Jane could, of course, create some sort of diversion in France, moving suspicion away from Henrietta and Mr. Dorrington, and necessitating the recall of the Black Tulip to the Continent. But Jane had larger plans brewing, of which immediate action was not a part. It did not in the least serve her purposes for the fanatical former assistant to the Minister of Police to learn that the Pink Carnation remained in France.
Her attention had recently been drawn to the possibility of an Irish rising being organized out of Paris; Delaroche's files confirmed that a meeting was planned between Bonaparte's Minister of War, General
Berthier, and Addis Emmet, a representative of the United Irish. The meeting needed to be infiltrated, and French use of Ireland prevented. Then there was the matter of the generals. Disaffected generals, currently in Bonaparte's pocket, but beginning to find Bonaparte overbearing and subservience suffocating. All they needed was a gentle hand urging them in the right direction. Jane had only just begun the series of gentle nudges that might topple them into treason. Having De-laroche's attention directed across the Channel had been an unexpected boon, and one she was not yet prepared to relinquish.
False intelligence could be planted, and brought to Delaroche's attention, intelligence directing the Black Tulip's attention to… whom? A suitably vague description, Jane decided. Something that could apply to half a dozen pinks of the ton, but would most decidedly not apply to either Henrietta or Mr. Dorrington. Ever since Sir Percy Blakeney's successful masquerade as a fashion-mad fop, the French had been decidedly twitchy about those who professed to immerse themselves in fashion. A few mentions about the cut of waistcoats this season, slipped into "reports" designed to be intercepted, should sufficiently agitate the French intelligence community. Jane had two double agents on her payroll for just this sort of assignment. They came dear, but they were worth every penny.
As a precautionary measure, it was worth pursuing, but it wasn't enough. No agent of the Black Tulip's caliber would allow himself to be put off by such a tepid report. He might set about garnering extra information, but, at best, his attention would be diluted, not diverted.
Jane frowned as she perfectly realigned Delaroche's desk chair.
Removal to the country would be equally futile, in fact, perhaps more dangerous than not. So many accidents could happen in the country. A horse could shy; a shot could go awry; the wrong sort of mushroom could be added to a sauce. No. Henrietta would be safer in town, where the rules of society dictated the presence of a chaperone.
Having neatly assessed and dismissed most of the viable options in her head, Jane Wooliston settled on the only acceptable plan. They would simply have to find the Black Tulip.
It would take Delaroche some time to replace an agent of that skill. Until he managed to do so, Henrietta and Mr. Dorrington would be free from molestation, and Jane could proceed with her master plan. It would all serve very well.
There was nothing for it but to remove the Black Tulip.
Word would be sent to Henrietta and the War Office, labeled for the highest of alerts. Her own men in Paris would be sent to ferret out any scrap of information they could find relating to the identity of the Black Tulip. Fouche's files would have to be looked into.
There was no reason, resolved Jane, that they shouldn't have the Black Tulip enjoying His Majesty's hospitality within the next fortnight. It was all a matter of applying oneself logically to the problem.
A furrow appeared between Jane's pale brows. It could all be quite simple — if only the Black Tulip didn't make his move first.
Jane squelched worry as neatly as she had rifled through Delaroche's files. Her courier could be in London by the day after next. Within the next thirty-six hours, Henrietta would be warned, and, Jane hoped, modify her behavior accordingly. There were only the next thirty-six hours to be got through, and, surely, a spy so newly arrived in London would wish to survey the field before resorting to darker methods.
Having arranged the matter to her satisfaction, the Pink Carnation shuttered her lantern. She retrieved her cloak from the window and her scrap of cloth from the door. She oozed out into the night as silently as she had come, leaving Delaroche's office once again swathed in slumber, exactly as he had left it.
Chapter Nine
Jealousy: emotional warfare waged by an agent particularly cunning in the ways of human nature; an attempt to prey on the sentiments and derail one from one's mission
"Hen!" exclaimed Penelope in annoyance. "You aren't paying attention!"
"What?" asked Henrietta vaguely, looking up from the amber swirls in her teacup.
Penelope scowled. "I just asked you if you wanted arsenic in your tea, and you said, 'Yes, two, please.'"
"Oh. Sorry." Henrietta put her teacup down on the inlaid wood of her favorite table in the morning room, and smiled apologetically at her oldest friend. "I was thinking of something else."
Penelope rolled her eyes. "That much was obvious."
Henrietta succumbed to the urge to direct yet another glance at the dainty china clock on the mantelpiece. It was nearly noon. And Miles hadn't stopped by yet. Miles always stopped by on Thursday mornings. Every Thursday, Cook made ginger biscuits, for which Miles held a regard tantamount to that of Petrarch for his Laura. For Miles not to appear on a Thursday morning was tantamount to the bells of St. Paul's refusing to chime. It just didn't happen.
Unless Miles was otherwise occupied. In the arms of a dark-haired beauty, for example.
It wasn't like Miles to disappear from Almack's without stopping by to say good-bye. And yet he had done just that. Usually, he left with the Uppingtons, riding with them as far as his lodgings on Jermyn Street, and taking his leave with a joke and a tug of one of her curls. Henrietta found the latter habit decidedly less than endearing and had remonstrated with Miles about it on several occasions. But without him there… the evening felt oddly incomplete.
That Woman had disappeared around the same time. Coincidence? Henrietta deeply doubted it.
Not that it mattered one way or another. Miles was a grown man, and it wasn't as though he hadn't had mistresses before; Henrietta wasn't that naive. It was simply, Henrietta rationalized, that it would be very tedious if Miles took up with someone nasty. After all, with Richard away in Sussex, and Geoff hideously preoccupied with that vile Mary Alsworthy, Miles was her primary source of lemonade and banter at the nightly social events deemed de rigueur by the ton. If he started dancing attendance on some cold-eyed temptress, it would just be inconvenient, that was all. There was certainly nothing more to it than that.
"Oh, Pen!" Charlotte's cry broke into Henrietta's reverie. Charlotte's large gray eyes grew three sizes larger. "You weren't out on the balcony with Reggie Fitzhugh?"
"Oh, Charlotte!" mocked Penelope, adding with a wicked twinkle in her eye, "He does have ten thousand pounds a year. Surely you can't disapprove of that."
"And the mental capacity of a turnip," put in Henrietta drily, allowing herself to be diverted from her decidedly less-than-pleasing speculations.
Charlotte giggled. "I suppose all that gold does rather gild the turnip."
Penelope eyed her askance. "Gild the turnip?"
"You know, like gilding the lily. Only he's a turnip."