The Masque of the Black Tulip (52 page)

Given the profusion of long shadows and convenient cul-de-sacs, it was a very long walk home, indeed. It was full dark by the time Grosvenor Square came into view, and they had worked out to their satisfaction a program of events for the evening, which included a bath (a suggestion to which Miles acceded with an alarming alacrity that boded ill for the elderly bathtub), bed (Miles), supper (Henrietta), and bed (Miles).

"You already said that," protested Henrietta.

"Some things bear repeating," Miles said smugly. He leaned closer, his lips brushing her ear as they walked up the stairs to the front door, in the uneven light of the torchieres. "Again, and again, and again."

"Incorrigible," sighed Henrietta, with a look of mock despair.

"Indubitably," agreed Miles, just as the front door swung open in front of them.

Miles opened his mouth to inform his butler that they would be not at home to callers. Not today, not tomorrow, preferably not even next week.

"Ah, Stwyth," began Miles, and stopped short, careening into Henrietta, who was doing her best to imitate a pillar of salt.

It wasn't Stwyth at the door. Nor was it the underhousemaid from whom Henrietta had borrowed her current costume.

In the doorway of Loring House stood a petite woman dressed in rich traveling clothes. Lady Uppington's gloved hands were on her hips, and one booted foot beat an ominous tattoo against the marble floor. Behind her, Henrietta could see her father, also dressed in traveling attire, arms folded across his chest. Neither looked happy.

"Oh, dear," said Henrietta.

* * *

Ever after, happily: 1) the incarceration of England's enemies; 2) the felicitous result of the transcendant power of reciprocated affection; 3) all of the above

—from the Personal Codebook of the Pink Carnation

"In," said Lady Uppington in a tone that boded no good. "Both of you. Now."

Henrietta went with all the enthusiasm of an aristocrat mounting the steps to the guillotine. Miles followed meekly behind.

"Hello, Mama, Papa," said Henrietta in a slightly strangled voice. "Did you have a nice time in Kent?"

Her father raised a silvered eyebrow in a look that managed to convey incredulity, disappointment, and anger all at the same time. Quite impressive for one eyebrow. Henrietta clamped down on a surge of nervous giggles that she feared would do little to improve her position in the eyes of her parents.

Lady Uppington didn't rely on facial expressions to convey her feelings. Slamming the door with a vehemence that left no one in any doubt as to her emotions, she swirled to face her erring offspring.

"What were you thinking?" she demanded, pacing in furious circles around Henrietta and Miles. "Just answer me that! What were you thinking?"

"We caught a French spy," interjected Miles hopefully, distraction having worked upon Lady Uppington in the past.

It failed miserably.

"Don't even try to change the subject!" snapped Lady Uppington, looking, if anything, even angrier than before. "I can't go away for one weekend! One weekend! I am rendered speechless, speechless"—Lady Uppington flung both arms into the air—"by the sheer imprudence of your actions, by the complete lack of respect you have shown for your reputation, your family, and the solemn nature of matrimony."

"It was all my fault," interrupted Miles gallantly, placing a protective hand on Henrietta's shoulder.

Lady Uppington jabbed a ringer at him. "Don't worry, I'll get to you in a minute." She turned the admonishing appendage back on Henrietta. "Did I raise you to behave like this?"

"No, Mama," protested Henrietta. "But what happened was…"

"We know what happened," said her father grimly. "Richard sent to us."

"Bleargh," said Henrietta.

"Clearly, I have failed," announced Lady Uppington. "I have failed as a mother."

Henrietta cast a desperate glance at Miles over her shoulder, who looked about as ready as she was to dissolve into a guilty puddle of remorse on the dingy marble floor.

Lord Uppington stepped in, looking at them both with an expression of resigned irritation.

"It's not the match itself that we mind," Lord Uppington said mildly. "We're very happy to have you officially join the family, Miles. There is no one we would have preferred for Henrietta." Miles perked up slightly.

His face fell again as Lord Uppington went on in the same measured, wearied tones. "However, we cannot understand what would induce you to behave in so precipitate, and"—Lord Uppington looked hard at both his daughter and his son-in-law, pronouncing the next word with painful clarity—"unintelligent a fashion. I had thought you both had better sense than that. We are painfully disappointed in you both."

"Unless," cut in Lady Uppington, looking closely at her daughter, "there was a reason for your unseemly haste?"

Henrietta's head shot up again—in indignation. "Mother!"

Lady Uppington assessed her daughter's flushed cheeks with an expert maternal eye and arrived at her own conclusions. "Don't fly into a snit with me, young lady. What did you expect people would think?"

"Er," said Henrietta intelligently.

"And your brother!" Lady Uppington shook her head in a way that boded no good to Richard once she got her hands on him. "I don't know what he was thinking to let you rush into matrimony like that. I have raised a brood of children without an ounce of sense between them." She emitted one of her infamous harrumphs, the sound that had cast countesses out of countenance, and frightened royal dukes from the room.

Henrietta winced. "Sorry?" she ventured.

Lady Uppington noted the wince, and pressed her advantage. "Didn't any of you stop to think that so hurried a marriage would spark scandal rather than stem it? Hmm?"

Henrietta felt Miles's hands tighten on her shoulders, and his breath ruffle her snarled hair as he said resolutely, "But we are married."

"Yes, yes," said Lady Uppington irritably. "We'll have to think of some sort of story. A secret engagement, perhaps," she muttered to herself, waving a hand in the air, "or a strange wasting disease… Hmm. Miles thought he only had three days to live."

Henrietta glanced up at Miles, a bit battered, but otherwise a strapping specimen of manhood. Just how strapping a specimen was something that did not bear thinking of in the presence of her parents. Henrietta's cheeks turned pink.

"I don't think anyone will believe that," she said.

"You can criticize," said Lady Uppington sternly, "when you come up with a better idea."

"Why not," suggested Miles, thinking hard, "tell everyone that it was a private ceremony? Which it was," he added as an afterthought. "It wasn't as though we went to Gretna Green. The bishop of London was there."

"And what he was thinking, I don't know, either," said Lady Uppington in a way that suggested trouble for the diocese.

"Miles might have something there," commented Lord Uppington, eyes meeting his wife's. "If we can play on people's snobbery…" He raised an eyebrow.

Lady Uppington snapped to attention like a Renaissance explorer sighting land after a long and perilous voyage plagued by scurvy and sea serpents. "That's it! If we say it was very small, very select… only the best people, of course…"

Henrietta caught on, and she gave an excited bounce. "We'll have people falling over themselves pretending to have been there! And no one will want to admit otherwise!" She turned and caught both of Miles's hands in hers. "Brilliant!"

Miles squeezed Henrietta's hands and tried to look as though that was what he had meant all along.

Lord Uppington chuckled. "By the time your mother is through, half the ton will have attended your wedding."

"At least three royal dukes," agreed Lady Uppington smugly. Her smug expression faded. "But I do wish one of my children would let themselves be married off normally!"

"There was Charles," pointed out Henrietta.

Lady Uppington waved a dismissive hand. "That doesn't count."

"I won't tell Charles you said that," said Lord Uppington.

Lady Uppington batted her eyelashes at him. "Thank you, darling."

Henrietta and Miles shared a look of pure relief. If her mother was flirting with her father, it meant that good humor had been restored. Of course, it didn't mean that they would hear the end of their precipitate match any time within the next fifty years, Lady Uppington being quite accomplished at the fine art of exhuming past peccadilloes at inconvenient occasions, but the worst was over.

And once her parents left… the look between them turned far more meaningful. Miles cocked an eye suggestively at the staircase. Henrietta blushed and broke their gaze, and not a moment too soon. Lady Uppington turned back to them, crooking a finger at Henrietta.

"Come along home, darling. There's much to be done. We'll have you fitted for wedding clothes tomorrow, and there are rumors to plant—"

Lady Uppington started for the door, still talking, but Henrietta remained stubbornly still.

"I would be happy to be fitted tomorrow," Henrietta said, holding on to Miles's hand. "But I live here now."

Lady Uppington's green eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure I like this."

"You knew I would marry sooner or later," said Henrietta.

"I had thought," said Lady Uppington repressively, "that I would be given some warning first."

Henrietta bit her lip. Since that was unanswerable, she didn't even attempt to frame an answer; she simply scrunched her face into an expression of exaggerated remorse. "Sorry?" she tried again. If she repeated it often enough, perhaps it would eventually work.

Lord Uppington came to the rescue, appropriating his wife's arm. "Come along, my dear. You can come back tomorrow and bully Henrietta's staff."

"I don't bully anyone!" protested Lady Uppington. "Although goodness knows, your staff clearly needs a firm hand. I've never seen anything quite so dingy."

Lord Uppington shared a resigned look with his daughter.

Thank you, mouthed Henrietta.

Lord Uppington gave a slight nod, lifting his eyebrows in a way that clearly said, more clearly than words, Just don't let me catch you doing anything this stupid ever again.

Henrietta resolved to be a model of married rectitude. At least, when her parents were nearby.

Lord Uppington turned to Miles. "I'll be by tomorrow to discuss Henrietta's dowry."

Miles nodded stiffly. "Yes, sir."

"And, Miles?" Lord Uppington paused on the threshold, Lady Uppington on his arm. "Welcome to the family."

The door closed firmly behind him.

Miles and Henrietta just looked at one another, in their suddenly very empty foyer. Hands on her shoulders, Miles let his head sag until his forehead touched Henrietta's.

"Phew," he said heavily.

"Phew," agreed Henrietta, enjoying just leaning against him after the tumultuous emotions of the past several hours—of the past several days, in fact.

Miles lifted his head just enough so that he could look at her. "Now that your parents are gone…" he began, eyes narrowing in on Henrietta's month in a way that made her lips tingle and her knees wobble and the foyer suddenly seem much, much warmer.

"Oh, they're gone," said Henrietta breathlessly, linking her arms around his neck. "They're very, very gone."

"In that case…" Miles leaned purposefully forward.

Crack! The door crashed open

"Oww…" Miles staggered back, clutching his nose, which had connected firmly with Henrietta's forehead.

"I came as fast as I could," announced Geoff, striding purposefully across the room.

"Huh?" said Miles irritably, looking at Geoff through watering eyes. "Has anyone ever told you that you have the devil's own timing?"

Geoff skittered to a halt, eyes moving from Miles to Henrietta and back again in some confusion. "Your note?" he said. "The urgent crisis that demanded my attention at once?"

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that," agreed Geoff, with some asperity.

"You're a bit late," said Miles equably. "We captured the Black Tulip. Where in the hell were you?"

Geoff's lips tightened. "Nowhere important."

"Composing a sonnet to the Alsworthys' eyebrows, no doubt," commented Miles, ostensibly to Henrietta.

Instead of responding in kind, Geoff clapped his hat back on his head, saying tonelessly, "If you don't need me, I'll be off, then. Wickham has an assignment for me. With any luck, it should prove fatal."

Miles looped an arm around Henrietta's waist. "Feel free to see yourself out."

Henrietta caught Geoff's quizzical look and twisted out of Miles's grasp. "It's not what it looks like," she said hastily, automatically reaching up to smooth her hair. "We're married."

She and Miles exchanged the sort of look designed to send bachelors straight to the bottle.

Geoff's lip curled. "Married," he said darkly.

"Thanks, old chap," said Miles.

Geoff pressed his eyes tightly closed. "Oh, hell," he said.

Henrietta looked at him sharply. She had never heard Geoff utter a word of profanity in her presence before, even in the case of extreme provocation, such as Richard being hauled off by the French Ministry of Police.

Geoff shook his head apologetically. "I didn't mean it that way. It was just—never mind. I wish you both very happy. Truly."

"Is something wrong?" asked Henrietta. There were dark circles under Geoff's eyes, and his face had a haggard cast to it.

"Nothing that time and a little hemlock won't cure," said Geoff with forced jollity, hand on the doorknob.

"Who's the hemlock for?" asked Miles.

"Me," said Geoff.

"Well, enjoy," Miles said vaguely. Planting his arm firmly back around Henrietta's waist, he started steering her towards the stairs.

Henrietta swung them back around. "Remember," she said, holding out a hand to Geoff, "we're here if you need us."

"Just not tonight," added Miles.

"Understood. Congratulations, both of you. Although," Geoff smiled a crooked smile, "I can't say I'm the least bit surprised."

The door opened, closed, and was still.