Lauren Willig: Masque of the Black Tulip

"Given dear Ned's propensity for falling in with the wrong sort of company," Jane continued, "I deeply fear he shall be so busy carousing and roistering about, he shall neglect to fulfill my little commission."

Having achieved some notion of the way Jane's mind worked, Henrietta flipped straight to the Cs, indulging in a small smirk as she beheld, "Company, wrong sort of," just beneath, "Company, best sort of,"

"Company, better not sought out," and "Company, convivial." Her smirk faded somewhat at the knowledge that "Company, wrong sort of" signified: "a murderous band of French agents, employed for the primary purpose of eliminating English intelligence officers." Poor Cousin Ned. Likewise, "Carousing," a page back, had nothing to do with Bacchanalian excesses, but instead meant "engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Bonaparte's minions," an activity that sounded highly unpleasant.

"But what is it?" Henrietta muttered at the unresponsive piece of paper in her hands. Had Jane discovered new plans for the invasion of England? A design for the destruction of the English fleet? It might even, mused Henrietta, be another attempt to assassinate King George. Her brother had foiled two of those, but the French kept on trying. At least, they assumed it was the French, and not the Prince of Wales trying to get back at his father for forcing him to marry Caroline of Brunswick, who bore the dubious distinction of being the smelliest princess in Europe.

"Do tell dear Uncle Archibald," continued Jane tantalizingly, after a long and tedious description of the gowns worn by half the women at the imaginary Venetian breakfast, "that a new horrid novel is even now on its way to Hatchards and should be arrived by the time you receive this epistle!"

Henrietta thumbed through Jane's little book. "Horrid Novel: a master spy of the most devious kind."

There was no entry for Hatchards, but since Hatchards bookshop was in Piccadilly, Henrietta had no doubt that Jane was trying to signify that this master spy was even now somewhere in the vicinity of London.

"I assure you, my dearest Henrietta, this is quite the horridest of horrid novels; I have never encountered one horrider. It is really quite, quite horrid."

Henrietta didn't need the codebook to grasp the import of those lines.

That there were French spies in London wasn't terribly shocking; the city was riddled with them. The papers had trumpeted the capture of a group of French spies masquerading as cravat merchants just the week before last.

Richard, in one of his last acts as the Purple Gentian, had uprooted the better part of Delaroche's personal spy network, a varied group that had comprised scullery maids, pugilists, courtesans, and even someone posing as a minor member of the royal family. (Queen Charlotte and King George had so many children that it was nearly impossible to keep track of who was who). There were spies reporting to Delaroche, spies answering to Fouche, spies for the exiled Bourbon monarchy, and spies who spied for the sake of spying and would offer their information to whomever offered them the largest pile of coin.

This spy, clearly, was something out of the ordinary.

Sitting there, with the letter crumpled in her lap, Henrietta was struck by an idea, an idea that made the corners of her lips curl up, and put a mischievous sparkle into her hazel eyes. What if… No, Henrietta shook her head. She shouldn't.

But what if…

The idea poked and prodded at her, with the insistence of a hungry ferret. Henrietta gazed raptly into space. The curl at the corners of her lips turned into a full-blown grin.

What if she were to unmask this particularly horrid spy herself?

Henrietta leaned against the side of the settee, propping her chin on her wrist. What harm could it do if there were an extra pair of eyes and ears devoted to the task? It wasn't as though she would do anything foolish, like hide the information from the War Office and set out on the task alone. Henrietta, a great devotee of sensational novels, had always maintained the liveliest contempt for those pea-witted heroines who refused to go to the proper authorities and instead insisted on hiding vital information until the villain had chased them through subterranean passageways to the edge of a storm-wracked cliff.

No, Henrietta would do exactly as Jane had requested, and deliver the decoded letter to Wickham at the War Office via her contact in the ribbon shop on Bond Street. The point, after all, was to apprehend whoever it was as quickly as possible, and Henrietta knew that the War Office's resources were far more extensive than hers, sister to a spy though she might be.

All the same, what a coup it would be if she could find the spy first! Certain people — certain people by the surname of Selwick, to be precise — would have a great big "I told you so" coming to them.

There was one slight shadow marring the shining landscape of her daydream. She didn't have the slightest notion of how to go about catching a spy. Unlike her sister-in-law Amy, Henrietta's youth had been spent playing with dolls and reading novels, not tracking the fastest way to Calais in the event that one was to be chased from Paris by French police, or learning how to transform oneself into a gnarled old onion seller. Now, there was an idea! If anyone would know how to go about tracking down France's deadliest spy with the maximum flair, it would be Amy. Among other things, on their return from France, Amy and Richard had converted Richard's Sussex estate into a clandestine academy for secret agents, laughingly referred to within the family as the Greenhouse.

There was nothing like getting advice from the experts, thought Henrietta airily as she flung letter and codebook aside and skipped across the room to her escritoire. Turning the key, she lowered the lid with an exuberant thump and yanked over a little yellow chair.

"Dearest Amy," she began, dabbing her quill enthusiastically in the inkpot. "You will be delighted to know that I have determined to follow your fine example…"

After all, Henrietta thought, writing busily, she was really doing the War Office a favor, providing them with an extra agent at no additional cost. Goodness only knew whom the War Office might assign to the task if left to themselves.

"You sent for me?" The Honorable Miles Dorrington, heir to the Viscount of Loring and general rake about town, poked his blond head around the door of William Wickham's office.

"Ah, Dorrington." Wickham didn't look up from the pile of papers he had been perusing as he gestured to a seat on the opposite side of his cluttered desk. "Just the man I wanted to see."

Miles refrained from pointing out that sending a note bearing the words "Come at once" did tend to radically increase the odds of seeing someone. One simply didn't make that sort of comment to England's chief spymaster.

Miles maneuvered his tall frame into the small chair Wickham had indicated, propping his discarded gloves and hat against one knee, and stretching out his long legs as far as the tiny chair would allow. He waited until Wickham had finished, sanded, and folded the message he was writing, before uttering a breezy, "Good morning, sir."

Wickham nodded in reply. "One moment, Dorrington." Inserting the end of a wafer of sealing wax into the candle on his desk, he expertly dripped several drops of red wax onto the folded paper, stamping it efficiently with his personal seal. Moving briskly from desk to door, he handed it to a waiting sentry with a few softly spoken words. All Miles caught was "by noon tomorrow."