Her heart beating faster, she surveyed him. Had he come to find her? No, he seemed to be genuinely engrossed in the contents of the gallery, which, Tempest now saw seemed to contain family mementos rather than famous artwork. There was a rather glorious marble bust of a young girl atop a post that had Lord Rochefort completely absorbed. Tempest wondered why Lord Rochefort was here. Was it only to stare upon that sculpture? And whose sculpture was it? There was a soft expression upon Lord Rochefort's face that made Tempest's heart sink down to her stomach. A gentle, tender expression of utter captivation.
She felt as though she simply had to know whose statue that was, and who the tribute was to Lord Rochefort. She felt she had to interrupt his silent memorial of the young girl. Was she dead? No, his expression and manner was not of bereavement, but of yearning. He had reached out a hand to touch the marble profile, his fingers trailing from her forehead lightly down her nose to rest on those cold lips.
"Lord Rochefort," she said suddenly into the stillness of the room. But if she hoped to startle him, she didn't succeed. Lord Rochefort didn't move from his silent perusal.
"You again," Lord Rochefort said with a sigh. "You do turn up wherever I am."
But having been grabbed by strange men twice in as many days, this show of coldness reassured rather than repelled. "I...was compelled to come here at Saintignon's...behest," she said.
Lord Rochefort did look at her then. "Ah, yes, I see that he has been making you over."
She stiffened. "Does he...often snatch women off the streets and tailor them to his specifications?" she asked through stiff lips.
Lord Rochefort considered her with cool blue eyes. "Not often, no. In fact, I would say that never would be more apt."
"How lucky am I," she said bitterly. "But how came you to be here?"
"I live not far from here, and having grown up together, this is almost a second home to me."
"Is that sculpture also of a childhood friend?" she asked, throwing caution to the winds.
For a while, she thought he wasn't going to answer, but then he smiled faintly, "Yes, a childhood friend. Come, I'll send you home in my carriage."
Stupid, silly girl, Tempest scolded herself. But she admitted to herself that the encounter with Lord Rochefort and his unexpected percipient kindness were the reasons she could not bring herself to leave London.
What was there left for her in London? Nothing. Truly, there was nothing left. Her name was worse than mud; she could not hope to even dine in society now. She had very little pin money left. If she left it very much longer, she could not even hope to buy a stage ticket to as far as Newmarket, from which she would need to walk and beg a ride to Upper Cheltondon-on-the-Trumble.
And yet there was one thing holding her back. A truly impossible dream. The image of Lord Rochefort's smile replayed in her mind on a comforting and also self-flagellating loop. That small part of her mind refused to quash down a glimmer of hope.
Maybe. Just maybe. Was it possible?
She found herself taking long walks down to the Thames in order for the chance to bump into him.
After all, she told herself, in Upper Cheltendon-on-the-Trumble, she never would have come into contact with such a glittering personage as he. Surely the fact that he saved her, and their long chats, and…
Of course, any self respecting gentleman would have saved her in a similar situation, she would remind herself.
And so the tortuous cycle continued, sometimes only broken by the thought that one man would not have saved her like a gentleman, one man who was so far from a gentleman as to set such despicable series of events into action. Then her lips would curl into a sneer of hatred for Dominic Saintignon.
But after three days of strenuous exercise and no opportune meetings, Tempest slowly made her way back to Clarges Street, thinking that she would need to somehow buy a ticket and make her way North back home. She could not believe her eyes when she returned to Clarges Street. A traveling carriage stood in front, the door was open, and trunks were being lifted indoors. Servants matched to and fro in efficient steps, and the house was more alive than it had been in weeks.
"Holmes!" she greeted the expressionless butler. "Is it really you? Is Lady Islington returned at last?"
"Yes, miss," Holmes intoned. "My lady is having tea in her parlor."
Tempest raced upstairs and burst into Lady Islington's parlor unannounced. "Lady Islington," she exclaimed. "You have changed your mind and returned! How very good it is to see you again, how very very good!"
Lady Islington looked to be in rare good humor and did not look askance at Tempest's windblown appearance. "Yes, la, how good it is to be back in civilization! Pray, come sit with me and have a coze. We have been traveling for simply ages! But oh, it was most accommodating of him, yes, we are very obliged to my dear Saintignon, for he had ensured us the most pleasant of journeys. You simply have not traveled, my dear girl, until you have traveled under the protection of Saintignon. Oh, the best rooms! Fires blazing at all hours, meals hot and served to us first! Oh, heavenly!"
Tempest stared at Lady Islington in dismay. "Saintignon? He-was behind your return?"
"La, yes! The good man sent his servants after us with an express letter with his seal to bid us return to London on the double! His specific request and favor! I simply knew the dear man had made a mistake. A scarlet ribbon on my door! Tis hardly to be believed, and most obliging of the dear man, too, to send a retinue of servants to bid me return to my rightful place in society. What an amiable, amiable man! Oh, what an on-dit, what a tale! Now, let me see, I must pay several calls immediately and tell my good friends of this turn of fortune. Leave me, Tempest, do, for I've to dress immediately."
A host of questions on her lips, Tempest nonetheless acquiesced and retreated to the door.
"Oh, Tempest, my dear girl," Lady Islington trilled. "Have a maid help you dress; you must come along with me. Let me see, I'll have Bennett send over my blue walking dress. That'll do nicely for you."
Tempest blinked at this show of charity but curtsied and left Lady Islington still happily chattering to herself.
The tide had indeed turned.
Tempest could hardly believe that the society she encountered on her calls with Lady Islington was the same that had ignored her, rebuffed her, then persecuted her. Wishing very much to know more about what had happened between Lady Islington's hasty departure and triumphant return, Tempest had dutifully followed behind the venerable lady only to find that the certain ruin and subsequent cuts she had expected were not forthcoming.
To not be ruined was only the first surprise facing her. To find herself suddenly the center of all attention-favorable attention-was almost beyond her.
"Dear, dear Miss Makepeace," one young lady gushed upon seeing her. "Or...may I call you Tempest? For we are so close I feel formalities to be de trop."
Tempest could not recall seeing the lady at all, except...Yes, she has seen her at a ball where the young woman had danced and complained to a young man in her hearing that wallflowers really took up too much room and did no good for absolutely anybody.
"Now we must'nt be greedy, ladies," said a smooth feminine voice at Lady Stanhope's townhouse.
Tempest found herself staring right into Elsa Arenberg's cat-like eyes.
"I've been simply dying to make your acquaintance, Miss Makepeace," the beauty was saying. "My parents are having a ball tomorrow evening. Do say you will come."
Tempest stared at the young woman who had so studiously ignored her and Sarah at the rout not so very long ago. "I will have to ask Lady Islington our schedule," she said civilly. None of her lesions had prepared her for this unprecedented and very late overture. All the invitations for a ball of the size the Arenbergs intended would have been issued months ago.
"Please do. It would simply not be a ball without you there. Everyone is dying to know how you managed to get on such good terms with Lord Talleyrand."
Tempest felt she had been sucked into a cyclone that was swirling around her at increasing rates. Whenever she felt she would be set down to rest, the cyclone picked up again and she was whipped back off her feet. In the past few weeks, she had been ruined, cut, persecuted, kidnapped, and now feted? And what good terms with who?
"Dominic Saintignon, of course. Yes, we all know about the little jest you both played on society, how he pretended to tie a red ribbon on your door. It is all very amusing, I'm sure. And however did it come about that you should be so acquainted with him?" Elsa was asking.
Tempest's mouth opened and closed. She was certain she resembled a fish out of water, but her brain seemed unable to comprehend what was going on and whatever Elsa was saying. A jest? What jest?
"She's clearly being coy," said the ferrety looking girl Tempest remembered as always being around Elsa. "She's not revealing her secret and I suppose one can't fault her for wanting to hide how she came to be so close with the Four Horsemen."
"Don't heed her in the slightest, Miss Makepeace. Iolanthe is just jealous of your good fortune," said Elsa Arenberg, smiling at her with every appearance of sincerity. "We won't speak of it if it bothers you."
As Tempest could not find the words to discuss what she could not fathom to have happened in the past few days on her walking ritual, she returned the smile with gratitude. "Thank you."
"Well!" Iolanthe said, green eyes flashing, and she flounced away.
"Pray don't mind her," Elsa Arenberg said. "It's only that it's such an on-dit, I suppose no one can quite fathom it."
"Yes," Tempest agreed weakly and was relieved when Miss Arenberg seemed to lose interest in grilling her and began to chat pleasantly about other things for the remainder of their visit.
"My dear!" exclaimed Lady Islington when they had departed and were sitting in their carriage. "Oh my dear, what a coup!"
"What is? What in earth has happened? Why on earth is everyone congratulating me?" Tempest finally demanded.
"Word has it that the fight between you and Saintignon is nothing but a misunderstanding! Nobody believes that, of course, and thinks it far more salacious." Lady Islington fanned herself in frenetic exhilaration. "It really is not the thing for a young debutante to be the root of such talk, of course. But given that it is Saintignon, everything is forgiven! And what a coup for me, indeed, that my protege should have captured his attention!"
Lady Islington slumped back into the carriage cushions with a happy sigh and sparkling eyes. Her cup had indeed run over. She could speak of this for years and years thereafter. She would be invited to all the best events in order that people could know how she had accomplished this match, for surely match it was. Why else would Saintignon have bothered to explain himself? It was unprecedented from the man who cared naught for what other people said or thought.
"Is that how he is attempting to explain his persecution of me?" Tempest said with rising temper.
"Saintignon, Lord Talleyrand is being exceeding magnanimous, my girl, in trying to explain away your ghastly behavior-"
"My ghastly behavior? He tried to whip a girl! A gently bred girl! In broad daylight in a main thoroughfare! Has everyone forgotten? And when I pleaded for mercy, he turned his wrath on me, Lady Islington. Then when it looked as though he could not cow me by his cowardly actions, he had henchmen kidnap me and brought to his home-"
Lady Islington gasped. "When was this?"
"A few days after your departure. And he scared you, Lady Islington, he tried to intimidate you into leaving town, your home!"
Lady Islington seemed not to have heard this last part and focused on the kidnapping. "He had you taken to his home? Are you certain? The great mansion on -Street?"
"I was unaware of the address since a sack was thrown over my head, but I assume he resided there, as it was decorated by all manner of family portraits. That-"
Lady Islington gasped again and leaned forward. "Too delicious by half! He has never, ever personally invited any young lady to his residence."
"I would hardly call what happened to me an invitation! He has ruined me!"
"Oh my, oh my. Well, he has compromised you beyond a doubt, but we shall have to keep that to ourselves for the time, lest he fails to come up to scratch! But afterwards, oh yes, afterwards…" Lady Islington's eyes drifted off and she was once again immersed in a little fantasy.
"Come up to scratch! As if he would...as if I would ever accept the likes of him! He is a monster, and all the world his followers!"
Lady Islington eyed the girl with disfavor. It would be just like the chit to throw away the greatest opportunity of all time. To punish her, she said tartly, "We may be overstepping ourselves in any case. It might have been someone else who put about the rumor that it was only a misunderstanding."
Her barb fell on deaf ears. "I think that more than likely. And how came you to return to London? Are you certain it was Saintignon's letter who reached you? Could it perhaps have been his relative?"
"The missive had the Marquis Talleyrand's express seal, and he had dispatched his agent who had his writ on the matter. Else how could I have returned in so short a time? He managed to catch us while we were laid up at a bad inn with a broken axle and bid us return in his own traveling coach-I daresay he must have dozens of such conveyances-and along the way, his outriders rode ahead to every posting house to warn of our arrival. I slept in the best rooms in every posting house, and the service! Ah, traveling as the Marquis must be a little slice of heaven…"
Lady Islington continued much in this vein as they disembarked from the carriage and walked into the townhouse.
But despite her misgivings, Tempest presented herself the next evening beside Lady Islington at the Arenberg ball.
Would she see him there? she wondered ask the while she was getting dressed. Lady Islington had presented her maid with an incredibly precious length of fine lace and ribbon, as well as a string of seed pearls for her hair. Tempest was duly dressed by the maid in a dress of white crepe with draped sleeves, the lace trimmed to the bottom. A velvet robe of sea green went over the crepe dress and buttoned under her bosom. More beaded ribbon had been used to trim the edges of the robe. Kid gloves and shoes completed her evening ensemble.
Lady Islington was a vision smothered in yards of lace encrusted velvet and jewels. Even her turban was a confection of silk flowers and no less than three glittering broaches. When she moved, Tempest found that even her soft kid shoes bore mismatched baubles.
After they had arrived and were announced, Tempest was certain she would be relegated to the sidelines as she always was. But several gentlemen came to ask for dances, and she found that the past few weeks were a strangely forgot episode. The warm smiles from the other wallflowers that had greeted Tempest as a recognized compatriot of similar unpopular standing soon turned to sour looks.
Yet there was nothing in particular to gloat over. Tempest found that the the first two dances were unspoken for, and the most important dance, that of the supper dance, was also unsigned. After some uncomfortable moments trying to converse with the other wallflowers, Tempest realized that the men brave enough to dance with her were urged on some sort of a dare. Her heart sank as she realized that she might in all probability be stood up for those dances.
Tempest squared her shoulders as she spied several sidelong glances in her direction. She would not be an object of pity! If she had any regrets, it was that the silent anonymity of her first weeks in London was broken and she was regarded as something of a notoriety. The one who dared stand up to Saintignon. No one quite knew how to react to that, considering no one had since then seen them together.
With a start, she realized that a showdown was exactly what everyone was waiting for. Despite her pleasant company yesterday, Elsa Arenberg had not come near her despite several looks on her direction. She had mistaken her kind gesture then, but no matter.
Tempest was so sunk in her thoughts that she had no idea when talking in the ballroom lulled and then sped up again, and movements froze and then restarted. She was only dimly aware that a pair of male feet in polished evening shoes had stopped in front of her.