A/N: This is for itspileofgoodthings on Tumblr, from a very simple "love at first sight at a party" prompt for Reylo...and I spun it WAY out of hand from there. So, Poe Dameron is also basically the Scarlet Pimpernel now. Or something.
Lady Maz's grounds are so enormous that, if Rey runs far enough, she can almost imagine that these green swards were always her home. She can find turf so deep and mossy that she sinks nearly to her ankles; she can watch silver trout skimming through the stream with a splash and a ripple; she can watch the clouds form towers by the day and the winking stars arrange their constellations by night. She can do all this and call it home, and someday, she promises herself, she will believe it.
The truth is that Rey has lived four years in England as the ward of Lady Maz. No one ever mistakes her for a daughter; Lady Maz is short and broad-faced with kind, wide-set eyes, dressing more simply than the latest London fashions dictate. Rey dresses simply, too, but she is slender and tall, and if the charming Monsieur-turned-Mr. Dameron's accounts have any truth, the young gentlemen of the neighborhood are beginning to take notice.
Rey blushes at the memory of his words, and folds up her book. If she is right, that is Mr. Dameron coming up the broad stone walkway now, with Bébé, his ginger and white terrier prancing along beside him.
"Mr. Dameron," Rey exclaims, delighted. She is always delighted to see him; Finn will be too, if he is back from his morning ride. "Lady Maz will be happy to see you!"
Poe Dameron bows, and tilts his gaze up at her before he straightens, unstudied smile in full effect. "Miss Ridley," he murmurs. "I do wish I came for an afternoon of Lady Maz's tea, and perhaps a stroll with yourself and Bébé—but alas. I am on a much more ostentatious errand."
...
"Invited to Baron Snoke's ball?" Rey says, speaking quite out of turn (though no one minds).
"A great honor," Lady Maz intones, but her eyes slide to Poe's for an instant, and Rey knows that there is something hidden beneath the words.
"His new protégé will be the guest of honor," Poe adds dryly, fingers toying with Bébé's collar. "So, Lady Maz, what say you?"
"Baron Stokes, the richest man in the country, some say." Maz sips her tea. She sets down the cup with care, and lets the silence grow around them. Then she speaks again. "Who are the poorer among us to shun such a man?"
...
"Poe was here?" Disappointment clouds Finn's usual smile. He welcomes any chance to see his best friend, the Frenchman who fought on the American side in their War for Independence, and then managed to bargain freedom for Finn. From what she knows of politics, Rey is uncertain why Poe or Finn, both former enemies of England, are allowed in the country at all—but then again, Poe is a man of many faces. His close friendship for the last few years with the Duchess of Organa may have something to do with his ability to walk at liberty on English soil.
And as for Finn? Finn is, unofficially, the second ward of Lady Maz—and unlike Rey, Finn waits for no mysterious family to return and find him. He looks forward, always forward, and if Rey can be half as noble as he, half as cheerful in the face of adversity, she thinks she will have made a good life of it indeed.
Not that this is adversity. Rey unwinds a corded curtain tassel from her fingers and realizes that she has been fading from the conversation.
"Baron Snoke," Finn says again. "An invitation?"
"A challenge, maybe," Lady Maz offers, with a wry smile. "He is a wealthy and important man, and he likes to be known as such. Though until we go, we cannot know what social nicety he is bending to his will by the introduction of his protégé."
"So, we're going?" Finn shoves his hands in his pockets. His face telegraphs all that Rey feels; excitement, and a twinge of something else.
"Yes." On that point, Lady Maz seems immovable. She sweeps out of the room, muttering to herself, and leaves Finn and Rey blinking at one another.
...
There are conversations that go on behind the closed doors of Lady Maz's parlor; Rey knows this. She has seen Poe come in and out at late hours. Once there was blood on his face and he had held his arm against his side as though it pained him.
There are secrets on the roads between London and these country manors. Some of them involve Baron Snoke, or his mysterious protégé, a young man whom Baron Snoke and his son Huxley met abroad and brought back to England. There are secrets around the bloody uprisings in France, secrets about the mysterious Duchy of Organa. These secrets are to be held like playing cards, but Rey has never been very good at cards. She keeps her own counsel and trusts to Poe's good heart, to Lady Maz's kind eyes.
Finn, though. Sometimes, as now, the afternoon of Poe's visit, his brow scrunches up when he and Rey wander through the maze of gardens, and he shifts in his pale linen coat as though it does not fit him. As though this was not exactly what he was looking for when he went in search of freedom.
"There's something stirring," Finn tells her, as they sit on the lawn one afternoon. His nimble fingers pluck at the grass, pulling up whole tufts.
"A ball," Rey says, and sighs. She is not sure that her dancing will be what it should.
"Not the ball. Lady Maz…and Poe bringing the invitation. I just—"
Rey recalls the loaded glances exchanged. "I know," she says. "But it's larger than we are." She shrugs. An ant is crawling across the straw furrows of the bonnet beside her; she flicks it off.
"Poe has friends who died in the Revolution," Finn answers. "He told me. It's a damnable shame."
"Power breeds war," Rey says softly, and he looks at her in surprise. "What? I read."
"I know you do." Finn's velvet eyes warm to hers. "And you know that I'm all for uprising against oppression. Hell—sorry. I mean, I fought for a war that wouldn't free me, because it would free some. But I'm on Poe's side—it's gone too far, in France."
"What are you saying, then?"
"I think Poe's helping a resistance of sorts. Smuggling out the innocent."
If Rey has not thought that before, she is not surprised. "What of it? I think him a good man, and—"
Finn's hand closes over hers, earnest and sudden. "I'm not questioning it, Rey. I wish I could help him."
Rey wishes for her family. She wishes for home, and she wishes that there were no secrets, but sometimes she feels as helpless as Bébé, trotting at the heels of greater minds. All of a moment, she is tired of that.
"If they have a plan at the ball, Finn," she begins slowly, and then continues in an urgent whisper, "We'll watch. You and I, Finn. We'll watch, and we won't wait on the sidelines any longer."
Finn's face breaks into a grin. "I hope you have a pretty gown, in case we need a distraction."
...
There is plenty of distraction in the days that follow. Lady Maz says nothing of what she and Poe might be planning to learn or to tell at Baron Snoke's ball; instead, it is the seamstress who comes up from the village in a laden carriage, bearing bolts of silk and georgette and mousseline.
"The latest style," she assures them, measuring under Rey's bustline. "They call it the empire waist."
...
The candle sconces are red glass, blown soap-bubble thin. The light casts the room in a rosy glow; the shadowy corners are made eerier by a darker blush.
Rey holds a wine glass stem between slippery silk fingertips, conscious that she must not do anything to sully the gossamer folds of her dress, the pristine white of her gloves. Somehow, she has managed to get herself quite alone in this massive ballroom.
Finn is nowhere to be seen; Poe is across the room, his lush velvet coat effortlessly rumpled, his expression enticing. The ladies are, to a one, enticed. Rey smiles to herself, forgetting her consciousness, her faint discomfort at the prospect of so many eyes upon her. If there are secrets to be told tonight, it shall be difficult to trade them in front of such an audience. She is intrigued to know how Poe plans to do it.
Bébé is the star of his little entourage, a provocative little guest curled demurely at his feet with a giant paper bow around her neck, giving the admiring ladies an excuse to speak to Poe.
Perhaps we were foolish, and he is only here to flirt, Rey reflects, still gripping her wineglass. But then again, she has seen a bright fire in Poe's fierce eyes, in moments when he thinks no one is looking. He is a man of action. Finn's instinct is right; her instinct is right. Poe and Lady Maz are not at this party for pleasure.
The music stills—Baron Snoke, fashionably late to his own fete, is entering the ballroom. Necks crane; Rey settles one hand against the pleated, heavy silk of her high sash, and cannot help but stand on tiptoe to try and see for herself.
Baron Snoke is dressed in black brocade, with a powdered wig on his head. The lower half of his face is twisted and gnawed away as though it has been burned. Rey is struck with horror and pity, and then a half-second later, the realization that no one would ever dare draw attention to it.
His son Huxley is thin and keen-eyed, with hair as red as a fox's and features that are foxlike, too. Beside him is a tall young man, dressed all in black, but Rey cannot see him very well.
The music begins again, a torrent, an imperial march. It bowls Rey over with its opulence and its beauty—it is dark, too, and she feels as though those blushing shadows have all but swallowed up the rosy lights at the center of the room. Her dress, pale blue and unbedecked with jewels, seems like a single candle held aloft, whispering out.
"Rey," Finn breathes, close by. "I think we're supposed to dance." He holds out his hand, and she sets aside her wineglass and takes it, grateful for something to do.
"Have you seen Mr. Dameron behave strangely?"
"No." Finn huffs a sigh. "Other than charming every woman in the place, which I can never seem to accomplish."
Rey laughs. "Here. I'll take the next watch on him." The song ends, and Rey is not sorry—it had hurt something in her heart, to hear music so grand—and she floats through the crowd more purposefully this time, trying to get close to Poe.
He is in a knot of men and women, the men trying to divert the women's attention and the women marveling at Bébé's tricks. Poe seems almost lazy, one buckled shoe flat against the wall as he leans, seemingly unaware of how he is orchestrating the whole frenzy.
Rey hangs back, and hears the threads of another conversation.
"How can you say so, sir?" booms a man in a grey felted coat. "Demmed if I'm a romantic, but surely—"
Rey is a romantic, so she has lost sight of her mission for a moment. After all, won't it look all the more curious if she is intently watching Poe? She needs a distraction.
(Of course, Finn said that she should be the distraction.)
Another voice answers. The speaker has his back turned, so all Rey can see is an impossibly sleek black moire coat, the red light dancing on the sinuous pattern of the watered silk. His voice is deep and cultured and rough, and it sends a shiver down Rey's spine.
"I don't believe in it," he says, dismissively.
"Believe in what?" The words have left her lips before she can help herself.
There is a faint hush—the music may still be chorusing all about them, but apparently her voice has found ears.
"Love at first sight," the man in the black coat says, with an added layer of disdain, and he turns.
Rey sees thick, dark hair falling rebelliously over a poet's high brow. The plane of his cheekbones is soft, but so long that it makes his face distinctive. His lips are romantic; full and bowed, but Rey is only struck by how utterly she disagrees with him.
"Well, I do," she retorts. She loved her family at last sight, to be sure—but she loved Poe Dameron at first sight, with his rakish grin; she loved Maz at first sight for her solid generosity; she loved Finn at first sight for the honesty behind his eyes. And if these gaggle of pompous young men are speaking of romantic love—what of it? She cannot doubt that the heart is capable of knowledge before time, in this as in everything else.
The lights are gloomily red, the music is haunting, but Rey has quite forgotten to be overwhelmed.
She has also only now noticed that the young man before her has gone a shade paler (rendering his features almost alabaster) and is staring at her as though he has never seen another human before.
Looking around, Rey thinks, perhaps he never has.
"Sir Ren, pay no heed to her—" blusters one of his friends, but he lifts a lean, elegant hand to dismiss them. Rey's heart stops in her chest.
Sir Ren. Kylo Ren. The mysterious protégé of Baron Snoke. Rey swallows. Because neither Poe nor Finn nor Lady Maz are beside her, she stands her ground. There seems nothing else to be done.
"You know something about love?" he asks, as intensely as if his life depends on it.
"Everyone can know something of love, even if they only hunger for it," Rey answers. "At least, so I believe."
"At least," he murmurs, moving infinitesimally closer. His eyes burn, but not like Poe's eyes burn. There is hunger here, hunger and darkness and something that Rey, knowing what she does of fear, might call fear…but she cannot be certain. "You speak very freely of what you believe."
"I don't see why I shouldn't." Rey tugs at her gloves. "Belief in the right things—it is the strongest force in the world, I think."
"And do you," he says, his lips forming each word vividly, "Believe in the right things?"
"I hope so." Over his shoulder, she can see that Poe has disappeared. She has been distracted—and maybe distracting, but she cannot be sure. "Excuse me, please."
...
Poe is on the other side of stained glass doors, standing in the curve of a balcony. His smile is one of immense satisfaction, and he has Bébé curled up in his arms.
"What happened to her bow?" Rey asks.
Poe laughs for a long moment. Then he says, warm and amused, "She…lost it."
The bow was a message. Rey missed it; she missed the moment of truth. "I know you're hiding something," she whispers, fists balled up against her hips.
"Yes," Poe whispers back, with a little quirk of his eyebrow. "Yes, Rey, I am."
"Finn and I are going to find you out."
His smile fades, and his face is almost grim. "Rey—I don't keep secrets for my own entertainment. You and Finn…"
"Want to help." She reaches up, as she knows all the ladies wanted to, and presses the satin palm of her glove against his cheek. "We're not children anymore, Poe."
But all the same, she falls asleep in Lady Maz's carriage on the way back to the estate.
...
Poe Dameron leans forward, poking at the embers of the parlor fire. He broods, knowing that he does so. Bébé is on his lap, spreading white and ginger hairs over his smoking jacket.
"I have never understood your name for that creature," Lady Maz says. She is wrapped in a robe over her evening gown. She pours him tea in a cup and wine in a glass. Poe drinks the wine first.
"I know you know your French," Poe grins. "But—it is true, she is no infant. One of my best men."
"Exactly."
"I received an offer of new recruits today," he says, after a moment. "Rey, and Finn."
"They see much." Maz presses her hands to her temples. "And I see much. And what I see—I would fear for them."
They do not say what they have long suspected. That Snoke, not content with reaping the fortunes of the British aristocracy, has begun to systematically feed wealthy French to the Guillotine, plucking the treasures left behind from their empty manors. That Snoke does not shed blood for revolutions, but for greed.
"They are eager." Poe finishes his wine.
"They are young."
"So was I. And so is Sir Kylo Ren, the mysterious heir apparent to Snoke's legacy, if not to his estate." Poe half-smiles. "By the way—Rey did what I could not have imagined or directed, tonight."
"And what was that?" Maz lifts an eyebrow.
"She distracted."
...
The room is bare, all paneled ebony and marble parquet floors, and darkness, darkness, darkness. The tiles swim before Kylo's eyes as he reels back, stunned by Snoke's blow.
"You failed."
"I could have easily succeeded, father," Hux interjects, but Snoke only sneers in his direction.
"The ease of the task for Kylo does not indicate its simplicity for you." He rises, and Kylo sets his jaw, waiting for another fist to rattle his teeth. "What diverted your attention from our friend Monsieur Dameron? We cannot intercept his infernal messaging system if we do not see him deliver the message."
He does not know why he says it, but that is the mystery of Snoke—he never knows why he does anything. "A girl."
Snoke's tattered and twisted and lips curl back, revealing what remains of his teeth. "A girl? What girl?"
"I did not know her." Ah, but if only that were all—
Snoke's gaze is unreadable. "I shall speak to you again in the morning," he says. He lifts his wig off and casts it to his desk, and stalks out of the room.
Kylo stands very still, his head high. He will not look at Hux. His cheek and mouth still sting.
"About time you felt it too," Hux hisses in his ear, and slams out of the room.
Kylo wonders, almost for the first time, if this is why Hux's smile is crooked. He touches the blood on his lips. He is angry at Snoke, and that is what will return him to Snoke's good graces. It is always his anger that burns the brightest, casting the longest shadows and setting his talents, such as they are, in sharp relief.
His own room is rich with fur and velvet and heavy curtains that stretch from floor to the rings set in the ceiling molding. It is ten times more beautiful than Hux's room, but tonight it feels cloying. Kylo strips off his coat, then his vest, and flings himself upon the four-poster bed.
A girl...all bright eyes and a filmy dress, a firm jaw and words that rent his heart. Why is it always so easy to reach his heart? He rakes his fingers across his chest, as though he could punish the faithless organ. As though—
But no. Not tonight. He cannot go back, he will not. He will not be led there by the silk-gloved hand of a girl whose name he does not know.
He does not even know her name. Snoke would kill him for it if he knew, but that is Kylo's greatest regret of the evening.
He tumbles over, hand clenching in his too-soft pillows. In his dreams, a voice echoes:
These are your first steps.