The Masque of the Black Tulip (Pink Carnation) by Willig Lauren

Author:Willig, Lauren [Willig, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749010010
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2011-01-23T16:00:00+00:00

‘Owwwwww…’

Henrietta clutched her sore shoulder and glowered at the shattered bust of Achilles. Pieces of his helmet littered the garden path, his nose was wedged up against a hedge, and one large, staring eye had rolled under a rosebush. The pillar on which he had perched lay on its side, having dragged half a rosebush down with it. And just who had decided the edge of the rose garden would be a good place to put a top-heavy bust? Oh, goodness, that hurt . She supposed it could have been worse. It could have fallen on her foot.

Henrietta dropped down on a nearby bench before she could cause more devastation.

‘I am a walking disaster,’ she muttered.

She really hadn’t handled that very well, had she? When she saw Miles, she was going to put him in his place by treating him with icy dignity, not storm out like a demented two-year-old on a rampage. Like a destructive two-year-old on a rampage, she amended, glancing at the remains of the bust. She would have to apologise to Richard for the decimation of his garden ornament tomorrow.

He did deserve it, though; no one could deny that. Miles, that was, not Achilles. Of course, if there were a bust of Cupid anywhere within reach, Henrietta might be tempted to do violence to it. It really didn’t seem quite fair of Cupid – or Destiny, or Fate, or whoever was in charge of these sorts of things – to place love blissfully, gloriously within her reach and then yank it away, jeering, ‘Ha, ha, thought you had a chance, did you?’

Henrietta yanked a leaf off a neighbouring bush and started to shred it.

Blaming Cupid didn’t solve anything. Miles owed her an explanation. Not because he had kissed her – with two older brothers, Henrietta had grown up knowing quite well that a kiss was seldom a promise – but because they were, or at least they had been, friends. Friends didn’t kiss friends and then go off for seven days. Friends didn’t kiss friends and then try to brush them off with weak compliments. Your hair looks nice today? Ha! Did he really think he could placate her with that?

‘What sort of a ninny does he think I am?’ Henrietta grumbled to the quiet night air.

Only the crickets answered, with sympathetic clicking noises. Henrietta didn’t have the heart to tell them it was a rhetorical question.

Around her, the garden was dark and still, silent as only the country could be. The scent of the lavender and hyssop that bordered the path hung heavy in the air, warring with the heady aroma of the roses that had been trained over a trellis to form an arch above. Henrietta sat there for a very long time, shredding leaves and brooding, while the marble seat grew cold and clammy under her twill skirt.

She was in the midst of a long and complicated conversation in her head with Miles, and was just up to the point where Miles confessed

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