"Oh," I said guiltily.
"And you," continued Sally, eyes gleaming with mischief, "must be Eloise."
"How did you know?"
Sally ticked off the points on her fingers. "Let's see. American, red hair, with Colin."
"Not exactly with Colin," I pointed out with some asperity. I had always found the gossipy insularity of Jane Austen novels — where everything made the rounds of the neighboring gentry within five minutes — utterly charming, but I was beginning to reconsider. Why did everyone in room — in the entire county of Sussex, for all I knew — assume I was going out with Colin? All right, I was staying at his house, but it was a sad, sad day when one couldn't even have a houseguest of the opposite gender without imputations of improper behavior.
I really had been living in the Regency too long. Next I'd be going on about needing a chaperone or being compromised. "You are staying with him…"
"I really am just here for the archives," I said, half-apologetically.
Maybe I should put up a billboard. Although, really, they were all imagining such lovely prurient things that it seemed almost a shame to disappoint them. Perhaps I should hint at wild orgies. In the library. With manuscripts.
I decided it was time to change the subject.
"Have you lived at Donwell Abbey long?"
"Since I was five." Sally grinned at the surprise on my face. "You mustn't let Joan know I've told. She likes to pretend we're to the manor born."
"Here since the Conquest, you mean?"
Remembering that afternoon's discussion with Colin, my cheeks turned an unexpected pink — damn these fair complexions! I light up like Rudolph's nose at the least provocation — but, fortunately for me, Sally must have put the flush down to the wine, since she went on without reference to the damning blush. And why should she? Why would anyone blush about the Conquest? Why in the hell was / blushing about the Conquest?
There are times when I make no sense even to me.
"Exactly. My father," Sally added conspiratorially, "is actually a rather successful solicitor."
"Does that count as being In Trade?" I asked, warming to the Austen-ish theme.
"Don't let Joan hear you say that! She'll snap your head off. She works so very hard to be horses and hounds." From the tone of Sally's voice, and the trendy nature of her attire (more Warehouse than Jaeger), I gathered it was not an aspiration Joan's little sister shared.
"Who lived here before?" I asked, glancing around the dark living room, with its age-spotted photographs and claustrophobic cluster of antiques.
"The Don wells of Don well Abbey. Who else? The portraits came with the house," Sally added.
So there was the answer to one question. Were the Donwells the sorts of people who would harbor a French spy? In 1803, Selwick Hall would have been at least six or seven hours from London by coach — much faster if one posted down by curricle, but still not the sort of drive one wanted to undertake twice in one day — so the Black Tulip would presumably be staying somewhere in the area, either at an inn or with neighbors. Unless… no, none of Richard and Amy's other houseguests had arrived, which removed the possibility that one of the other spies in training was, in fact, the Black Tulip. Besides, why would a legitimate houseguest bother to deck himself out as the Phantom Monk, when he could just pretend to have taken a wrong turn on the way to the convenience, everyone's favorite age-old excuse. Had there been houseguests at Don well Abbey on the first weekend of June, 1803?
Unfortunately, while much nicer than her sister, Sally didn't seem the sort to know. Joan most likely would — or would, at least, know where to look — but… did historical fervor extend that far?
Probably. If it came down to it. With any luck, a bit more rooting about in Colin's archives would remove the need to resort to Joan.
I would, I admitted to myself, be very disappointed if Henrietta never discovered the identity of the Black Tulip. It would be a nice little twist to my dissertation — I could add a chapter on "The Dark Mirror: French Counterparts to English Spies" — but mostly, I just wanted to know, because if I didn't it would nag at me, like the question of what happened to the poor little Dauphin, or who killed the Princes in the Tower.
I decided to give Sally a shot, anyway. "Are there any old stories attached to the house?"
Sally shook her head. "You would have to ask Joan," she said apologetically.
"Ask Joan what?"
I started, spilling some of my wine, as Colin materialized at my elbow.
Fortunately, it was white wine. And no one noticed. At least, I hoped they didn't. My muddled brain was too busy processing Colin's sudden reappearance. One minute I was talking to Sally, the next, there he was, floating in the air above me like the Cheshire Cat. I had to turn and tilt my head to look up at him; he stood next to me, but a little behind, so that if I leaned back, just the slightest bit, my back would fit very comfortably against his side.
I stood straight enough to satisfy the most exacting headmistress, and took a little step to the side, which had the added benefit of putting me right over the spilled wine patch.
"I was just asking Sally if there are any old stories about Donwell Abbey," I said brightly.
"Are you planning to go root about in someone else's archive?" teased Colin. "Should I be jealous?"
Maybe I had been better off with him slightly behind me. The force of that smile, faced full on, was dazzling. Stop it! I told myself sternly. He was just relieved to have escaped from Joan. That did not count as flirting with me. At least, not in any way that meant anything.
He was, however, wearing a very pleasing aftershave.
"He doesn't even have any ghosts," I said to Sally dismissively.
"Shall we swap?" suggested Sally to Colin.
"You take Eloise, I get the ghost? No, thanks."
"The ghost eats less," I pointed out. "And it's quieter."
"But can it do the washing up?" asked Colin.
"You'd have to ask it," said Sally solemnly. "Have you taken Eloise down to the cloisters yet?"
Colin sent Sally a sardonic look. "And leave the party?"
"Your fault for saying yes," scolded Sally.
"There are some consolations," countered Colin.
"Cloisters?" I piped in.
Colin groaned. "It's like dangling a bone before a dog."
"I resent that," I said without heat.
"Would you prefer a carrot in front of a mule?"
"Even worse." I turned to Sally. "So there are still bits of the old abbey?"
"Would you like to see?" suggested Sally. She glanced at Colin. "You don't mind?"
Colin raised an eyebrow, looking like James Bond about to demand his martini shaken, not stirred. No one could look that debonair without working at it. "Why not?"
Giggling like naughty schoolchildren (at least Sally and I were giggling), we snuck out of the drawing room. Joan was in the midst of a group of people who all seemed to be talking and drinking with evident enjoyment, and didn't see us go. She was smiling in a genuine way that reduced her teeth from Red Riding Hood's wolf to somewhere near normal size, and the thought struck me that when not defending her territory, she probably wasn't half-bad.
Then Sally, whose tugging abilities were as well developed as her sister's, yanked on my hand, and I popped out of the drawing room into a tortured maze of back hallways. Selwick Hall was a miracle of eighteenth-century symmetry in comparison. Sally's house seemed to have been designed by the Mad Hatter in conjunction with a paranoid mole; everything was narrow and dark and had more turns than necessary. I wandered along after Colin and Sally, who were bickering amiably about a mutual acquaintance, who had some sort of weekly column that was either a load of codswollop (Colin) or an insightful commentary on modern mores (Sally).
They seemed to be on very easy and amiable terms — which did make sense, living next door to one another. I wondered if Sally was Colin's usual buffer from Joan's less-than-subtle advances. And if the presence of the older sister had prevented anything from happening with the younger.