Free The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig

he had picked up years ago from an elderly Italian fellow named Giacomo Casanova. It never failed to please.
    "Madam, it has been a pleasure."
    "Not the last of its kind, I hope."
    "Aren't the best pleasures unexpected ones?" Miles prevaricated. It struck him as a rather clever way of avoiding setting up an assignation.
    "Sometimes anticipation can be as pleasant as surprise," countered the marquise. She closed her fan with a meaningful snap. "I ride in the park tomorrow at five. Perhaps our paths will cross."
    "Perhaps." Miles's smile was as meaningful—and as meaningless— as hers. Since everybody rode in the park at five, the odds of their encountering each other were high, the odds of it being deliberate less so.
    It had occurred to him that as the widow of a French marquis, she might be of some use in exploring the possibility of a spy lurking among the French emigre community, but she had mentioned, in the course of their brief, if innuendo-laden, conversation that she had returned from France two years previous, and spent the intervening time living quietly in Yorkshire in the first flush of mourning for her husband. Miles had better informed contacts in the emigre community— even if less attractive ones. Besides, his best point of departure on this assignment still seemed to be the agent's employer, Lord Vaughn.
    The object of Miles's speculation was, at that very moment, moving in the direction of the group of young ladies clustered around the formidable Dowager Duchess of Dovedale.
    Henrietta regarded the newcomer with interest. He wasn't precisely tall—not as Miles was tall, at any rate—but his lithe frame gave the impression of height. Unlike the more adventurous of the ton's young blades, who had decked themselves out in colors ranging from Nile green (as unfortunate to the complexion as it had been to Bonaparte's ambitions) to a particularly virulent shade of puce, the gentleman approaching was dressed in a combination of black and silver, like midnight shot through with moonlight. His hair carried out the theme, a few silver strands frosting rather than disguising the original black. Henrietta wouldn't have been surprised if he had silvered them intentionally, just to match his waistcoat; the confluence of colors was too perfect to be anything but planned. In one hand he carried a silver-headed cane. It was clearly intended for show, rather than use; despite the slight lacing of silver in his hair, he moved with a courtier's sinuous stride.
    He looked, thought Henrietta, rather as she had imagined Prospero. Not Prospero in his island wilderness, but Prospero in all the decadence of Milan in his days of power—elegant, unreachable, and more than a little bit dangerous.
    As he approached, clearly intent on joining their party, Henrietta noticed the silver serpent that slithered along the body of the cane, its fanged head constituting the handle. It was an ebony cane, of course. Henrietta had no doubt that, as he drew closer, the silver squiggles on his waistcoat would also resolve themselves into the twining, writhing bodies of snakes.
    Silver serpents, for goodness' sake! Henrietta bit her lip on an impertinent chuckle. That was taking trying to look wicked and mysterious just a little too far. The mysterious verged so easily onto the ridiculous.
    She controlled the impulse to laugh just in time; Prospero had reached them, and stood smiling before the duchess, one leg slightly bent, like an actor about to declaim.
    "Vaughn, you old rogue!" exclaimed the duchess. "Haven't seen you about this age. So you've decided to come back, have you?"
    "How could I not, when such beauty awaited me at home? I see that during my long absence, the Three Graces have removed from Olympus to brighten the dreary ballrooms of London."
    "And who am I, the Gorgon?" The dowager cocked her powdered head. "I always fancied turning men to stone. Such a useful talent for dull parties."
    Lord Vaughn bent over her hand. "You, as