I floundered about for the right thing to say next.
Kiss me, you fool!
would be to the point, but not exactly subtle. I couldn’t invite him to see my etchings because I didn’t have any etchings. It didn’t seem quite right to invite him downstairs on a first date. Moral considerations aside, there was no need for him to view the bra I had left dangling over the back of a chair, the dirty dishes in my sink, and the big pack of tampons next to the toilet. I hadn’t had time to shave, there were undiscovered cultures growing in my hair, and Grandma wouldn’t approve.
“Would you like to see the hallway?” I blurted out.
“I can imagine nothing I would enjoy more,” Colin said courteously. Too courteously. He was laughing at me. And who wouldn’t? I might as well have asked him if he had any interest in inspecting my fuse box. It would have been just as subtle.
My fingers fumbled with the key, and I nearly dropped it before getting it into the lock on the second try.
“Need a hand?”
“Nope, fine,” I said, triumphantly shoving open the door, which had a tendency to stick. It gave way with a suddenness that sent me staggering.
“Voilŕ,” I said slightly breathlessly. “Welcome to my humble hallway.”
Well, the building’s hallway, at any rate. On the radiator, the day’s mail had been left out for the residents to sort for themselves. Straight ahead was the staircase that led down into my basement flat, carpeted in a drab blue, mottled with mud and spilled coffees. The bulb in my stairway was out again. If I didn’t know better, I’d think goblins ate them. Since grown-up graduate students aren’t supposed to believe in goblins, the more likely theory was that the people in the other basement flat purloined the bulbs for their private use. Either way, the dim light somehow made the blue-flowered wallpaper seem even bluer, creating a general impression of Victorian dinginess.
Sticking his hands in the pockets of his Barbour jacket, Colin looked around, from the streaked mirror above the radiator to the cracked and peeling wallpaper. It was a far cry from Selwick Hall.
“It’s very
blue,” he said.
“So it is,” I agreed, nodding furiously. Couldn’t fault his color sense there.
His gaze fixed on mine, in a way that made the hallway seem a good deal smaller and warmer than it actually was.
“But not,” said Colin softly, “as pretty as you.”
And before I could point out that “you” rhymed with “blue,” Colin leaned that crucial inch forward and I turned into a great big pot of goo. In fact, I’m sure I would have thought of goo, had I been doing any thinking. As it was, my attention was focused on more important things, like staying upright and not sending us both toppling backwards into the radiator, which would have had the unfortunate corollary of putting an end to the kiss. It wouldn’t have done much good to the mail, either.
Don’t ask me to recount the mechanics of it. I can’t remember them. All I know is that somehow, my head tilted back when it was supposed to tilt, and our lips met the way that lips are supposed to meet, and our noses didn’t cause us any trouble at all. His hand fit very nicely in the small of my back, just as if it had always been meant to be there, and it took a full five minutes at least for my hair to work its way into his mouth.
We parted to arm’s length, beaming at each other as though one of us had just said something very clever. My lips were tingling and my cheeks were bright red and one of my contact lenses had definitely worked its way up under my eyelid. I felt utterly splendid.
“I like your hallway,” said Colin, spitting out a strand of my hair.
I beamed at him. “Me too.”
There had never been a lovelier color than blue.
Reluctantly, Colin released my shoulders and took a step back. “Shall we do this again sometime? Like tomorrow?”
Hooking the strap of my shoulder bag with my thumb, I hoisted it back onto my shoulder. “Maybe tomorrow night, I’ll even let you see my flat,” I said archly.
Colin arched an eyebrow. “Is it blue, too?”
“No.” I tagged along after him to the street door, leaning against it as he stepped out onto the stoop. “It’s beige. Very exciting.”
Colin smiled in a way that made me very glad I was leaning against the door. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“Me too,” I said breathlessly. “Oh, me too.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He which hath business, and make love, doth do
Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.
John Donne, “Break of Day”
“A
nne? In league with the Black Tulip?” Vaughn raised an eloquent eyebrow. “My dear girl, the bullet went through my shoulder, not my brain.”
Under the usual layers of linen and wool, the area in question ached like the very devil. Tailored to be formfitting, his coat had not been meant for the extra padding of a bandage, even one stripped down to the very minimum. His valet’s tentative suggestion of a sling had been summarily dismissed with all the derision it deserved. A Vaughn put weakness on public view? Unthinkable.
His head ached, his arm ached, he had a wife on the loose, and he had been summoned to Pinchingdale House at the inhuman hour of noon to discuss the fact that a crazed French maniac was out for his blood. In short, he was not in the best of moods.
His sarcasm didn’t even raise a welt on its intended victim. Mary crossed both arms across her chest and stared him down. “How else would the Black Tulip know you had a wife?”
“The man is in the business of collecting information.”
And the devil only knew that Anne wasn’t exactly being subtle. Vaughn only hoped she hadn’t trumpeted her resurrection to anyone else just yet. He had already made an appointment with his solicitors for the following afternoon, to discuss the troublesome matter of a reappearing wife. The less gossip she generated, the better.
As Mary drew breath for what was clearly another well-reasoned and completely irrelevant argument, Vaughn neatly cut her off by sliding his good arm around her waist. “Must we continue with this tedious topic? I can think of far better uses for a darkened room.”
Mary shoved at him without conviction. “As tedious as it may be to you, I happen to find your continued existence a matter of some concern. One would think you might, too. Immortality doesn’t come to you along with the earldom, you know.”
“I should hope not,” Vaughn teased, sliding his hands up her arms to her shoulders. His bad arm twinged in protest, but it was worth it just to see her tilt her head up at him with that sloe-eyed glance that was more effective than a hundred other women’s come-hither stares. “Or I would never have inherited.”
Mary gave him the sort of look Vaughn imagined Queen Elizabeth must have bestowed upon her courtiers. Right before sending them to the Tower. “You know very well what I mean.”
“Could it be,” Vaughn asked delicately, “that you are worried about me?”
Mary’s eyes shifted away in an evasion that was as near a victory as Vaughn was going to get. “I don’t know why I should be, since you clearly aren’t the least bit worried for yourself.”
Hearing what she hadn’t said, Vaughn gathered her closer, resting his cheek against her hair. Despite her irritable words, she came into his arms without protest, leaning against him as though she needed the comfort, too.
Vaughn rubbed his cheek against the sleek fall of her hair. It smelled faintly of expensive French perfume, a sophisticated extraction of flowers that had long ago ceased to have anything to do with nature.
“There must be a way out,” he murmured.
“Of course there is,” came the crisp voice from beneath his ear. “We question your wife.”
Frowning, Vaughn pulled back to look down at her. “It won’t do any good.”
“Oh, won’t it? You just don’t want to admit that someone who once shared your bed might want to murder you.”
Vaughn dropped his arms and took a step back. “I never said anything of the kind.”
Mary arched both brows. “Then why are you so reluctant to admit that your wife might be involved?”
“Because”Vaughn clasped his hands behind his back and strolled towards the window with exaggerated deliberation”Anne has all the political inclination of a stoat.”
“Even stoats might be bribed.”
Vaughn made a great show of examining the weave of the draperies. Dull stuff. The Pinchingdales had never had any flair for fashion. The same could not be said of his sometime spouse. “I doubt the French treasury could afford her.”
“There is another possibility,” Mary’s cool voice said behind him.
Turning, Vaughn spread both hands wide in a gesture of invitation and derision. “I am all agog. Divine revelation? Possession by demons?”
“Lady Hester Standish,” said Mary crisply.
“Definitely a demon.”
“You did say that she had revolutionary leanings.”
“With which she inspired my dear not-quite-departed wife? You forget. I did know Anne quite well at one point. She had no interest in her aunt’s theories.”
That has been one of the many little disappointments of their brief marriage. At the time, Vaughn had thought of himself as something of an intellectuala philosopher, a wit. He had lost that delusion several years ago and moved on to the more attainable role of cynic.
“No,” said Mary, her eyes brilliant even in the dim room. “But she does presumably have an interest in her aunt. What if Lady Hester is our Black Tulip?”
“What if the King were a rosebush?”
“A
rosebush
?”
“I was,” said Vaughn with dignity, “simply underlining the absurdity of the notion. Lady Hester is sixty if she’s a day”
“But remarkably spry.”
“and has not, to my knowledge, been abroad for the past fifteen years.”
“To your knowledge,” countered Mary. “That doesn’t mean she hasn’t been. She only opens her house for the Season, just like everyone else. Where is she for the rest of that time?”
She did have a point, although Vaughn was damned if he was going to concede it. “Presumably, she retires to the country. Just like everyone else.”
“But how can you be sure that’s where she goes?” Mary argued. “I’ve certainly never been invited to a house party there. Have you?” Taking his silence for assent, she went on, “I saw Lady Hester at Vauxhall and again at Hyde Park.”
“You also saw Turnip Fitzhugh.”
“Not in Hyde Park.”
“If I were the Black Tulip,” pointed out Vaughn, “I would take pains not to be seen.”
“Unless you expected others to use that reasoning,” said Mary triumphantly. “In which case you would take pains to be seen as much as possible. Hiding is so obvious.”
The tangled logic was making Vaughn’s head ache. Or perhaps it was the aftermath of the opium. “You seem to have overlooked the slight problem of sex. Isn’t the Black Tulip meant to be a man?”
Mary exuded smugness and French perfume. “Yesterday, the Black Tulip was wearing a dress.” Looking remarkably pleased with herself, Mary swished herself and her skirts onto an overstuffed settee. “It all adds up quite nicely. Lady Hester’s voice is low enough to be taken for a man’s, and her features are mannish enough to pass for a man if she had to. Her long absences from town could hide trips abroad. And she is the person most likely to command her niece’s allegiance.”
Vaughn lowered himself onto the settee next to her, saying slowly, “As far as Lady Hester knows, Anne is dead.”
Scenting victory, Mary seized her advantage. “As far as
you
know, as far as Lady Hester knows, your wife is dead. You don’t know that she really knows that at all. It might well be quite the opposite.”
“I never should have got out of bed,” muttered Vaughn. “It was so wonderfully peaceful there.”
“So is a tomb.”
Vaughn extended his arm along the back of the settee. “A bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”
“No,” said Mary soberly, shifting to face him. In the dim light, her beautifully chiseled face was as pale and serious as an ancient statue. “I had my hand on the pistol when he shot at you. I saw”
Breaking off, she looked briefly away. Her back was as straight and her face as serene as ever, but her hands gave her away. They were twisted into a knot so tight that the veins on the back of her hands stood out like blue worms.
When she spoke again, her voice was carefully light. “He’s not going to stop at an appendage, you know. I haven’t compromised myself just to have you killed off.”
The back of Vaughn’s throat tightened with a painful brew of admiration and tenderness. Admiration for her indomitable will and impressive self-control. And tenderness
well, because he couldn’t seem to help it. It was just there, whether he wanted it to be or not.
But it wasn’t in him to put any of that into words, any more than it would have been in her to acknowledge it.
