The Masque of the Black Tulip (47 page)

Folding his paper, Lord Vaughn flicked a finger in the direction of the silent footman who stood by the sideboard.

"Tell Hutchins to attend me in my dressing room. And see that my carriage is brought around. At once."

"My lord." The footman bowed his white-powdered head and departed.

"I," commented Vaughn to the empty air above the sideboard, cinching the waist of his dressing gown, "have an assignation to keep."

His lips twisted into a sardonic smile.

"With Lady Henrietta."

* * *

Assignation: an ambush, generally set in motion by the agents of the enemy. See also under Tete-a-Tete and Rendezvous.

—from the Personal Codebook of the Pink Carnation

"Did you really think I wouldn't recognize you, Lady Henri-etta?"

"Lydee 'Enree-ayta?" gabbled Henrietta hastily in a foreign accent that might have been Italian or Spanish or just gobbledygook; Henrietta didn't have time to think through her putative nationality, only that wherever it was, it was heavy on the vowels. "'Ooo eees dees Lydee 'Enree-ayta?"

The marquise pursed her lips in a gesture of extreme exasperation, and rolled her eyes briefly heavenward.

"Your disguise is clever," she said in a tone heavy with sarcasm, and entirely free of the purring note that had distinguished her public persona, "I grant you that. But your accent leaves much to be desired."

"I no unnerstan'. Eet eez, 'ow you say? Dee way I speak."

"Enough, Lady Henrietta. Enough. I haven't the time. And neither"—the marquise's black eyes narrowed in a decidedly inimical way—"have you."

"I have plenty of time," said Henrietta, dropping both her bucket and her role, and backing away a bit under that basilisk stare. "But clearly you don't. I'll just be getting along then, shall I? I don't want to keep you if you're busy."

The marquise ignored that. "Were you looking for your little friend?" she asked, watching Henrietta's face like a tailor sizing up a bolt of cloth. "My little friend?" Henrietta didn't have to feign her confusion. The last time she had possessed anything she might have referred to as a little friend, she had been five years old. The little friend in question had been an imaginary dwarf named Tobias, who lived in a tree in the gardens of Uppington Hall.

The marquise's face took on an expression of extreme satisfaction as she glanced towards the window. "He's not here yet, but he will be. Oh, yes, he will be."

Henrietta took in the vast expanse of bosom and long line of leg revealed by a creation that could scarcely be called a dress. The marquise didn't look like a vindictive agent of the French Republic. She looked like a woman awaiting a lover. Henrietta's lover, to be precise.

Henrietta remembered that ride in the park. Miles wouldn't have… No, she reassured herself. He wouldn't have. He had gone to the War Office.

But if the marquise had sent him an invitation… The entire scenario unfolded in Henrietta's head. Miles, guilty at raising expectations he was no longer capable of filling (the word "adultery" came to mind— but, adultery with whom? Did it count as adultery if one was an unwanted wife, and the other the woman of one's choice?), tucking the note into his pocket, resolving to stop by after his morning's meeting, just to explain. The marquise greeting him, all misty draperies, inflated bosom, and expensive perfume.

The barren townhouse was not the center of a spy ring, then, but a setting for seduction. The seduction of her husband.

Henrietta didn't know whether to stick her head into the bucket of ashes or go for the marquise's eyes. The latter struck her as a decidedly more attractive option.

"Do you mean Miles?" Henrietta asked sharply.

"Miles?" the marquise turned in a swirl of filmy fabric, like a rainstorm seeking a heath. "You mean Dorrington?"

Henrietta scowled. "In my experience, those names generally tend to go together."

"Why, you poor little dear." Henrietta would rather a hundred women's scorn than the marquise's pity; it ate like acid at the edges of her self-composure. The marquise laughed delightedly. "I do believe you're jealous."

Henrietta didn't say anything. How could one refute something so palpably true?

Before Henrietta could attempt to construct a dignified answer, the marquise's attention was mercifully arrested by the sound of carriage wheels grating against the uneven cobbles of the quiet street. The marquise drew in a silent breath of exultation that swelled her bosom to new and even more alarming proportions, face alight with a wild triumph.

"We'll have time enough for that later," she said, grabbing Henrietta by the elbow. "But right now, you, my dear, are decidedly de trop."

The wheels slowed to a stop. Somewhere outside the window a horse whinnied, and a pair of booted feet hopped to the ground. Henrietta caught the merest glimpse of a brightly painted curricle before the marquise marched her away from the window, her arms surprisingly strong beneath their translucent draperies. Henrietta would have thought she would have been shoved summarily out the door, but the marquise had other ideas. Wrenching open the door of a large cupboard, as empty as the rest of the cupboards throughout the house, she gave Henrietta a stiff shove.

Caught by surprise, Henrietta clipped her shins on the edge of the wardrobe, and tumbled headlong into the dusty interior, banging an elbow painfully against the floor, and grazing her forehead on the back wall. The marquise scooped up Henrietta's legs and shoved them the rest of the way in, slamming the doors shut. Scrambling on her hands and knees to right herself in the cramped space, Henrietta heard a click like a latch being drawn.

"Not ideal," commented the marquise, from just outside the cupboard, "but it will do for the moment."

Henrietta would have chosen a stronger term than not ideal. Her face was jammed up against the right angle where the side joined the back, and her legs were twisted behind her in a position reminiscent of a mermaid's tail. Henrietta was quite sure of one thing: legs weren't meant to bend in that direction. Sneezing miserably, Henrietta began to painstakingly wiggle her way upright, easing her legs sideways.

The marquise banged on the side of the cupboard with an imperious fist.

"Quiet in there!"

Eyes streaming, Henrietta twisted her head to glower in the general direction of the sound, but she had no breath to retort. She was too busy sneezing.

With abraded palms, broken nails, and snagged hair, Henrietta managed to claw her way roughly upright within the tight confines of the cupboard, legs curled beneath her. The cupboard was perhaps two feet deep and three feet wide, leaving little room to maneuver. By tilting her head sideways, Henrietta could see through a knothole in the warped wood of the cupboard door (quality in furnishing had clearly not been a priority of the original owner). Through her knothole, Henrietta watched the marquise disposing herself elegantly on the couch in the style of the famous portrait of Mme Recamier. The fine folds of her skirt draped gently over the length of her legs, outlining more than they concealed. Her head was tilted to show the fine line of her throat, glossy pale against the one dark curl that twined its way in artful wantonness towards the scoop of her bodice. Henrietta wrenched her eye from the knothole and pressed her aching forehead against the rough wood of the inside of the door.

Through her pine prison, Henrietta could hear the door of the sitting room opening, the murmur of a servant's voice, too soft to catch a name, and then the entrance of a pair of booted feet.

With resigned fatalism, Henrietta reapplied her eye to the knothole. It was, unfortunately, only about four feet off the ground, providing her with an excellent view of the marquise, as she elegantly unfolded herself from the couch, slowly stretching yards of leg in a way designed to show them off to their best effect. It was, thought Henrietta, spine as stiff as the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale's, positively indecent. And why couldn't she look like that?

The marquise held out a jewel-laden hand to the possessor of the heavy footsteps in a gesture so effortlessly graceful that Henrietta nearly applauded at the sheer virtuosity of it.

Her gentleman caller, no doubt equally enthralled, came forward to bow over the hand, moving directly across Henrietta's knothole. Back to Henrietta, he bowed over the marquise's hand. It was a broad enough back, encased in a skintight coat, as the fashion demanded. But it wasn't Miles's back.

Henrietta sagged against the side of the cupboard, overcome with such blinding, overwhelming relief, that for a moment it seemed entirely immaterial that she was crouched in someone else's empty furniture. It wasn't Miles. Of course it wasn't Miles. How could she ever have doubted him?

But if it wasn't Miles, who was it? And why would the marquise have assumed that the mystery caller was of any particular significance to Henrietta? If Henrietta remembered correctly, "little friend" took on an altogether more suggestive meaning in French than it did in English.

The gentleman was still standing, leaving Henrietta with only a swathe of torso visible through her knothole. But he had been considerate enough to turn slightly, displaying an expanse of embroidered waistcoat, a waistcoat adorned with a veritable garden of tiny pink carnations. Only one man in London—or, at any rate, only one man in London of Henrietta's acquaintance—would wear such an execrably ugly waistcoat, and compound the sartorial solecism by combining it with a carnation pink jacket.

What on earth had Turnip Fitzhugh to do with the marquise?

"I cannot say how delighted I am to see you again, Mr. Fitzhugh." The purr was back in the marquise's voice.

Again?

"Delight's all mine," Turnip reassured her, brandishing a large bouquet. "Lots and lots of delight."

A dozen types of wild surmise began to skitter about Henrietta's head.

Turnip and the marquise had both been at the inn; the unknown gallant (otherwise known as the marquise) had hovered by their table, had cast several long glances in their direction. Could Turnip and the marquise be lovers? It was difficult to imagine the fastidious marquise in the arms of Turnip, who combined one of the best natures in the world with an utter lack of sense or taste. Henrietta doubted that the marquise would have any appreciation for the former. On the other hand, Turnip also possessed a veritable pirate's trove of golden guineas; the Fitzhugh fortune was managed by very responsible bankers in the City, and not all of Turnip's waistcoat purchases had so much as dimpled the principal. The marquise might not prize an earnest heart, but she would no doubt cherish, honor, and obey fifty thousand pounds a year, a townhouse in Mayfair, and three country estates, one with a rather nice collection of Raphael's lesser-known Madonnas.

It did make a certain amount of sense. Even the "little friend" comment fell neatly into the pattern. As an old schoolmate of Richard's, Turnip frequently did his duty to the demands of long acquaintance by leading Henrietta out for the odd quadrille, or fetching lemonade on those occasions when Miles was not to be found. Having seen them together at the inn, the marquise must have marked Henrietta out as a rival for access to the Fitzhugh coffers. It was an explanation that fit very well with the dowager's description of the marquise's character, and entirely removed any possibility of branding her a dangerous French spy. Henrietta couldn't help but feel some slight disappointment at the latter. The marquise motioned to someone outside of Henrietta's very limited line of vision. "Jean-Luc, would you be so kind as to fetch the coffee?"

In the marquise's throaty voice, even a prosaic term like "coffee" managed to smolder with significance.

"I can't say I'm much one for coffee myself," confided Turnip, disposing himself on the settee, and comfortably stretching his long legs out in front of him.

The marquise joined him in a filmy swirl of draperies. "Why, Mr. Fitzhugh, I intend to make you a coffee you cannot refuse."

"Devilish good coffee, then?" enquired Turnip.

"The very strongest," assured the marquise, laying a manicured hand lightly on his thigh.

Henrietta rolled her eyes at the inside of the cupboard door. This was getting ridiculous! She had plunged from the heights of espionage into the depths of French farce. It was time to go home, and confess all to Miles—or maybe not all. Henrietta's shoulders would have sagged had there been room for them to do so. It would be very hard to explain away wild fits of jealousy without revealing the existence of an emotion that would undoubtedly send Miles fleeing to the nearest opera house. There had been no allowance in their bargain for anything stronger than fondness, and certainly not for those three dangerous little words. Suddenly, remaining in the marquise's cupboard indefinitely began to seem like a very attractive way to spend the rest of the afternoon.

There was nothing, reflected Henrietta, shifting uncomfortably on numb legs, like crouching in servant's clothing in someone else's closet to make one realize how low one had sunk. She used to have an orderly life, a sensible life. Her friends came to her for advice. Everyone liked her. And where was she now? Contemplating becoming a closet gnome.

Henrietta experimentally rattled the cupboard door. The latch held, but, like everything else in the house, it didn't feel terribly sturdy. Henrietta tried again.

"I say," said Turnip, looking quizzically at the suddenly shaking piece of furniture. "I do believe your armoire is trying to move."

For a moment, the marquise's seductive mask dropped, to be replaced by an expression of pure annoyance. Henrietta gathered that when the marquise put people places, she expected them to stay put. That thought was enough to make Henrietta rattle the latch again.

"It's nothing but a draught," explained the marquise through clenched teeth. "Old houses like this are full of draughts. They whistle through the walls like rumor. And we all know how rumor can spread, don't we, Mr. Fitzhugh?"

"Soul of discretion, myself," Turnip strove to reassure her. "Mummer than the tomb. Quieter than a corpse. Closer-lipped than a—"