“I don’t like this,” Mary heard her sister whisper behind her in an aside meant for her husband.
Since there was a good foot between Letty’s mouth and Pinchingdale’s ear, the communication wasn’t nearly as discreet as her sister had intended.
“You mean you don’t like Vaughn,” interjected Mary over her shoulder, and had the satisfaction of seeing her little sister flush.
“That’s Lord Vaughn, to you, missy,” snapped Mrs. Fustian, jabbing the point of her parasol into the gravel for emphasis. The steel of her voice warred with her floating layers of feathers and bows, like a dragon decked out in a lacy peignoir. “Of course, they don’t like him! Liking is for ninnyhammers. Real men elicit rancor.” Pausing for a moment of deep consideration, she added, “Loathing, even. But never liking.”
“Hatred, perhaps?” suggested Mary’s brother-in-law, hiding his amused smile behind a tone of excessive gravity.
Mrs. Fustian was not impressed. “Certainly not. Any common laborer can hate. True connoisseurs prefer more subtle shades of aversion.”
Common was certainly a word no one would ever think of applying to Lord Vaughn. Tonight, in particular, he was uncommonly elusive, as glinting and inaccessible as the subtle silver threads that ran beneath the dark weave of his coat. He had taken the unaccountable step of devoting himself to the entertainment of the younger Fustian, heading up the party with her gangly form mincing along beside him.
Clinging to Lord Vaughn’s arm, Miss Fustian stared goggle-eyed at him through her spectacles, looking as though she had never seen an earl before. Dressed like that, perhaps she hadn’t, Mary thought crossly.
“If not hatred,” put in her brother-in-law as the path broadened so that they could walk all abreast, “what of love?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Mary saw her sister and brother-in-law exchange a sickeningly speaking glance.
“Hmph,” was Mrs. Fustian’s eloquent opinion on that subject. For the first time that evening, Mary found herself in perfect agreement with her. “Good enough for shepherdesses, but not at all the thing for civilized folks. Love is a severely destabilizing emotion. Look at Paris,” she finished, as though that said it all.
“The city, or the Greek?” inquired Letty in a tone of suppressed laughter, her arm twined possessively through her husband’s.
“Either!” declared Mrs. Fustian.
“The late Mr. Fustian, then…?” broached Geoff delicately.
“Fustian by name, fustian by nature,” provided Lord Vaughn, pausing by the famous statue of Handel in the southern piazza with a simpering Miss Fustian on his arm as the little group collected around him. “Isn’t that so, my dear?”
“Oh yes, my lord!” stammered Miss Fustian, overcome with the honor of his regard. “Very much so! Dear, dear Papa! How I do miss him.” Miss Fustian took refuge behind a purple linen handkerchief.
“And a fine bit of fustian he was,” concurred Lord Vaughn reminiscently.
Mary’s brother-in-law made a noise dangerously close to a snort, earning him a quick squeeze on the arm from his wife.
With the uncomfortable sense that she had somehow been left out of a private joke, Mary looked quizzically at Vaughn. “You were acquainted with Mr. Fustian, then, my lord?”
Vaughn smiled blandly around the circle of lamp-lit faces. “As well as anyone here. Mr. Fustian was kind enough to accompany me on many of my wanderings.”
Well, that explained it, then, thought Mary with some relief. Mr. Fustian must have been a tutor or a companion of sorts who had followed Vaughn around the Continent in his youth. That explained the undeniably underbred tone of the Fustian females. Naturally, Vaughn would think fondly of such a man and be kind to his widow and unfashionable daughter for the sake of his memory.
“I always found him,” continued Vaughn meditatively, as the little group clustered in the lee of the brightly painted supper boxes, “an uncommonly resourceful fellow.”
“Really?” Mary’s brother-in-law raised an eyebrow at Lord Vaughn. “I would have said that he lacked depth.”
Shaking off the importunate Miss Fustian, Vaughn matched Mary’s former suitor eyebrow for eyebrow. “My dear Pinchingdale, at least he was constant in his inconstancy. Fustian never pretended to substance.”
This time there was no mistaking the hard edge to her brother-in-law’s tone. “You mean he never took the trouble to be honest.”
Lord Vaughn’s quizzing glass flashed mockingly. “My, my, how quick we are to condemn others. Imprudent honesty can do more harm than honest roguery. Wouldn’t you agree, Pinchingdale?”
“Good intentions—” began Letty hotly, bristling to her husband’s defense.
“Pave the road to hell,” finished Vaughn smoothly. Extending an arm to Mary, he said, as though none of the previous conversation had occurred, “Shall we venture along the promenades, Miss Alsworthy? It would be sinful to allow such an uncommon fine night to go to waste.”
“More sinful not to,” cackled Mrs. Fustian, earning a scowl from Mary’s brother-in-law.
Propelled by a look from Letty, Geoff took a step closer to Mary, an honor guard of one. “You needn’t put yourself out, Vaughn. I would be more than delighted to accompany my sister.”
The emphasis on the last word was wasted on no one in the ill-matched party, least of all Vaughn.
With a sardonic smile playing about his lips, Vaughn’s eyes skated from Geoff to Letty and back to Mary.
“Such a charming family grouping,” he murmured, and might have said more, had his attention not been caught by something just beyond Mary’s left shoulder. Beneath Mary’s fingers, his arm went stiff. Surprise and alarm chased across his normally polished countenance.
Following his gaze, Mary saw nothing to excite that sort of reaction. There was no one there but a couple in conversation. The man wore a full costume, in the fashion of the Venetians, an all-enveloping black cloak and pointed bird’s beak of a mask. The woman was more conventionally garbed, a black mask tied across her eyes obscuring her features, blond curls peeking out from under a black hood.
As the pair walked slowly past, Mary could make out the interior of the supper box behind them, tenanted by a familiar set of gargoyle features, bracketed by a thicket of coarse gray hair, randomly studded with ruby-tipped combs that managed to look more like weapons than ornament. It was the woman who had accosted them in the coach the day before. And she was staring straight at Mary, with an expression of unmistakable venom on her face.
Mary was tempted to wave gaily back, but any such impulses were stilled by the abrupt interpolation of another person in their midst.
“Pinchingdale? Pinchingdale, old chap!” exclaimed Turnip Fitzhugh, slapping his old school chum on the back so hard that Geoffrey staggered.
Turnip’s mother had optimistically christened him Reginald, but there was nothing the least bit regal about him. No one was quite sure how he had acquired his distinctive nickname, but even his friends had to admit that it was an accurate reflection of his mental powers. He was, everyone agreed, quite definitely a Turnip.
He also, thought Mary irritably, had the world’s most inconvenient timing. By the time his uncoordinated form had surged past, Lady Hester’s box was empty. Mary glanced uncertainly up at Lord Vaughn, but his face bore an abstracted expression that blunted all hope of private communication.
“Pinchingdale, old bean! Is that really you?” demanded Turnip.
“The last time I checked,” replied Geoff pleasantly.
“I can vouch for that,” agreed Letty, bumping her head affectionately against his arm. “He’s definitely Pinchingdale.”
Unconvinced, Turnip peered uncertainly at his old school chum. “I say, Pinchingdale, aren’t you off rusticating?”
“If he were,” pointed out Mrs. Fustian acidly, “would he be here?”
A furrow formed across Turnip’s broad forehead as he pondered that problem. He opened his mouth, thought about it, and then closed it
again.
Being of a generous disposition, Geoffrey put him out of his misery by explaining, “We were. We came back.”
“Ah,” Turnip’s brow cleared as he mulled that over to his satisfaction. “Devilish dangerous place, the country. Don’t like to stay out there long m’self. Cows, you know,” he explained to Letty.
“Cows?” demanded Mrs. Fustian, taking a grip on her parasol that would have cast terror into the heart of a more perceptive man.
Caught up in unpleasant recollections of his own, Turnip shook his head, looking as grim as a man in a carnation pink waistcoat could contrive to look. “Deuced tetchy beasts, cows. Who knew?”
“Trust me,” intervened Geoff, before the gleam in Mrs. Fustian’s beady eyes could translate into words. “You don’t want to know.”
“Speak for yourself, Pinchingdale,” sniffed Mrs. Fustian. “Unlike some, I have an inquiring mind.”
“And I suppose inquiring minds want to know,” concluded Geoff in tones of deep resignation. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Turnip wagged his head earnestly up and down. “Everyone ought to be warned about cows.”
It was only a matter of time before they descended to sheep. Mary edged carefully away from the group around Turnip. One could generally count on Turnip to natter on about nothing for an extended period of time, and while he did, she could slip away from the watchful eye of her sister and brother-in-law. Midnight, the Black Tulip had said, and it had to be nearly that now.
Poised to slip her arm through Vaughn’s and stroll off together along the dark paths—with the Black Tulip as their object, of course—Mary found herself reaching for an arm that wasn’t there.
Vaughn had disappeared.
Chapter Fourteen
O where
else Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
…O thievish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars….”
—John Milton, Comus
Who dares not stir by day must walk by night.
—William Shakespeare, King John, I, i
Mary stared uncomprehendingly at the spot where Vaughn had been standing. He couldn’t just go off and leave her. Except that he had. Vaughn was quite thoroughly and completely gone, leaving her with the task of keeping the assignation with the Black Tulip. Mary bit down hard on her lower lip, trying to tell herself that it didn’t matter, just as if she hadn’t spent the whole day anticipating the moment when she took to the shadowy paths with Vaughn, arm in arm, alone in a place legendary for illicit assignations.
Well, she was alone, all right. Alone with a task to accomplish.
Mary put her mask more firmly to her face and set about her own disappearance, determined to be well out of the way before her sister realized she was gone and, as she inevitably would, came after her, husband (and probably Turnip) in tow. Burrowing into the midst of a motley party, country cousins come to town judging by the antiquated cut of their clothes and the women’s cries of pleasure at the brightly lit oil lanterns, the music floating from the Rotunda, and the cunning follies that lined the paths, Mary listed all the perfectly logical reasons why Vaughn might have disappeared. It had probably been silly of her to assume that he would accompany her in the first place, a notion born more out of daydream than logic. The spy might not show himself with Vaughn present—especially if the spy was Vaughn.
Mary lingered on that last prospect. If the Black Tulip were, in fact, Vaughn, then he would be waiting for her somewhere in the dark walks. That would explain Vaughn’s distraction, his sudden disappearance while her attention was elsewhere. It was harder to explain why Vaughn would engage in that sort of subterfuge. But then, Vaughn seldom needed a reason for subterfuge. It came to him as naturally as breathing. Perhaps he wanted to test her loyalty, to see how far she could be trusted. Perhaps he simply enjoyed the drama of it, the masked meeting in a dark grove under an assumed identity. Stranger plots had been laid, by minds less convoluted than Vaughn’s. He was a man who never took a straight route when a circular one was to be had. Look at his chosen emblem, the snake’s tail twisted and twined in a mastery of controlled misdirection.
If Vaughn weren’t the Black Tulip…Mary suppressed a shiver that had little to do with the bite of the October breeze that sent the dead leaves eddying along the edges of the walk. Not that there was any real danger, she told herself hastily. She was going to parlay, nothing more. She was only of use to the Black Tulip alive—and if the Black Tulip hadn’t wanted anything to do with her, he need not have summoned her. Even so, there was something reassuring about the notion of Vaughn hiding himself in the crowds, following along behind her to her rendezvous with the French spy.
Mary shifted to the side, trying to keep in the shadow of the great sycamore trees that lined the sides of the Grand Walk. The Grand Walk was far too bright for her taste, hung with the hundreds of oil lamps that had made Vauxhall such a wonder to those of her grandparents’ generation. With the colder weather drawing in, the crowds, even on this most popular of Vauxhall’s walkways, were sparse. Those who had ventured out preferred to cluster in the relative warmth of the Rotunda. Another week, and Vauxhall would be deserted entirely, closed for the winter.
The golden statue of Aurora, one of the wonders of the gardens, glinted at the far end of the three-hundred-yard stretch. The light from the oil lamps reflected off the gold, turning the cul-de-sac nearly bright as day. That wouldn’t do at all.
Mary abandoned the well-lit Grand Walk, heading towards the Rural Downs, where an overgrown lead statue of Milton stared forever blind across the sycamores that lined the sides of the walk. If the Black Tulip were, indeed, Lord Vaughn, Mary doubted he would be able to resist the symbolism of Milton’s statue. The memory of Vaughn’s voice, quoting Paradise Lost, sent a reminiscent tingle down her spine, and made her set off towards her assignation with a much lighter foot. If it were Vaughn, waiting for her among the trees…
Mary blundered through a stand of elms, towards a track still beaten enough to be a path but rustic enough to merit the name “rural,” but there was no statue of Milton at the end of it to reward her labors, only a grotto whose dilapidated air appeared to be due more to neglect than design. Through the screen of trees, the Grand Walk seemed very far away, the occasional burst of laughter or snippet of conversation the disjointed outbursts of Shakespeare’s sprites. The gravel was harsh beneath the thin soles of her slippers, the ground uneven here, where nature had begun to rebel against art, hard clumps of weeds poking through the path.
If not the Rural Downs, perhaps this was the Druid’s Walk? Mary began to wish she had taken the precaution of studying a plan of the gardens before they had left. In theory, in the close confines of Vaughn’s luxurious Chinese chamber, losing herself among the paths at Vauxhall and waiting for the Black Tulip to come and find her had seemed quite simple. Lost on a rutted track amid a tangle of underbrush, Mary could think of several other words, also beginning with s. Silly was the mildest of them.
It was so dark, that she could scarcely see to avoid the outcroppings of ill-clipped shrubbery. There were lanterns here, too, but some enterprising soul had smashed the glass bowls, leaving this part of the gardens in almost Stygian darkness. Ahead of her, a ghostly dome loomed among the trees, a folly meant to resemble a deserted pleasure palace. It was open on all sides, nothing more than a rounded roof supported by pillars, with a hard marble bench set in the middle, but Mary headed towards it gratefully. Among other things, a stubborn bit of gravel had worked its way into her left shoe.
Disposing herself on the bench, she eased the offending slipper off her foot, relieving her feelings by slapping it against the bench somewhat more vigorously than the occasion required. It was ruined already. The decaying leaves on the path had left dark smears on the white satin and either twigs or gravel had raised snags and rents in the de
licate fabric. She would, she thought wryly, giving it a final whack, just have to add the cost to Lord Vaughn’s account. If she ever found her way back to the Grove. At this point, regaining civilization seemed like a far more pressing problem than the whereabouts of the putative Black Tulip.
When the voice spoke behind her, she was caught like Cinderella, a shoe poised in one hand.
“So you came,” the voice rasped behind her.
Mary instinctively started to rise, coming to an abrupt halt as her stockinged foot hit stone. She hastily dropped the hand holding the slipper, putting it behind her back in a motion as instinctive as it was counterproductive, considering that her visitor was standing behind her.
Flushing, Mary would have turned, but a heavy hand on her shoulder forestalled her, forcing her back down onto the bench, the marble still warm from her body.
“No, no. Do stay where you are. I believe we shall both be more…comfortable that way.”
The person behind her had spoken in French, perfectly accented despite the husky rasp that disguised what might have otherwise been a light tenor or even a deep alto voice. Mary’s French was grammatical enough—most of the time—but her accent tended more to Hertfordshire than Paris.
“Wouldn’t you like to sit?” she asked in English, hastily fitting her shoe back on her foot. Offered, as they were, to a ruthless spy in the middle of a dark wood, the words felt ridiculously mundane.