Tempest gaped.

In the uproar that the unexpected guests created, she had extricated her hand from Saintignon's grasp and was making her way across the room. Similarly, all the guests were doing likewise, gravitating towards the newest arrivals.

"Well?" growled Saintignon next to her as he gazed at his friends. "You were supposed to arrive last week!"

Lord Nigel slapped him on the back. "We decided to make a fashionably late appearance."

"We had a stop to make," agreed Lord Marchmont, an arm slung around Lord Rochefort's shoulders. "There was a rumor that Rochefort here was back in the country and laying low. Naturally, we had to dig him out of seclusion."

There was a silent exchange between Rochefort and Saintignon before the latter grasped the blond man's hand in a firm clasp. "It's good to have you back, Roche."

Rochefort gave one of his rare smiles. "Quite the celebration you have going here," he said, glancing around before his eyes fell on Tempest.

Tempest felt that gaze like a flint striking wood. Her cheeks felt heated and a string of questions filled her mind. What was he doing back in England? Where was Lady Susanna? What was their status? Was Lady Susanna as yet still married to her husband? Was he happy? Was he-

She never had a chance to continue her incoherent thoughts. In the next moment, Saintignon had raised his voice.

"Now that my good friend Rochefort has returned to us, this is truly the night for a celebration. May all my acquaintances, neighbors, and friends join me in a toast to commemorate my engagement to Tempest Makepeace!"

Tempest felt a moment's anger directed at Saintignon-why, for the love all that was holy, did he have to say anything now? Why couldn't he have just waited-just until-just until-

Just until what? a voice inside Tempest asked. Until you had a chance to speak to Lord Rochefort?

Yes, deuce take it! Tempest wanted to roar back, using the harshest words she knew. Was it so very wrong?

Yes, it is, that voice smugly informed Tempest. You made a promise to Saintignon already. You are no longer at liberty to indulge in fanciful notions of love with any other men, and don't you forget it!

The celebration swirled around Tempest, who felt the night pass in a whirl of colors and sounds. A ring had been placed on her nerveless finger, punctuated by a kiss from Saintignon. It was a gigantic, heavy ring with the Saintignon crest on it. Tempest stared at it in a daze. The two-headed dragon reared and faced one another on a shield, one on a white gemstone, the other on a black background. Victor nocturnis diurnisque, it read in small letters.

"Conqueror of night and day. I beg your pardon for the lack of a proper betrothal ring," Saintignon said, worrying the ring around her finger. "There are many valuable rings in the Saintignon vault, but only one ring is hailed as the one for the next Duchess d'Auvergne-Talleyrand, and I would not have given you a lesser one for the world. However, as that one currently is within my mother's possession, we must make do with the family crest, which is in my keeping in my father's stead. Until my mother receives my letter and responds, you shall be the protector of my family crest."

Tempest had no words for this proof of his trust and could only stare up at him while he gave her a wry smile. "Yes, both my parents spend much of their time with the Russian court. It is dashed inconvenient when a man wishes to be engaged, is it not?"

Everyone in the company felt obligated to come speak to her and offer her their congratulations. Most even made a credible appearance of genuine goodwill, although Lord Walbrey seemed mostly embarrassed. So many people wanted to toast to their happiness that Tempest drank much too much of the champagne and started to feel giddy.

Lady Saintignon, yes, that was who she shall be. Lady of the manor. The marchioness. She would never have to worry about money again. No more worrying about whether to buy the entire haunch or just a quarter of the haunch at the butcher's. No more parsing the household accounts with the housekeeper and deciding which expenses to put off. No more discussions of which valuables to sell-a discussion that weighed the sentimental value against the monetary in a contest in which one just wanted to weep with the futility of the lack of income. She could have oranges and pineapples until she gagged on it.

Tempest giggled at the thought.

"Are you all right?" Saintignon asked, giving her arm a sharp tug.

She gazed at him dreamily. She supposed he wasn't terrible looking, now that he had stopped his infernal scowling. If one liked the tall and dark type, he certainly was your man. At least he wasn't terribly hairy, despite that unruly mop of curls. He didn't have hair sprouting out from under the edges of his cuffs or a disreputable dark beard. And he certainly had very lovely dark eyes, much like the countess, shaped with a compelling upwards slant at the outer corners. If one didn't prefer fair men-no, she certainly wasn't going to think about that. Especially since she never had a preference, fair or dark, before she embarked on her journey to London. So it really wouldn't be fair to say that she preferred fair men. She giggled. That was just too many "fairs" in that last thought.

"Drink a little tea," Saintignon ordered, frowning down at her. "Carstairs!" he called. "Bring several pots of tea."

Yes, and she could have endless pots of good, strong tea. No more scrimping and saving over tea, drinking watered down versions to be frugal while pretending she enjoyed it weak.

"What's the matter with her?" asked a voice that turned out to come from the very far mouth of Lord Nigel.

"Too much champagne," Saintignon said from the other end of a tunnel. "She comes from such common background that I doubt if she's ever had it before. Certainly she doesn't seem to understand you pretend to sip and not down a glassful with every toast made to you." He accompanied this condescending statement with a very possessive hand at the small of Tempest's back and looked at her in concern as though she were about to faint.

"I'm fine!" she insisted, though her voice seemed to be coming from someone else's mouth.

"She'll be fine once she drinks some tea," said Lord Marchmont, handing her a cup and saucer.

"So, where did you find him?" asked Saintignon. Tempest bent her head to sip at the hot tea. Somewhere in the back of her head, she thought that this conversation must be important, but for now, not spilling her tea commanded her entire attention.

"He never left port, can you believe it?"

Saintignon snorted. "Never say he lost his nerve!"

"Well, not his nerve, exactly. But it appears that they stopped at his estate, and then hers along the way. Her family refuses to accept any mention of divorce, and Rochefort wouldn't have it any other way. They argued about it to rival the Turks and Greeks."

"He refused to accept a compromise," Lord Marchmont summarized. "He told her, like a fool, it's either everything or nothing."

"She's the fool," growled Saintignon. "Why stay with that namby-pamby husband of hers? If she desires to be a widow before remarrying-"

"NO, Saint," said Lord Nigel. "Just leave him be. Except that both of you owe me a hundred guineas. Apiece, mind."

"I wagered that he would get on the boat with her, dammit," said Lord Marchmont. "And he did. He just didn't stay on the boat."

"It's pretty damn clear that 'get on the boat' means to set sail, you makebait," said Lord Nigel.

"You should have specified," argued Lord Marchmont. "Saint, what say you?"

"I thought he would get on the damn boat and sail all the way to Capetown," Saintignon scowled. "How could he run back with his tail between his legs? Is he man or not? He should chase her to Capetown and make her change her mind!"

"The deuce, man, she's not a fox to be hounded to death, Saint," groaned Lord Nigel. "You need finesse to capture the heart of a dame. He should have wooed her and stayed beside her." He shrugged. "But then, I confess I am at a loss as to why he was so adamant about marriage. You can have plenty of fun without any legal ties. More, I can attest."

"We should have taught him better," admitted Lord Marchmont. "We should have stopped by my house and let my sisters preach at him. They could have had him back on the road in pursuit of Susanna, if only to stop them from talking!"

"The both of you are idiots," Saintignon stated. "You should have barricaded them together aboard the ship and bribed the captain to turn a blind eye."

"See, this is the type of devotion Miss Makepeace has to look forward to," said Lord Nigel dryly, glancing sideways at Tempest. "Being hounded into accepting a suitor."

"She has no cause for complaint," said Saintignon haughtily. "And don't speak to her like that."

Tempest's head ached. "Excuse me, gentlemen, I need to sit down."

"Beg your pardon, ma'am," said Lord Marchmont. "Let me fetch a chair."

Saintignon was already calling for Carstairs.

"No, I need...I need some fresh air," Tempest said.

"Of course," Saintignon said with alarm. "I shall accompany you onto the balcony. But it is decidedly chilly. Carstairs, fetch Miss Makepeace a shawl, if you please."

Tempest's cheeks were ablaze. "No! I mean...I must...refresh myself."

Lord Nigel and Lord Marchmont affected deafness while Saintignon frowned for a while before the implication hit him and he blushed as red as any debutante. "Ah. Shall I, er, accompany you upstairs?"

"Don't be daft," Tempest snapped. "You'll ruin my reputation!"

"It doesn't matter to us," he said, smiling. "I have paid for the cow and I definitely intend to keep it for the rest of my life."

And that, Tempest thought, summarized their relationship and Saintignon's personality as accurately as any almanac. Saintignon considered himself the master of the relationship, and she the somewhat favored pet-a cow, in this case. She felt decidedly peeved at the comparison.

Tempest retreated from the room to use the necessary and then, because she had no desire to retire to her room and ruminate on the events of this evening, she returned back to the festivities. Yolanda was sitting on a settee, engaged in conversation with the countess, and she approached them tentatively.

The countess gazed at her with a searching eye and seemed relieved at whatever she saw in her face.

"When will the wedding take place?" asked Yolanda.

Tempest shrugged and looked at the countess.

"You needn't look askance at me, dear. It is your wedding, and your parents should have a say on the date. Although St. Peter's Cathedral is the most popular venue right now, since churches have made a recent revival a la mode."

"A spring wedding?" wondered Yolanda.

Spring was but a few months away. "No!" said Tempest, and when the countess glanced askance at her, said weakly, "Er, it's just so soon. There's not nearly enough time to plan."

"Nor for summer," agreed the countess. "The fall should be a beautiful time of the year, and that will give us plenty of time with the invitations, for, depend on it, most of the polite society will be toadying to you for one."

"Is that good?" asked Yolanda doubtfully.

"No, it becomes quite tedious," said the countess thoughtfully. "Unless they are people who have been very unpleasant to you, and then you use it as a social weapon." She looked at the expressions on the younger girls' faces and laughed. "Yes, in our world, the women can have just as much power as the men if they wield it correctly. Decisions are not made on battlefields or in Parliament. They are just as often made inside salons, over tea and biscuits. And, in fact, the more powerful you are, the lesser standard of fare you can be expected to provide."

The two girls laughed at the countess's comical expression until she grimaced and set down her ratafia. "Oh dear, Carstairs needs me for some decision-making. I'll leave you two to chat."

"Well, my lady," said Yolanda.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm just getting used to your future title," Yolanda said, biting back a smile. "A marchioness! Won't my parents be in alts about attending your wedding! The wedding of the century, they're already calling it. That is, will they be invited?"

"Of course they will be, silly! How can I not invite your mama and papa when they have been as dear to me as my own family?"

"Will you have the wedding in London then?"

"I don't suppose the wedding of the century can be held in Upper Cheltendon-on-the-Trumble, can it?" Tempest said with a laugh. "Where can we find a venue large enough?"

"Perhaps the Bishop...well, that's rather an imposition, isn't it?"

"I'm quite certain it won't be beyond Saintignon," said Tempest. "But I suppose I have to discuss it with him. I still can't quite believe it...marriage."

Yolanda yawned and looked guilty. "I'm so sorry, Tempest. It's just that this recent spate of excitement is much more than I'm used to. I had best retire before I start snoring in public."

"No, it is I who should apologize, Yolanda!" said Tempest, reaching over to touch her friend's hand. "It is not every friend who would take the time out of the Season to see to someone else's upcoming nuptials. And that is not to mention the actual wedding itself, which seems as though it will fall during your debut."

"It is to be the most joyous time of your life, Tempest. Of course I must be there by your side. But not tonight, unfortunately."

The two girls bade each other good night and Tempest sat back down on her settee with her tea, wondering with whom to strike up a conversation to while away the hours until she could close her eyes. After a few minutes in which it looked as though nobody was planning on approaching her to congratulate her, she rose and made her way to the balconies. With a breath of relief, she saw a group of people standing further out along the steps to the maze. They seemed a trifle well to go and had told the footmen to fetch some torches for a race through the maze.

Tempest smiled to herself. The salons indoors were starting to be stuffy from the excess of candles and the roaring fire, despite the Saintignons' use of beeswax. This seemed like the perfect diversion for her, and best of all, she could see Lord Walbrey standing in the midst of the group.

Before she could make her way towards them, tendrils of their conversation traveled across to her through the still evening air.

"She's a pretty little thing, but so common," Tempest heard and stopped in her tracks, only to hear the man who had congratulated Saintignon effusively continue, "Imagine pronouncing it London with the hard 'd'! Everyone who's anyone pronounces it 'Lunnon.'"

If that was the worse of it, this group had nothing on what Tempest braved in London, she thought with a shrug and continued forward.

"I wouldn't call her pretty, Gerald," commented one girl who had smiled at her earlier in the evening. "Borrowed feathers, have you heard the expression? No? Well, my sister had it on all accounts that in London, she was the plainest of creatures."

"Lady Wivenbrough's bound to have tidied her up a bit before springing her on us," laughed another man. "Still, I wouldn't turn her out on a cold winter's night."

"But marriage?" prompted another voice. "Would you really, Paxy?"

"Lud, no!" the man named Paxy said with another laugh. "Mumsie'd kill me if I broached the subject."

"She's not one of us, that's clear," a girl who had been introduced to Tempest as Lady Anna. "I don't think it'll happen, to be quite honest."

"No, do you suppose so?" said another girl in a semi-hushed voice.

"Twenty guineas," Tempest heard Gerald say before she backed away into the shadows of the house.

"Don't listen to them," said another voice, and Tempest whirled around to see Lord Rochefort sitting on the stone rails with his back to the wall of the house. His entire figure would have been submerged in the darkness were it not for the cheroot in his hand.

"What-what are you doing there?" asked Tempest stupidly.

Lord Rochefort laughed silently at this admittedly redundant question and gazed at the cheroot in his hand as though he had just noticed it. "Having a smoke. Enjoying the toxic night air. Listening to the malice of polite society." He grimaced. "Although 'polite' is more ironic than accurate."

"I suppose you agree with them," she said, compressing her lips.

"In part," he said, startling her.

"I beg your pardon!"

"You do look exceptionally pretty tonight, Miss Makepeace. Common pronunciation notwithstanding," he said with another of his quiet laughs.

"It surprises me to hear that from you," she said. "Given that you were much enamored of one of the most beautiful women in England."

There was a long pause, and he inhaled on his cheroot before tossing it to the side. "No, but was she?"

"You know she was."

"Funny, that. The longer you know a person, the less you notice their appearance. To me, she would have been lovely even with a burn mark clear across her cheekbones. And I have seen someone like that, you know. A pottery kiln explosion. Very tragic."

Tempest didn't say anything. She concentrated on inhaling and exhaling and wondering if she was still tipsy from the champagne or if the night air was affecting her. The laughter of the outside group of merrymakers faded as they made their way further away from the house.

"I wasn't lying when I said you looked lovely tonight. Now, whether I could tell you if it is a result of your ensemble or your personality and kindness, I don't know," he said, and she could tell he was smiling from the tone of his voice.

"Kindness?" she asked stupidly. She was fishing for compliments in the worst of ways.

"You are kind. You are kind enough to come to the aid of friends who need you, regardless of their social status. That's the sort of thing that Susanna would have done," he said wryly.

"What happened?" she breathed. "Between you and Lady Susanna?"

"Nothing," he said. "Absolutely nothing at all. Or, I should say, absolutely nothing that could end in happiness."

"Would she-did she not accept you?"

"She did. But I was made to see, very clearly, that it could never be legal. Or become a formal declaration of any kind."

The earlier conversation between Lord Marchmont, Lord Nigel, and Saintignon started to make sense in her quickly clearing head. "Isn't that enough?" she asked desperately. She had no idea what she was even saying anymore. This was a scandalous topic to broach, and to do it with an unmarried gentleman, and in the dark hours of the early morning-Tempest could not even begin to number the societal rules she was breaking.

"Not for me," he said. "You see, it isn't that she couldn't do it. It was that she had no intention of disrupting her current life. She had no intention of ever taking me seriously enough to take the risk."

"You could have persuaded her in time."

"No," he said in a low voice, standing up from his perch. "She could never see me as anything but a little boy." He sounded terribly bitter.

Tempest bit her lip and stared through the windows at the people inside the salons. They were laughing and playing cards and listening to music. They seemed very far away from the tragedy going on in front of her.

"You do remind me of her," he said softly, and a gloved hand touched a curl that had escaped from her coiffure.

Tempest knew what she should do. She wasn't tipsy in the least, and a loud voice in her head was telling her to go inside this very minute. Instead, she turned to face Lord Rochefort, and his handsome face, and those lovely, gentle eyes. It was her undoing.

He closed his eyes and his face came closer.

_

A super long chapter this time as thanks for those readers who faithfully leave lovely reviews despite my updating so sporadically. There was a very difficult plotline to unravel at one point and I struggled with writing it. Real life doesn't leave me a lot of time to write, but I'm trying hard for you guys!