged. Miles would show up as late as decently possible; they would bicker a bit; Miles would fetch her lemonade, and some for Penelope and Charlotte, too, if he was in an accommodating mood; and then he would hare off to the card room with the other harassed brothers and husbands. He would pop out from time to time to make sure all was well, and fetch more lemonade, and dance whichever dance might be left empty on Henrietta's dance card, but otherwise, he kept carefully within the male sanctum of the card room.

He most decidedly did not speak to debutantes.

Of course, the woman in black — Henrietta squinted through the lorgnette, wishing she had an opera glass instead — didn't much look like a debutante. For one thing, debutantes didn't wear black. And their necklines, for the most part, tended to be somewhat more modest than that sported by Miles's companion. Good heavens, did that dress even have a bodice?

Henrietta fought down an unreasonable surge of pure dislike. Of course, she didn't dislike the woman. How could she dislike her? She hadn't even met her yet.

But she looked dislikable.

"Who is she?" Henrietta asked.

Pen gave a very unladylike snort. "A husband-hunter, no doubt."

"But aren't we?" Henrietta countered absentmindedly as the woman laid a black gloved hand on Miles's arm. Miles didn't seem to be making any move to divest himself of the appendage.

"That," decreed Penelope, "is beside the point."

"I would prefer my future husband hunt me," sighed Charlotte.

Penelope grinned mischievously. "He'll lurk beneath your balcony and cry, 'My love! My love! O love of my life!'"

"Shhh!" Charlotte grabbed one of Penelope's outflung arms. "Everyone's staring."

Penelope squeezed Charlotte's gloved hand affectionately. "Let them stare! It will only increase your mystique, don't you agree, Hen? Hen?"

Henrietta was still staring at the dark woman with Miles.

The dowager slapped Henrietta's hand.

"Ow!" Henrietta dropped the lorgnette straight into the dowager's lap.

"That's better," muttered the dowager, lifting her eyepiece. "Ah."

"Yes?" prompted Henrietta, wondering if it would be possible to ever so casually wander over there and eavesdrop a bit without looking like she had done so on purpose. Probably not, she decided ruefully. There was nothing large to hide behind except Miles, and his companion would probably catch on if she saw Henrietta peeking out from behind Miles's back. She would undoubtedly mention it to Miles. And Henrietta, wicked way with words though she might have, would have a great deal of trouble explaining that one away.

"So that's who it is! Whoever would have thought she'd be back in London?"

"Who?" asked Henrietta.

"Well, well, well," tutted the duchess.

Henrietta directed an exasperated look in the direction of the Dowager Duchess, but knew better than to speak. The more interest she expressed, the longer the dowager would take to get to the point. Making gentlemen jump out ballroom windows wasn't her only source of pleasure. Tormenting the young of any gender fell into the same category. Young being interpreted as anyone between the ages of five and fifty.

"If it isn't little Theresa Ballinger! I thought we'd seen the last of that girl. Good riddance, too."

"Who was she?" asked Pen, leaning over the duchess's shoulder.

"She was the reigning beauty of 1790 — the men were all mad for her. Men!" snorted the duchess. "Sheep, the lot of them. I never liked her."

Henrietta had always known the Dowager Duchess to be a woman of discernment and extreme good sense.

"She married a frog — a titled one."

"A frog prince?" Henrietta wasn't able to resist.

• "A frog marquis," corrected the duchess. "Not that she would have turned down a prince if she could have gotten one. That girl always had an eye for the main chance. I wonder what she's doing back in London?"

The other outraged onlookers viewing Miles's little flirtation had no doubts on that score. It was altogether too clear what the beautiful Marquise de Montval was doing in London — snaring a viscount. Viscounts being a rare commodity, her progress was regarded with more than a little distress by a sizable portion of the ballroom.

"She had a husband already!" one girl complained huffily to her mother. "And he was a marquis! It's not fair!"

"There, there, dear," clucked her mother, glowering in the direction of Miles and the marquise. "Mummy will find you another viscount. There's that nice Pinchingdale-Snipe boy…"

Their consternation was all for naught. Miles wasn't interested. Well, he wasn't entirely uninterested — he was male, after all, and between mistresses at the moment, and that was quite a respectable expanse of bosom being presented for his delectation. He just wasn't interested enough. The offer was flattering, but there was an old adage about not fouling one's own nest. If he was going to dally, it wouldn't be among the ton.

So instead of tipping his head towards the nearest exit, Miles took the gloved hand that was offered him and tilted his torso in an elegant bow. Just for good measure, just so she wouldn't feel like all her wiles had been wasted, he turned her hand over and pressed a kiss to her gloved palm. It was a gesture he had picked up years ago from an elderly Italian fellow named Giacomo Casanova. It never failed to please.

"Madam, it has been a pleasure."

"Not the last of its kind, I hope."

"Aren't the best pleasures unexpected ones?" Miles prevaricated. It struck him as a rather clever way of avoiding setting up an assignation.

"Sometimes anticipation can be as pleasant as surprise," countered the marquise. She closed her fan with a meaningful snap. "I ride in the park tomorrow at five. Perhaps our paths will cross."

"Perhaps." Miles's smile was as meaningful — and as meaningless — as hers. Since everybody rode in the park at five, the odds of their encountering each other were high, the odds of it being deliberate less so.

It had occurred to him that as the widow of a French marquis, she might be of some use in exploring the possibility of a spy lurking among the French emigre community, but she had mentioned, in the course of their brief, if innuendo-laden, conversation that she had returned from France two years previous, and spent the intervening time living quietly in Yorkshire in the first flush of mourning for her husband. Miles had better informed contacts in the emigre community — even if less attractive ones. Besides, his best point of departure on this assignment still seemed to be the agent's employer, Lord Vaughn.

The object of Miles's speculation was, at that very moment, moving in the direction of the group of young ladies clustered around the formidable Dowager Duchess of Dovedale.

Henrietta regarded the newcomer with interest. He wasn't precisely tall — not as Miles was tall, at any rate — but his lithe frame gave the impression of height. Unlike the more adventurous of the ton's young blades, who had decked themselves out in colors ranging from Nile green (as unfortunate to the complexion as it had been to Bonaparte's ambitions) to a particularly virulent shade of puce, the gentleman approaching was dressed in a combination of black and silver, like midnight shot through with moonlight. His hair carried out the theme, a few silver strands frosting rather than disguising the original black. Henrietta wouldn't have been surprised if he had silvered them intentionally, just to match his waistcoat; the confluence of colors was too perfect to be anything but planned. In one hand he carried a silver-headed cane. It was clearly intended for show, rather than use; despite the slight lacing of silver in his hair, he moved with a courtier's sinuous stride.

He looked, thought Henrietta, rather as she had imagined Prospero. Not Prospero in his island wilderness, but Prospero in all the decadence of Milan in his days of power — elegant, unreachable, and more than a little bit dangerous.

As he approached, clearly intent on joining their party, Henrietta noticed the silver serpent that slithered along the body of the cane, its fanged head constituting the handle. It was an ebony cane, of course. Henrietta had no doubt that, as he drew closer, the silver squiggles on his waistcoat would also resolve themselves into the twining, writhing bodies of snakes.

Silver serpents, for goodness' sake! Henrietta bit her lip on an impertinent chuckle. That was taking trying to look wicked and mysterious just a little too far. The mysterious verged so easily onto the ridiculous.

She controlled the impulse to laugh just in time; Prospero had reached them, and stood smiling before the duchess, one leg slightly bent, like an actor about to declaim.

"Vaughn, you old rogue!" exclaimed the duchess. "Haven't seen you about this age. So you've decided to come back, have you?"

"How could I not, when such beauty awaited me at home? I see that during my long absence, the Three Graces have removed from Olympus to brighten the dreary ballrooms of London."

"And who am I, the Gorgon?" The dowager cocked her powdered head. "I always fancied turning men to stone. Such a useful talent for dull parties."

Lord Vaughn bent over her hand. "You, as always, your grace, are a Siren, born to fright men from their wits."

"As well delivered an insult as I've ever heard! And I've delivered quite a few in my day. You always were a smooth-talking rogue, Vaughn. But I'll present you to these young chits, anyway." The duchess waved her cane dismissively at Charlotte, "My granddaughter, Lady Charlotte Lansdowne."

Charlotte sank into a dutiful curtsy. Lord Vaughn's quizzing glass passed over Charlotte's bowed blond head without interest.

"Miss Penelope Deveraux." Pen sketched the merest gesture of a curtsy. The quizzing glass rested on Penelope's clean-boned face and flaming hair for a moment, then continued its inexorable sweep onward.

"And Lady Henrietta Selwick."

"Ah, the sister of our gallant adventurer." On Lord Vaughn's lips, the word "gallant" sounded more insult than praise. "His fame has reached even the more remote corners of the Continent."

"I imagine they don't have much else to talk about," Henrietta said tartly, coming up out of her curtsy. "Being quite so remote."

For the first time, Lord Vaughn looked her full in the face, a flicker of interest in his heavy-lidded eyes. He let the quizzing glass dangle and took a step closer.

"Would you teach them more interesting topics, Lady Henrietta?"

he asked silkily, in a tone meant to make a lady's heart beat faster and her cheeks flush.

Henrietta's pulse picked up — with annoyance. Having grown up with two rakes-in-residence, namely Richard and Miles, she didn't fluster easily.

"The study of ancient literature is always a worthy pursuit," she suggested demurely.

Vaughn's quizzing glass dipped in the direction of the neckline of Henrietta's gown. "I prefer natural philosophy myself."

"Yes, I can see that." Some internal imp prompted Henrietta to say, "I could tell just by looking at the adorable serpents on your waistcoat, my lord."

Lord Vaughn cocked an eyebrow. "Adorable?"

"Um… yes." Blast that internal imp. It always got her into trouble. Henrietta cast about for a suitable response. "They're so… slitheringly sinuous."

"Perhaps your taste in waistcoats runs more to flowers?" he suggested smoothly.

Henrietta shook her head. Since she had gotten herself into this ridiculous conversation, she decided she might as well go on with it. "No, they're too insipid. What a waistcoat needs is a nice mythical beast. I'm particularly partial to gryphons."

"How unusual." Lord Vaughn eyed her with a slightly bemused expression, as though trying to ascertain whether she was exceptionally clever or some sort of entertaining oddity like a parrot who could recite Donne. "What are your sentiments regarding dragons?"

Henrietta cast a pointed look in the direction of the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale. "I'm quite fond of some of them."

"If your fondness extends towards the Oriental varieties, I have a modest collection of Chinese dragons in my possession. They would be, I am sure, quite different from any you have seen."

"I will admit my experience with dragons has been limited, my lord," Henrietta hedged warily. Over Lord Vaughn's shoulder, she could see her mother bearing purposefully across the room, looking uncommonly irked. "One encounters so few. They are nearly as elusive as unicorns."

“Or the Pink Carnation?” suggested Lord Vaughn lightly. “I’m giving a masked ball at my home in two days time. If you would grace the event with your presence, I would be more than pleased to make you known to my dragons.”

“I hope they’re not in the habit of eating tender young maidens,” Henrietta quipped, hoping to direct the subject back to the general and inconsequential, and away from her putative attendance at Lord Vaughn’s masquerade. “I hear dragons have a tendency to do that.”

“My dear young lady” — Lord Vaughn’s long-fingered hand stroked the serpentine head of his cane — “I can give you my best assurance that — ”

“Hello!” Miles rudely burst in on the conversation. “Do hope I’m not interrupting. Hen, your lemonade.”

“Thank you.” Henrietta greeted Miles with some relief and peered dubiously into her cup, which contained about half an inch of yellow liquid. The rest, judging from the stickiness under Henrietta’s fingers, had evidently sloshed over the sides during Miles’s enthusiastic progress from the refreshment table. “Lord Vaughn, do you know Mr. Dorrington?”

“Vaughn, did you say?” Miles perked up inexplicably, then his face relaxed into a big grin. “Vaughn, old chap!” Miles pounded Lord Vaughn on the back. “Care for a hand of cards?”

Henrietta hadn’t known that Miles was acquainted with Lord Vaughn. Clearly, neither had Lord Vaughn, who was regarding Miles as though he were a strange stick insect who had crawled out of his ratafia.

“Cards,” he repeated delicately.

“Excellent!” enthused Miles. “Nothing like a good game of cards, eh, Vaughn? Why don’t you tell me about your travels on the Continent…” Taking the earl by the arm, he propelled him in the direction of the card room, passing Lady Uppington on the way.

“That was well done of Miles,” commented Lady Uppington with approval. “Your father would have done the same.”

“Well done?” repeated Henrietta incredulously. “He all but kidnapped the man.”

“He did just as he should. Lord Vaughn,” pronounced Lady Uppington, in her best “I-am-your-mama-and-therefore-know-everything” voice, “is a rake.”

“Isn’t Miles?” countered Henrietta, retnembering several tales she wasn’t supposed to have heard.

Lady Uppington smiled fondly at her daughter. “No, darling. Miles is a dear make-believe rake. Lord Vaughn,” she added disapprovingly, “is the real thing.”

“He is an earl,” teased Henrietta.

“Darling, if I ever turn into one of those sorts of mothers, you have my permission to elope with the first bounder who comes your way. Provided he’s a good-hearted sort of bounder,” Lady Uppington added as an afterthought. “Not that I wouldn’t mind your marrying an earl, but the most important thing is that you find — ”

“I know,” Henrietta broke in, in her best wearisome-youngest-child voice, “someone who loves me.”

“Whoever said anything about love?” countered Lady Uppington, herself the rare possessor of one of the ton’s few love matches, a marriage so sickeningly happy that it had led to decades of raised eyebrows and envious stares. “No, darling, what you want to look for is a good leg.”

“Mother!”

“So easy to shock,” murmured Lady Uppington, before saying seriously, “Be on your guard around Vaughn. There are stories…” Lady Uppington stared in the direction of the card room, a distinct furrow appearing between her elegantly arched brows.

“Stories?” prompted Henrietta.

“They’re not appropriate for your ears.”

“Oh, but assessing a gentleman’s legs is?” muttered Henrietta.

Lady Uppington pursed her lips. “I don’t know what I did to deserve such impertinent children. You’re as bad as your brothers. Brother,” she corrected herself, since everyone knew Charles was a model of decorum. “But just this once, Henrietta Anne Selwick, I want you to listen to me without an argument.”

“But, Mother — “

“Miles won’t always be around to extricate you from awkward situations.”

Henrietta opened her mouth to make a snide comment about that being Miles's one purpose in life. Lady Uppington cut her off with one raised hand.

"Take your wise old mother's advice, and stay well away from Lord Vaughn. He is not a suitable suitor. Now, aren't you supposed to be dancing with someone?"

"Bleargh," said Henrietta.