Tempest Makepeace glumly surveyed the inside of yet another ballroom from the corner of the room in which she was sitting.
Hiding, she corrected herself. She despised London, she despised the hypocrisy of society, and she despised all of the aristocrats and their mercenary ways. It was a mercenary world, in which the value of estates and dowries were discussed broadly in open company and men were shunned upon losing all their wealth in a game of cards by the very companions he had played with the night before.
But I'm no different, she thought.
For Tempest Makepeace had been sent by her parents to make a good marriage to that most relentless of towns, London.
Her parents, she reflected wryly, did not seem capable of comprehending how the polite world worked. They seemed to think she would be absorbed into high society by simply being in geographic proximity, by a sort of osmosis. The simple truth was far more brutal. Without the sartorial armor afforded by plenty of disposable wealth, she was in society and not in at the same time.
She was less than out, she was invisible. She sat next or around Lady Islington, day in and day out at various musicales, routs, balls, and breakfasts. In fact, due to Lady Islington's obsession with pursuing all things fashionable, she even had vouchers to Almack's, for all the good it was doing her parents.
Mrs. and Mr. Makepeace had lobbied with their only titled relative, formerly Penelope Barries, now Lady Islington of some half century years of age, to take Tempest in as a companion during the Season, selling odd knickknacks around the house in order to bribe the lady with garish jewelry of dubious provenance. There were many relatives who would have wanted the same opportunity, Mrs. Makepeace had said.
"I won't be footing the bill for her Come-Out, mind. But she can come with me to the place I frequent," Lady Islington had told her parents.
And so she obediently trotted behind lady Islington to every function she attended, looking less like a fashionable cousin of equal standing and more like an impoverished relation or servant.
Today, there was another girl sitting next to her, with a pinched, white face, looking quite as though she would have liked to squeeze into the dark corner behind Tempest.
Tempest offered a small smile and was rewarded by a tentative one in return.
"Hello," the girl said to Tempest, moving her chair closer.
Tempest saw that the girl was a debutante, if her white muslin gown and necklace of seed pearls were any indication.
"Are you...Are you making your Come-out also?" the girl asked. "That is, it's my second Come-out, only I've never seen you before."
"I'm afraid I'm not out," Tempest said ruefully. "I'm only accompanying my relative, Lady Islington."
The girl looked nonplussed at this revelation, then undecided. "Then you are a paid companion," she said, and Tempest felt something in the other girl withdraw.
"No, I'm visiting," Tempest said, a bit coolly.
"Oh, I see," the girl said, looking abashed and pinched again. Then she said, "I'm Sarah Manning. Would...Would you like to be friends?"
She sounded so tentative, so certain she would be rejected that Tempest relented. "Yes, of course," Tempest said, warmly. "I'm Tempest Makepeace."
A group of elegantly and elaborately dressed young ladies that had been in the room moved into their corner to chat.
"Diamonds are quite, quite de trop, you know," one young lady said in a high fluting voice. "Colored gemstones are the thing. Do see what my papa gave me before we left for the Season."
The other ladies and Tempest and Sarah looked obediently at the ruby necklace on display around the young lady's neck. They all murmured flattering noises.
"I-It's lovely," said Sarah in a louder voice.
The conversation between the ladies stopped, and the ruby lady turned to look down on them with a cold, white face. "Yes?"
Tempest saw that Sarah had used up her bravery for the moment. "She said it's lovely," Tempest said.
"And you are..." the lady trailed off in a very supercilious way and snapped open a fan.
As Sarah seemed to have retreated behind a wall of wide-eyed muteness, Tempest spoke up. "Tempest Makepeace and Sarah Manning, if you please."
"Ah," said the young lady with raised eyebrows and turned her back on them. "Never heard of them," she said offhandedly to her companions.
"Oh, Elsa, go on about your trip to The Hall," gushed another lady with envy and enthusiasm.
"Yes, do," came a chorus of female voices.
"That's a better present than the mare my father gave me," said one dissatisfied looking girl with a snub nose. "I've only been outside of The Hall."
Elsa, the elegant brunette with the rubies, looked pleased. "Yes, well, if my father weren't the Neville Arenberg of the Derbyshire Arenbergs, I doubt I would have been invited. And Lord Talleyrand, Lord Marchmont, Lord Rochefort, and Lord Nigel were all there."
At this, she gave an expectant glance around and the crowd of girls giggled obligingly at this litany of names.
"My mother has commanded me to attach one of them before the Season is out," said the snub-nosed girl.
"I prefer Lord Rochefort," said one in a giggly whisper. "He's so handsome!"
"But Lord Nigel is by far the most charming. Such a rake though! It is said he has a trio of mistresses at any one time!" This was said in a low whisper.
"I belong only to Dominic Saintignon," announced Elsa loftily. "There's no one on earth but a Saintignon, after all."
"Oh, Elsa," said the envious girl with skinny arms and a large mouth. "I suppose we all want Dominic Saintignon, but he won't look at any of us."
Before the offended Elsa could say a word, there was a flurry at the outer door.
"Oh, you'll never guess! They've come, the Four Horsemen!" said one young lady at a loud whisper that could be heard across the entire room.
Suddenly the room seemed to come alive. Even Sarah seemed to brighten and emerge from her shell.
"The four horsemen?" repeated Tempest.
"They are the four nobles Elsa Arenberg just mentioned," Sarah explained. "I...know I have no chance, but my mother also commanded me to make a push for them. Dominic Saintignon is her number one choice, of course," she said with a wry voice.
"I see," Tempest said, although she didn't see at all, the discussion of too many names and titles flowing over her head. She stood with Sarah to attempt to see over the heads of the people in the salon.
At first she was sure that whoever the Four Horsemen were, they had come and left without her seeing them. Then they entered the room, and a respectful hush swept through the crowd, as though they were in the presence of royalty.
But Sarah had surely said they were aristocrats, not royalty, and she saw some in the front and closest to the entrance sink into low court curtsies.
Then she saw them, and they were assuredly, in this age of a short British population, tall and commanding of presence. But perhaps the presence was due to the fact that everyone turned to face them as they swept through the room, like flowers turning to the sun during the course of a long sunny day. Such abeyance seemed excessive and almost comical.
Of a certainty, the four men that came in were young and dressed in the sort of understated but very definite elegance that came only from wealth. The first one was taller than the rest and she stared a bit longer at him because he wore such an expression of pure bad temper and ill humor, his black brows drawing together over the bridge of his high nose and his mouth curled into a sneer rather than a smile.
I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of that one, she thought to herself.
There was a low murmur as chatting resumed after they moved out of sight. Then they walked back through the room again. This time, a young man who had been tipsily recounting and acting out a story stumbled into the path of the four men.
Talking stopped abruptly.
"Watch it!" the tipsy man said over his shoulder and then stopped dead as he looked up at the dark face of the tallest man. "I say, terribly sorry," he blubbered. "So terribly, terribly sorry," he said, bowing and backing away as though before royalty.
The ill-tempered tall man grabbed a fistful of the cravat of the suddenly stone cold sober man, jerked him up and off his feet.
"Saint," protested a dark-haired man behind him, placing a restraining hand on Saint's arm.
The man called Saint was momentarily distracted by his friend and let go of the cravat without warning so that the tipsy man stumbled and fell on his backside, backing up even as he did so.
"Get out of here," said a long-haired man with Saint to the tipsy man.
There was a collective holding of breath as the Four Horsemen left the townhouse, and then chatting resumed at full volume.
"Dominic Saintignon," said Sarah to an uncomprehending Tempest. "He's the tall man at the front."
"Oh, the bad-tempered one," she said.
"I suppose so, but perhaps the other man shouldn't have stumbled into him like that," explained Sarah.
There was no call for jerking the other man up off his feet by his cravat and then pushing him backwards, Tempest thought to herself, but deemed it politic to keep her views to herself.
Lady Islington came rushing up to Tempest. "Oh, the excitement," she warbled with glowing eyes. "Oh, thrills and chills! Well, Tempest, my girl, they've come and left, so now we can head on home. Everybody's leaving, except for those of them who want to stay and dissect everything."
Tempest introduced Sarah Manning to Lady Islington, who murmured an absent, "Pleased to meet you," and then went on to wonder where the men were off to next.
Tempest smiled at Sarah. "It was nice meeting you," she said.
"Yes, I-I enjoyed talking to you," stammered Sarah. "I hope I'll see you again..."
Tempest felt a rush of affection for this shy, white and pinched girl. She was the first one to have evinced any desire to be friends with Tempest, rather than dismissing her because she was not a debutante.
"I take walks in Hyde Park in the morning most days. At the south gate at nine in the morning," Tempest said. "It's very early, though."
"No, no, indeed it isn't," protested Sarah with bright eyes. "On the morrow then!"
Tempest left the townhouse with a still babbling Lady Islington, feeling a warm glow spread through her insides. Her first London friend!
A/N: I'm attempting to go back and edit previous uploads. Man, there are so many errors. I can't believe nobody has said anything so far. I really appreciate the readers and reviewers for reading this garbled mess!