The morning dawned misty and gray, but Tempest opened her eyes to a rush of happiness. London no longer seemed like a foreign and hostile place. If Sarah were to remain for the entire Season, outings with Lady Islington no longer held the allure of a hanging. Suddenly Tempest realized that she now had a friend with whom to chat, that she would no longer have to sit propped up against the wall, glassy-eyed, pretending that she enjoyed herself. She hadn't realised how lonely she had been before she met Sarah.
Sarah was waiting for her at the south gate with a maid, whom she sent off once she spied Tempest.
"I thought you'd never come," said Sarah with a shy smile. Today, she seemed far more effusive than the previous evening.
They chatted about various sights in London, and Tempest learned Sarah hailed from Dorset and they talked about what Sarah did as a child by the seaside.
"But my parents are so ambitious," confessed Sarah. "They have this mad idea that should I only exert myself a little more, I could bring myself to the attention of Dominic Saintignon."
"Mine too," admitted Tempest. "That is, their dearest wish is for me to marry above my circumstance." She thought that the dwindling family coffers would be put to better use sending her younger brother to school, or so that her father could learn a trade like her uncle, Mr. Henderson, who was a fairly well-off lawyer. Certainly, they would be better off courting the merchant class than attempting to bridge the gap between they, impoverished gentility, and them, aristocrats with unearned bottomless wealth. Tempest scowled in frustration.
"But, at least my mother couldn't accompany me this time," said Sarah brightly, skipping off the footpath. Suddenly, she stumbled over earth that had been turned over by horse hooves and gave a muffled shriek as she sprawled across the path just as a lone horseman burst into the clearing ahead of a parcel of early morning riders.
The horse reared in agitation. Sarah cowered on the path. The other riders slowed to a halt and drew closer. Their horses whinnied and blew their noses as they trotted in place.
Amid the cries of "whoa!" and "what's amiss?" came an ominously silky voice.
"You useless baggage, do you know who I am?"
Tempest, who had reached out a helpless hand in a useless effort to stop Sarah from falling, fell back a pace. The Four Horsemen with a small entourage of servants and company had arrived.
"Yes, my lord," said a Sarah shaking with fright. "I'm so dreadfully sorry, only I ran out without thinking and I fell."
"Do you know how much I paid for this horse?" continued the deadly voice of Dominic Saintignon.
"N-no, my lord," Sarah gulped.
There was a stillness in the air that prevented Tempest from even breathing.
"Do you know, it's far more than I value half your life." There was an eerie calm in his voice that contrasted with the fury in his glittering hard eyes.
"Saint," came a masculine protest behind him, which he ignored.
"You understand you must be punished for this," he said in a cold, dead voice, holding out a hand, and a liveried man clattered up on a horse and placed a whip in his palm.
"Now," Saintignon said softly, uncoiling the whip between his hands. "Now you shall see what happens when you ruin my morning ride."
Without thinking, Tempest ran out in front of Sarah. "Stop it!" she shouted, her arms outstretched on either side of her.
"Who's that?" she heard someone murmur.
"That's Lady Islington's relation, I think," a voice replied. "That old rip with the scandalous gowns."
"A poor relation, no doubt," Dominic Saintignon sneered, looking down at her with glittering eyes. "This is why I abhor the poor. They think the world is created for all and sundry."
"What has she done?" Tempest demanded hotly, her heart pounding as she spoke. She was faintly aware of Sarah trembling behind her, too stunned and too scared to even move from where she fell. "She's apologized for startling your horse! A gentleman would not behave thus!"
A surprised silence fell on the group and Tempest looked on the mounted riders behind Saintignon, hoping to find a champion among them, but all she could see were cold, impassive eyes.
"What do you think, Nigel? I wager she'll leave town in a fortnight," said the man with longish brown hair that she remembered from the night before.
"That's too generous," said Nigel, the dark haired man who had reached out with a restraining hand the night before. "Rochefort, do you agree with Marchmont? I give her five days. Rochefort? Dash it, where's he gone?"
"Probably to sleep," murmured Marchmont, and a few men and a couple of ladies behind the three Horsemen laughed.
Tempest looked wildly around at the nonchalance of the riders. This is my life they're wagering! she thought with something approaching hysteria.
"What a bore, Saintignon," a woman drawled from behind him.
Saintignon held up a gloved hand as his horse danced on its gigantic hooves. "Indeed, it is a bore," he said in an offhand tone, much as a sleepy judge delivering a sentence. "But I can whip two girls as well as one."
Tempest had read the deadly intent in his black eyes even before he spoke, and she whipped off the shawl from around her neck and threw it full on Saintignon's horse's head. In the ensuing panic as the much aggrieved horse neighed and reared, Tempest grabbed Sarah by the elbow and hauled her up. "Run!" she hissed, and they made for the trees.
She fully expected that whip to come slashing down her back at any moment and hunched her shoulders as she ran for some scant protection, only the sound of Sarah panting next to her keeping her from looking back.
Only when they had stopped in the clump of trees across the distance, panting for breath and certain no one followed, did they share a short laugh of pure relief.
"I thought-I thought," heaved Sarah with short breaths, "I was dead for certain! You saved me, Tempest!"
"He...He wouldn't have done it, I'm sure," said Tempest bravely. "The others behind him would have put a stop to it."
Sarah shook her head sadly. "You haven't been in London that long. The Four Horsemen are powerful and Dominic Saintignon is more powerful than the King. Indeed, some say he is more feared than Napoleon."
"Surely you jest," Tempest said weakly. Napoleon Bonaparte, less a threat in Upper Cheltendon-on-the-Trumble than the immediate effects of Britain's colonial and continental wars, such as food shortages and inflation, was only half-heartedly brought up to bring children into line.
"No, I fear I speak only truth. The last man to cross him was dragged behind four horses to his death! You saw with your own eyes how he treated the gentleman from last night."
"How can such a thing be?" demanded Tempest. "Does the law not exist?"
"The wealthy and powerful are the law."
"But...even dueling is illegal. Should he not have to leave England?"
"The Saintignons are more powerful than you can possibly imagine. It is said that the King himself would be afraid to cross him for it is known they could singlehandedly topple the war in Napoleon's favor. He faced no consequences in the death of that gentleman, you see, for his family hushed up the scandal, and it was put about by the man's own family that he died in a riding accident of his own making."
"Surely there were questions? Someone must have alerted the authorities?"
Sarah shook her head fiercely. "They all look the other way when the name of Saintignon is mentioned. There is nothing in the world to be done once you've brought down the ire of Dominic Saintignon upon your head."
Oh, merciful God in heaven, Tempest thought. And she had defied him in front of others. All she had wanted was to live a quiet and simple life until she could return home!
"What is this?" Lady Islington demanded of her butler at breakfast the next morning. She pointed at a scarlet ribbon lying on the silver platter used to deliver the morning post to her side.
"It was tied to the knocker when I opened the door this morning, milady," replied Holmes with a small bow.
Lady Islington shrieked. "I've been targeted! Holmes, explain this! Oh, I must have crossed the Four Horsemen somehow," she cried. "I must make amends. A present perhaps. No, presents for all of them, yes, that's what I'll do."
Tempest stared at her babbling relation as a dark foreboding wrapped its fist about her neck.
"An it please your ladyship," said Holmes with another bow of his head, "I believe it was the young miss, according to all reports."
Lady Islington swiveled her head to cast a beady glare at Tempest. "Explain yourself, Holmes."
With an expressionless sideways glance at Tempest, Holmes said, "From all reports, it appears as though the young miss caused Lord Talleyrand to fall from his horse. However, I would not credit this rumor as the full truth." His eyes cast towards Tempest were not unsympathetic.
Lady Islington gave a truly horrendous high-pitched scream. "Viper in my nest! Tempest, how can you have done such a thing? Did you not apologize?"
"But...I thought it was Dominic Saintignon that we..."
"You stupid, stupid girl! Do you not know of the Saintignons? Dominic Saintignon is the only son and heir of the Duke d'Auvergne-Talleyrand, and Dominic Saintignon is the Marquis Talleyrand." At Tempest's look of incomprehension, Lady Islington went into a spiel that was clearly memorized and an oft-revisited topic. "The Saintignons go back before the Conquest, and the name Saintignon carries more weight than even that of a dukedom. Anyone in the whole breadth and width of England knows this, that Dominic Saintignon is Saintignon, and his father, The Duke. It is well known that the Saintignons are royally connected all over the civilized world, and in fact, the Duke and Duchess are currently in St. Petersburg with the Russian royal family."
"I see," said Tempest, who was overwhelmed by this sudden historical lesson.
"Dominic Saintignon is the head of the Four Horsemen, along with Viscount Rochefort, the Baron Marchmont, and Lord Nigel, all of whom are powerful men, powerful, wealthy men."
"Is it a club then?"
"It's a moniker, you silly chit! So called because no one ever crosses them without consequence! A red ribbon is always tied to the dwelling of those who crossed them, and Tempest, you have repaid me sore indeed!"
Tempest took a deep breath. "My lady, it grieves me to have brought this upon your head, but I beg leave to inform you that Sarah Manning only but tripped in his path. She was nearly trampled, and immediately she apologized. And in tones quite unbecoming a gentleman, the man informed her she must be punished! Whipped! My lady, surely you must see that he behaved in quite a mad fashion!"
Far from being shocked or outraged by this, Lady Islington said, "Then naturally he must have his way, for Miss Manning should have known better than to venture in Hyde Park during that part of the morning when he was certain to take a ride."
Tempest stared at Lady Islington. "But, whipped...? Like a common dog? Lady Islington-"
"Oh, do hush, girl! You put me quite out of countenance! You know nothing of this world, for if you did, you certainly wouldn't have incurred his wrath! And now, what most I do? Holmes, tell Betty to ready my bags. I must leave for the Continent immediately. Not a moment to waste."
Holmes bowed. "Yes, my lady," he said and disappeared from the room.
"Lady Islington..." Tempest said, slowly rising as the older lady pushed her chair away from the table with a loud screech.
"As for you, my hoity-toity miss, I can only advise you to leave London at once. No, no," she said, half to herself. "If he finds her gone, surely he would pursue me halfway to Italy. Perhaps if she stayed, he can appease his anger. Yes, yes," she said, muttering under her breath as she lurched from the room.
Tempest watched her walk away with befuddled eyes. It was a hard drinking age, she reminded herself. Perhaps the lady had been overindulging?
By the late afternoon, Lady Islington had rattled off in her traveling carriage with her maid, a footman, the butler, and the chef. The rest of the staff was allowed leave.
Tempest watched with bemusement. Surely it was rash of Lady Islington to go so far as to dismiss her servants and run off to the Continent while a war was still waging. But the foibles of society were incomprehensible at best.
"I beg your pardon to speak plainly, miss," Holmes said before he left.
"You have it," she replied.
"You'd best leave town at once, before they come for you," was his commiserating last warning.
Leave town, she thought as she was left in a cold, empty townhouse. Return to Upper Cheltendon-on-the-Trumble? She thought of her parents in their modest country manor, with only a cook, a scullery maid, a housemaid, a pot boy, and a man-of-all-work cum gardener. She thought of how they had sold the Turner from the front parlor in order to pay for the bribe to Lady Islington to take her in for the Season.
If only they knew, she thought. If only they knew how unintelligible and mad this Society is, they surely would not look down on anyone in Upper or Lower Cheltendon!
She thought again of Sarah Manning and her second Come-out, and the funds it would have taken her family. She herself was not out, indeed, the wardrobe it would have taken would be more than their manor house was worth. But all so that Sarah could have a chance to catch the eye of one of the Horsemen? A man who had threatened to horsewhip her for stumbling into his path?
It was lunacy.
