Henrietta had come running down the stairs in a nightdress that gave whole new meaning to the word "diaphanous." To be fair, Miles wouldn't have noticed if Lady Uppington hadn't made a sharp comment and ordered Henrietta upstairs to change, but once he'd started noticing, it had been hard to stop. When in the hell had she grown breasts like that? The candlelight through the thin lawn of her nightdress had left very little to the imagination, and Miles rather doubted even imagination could improve upon…
Miles clamped down on the memory before it could go any further. As far as he was concerned, Henrietta wasn't supposed to have a body. She was a head on legs. Hmm, those had been very nice legs he'd seen outlined through… No. There were rules about lusting after your best friend's sister. Hell, forget rules, more like immutable laws of nature. If he broke them, there would be strange eclipses of the moon, and the sheeted dead would rise and gibber in the streets. It was unnatural, that was what it was. Unnatural and wrong.
But so well shaped, for something so wrong.
Devil take it! Miles picked up his pace, striding furiously in the direction of Belliston Square. He had a house to burgle, and, thanks to that idiot Frobisher, he had already lost another ten minutes of his allotted hour. Fortunately, Vaughn's residence was a scant five blocks from the Middlethorpes'; Miles's long legs covered the distance in minutes.
Just outside Belliston Square, he forced himself to slow and recon-noiter. This was, after all, where the operative had been murdered, and Miles wanted to take a look around outside as well as in. Staggering a bit, a gentleman well in his cups making his way home after one too many social events, Miles swaggered slowly into the square, looking keenly about under the guise of an idly lolling head.
The square was shadowed on one side by the shuttered bulk of Belliston House, a grand mansion in the Palladian style erected early in the previous century. The current duke was an avid sportsman who seldom came to London. There would be a skeleton staff in residence, to maintain the premises and guard its priceless collections, but the odds of anyone in Belliston House taking notice of dubious goings-on in the square (including Miles's) were slim. The other three sides were identical; each boasted a large house in the center flanked by two smaller houses on either side, rather in the manner of a triumphal arch. Vaughn's was one of the former, nestled on the south side of the square.
An immense, triangular pediment supported by three Doric columns dominated the facade, lending the structure a fashionable air of the antique. More importantly, all the lights were out.
There was a party in progress in one of the houses, a musical evening, from the liquid syllables that spilled out the window. In front of another, a footman was teasing a little maid, who giggled and colored under his attentions. Miles stopped and stretched; he leaned against a gate, gazed at the moon, fiddled with his stickpin. No one took the slightest notice. Miles continued on his way, his theory confirmed. The maples planted in the middle of the square meant anyone standing in front of Vaughn's house would be blocked from the view of the houses opposite; as for the other houses, as long as the murderer looked like he belonged in the square, and moved quickly enough, he could be almost sure of escaping detection.
Ducking around the back of the square and into an alley, Miles donned the concealing garments he had brought along for just this occasion. They weren't elaborate, nothing like the complicated costume Richard used to wear for his escapades as the Purple Gentian, but there was only so much Miles could stuff into his pockets. Unfastening his diamond stickpin, Miles yanked off his white cravat, bundled his equally white gloves into it, and stuck the lot beneath a convenient bush. Downey would be none too pleased, but what was a scrap of linen more or less in a good cause? Replacing the white gloves with thin black ones, Miles drew out of his pocket a square of black cloth. Miles eyed it with disfavor. He really wasn't looking forward to this part.
England, he reminded himself. Rule Britannia and God Save the King, and all that.
His jaw fixed in an expression of extreme stoicism, Miles knotted the black cloth bandana-style around his head, hiding his fair hair, and covering a good chunk of his forehead as well. Miles caught a glimpse of himself in a dark window and grimaced. Hell, put an earring in his ear, and he'd look like a bloody pirate. All he needed was a tattoo on his arm and a wisecracking parrot.
There was worse yet to come. Over the bandana, Miles tied a thin, black silk mask, the sort worn by ladies who wished to preserve their reputations and the roues who preyed on them. Now he looked like a pirate with a yen for anonymity. Miles the Bashful Pirate, Scourge of the High Seas. If Hen ever saw him in this get-up, he'd never hear the end of it.
Ah well. Miles shook his head at himself. At least if anyone discovered him, he could claim he had been on his way to a fancy dress party, and had wandered into Vaughn's garden in pursuit of his runaway parrot.
Feeling like a prize dimwit, Miles slipped unnoticed through Vaughn's garden gate. The windows on the first floor were all dark. Inching through the midnight garden, the air heavy with the scents of roses and lavender, Miles could see a faint glint of light from below stairs. Vaughn's valet would, naturally, be waiting up for his master. From the sounds of merriment emerging from the open window, he had company. Good, thought Miles, the more they were entertaining themselves, the less likely they were to hear the dark shadow who slipped soundlessly into the house.
Ouch! He had whacked right into an ornamental bench that some diabolical mastermind had placed right up against the wall. Miles swallowed a bellow of pain, cursing silently, which wasn't nearly as satisfying as cursing noisily.
Rubbing his shin, the black shadow limped along, examining his options. Up three shallow steps stood a balcony, with French doors that gave onto the garden. The steps, of course, were right in the center of the garden, in plain view of anyone in the house. The ornamental shrubs that marked out the patterns of the parterre would provide no concealment; they came to Miles's knee at best.
Easily enough remedied, thought Miles with a roguish grin. Placing one black-gloved hand on the corner of the stone balustrade, he vaulted over the railing, landing in a supple crouch on the balcony. Standing, Miles flexed his arms smugly.
Back against the wall, he edged his way to the French doors, and with one cautious, gloved hand, tried the handle. It turned smoothly. Once inside, Miles didn't let himself stop to gloat; he had worked out a plan of action last night, and intended to stick to it. He had already wasted enough time giving that revolting reprobate Frobisher the what-for.
Miles jerked his mind back to the matter at hand before it could stray into dangerous territory.
Vaughn's study would be the obvious place to search — which was precisely why he wasn't going to do so. If Vaughn was the ruthless spy he supposed him, he would have anticipated the possibility of midnight callers, and hidden his papers accordingly, planting false information in the more obvious spots, such as locked desk drawers and hollow globes.
Besides, Vaughn had only recently returned from his travels; he would have gotten in the habit of keeping his most sensitive papers close by him, ready to be packed up and moved along at a moment's notice. And when a gentleman wanted something kept close at hand, he kept it in his bedroom. The same principle applied for both documents of a sensitive nature and mistresses.