Above the chatter of voices, Miles heard a familiar laugh, and wheeled in the direction of the noise. There was something about that quality of frank amusement that couldn't belong to anyone but Henrietta.
Not an intrepid agent of the War Office for nothing, Miles successfully tracked the sound to its source. His eyes drifted past a bunch of Beau Brummell imitators who were staring people out of countenance through their quizzing glasses, past a lanky young lady who had clearly had an unfortunate accident with a curling iron, and finally settled on a familiar reddish-brown head adorned with a simple pearl clip. Henrietta and her two best friends, Penelope and Charlotte, were huddled in a corner, communicating in a combination of whispers, giggles, and agitated hand gestures. As Miles watched, Henrietta grinned and tossed a remark over her shoulder to Penelope, her hazel eyes alight with mischief.
An answering grin spread automatically across Miles's face, to be replaced by a frown as he noticed a young buck behind Henrietta also taking notice both of the infectious grin and the bare shoulder over which the remark had been addressed. Henrietta's shoulders and neck glistened in the candlelight, whiter than the pearls at her throat. Miles glowered, to little effect. The man raised his quizzing glass. Miles took a step out from behind his pillar, stretched to his full height, and cracked his knuckles. Then he glowered. Quizzing glass swinging from its riband, the man hastily hared off in the direction of the card room. Miles gave a satisfied nod. He was getting quite good at this chaperonage lark.
And a good thing, too. The number of amorous importuners who needed to be glowered out of countenance had increased recently.
From behind his pillar, Miles regarded Henrietta, her features more familiar to him than his own. Over his lifetime he had spent a great deal more time looking at Henrietta than in his mirror. Superficially, not much had changed. Same long brown hair, limned in red-gold where the light touched it. Same hazel eyes, sometimes brown-green, sometimes blue, tilted at the edges as though in constant thought. Same translucently fair skin, quick to freckle in sunlight and prone to rash from nettles, wool, or any other itchy substance, a fact of which he and Richard had taken shameless advantage in their reprehensible youth. Henrietta's hair was as long and brown, her eyes as tip-tilted, her skin as pale as when she had been nine, or twelve, or sixteen. And yet, when one put them all together, the result now was quite different than it had been even a year ago.
Was she wearing her bodices cut lower? Her hair in a different way? She might not teach the torches to burn bright, but there was something glowing about her, something that made her stand out from Charlotte and Penelope. A new skin lotion, perhaps? Miles grimaced and gave up. Female fripperies eluded him. As for bodices, devil take it, she was his best friend's sister, committed to his care. He wasn't supposed to be aware she had a bodice. Of course, it would be bloody odd if she didn't have one, but the point remained. Anything under the neck was decidedly off limits. And his job was to make sure that every other man in the ballroom complied with that, too.
Looking up, Henrietta caught sight of Miles, and quite gratifyingly broke off whatever she had been in the process of saying to Penelope and Charlotte, face breaking into a broad smile of welcome.
Miles saluted.
Henrietta tilted her head and squinched her nose in an expression of interest and incredulity clearly meant to convey, "What on earth are you doing behind that pillar?"
There existed no facial contortions convoluted enough to explain that. Miles removed himself from behind the pillar, straightened his cravat, and strolled over towards Hen as debonairly as though he hadn't just been discovered standing behind a large piece of masonry.
"Who were you hiding from?" asked Hen, in some amusement, resting a gloved hand on his sleeve. She tilted her head back to look at him, both eyebrows raised at a droll angle. "Surely Monsieur Delaroche hasn't acquired a voucher to Almack's."
"Oh, no," Miles assured her. "Someone far, far more deadly."
Henrietta considered. "My mother?"
"Close," Miles said darkly. With appropriate hand gestures, he narrated his brief encounter with the fan-wielding, matchmaking mother from hell.
Henrietta's eyes widened with recognition. "Oh, I know her! She was after Richard all last Season. He actually knocked over a punch bowl just to create a diversion. He tried to make it look like an accident, but" — Henrietta shook her head with world-weary wisdom — "we knew."
"Someone" — Miles jabbed a finger at Henrietta — "might have warned me."
Henrietta fluttered her eyelashes in exaggerated innocence. "But that would have been unsporting."
"To whom?"
"To Mrs. Ponsonby, of course."
"You" — Miles narrowed his brown eyes at Henrietta — "are going to owe me for the rest of your life."
"You already said that last night. And the night before."
"Some things can't be said often enough," said Miles firmly.
Henrietta pondered that for a moment. "Like albatross."
"Albatross?" A lock of sandy hair flopped into Miles's eyes as he looked down quizzically at Henrietta.
"I just enjoy saying it," replied Henrietta cheerfully. "Try it. Albatross. It's even more fun when you draw out the first syllable a bit..Albatross!"
"And Richard was so sure insanity didn't run in the family," Miles mused loudly.
"Shhh! Or you'll scare away my marital prospects."
"You don't think you already did that by shouting albatross?"
"I wouldn't call that a shout, precisely. More of a gleeful exclamation."
Miles did what any good rake would do when losing an argument. He favored her with a slow, seductive smile, the sort of smile that made maiden hearts flutter and worldly widows take to writing scented notes.
"Has anyone ever told you that you have a wicked way with words, Lady Henrietta?"
Product of two older brothers, Henrietta was proof against seductive smiles. "You, usually. Generally when I've out-argued you over something."
Miles rubbed his chin in an expression of lofty thought. "I don't recall any such occasion."
"Oh, look!" Henrietta leaned confidentially towards him, the embroidered hem of her dress lapping at the toes of his boots, "I do believe you've been saved. Mrs. Ponsonby has latched on to Reggie Fitzhugh."
Miles followed the path of Henrietta's fan and noted with some re-lief that the crazy woman had indeed honed in on Turnip Fitzhugh. Turnip wasn't in the direct line for a title, but his uncle was an earl, and he did have an income of ten thousand pounds a year, enough to make Turnip a very attractive marital prospect for anyone who didn't mind a complete absence of mental capacity. That, from what Miles had viewed of this year's crop of debutantes, didn't look to be a problem. Besides, Turnip was a good chap. Not the sort of man Miles would want to see marrying his sister (there was little danger of that, as Miles's three half sisters were all considerably older, and long since leg-shackled), but he had a good hand with his horses, a generous way with his port, and a winning habit of actually paying his gambling debts.
He also had a positive talent for sartorial disaster. He was, Miles noted with mingled amusement and disbelief, dressed entirely a la Carnation, with a huge pink flower in his buttonhole, wreaths of carnations embroidered on his silk stockings, and even — Miles winced — dozens of little carnations twining on vines along the sides of his knee breeches. Turnip's recent sojourn on the Continent had clearly done nothing to improve his taste.
Miles groaned. "Someone needs to kidnap his tailor."