October 7th, 1792

Lady Blakeney sat at the library window, her hands on an open book she had not looked at for at least a quarter hour, her distant inward gaze directed at the pearly rain streaking the windows. The fine late-summer weather had decayed into this steady October drizzle the very day Percy left, and she was prey to a curious fancy that it might not end until he returned.

Such a thought brought a breath more hope and joy to her eyes than would have been seen there at the thought of her husband several weeks ago. The last fortnight, since the Comtesse's cruel gibes and Chauvelin's sly whispers at Dover, had been a nightmare, a fog of anxiety and pain and impossible choices that still kept her up at night...but there had been moments of brightness too. The tremor in his voice on the terrace; the look in his eyes when he left.

As for her other concerns - well! Armand's fatal letter, delivered to her as agreed the morning after the ball, was dust and ashes in the grate, but no word had yet come to England of the arrest, let alone execution, of the secretive national hero. Marguerite had quite persuaded herself that the fellow who had outsmarted half of France already had not found himself stymied by one foreign envoy; quite possibly he had been alerted to his danger even at Lord Grenville's ball, and had failed to keep his appointment in the supper-room. Chauvelin was ruthless, she knew, but not dishonorable. His threats aside, no doubt her brother's life had been given to her in recognition for her efforts. And her own letter, exercising every emotional and authoritative appeal an elder sister could draw upon, would be halfway to Armand by now already. If he did not agree to wrap up his affairs in Paris and join her permanently in England upon receipt, she was no judge of her own eloquence.

And soon Sir Percy would be back, and this time - Marguerite pressed her lips together in a small unconscious smile, and nodded firmly. Yes. This time it would be different. Pride was all well and good for a young woman on her own, but it sat ill on a wife. Her deepest fear had been that she had already lost his affection permanently; his look and his voice the night of the ball had more than reassured her on that point. She was not afraid of a battle with Sir Percy's own pride, and she would not lose again to her own.

She rested her fingers on the back of her other hand, where his burning kiss had lingered in that cool dawn air. No, she did not anticipate too bruising a battle with Sir Percy's pride...if only he would return soon.

A polite cough interrupted her reverie, and she looked up to see the face of her husband's valet.

"Forgive me, my lady, but Edwards was occupied and so I saw to the door. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes seeks an audience with you; are you at home?"

Marguerite closed her book and set it aside, rising quickly. That trick she had played at the ball had weighed on her badly, and she was only too grateful at the opportunity to assuage her conscience with an afternoon of tea and biscuits and, no doubt, mutual discussion of the many virtues of a certain newly arrived mademoiselle.

"Yes, Frank, I am certainly at home to Sir Andrew. Please show him in at once."

She peered at him more closely, her brow creasing in concern.

"And then you had perhaps better take the afternoon, I think? You look terribly ill…"

Frank only nodded his white, drawn face, lips pressed tightly together.

"Your ladyship," and he exited with no other acknowledgment, returning an instant later to announce Sir Andrew Ffoulkes.

Any concern Marguerite might have still held for her husband's quiet, stolid valet vanished in the wave of her anxiety at the sight of Sir Andrew. The young man looked nearly twice his age, his face drawn in lines of pain and horror, although the expression in his eyes was the bewildered pain of the hurting child. He wore a plain black suit devoid of buttons, lined with only plain white linen at collar and cuffs, though it fit him tightly around the shoulders and middle as if made for a slightly thinner man. The style seemed at least three years out of date, and the harsh color made him sallow.

His voice was thick with unhappiness.

"Lady Blakeney."

Her hands were suddenly wound together so tightly she felt her joints crack.

"Suzanne. Something has happened to Suzanne. What is it, Sir Andrew?'

His face contorted into an even greater pain, and he shook his head, his lower lip held tight an instant between his teeth.

"No, no, your ladyship. Suzanne is well. Her father...her father landed at Dover late last night, and arrived here this morning. He was safe, despite..."

He trailed off, his lips pressed tightly together, but she had relaxed. Her chest loosened, and she felt herself able to reach out to him with a more gentle compassion, to be the comforter now that her own selfish fear was assuaged.

"Sir Andrew, Sir Percy is not at home, I fear, but pray, tell me how I can help you?"

He looked her full in the face, and her heart felt suddenly cold and sluggish in her chest, her mouth dry but her palms damp against her skirt.

"You...you had best sit down, my lady."

Numbly, obediently she turned, glancing about the room for a chair as if it were a foreign place to her, and then whirled back to him.

"Sir Percy. If Sir Percy is in trouble, Sir Andrew, you must take me to him at once. My carriage can be brought round in an instant, and I need not pack; anything I need I can purchase there...wherever…"

Now it was Andrew who looked at her with that wordless compassion, with a fruitless desire to ease the pain.

"My lady. God in heaven knows I would take his place if I could, but Sir Percy is nowhere now that you can go to him."

She sank down very slowly to the stool behind her, her hands wrapped tight around one another in her skirt.

"Sir Andrew, I do not understand…"

He knelt before her, taking her hands in his own, like a hopeful suitor or a polite courtier, and spoke without looking up. The remembered kiss on her hand burned like a brand.

"Your husband Percy - the Scarlet Pimpernel - was executed yesterday in Paris."

He said more, but she could not hear it for the roaring in her ears, the pounding in her heart, and the snickering ever-present whisper of the rain.