"I said, give me your dance card," said a voice so imperious that Tempest jumped and held out her dance card before she had even realized what was happening.
She looked up to find that none other than Dominic Saintignon, Marquis Talleyrand, was standing in front of her, so close that his feet were nearly trodding hers.
Startled, Tempest's hand jerked and she would have taken back her dance card had not Saintignon kept an iron grip on it and to her horror, scrawled his name down before giving her a jerky bow of his head and walking off.
Tempest was left with her mouth open amidst whispers until Lady Islington forced her way through the stares back to her side.
"Oh, my dear!" that lady gushed in a whisper loud enough to be heard by half the people around them. "Saintignon has asked you to dance! What a triumph, what a triumph indeed!"
Conversations once again picked up.
"It's as good as a declaration," Lady Islington continued. "Let me see it. Ah, his signature. So bold, so dashing! We must frame it when we return home."
Tempest, who had not even had the presence of mind to see which dance Saintignon had procured before the card had been ripped out of her hands, said, "I am sure it is only a ruseā¦"
But Lady Islington had shrieked. "Two dances, my dear! Two dances! It is a declaration! Oh, the riches, oh the life you'll lead, my girl! Only do not be forgetting your dear old friend, Lady Islington, she what brought you to his attention."
But Tempest wasn't listening. She had taken back her dance card and was examining the black scrawled signature of Saintignon for the supper dance and another one later in the evening. With only half her attention on Lady Islington, she tapped a finger on the card while her mind raced.
But of course, she thought. Of course.
Not for one moment did she believe, as Lady Islington did in her delusions, that the dreaded Saintignon had honorable intentions. Marriage was so far from that man's mind did the older lady but know of his abduction of her to his home. So improper, so ruinous! If aught had gotten out -she was amazed that no one seemed to be talking of it- she would probably be seen as his mistress or worse!
But he had not managed to convince her to accept his weird offer of patronage -if ever there was a more euphemistic manner of setting her up as his amour propre, she didn't know what it was. She was never going to accept his offer...but he did not know that. He clearly had some twisted plan to torture her in some other manner...And what better way than to raise her hopes and then cut her before all society! Anonymity had been her shield before, and his attentions had neatly taken care of that!
"Lady Islington, is there a way to reject an offer of dance if they have already signed their name to your card?" she demanded.
"Well, of course you can say you feel faint, or you twisted your ankle...But then you cannot dance for the remainder of the night. You can say you need to repair a flounce on your skirt...I suppose there are all sorts of excuses, but you must never reject someone outright, for no other man can be seen dancing with you for the rest of that evening!"
Lady Islington continued to talk, returning to her favorite subject of the Saintignon, but Tempest's mind began to roam. She could come up with any excuse then, she was sure. Some excuse that wouldn't ruin this strange but providential popularity she seemed to have accumulated, but also keep her safely away from Dominic Saintignon. Ironic, really, how her downfall and popularity all seemed to come from the same source.
Perhaps she could have devoted more time to coming up with the perfect turn of phrase had she not had to perform several rigorous dances that took all of her concentration, and then in the middle of one turn, her attention was captured by a commotion at the top of the stairs. She almost missed a step when she saw that Lord Rochefort had arrived, for once not in concert with the other Horsemen, and that his companion was someone she had never seen before: someone tall, elegant, blond, and undeniably beautiful.
"Who is the lady who has just arrived?" she asked of her dancing partner.
"That is the very beautiful and Original Lady Susanna, wife of the distinguished Bertram Chelmsford."
"She might be the most beautiful person I've ever seen," Tempest said sincerely, which won her an approving look from her partner.
Lady Susanna, at a glance, was everything Tempest felt she was not. Throughout the figures of the simple country dance, Tempest discovered that Lady Susanna was the only daughter of the Earl and Countess of Prell, whose estates ran adjacent to the Rochefort's, and that she was accounted good hearted and somewhat eccentric in her good works for the poor. For it was fashionable to donate pieces of clothing that one would otherwise give to the servants or leftovers from an elaborate banquet, but the height of impropriety to actually visit the poor in person, which Lady Susanna had been wont to do. Of course she had then married the very worthy Bertram Chelmsford, who was a younger son.
"It was just like Lady Susanna to have turned down all her immensely suitable and titled suitors in favor of a good man," he said with a shake of his head.
"Is he a man of the cloth?" Tempest asked in between turns.
"Oh, no. But as a diplomat of the state, he has done very creditable work on behalf of the government and was sent with the ambassador to Vienna, for the signing, you see."
Tempest did see. She also saw that Lady Susanna was the subject of the sculpture Lord Rochefort caressed that night.
When she was escorted off the dance floor back to her seat, in the press, she found a piece of paper being pressed in her hand. She clutched it in her fist and under the guise of repairing to the lady's anteroom, was able to unfurl it and read it.
"Plese met me in the Gold Chamber. It is of utmost importans." Gold had been underlined three times. Tempest disregarded the misspellings, for it was an age of illiterates. Without thinking, she rushed from the anteroom to find the Gold Chamber.
There was a profusion of chambers all connected to one another via doors, and she was able to guess at their identification from the decor.
The Gold Chamber was clearly named so from the abundance of gold plated decorations, from the gold painted cornices, to the gold curtains, the gold stripped wallpaper, and the gold gilded settee and cabinet.
At first the room looked deserted and a Tempest turned to leave. A voice from the half open adjoining door stopped her. But it was male, and Tempest had been almost certain that it was Sarah who had sent the note.
"You don't look happy to see me, Harry," a female voice responded. It was a light, cultured voice that Tempest did not recognize. But with a start, she realized that Harry was Lord Rochefort.
