"Yes, killed," Miles repeated decisively.
He paused for a moment, thinking rapidly. Hen was a bright girl — and a stubborn one. He knew her well enough to know she wouldn't be impressed by vague warnings of danger. The War Office wouldn't like it, but… Henrietta's safety came first. Of course, that still begged the question of who would be keeping her safe from him.
Miles raked his fingers through his hair. "I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but if that's what it takes… Listen, Hen" — Miles lowered his voice — "there's a dangerous French spy on the loose."
"You know about that?" exclaimed Henrietta.
"What?" Miles's head snapped up.
"The spy." Henrietta made sure to keep her voice suitably low. She drew closer to Miles, her wide skirts brushing his breeches. Miles sidestepped like a skittish colt.
"I was going to warn you tonight, when I found you, but circumstances intervened." Henrietta rather wished those particular circumstances — the ones to do with Miles kissing her — would materialize again, but since they showed no sign of doing so, she continued. "According to my sources, there is an extremely dangerous new spy in London."
Miles sat down heavily on one of the small, gilded benches placed against the wall. Since when had Henrietta had sources?
"I won't even ask," he muttered.
Henrietta made a wry face, and joined him on the bench, her skirts frothing over his legs. "It's probably best you don't."
"Do you know anything else about this… new development?"
"All I know if that you and I are both under scrutiny, most likely in regard to our connection with Richard."
"And you still wandered off alone?"
"I needed to warn you," Henrietta said in the most sensible tone she could muster. She hurried on before Miles could plunge back into lecture, "And I also took the opportunity to do a spot of detecting along the way."
"Does your mother know about this spot of detection?" asked Miles darkly.
"That," said Henrietta, "was unkind. Mama is in Kent with the children, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her."
"No, just when you turn up dead in a ditch somewhere."
"Why a ditch?"
Miles made an inarticulate noise of extreme frustration. "That's not important."
"Then why did you mention it?"
Miles responded by banging his head into his knees. Hard.
Henrietta decided it was time to change the subject. "How did you know about the spy?"
"Some of us," commented Miles in a muffled tone, "happen to work for the War Office. Some of us aren't naive young girls who are courting death and disaster by playing with things that they should not be involved in."
"Don't you even want to know what I found out?" Henrietta wheedled.
Still doubled over, Miles eyed her warily. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"
"Lord Vaughn," Henrietta began, "has been behaving very oddly."
"He's been doing more than behaving oddly," Miles said grimly. "He stabbed Downey."
All the amusement fled from Henrietta's face. "Is Downey all right?"
Miles let out a deep breath and slumped back against the wall. "The surgeon says he'll make it, but it was close." He closed his eyes, reliving the memory of his valet on the floor, covered in blood. "Someone tore up my flat today, looking for something. Downey was in the way. If I had been home — "
"He still might have been stabbed. You just can't know that."
"If he hadn't been working for me — "
"He might have been attacked by a footpad, or knifed by a thief. These things happen."
"They're far more likely to happen when there are French spies involved," muttered Miles. "I brought this on him. You don't understand. I was careless, Hen. If I hadn't attracted the attention of the spy…"
"But, don't you see?" Henrietta twisted to look at him, gasping as the boning stabbed her in the ribs. "You didn't. At least, not by any action of your own. You were already being watched simply by virtue of having been friends with Richard all these years. If it's anyone's fault," she continued, warming to her theme, "it's Richard's, for being so successful. There. You see?"
As she had known he would, Miles grimaced at her. "That makes no sense, Hen."
"Neither do you, so we're even."
"Thanks," he said gruffly.
"Of course," Henrietta said softly.
Looking at him sitting there, slumped on the bench, no jacket or cravat to speak of, waistcoat unbuttoned, shirt rumpled, disheveled, derelict, and dejected, she had to clamp down on an overwhelming surge of affection. She wanted to smooth back that permanently disordered bit of hair at his brow and kiss away the worried wrinkle just over his nose.
Wise in the ways of Miles, Henrietta did none of those things. Instead, she asked neutrally, "How do you know it was Lord Vaughn who stabbed Downey ?"
"He didn't leave a calling card, if that's what you're asking," Miles said with all the snippiness of a male who has just been bamboozled into revealing emotion.
Henrietta gave him a "Don't be an idiot" look. "It just doesn't seem the sort of thing Lord Vaughn would do."
"You don't think him capable of murder?"
"I wouldn't say that. But can't you more easily picture him slipping someone a thimbleful of poison?" Henrietta refrained from bringing in her own personal experience in this regard. After all, she had no proof the wine had been poisoned. "Stabbing someone is just too… crude. Lord Vaughn likes the subtle, the arcane. If he were going to kill someone, he would set about it more inventively."
Miles frowned in thought. "Point taken. I don't know whether he did it personally, or sent a lackey, but he seems the most likely instigator, if you would prefer to look at it that way."
"Why would he want to ransack your flat?"
Miles took a quick look down either side of the hallway, and dropped his voice to a mere thread of sound. "We have reason to believe he might be the agent we're looking for. One of our agents was recently killed — also stabbed — in a way that suggested a connection to Vaughn."
"That would explain a great deal," Henrietta said slowly, thinking back over his unexpected interest in her once the Purple Gentian's name was invoked, his odd behavior in the windowless chamber. Something nagged at her, though. Something didn't quite add up, and she couldn't figure out why. She made a wry face at herself; Miles wasn't going to lend much credence to woman's intuition. Nor would she if their situations were reversed. Nonetheless, she ventured, "But what would he have to gain?"
Miles shrugged. "Money? Power? Settling a personal score? A man could turn traitor for any number of reasons."
Henrietta shivered.
Miles risked a glance in her direction, trying very hard to keep his eyes above her neck, and almost succeeding. "Are you cold?"
Henrietta shook her head, grimacing, "No. Just alarmed by human nature."
"You should be," Miles said grimly. "They knifed Downey with no more consideration than if he had been a — "
"Rabid dog?"
"I was thinking more a bug, but something like that."
Miles looked soberly at Henrietta, cursing himself for being ten times a fool. He should have grabbed her by the arm and hauled her straight back to the dowager the moment he had barreled into her. There was no excuse for his behavior — either of his behaviors; this last interlude had been just as self-indulgent and just as dangerous as that damnable kiss. He had been swept up in the relief of having someone to talk to, to confide his guilt over Downey, to trade ideas about the progress of the mission, someone he could trust. But that was no excuse. He knew Henrietta well enough to know exactly how she would react. This was, after all, the girl whose favorite phrase as a toddler had been "me too."