ONE

THERE WAS silence in the book-room, not silence of intimacy but a silence fraught with tension. The lady's impossible blue eyes, staring across into the lord's cool grey ones, now dropped to the pile of bills on the desk top. Her fair head was bowed, heavy with guilt and shame, and her hands looked to be squeezing the life out of each other. In spite of the modish (and greatly expensive) morning-dress of baby-orange and blue French silk, elegant marigold-shaped hanging earrings and the deep blue gloves, she looked ababsurdly childlike, like a schoolgirl caught out in mischief. She was, really, not yet nineteen years old; her eighteenth birthday imminent, and she had been married for nearly a year to the gentleman standing on the other side of the desk, and so steadily regarding her.

'Well?'

She swallowed rather convulsively. The Earl had spoken the word rather softly, but her heated ears were swift to catch the note of implacability in his deep voice. Her darting eyes paused on his face for a - seemingly - agonisingly long second before the pair of blue darted back down to the carpeted floor, her pink cheeks staining to a deeper taint. The lord wasn't frowning, but there was not any doubt that he meant to obtain an answer to the quite unanswerable question he had put to hi erring bride.

Another silence rose, disturbed by the only sound of ticking the large clock on the mantelpiece was making. My lady's fingers had long turned white effect of the force she was applying to them.

'I asked you, Naru, why all these tradesmen-" the dark Earl lifted the bills and let them fall again -'have found it necessary to apply to me for the settlement of their accounts?'

'I am very so - sorry!' faltered the Countess.

'That doesn't answer my question,' he dryly informed her.

'Well - well, I guess that it's because - because I forgot to pay them myself!'

'Forgot?'

Her bowed head of shimmering faerie hair sank even lower; she gulped, again.

'Under the hatches yet again, Naru?'

She nodded guiltily, her colour deepening.

His expression was inscrutable, and for a few breaths he spoke nothing. His heavy gaze seemed considering, but his thoughts would have been impossible for anyone to guess. 'The allowance I had made you appears to be inadequate,' he observed.

The knowledge that the allowance he made her was a very handsome one made her cast an imploring glance up at him and stammer: 'Oh, no, no!'

'Then why are you in debt?'

'I - I purchased items that I perhaps should have not,' Naru provided desperately. 'This - this kimono dress, for instance! Indeed I am truly sorry! I promise that I will not do so anymore!'

'May I see your paid bills?' Sasuke inquired, after appreciatively remembering that the Namikaze families were famous for never breaking any of their promises.

He had spoken gently, but it was enough to drain all the heat from her face. Naruto was almost sure that her cheeks were white (which they were). She of course, had a number of receipted bills, but what sucked the blood from her cheeks was that the total (a feet swiping amount that would make anyone doubt that there could exist that much money in the world) did not even make about half of her handsome allowance. What would happen next was inevitable, and Naru was planning not to answer truthfully -as dreadful as that may be to her.

'About a month ago,' said the Earl, with a measured tone. 'I (myself) forbade you from paying any more of your brother's depts. Have you done so?'

A quick shake of her head answered him. Already, she was feeling remorse and guilt about lying to him (it was most dreadful), but whay else could she do when his calm face had taken a cooler turn and was showing himself to be so unsympathetic to poor Kyūbi? Kyūbi's recurring difficulties were all fault of his shocking luck; Naru could not understand why Uchiha always blamed Kurama for his inability to quit racing and gaming. That Fatal Tendency, said Mama, long ago with resignation, ran in her family: Grandpa had died under a cloud of heavy debts that Papa had struggled to pay, leaving them with nothing but their property. That was why her family had been so overjoyed when Uchiha had offered for her. She had been resigning herself to marrying the old, but wealthy Lord Pevensey. Grateful was she when Uchiha saw her: -in her very first season, not yet even a day out, and decided that she was to be his. It had seemed a dream that he had picked her out of all the other girls presented faithfully (hopefully) by their Mamas in the Queen's Drawing-Rooms, and thereafter exhibited by them at Almack's Assembly Rooms and all the ton parties.

Naru didn't know what Uchiha had done to gain her father's approval, and seems she would never know, but made sure to always conduct herself with dignity and discretion (even more than was in her female nature). She didn't know how Uchiha, Earl to Hi no Kuni's most wealthy, respectable and eligible house, had even seen her amongst all the other dashing chippers (and hoped it wasn't when she happened to do something embarrassing). For she could recall the "Grand Season" as many people dubbed it after having learned that Uchiha was going to be present...

Flashback

'I can't believe our luck, Naruto!' a girl with a sleepy face squealed. She was (unfortunately) the Namikazes neighbour and Naruto's so called best friend. She had brought her fleet of friends, who were all equally excited. They were all talking about the latest news, the opening of the season and all the usual gossip that follows it; who and who will attend, who's an who's returning for another season, who was proving to be a lost cause, who they hoped will choose them. That was very easy to guess, they all wanted to be chosen by Uchiha.

'This is your first year isn't it?' Menma asked with a hand on her hip.

Naru held back her retort of "If you already know the answer, why bother asking?" she knew would spread around the neighbourhood like fire and soon Mama would be glaring and hissing at her (contempt) friends at how un-ladylike her daughter had shown herself to a friend. She merely nodded and returned to her project; the best embroidered handkerchief she was making for her mischievous brother. Several of her friends, older, younger or her age, had already been out into society and it was only this year (with utmost reluctance) that her father was going to present her at the season's opening. He had promised to let her wait till her eighteenth birthday, but Naru after noticing her "desperate" situation, had managed to convince Papa into letting her out. She hoped that she could attract someone before her eighteenth birthday to perhaps ease her Papa from one less mouth to feed and perhaps escape the thought of possibly marrying old Pevensey; who has been hobbling after her since she was fourteen.

'Who do you hope to get?'

'Well I don't know, I just want to escape Pevensey and get my parents to stop worrying about me.'

'Oh, poor you,' Rosacée cooed. 'Did you know that the Bluegrass family is presenting their 24-year-old daughter for the ninth time? I heard that she has a Connection with Trembler.'

'Ooh,' the girls murmured inching closer.

.

Naru recalls the exact same moment it happened, she was contemplating on how to get her brother to take her on a walk, when her Mama had approached her, quite pale, and said that there was absolutely no need for her to be here anymore. At first she was confused, did the Queen spot her hogging the chocolate treats? Or did she lose her composure? She hadn't yet even been introduced to any man! Or maybe they had seen her putting the chocolate flower in Delilah's artificial curls?

Then she thought that maybe she had attracted an eye.

She sure did because her parents pampered her the next day, preparing her for a meeting or something. Halfway through the ball some guy had approached Papa with an offer (she hadn't even attended a complete ball!), he had to be kind and respectable enough for Papa to accept him so easily (her father had promised that he would marry her to the kindest man he could). What she didn't get was the talk Mama had given her just moments ago.

Telling her about her duty as a wife and how she should hold herself. Just before she set off in her carriage Mama had patted her hand and said; "The worst thing about marriage these days was that many were just for convenience and obligation. Worse was when it was a one-sided love." Naru had stewed her blonde head over it and realised that she was only being married due to obligation (at least she was pretty enough for the guy). But when she was presented to her offerer, Naru was swept clean off her feet!

The gentleman had not yet dropped her hand from the handshake, so he had managed to stop her from crashing to the floor. She had looked up into his cool, dark grey eyes and wondered why she fell (forgetting the shaking of her knees) whilst she felt as though she was flying. Mama's words had then resonated through her thoughts and she composed herself, giving some lame excuse about her high-heeled slippers. Naru had fallen in love. All hopes had been crushed the next day, though, when his half-sister had met her.

"Oh! You are so much more prettier than Sasuke's Mistress!"

The girl had exclaimed, shocking Naruto and causing her thumping heart to pump a severe case of chest pain. But it was better, she thought, to be told in advance so that she wouldn't make a fool of herself by clinging to the lord. Something, she discovered, that was regarded disdisdainfully by the modish.

'Tell me the truth, Naru!'

Sasuke's voice snapped her to the present, away from her racing thoughts. That was something that she could not do, for even if he might end up forgiving her, he would never forgive Kyūbi! She just could not, what would happen to her dearest brother? About a year ago, Papa had said something about purchasing Kyūbi a pair of colours and sending him off to join Lord Wellington's army far away in the Peninsula. If this ever got back to Papa, which Naru was pretty much sure it would, there would be nothing indeed that would stop her father from helping Kyūbi pack his bags. Nor was she in much doubt that Kurama would jump at the offer, because he has always been hankering after a military career. Naru couldn't bear the thought of endangering her beloved, dangerous brother and Mama, at the mere fancy of placing her brother into the dangers and discomforts of military campaigns, had once suffered a series of distressing spasms.

No, the truth could not be revealed. But there was no need for Lord Namikaze's daughter to rack her brains for more than a second in search of a plausible lie: no one in England knew better than the Uzumaki and Namikaze how money could disappear, leaving no traces. 'It was not Kurama!' she said quickly.

;'I am afraid it was me!'

Much to her dismay, his face changed; an arrested look in his eyes and a hardening about his mouth.

She felt suddenly frightened. 'Pray do not be angry!' she begged a bit breathlessly. 'I promise I will never do so any more!'

'Are you telling me that you lost it at play?'

Naru hung her head again, she loathes lying, especially to Sasuke. After a second of tense silence he said: 'I should have known..'

'No, no,' she cried with passionate sincerity. Then added: 'Only it seemed stupid and childish not to play - and -and then I - I just kept on thinking that the luck would change but it did not, so - and - and-'

'You do not need to say any more!' he interrupted. 'There was never yet a gamester who didn't think that the luck must change!' He looked at her, Naru almost cringed at the clear frown his eyes displayed, and said with a level tone: 'I should be very reluctant, Naru, to take such steps as to forbid you from playing, and I give you a fair warning, I will not permit my wife to become one of faro's daughters.'

'Well, I am not perfectly sure what that is,' she said naïvely, 'but I shall, indeed, not do so again.'

'Very well,' Sasuke replied. 'I'll settle these, and any others that you may have. Will you bring them to me, please?'

'Now?' she faltered, uneasily aware of a drawer stuffed with bills.

'Yes, now.'

She agreed to this, but when she rendered up a collection of crumpled bills she did not feel comfortable, none at all. For now there was no denying that she had been extremely extravagant. The allowance Uchiha made for her had seemed so enormous to her (especially for a girl who was so used to being [reluctantly] given a very small allowance for pin money), that she had spent it rather rashly, feeling as though her resources were limitless. But right now, as she stood and watched my lord glance through the appalling sheaf, she did not think that anymore. She thought she was quite mad to have been spending so much, so heedlessly.

Waiting there for his dismissal was something, Naru thought, really close to torture, especially when his brow raised, furrowed or twitched, or when he muttered something incredulously. 'A gold watch with grisaille patterns?' he muttered, not comprehending why she would want (or need) one. 'What the devil-?'

'For Kurama!' she explained apprehensively.

'Ah, I see!' he said laying the bill aside.

Naruto's spirits rose, only to sink again, lifting the last bill some instant later, the Earl exclaimed: 'Good God!' Peeping in great trepidation to see what had provoked this startled statement, she perceived the scrolled sheet. 'Five and Forty guineas for one hat' said he, incredulously.

'I am afraid that it was a little dear,' she owned. 'It - it has three très fin ostrich plumes, you see. You - you said that you liked it!' she desperately added.

'Your taste is always impeccable, my love. Did I see the other eight hats you purchased, or shall I have to wait to see them?'

Horrified, Naru stammered: 'N-not eight, Sasuke, surely?'

Not being able to control himself, he laughed. 'Eight!' he confirmed. 'Oh, do not look so dismayed! There were all quite necessary, I daresay. Forty five guineas seems to be a trifle extortionate, but becomes you delightfully.' She smiled at him gratefully as he took her chin and pinched it. 'But that is only the sop that comes before the scold, ma'am! You have been drawing the bustle disgracefully. You seem not to have the smallest notion of management and I should doubt whether you have ever kept an account...

Naru scurried towards shelter in her own apartments later on, after the whole ordeal, the last few moments of their ddialogue still fresh in her mind. The scold hadn't been as bad as that, it was the last few moments when. . . no! she won't think of it anymore. She was hoping that she wouldn't find her dresser already there since she needed some time to compose herself.

She did not.

She found her cousin-in-law instead, blithely engaged in trying on one of those eight - no, nine! - modish hats.

Naruto's apartments consisted of a spacious bedchamber, and an adjoining room, known to the household as her dressing-room, but partaking more of the nature of a boudoir. In this frivolous bower, of which she was frankly envious, the Lady Sakura Haruno was parading between various mirrors, very well pleased with her appearance, but unable to decide on the precise tilt at which the hat should be worn on her head of really really dark pink hair.

Sakura hailed her cousin-in-law light-heartedly, saying: 'Oh, I am so glad that you have come! I have been waiting for everNaru, I do think that this is a ravishing hat, only how should one wear it? Like this, like this? Like this? Or-' she took a moment to pose and flutter her lashes -'like this?

'Oh - don't!' begged Naru, shimmering tears filling her eyes invinvoluntarily, unable to bear the sight if what had contributed to create the cause of her latest discomfiture.

'Naru!' Sakura flung off the "ravishing" hat, and ran across the room to hug her cousin comfortingly. 'Don't cry! Did something dreadful happen?'

'I - I can't tell you! I should not have cried!' Naru said drying her eyes. 'Pray do not regard it! Did you wish to speak to me particularly?'

'No, I just wanted to ask you if I could wear your zephyr scarf this evening -if you won't be needing it yourself -but if you are in a fit of the dismals I will not tease you.'

'Oh, yes, you may wear it! Actually you may have it!'

'I can?' Sakura demanded, turning back to the mirrors with flourish. 'Then let me say thank you. You haven't forgotten about going to Almack's and that Obito Uchiha is to escort us, have you?'

'Of course I haven't.'

'You don't need to come, you know,'

A certain Sir Rock-Lee Maito on her mind, Naru nearly narrowed her eyes at Sakura. 'No, I shall be there.'

Mr Maito was indeed at Almack's and for the seven and twentieth time, Naru found herself wondering why Sakura had fallen in love with him. He was a well-made man, even good looking, but he was a trifle bit too energetic and atop that, he was painstakingly formal. Naru glanced to their escort, one Obito Uchiha Tobi.

To society Mr Tobi was presice to a pin, blessed with propriety of taste, an impeccable lineage and a comfortable fortune. His dress was always in the first style of elegance; he could handle a team to perfection; was generally thought to be up to every rig and row in town; and had such obliging manners as made him quite the best liked of the Bond Street beaux. the gentlemen thought him a very good fellow and the ladies valued him for two very excellent reasons: to be admired by him added to any female's consequence, and to possess his friendship was to enjoy not only the distinguishing notice of a man of the first stare of fashion but the willing services of one whose good nature was proverbial. But for the more adventurous ladies, those dashing chippers who damped their muslins to make them cling revealingly to their exquisite forms, and lived on the brink of social disaster, there were many more attractive blades.

But young Lady Uchiha was not a member of this sisterhood, and, while she naturally did not wish to be so unfashionable as to own no admirers, Naru took great care to not encourage the pretensions of any of those notorious rakes who attempted courting her.

Mr Tobi was neither witty nor was he talkative, but a certain shrewdness characterised him, his bow was perfection and his grace in a ballroom nearly unequalled. Even Sakura, who said that his notions of propriety were quite gothic, did not despise his escort when she went to Almack's. To attend the Assemblies gallanted by Mr Tobi ensured for one approval even from that censorious Mrs Rossett.

Naru, astonished, was happy to find, on arrival in King Street, that her graceless but beloved brother was rather inexpertly dancing the boulanger, with a plain, quiet-looking female as partner.

'You may well stare!' he said (later on after the dance), his angelic blue eyes kindling with indignation.

She had laughed and said: 'Oh, my Kyūbi, what a wretch you are, when you would not come with me, you even declared that wild horses could not drag you here!'

Kurama looked at his sister, completely disregarding the girl heavily staring at him from the other side of the dancing ground. 'It wasn't wild horses,' he replied darkly. 'They couldn't have done it! It was old Mother Paumes! Beckoned to me earlier to come up to that antiquated landaulet of hers on Bond Street and demanded I have dinner with her. During dinner she brought up the subject of the party and if I would so oblige her so at to escort her niece (who she swore was a ravishing chipper) to the party.

But it turns out her niece was just a commen chit who is certainly below average!'

Naru grinned at him and patted his chest. 'Poor Kyūbi, being tricked like that.'

'The kind of company Mama keeps, those teetering old hags,' observed the Viscount with a withering glare to a greying lady.

They spent the rest of the evening talking, that is until a girl managed to convince Kurama to dance with her. Naru watched with a mischievously knowing smile as Kyūbi scowled at her and said something, leaving her in the middle of the dance floor and all together leaving the party.

The girl lifted her skirt and marched to where Naru was trying a new variety of the potato salad, at her seat, an angry glint firing up her eyes. When she stopped beside Naru, expecting her to turn around and try to start a conversation, Sakura stole away for a dance with a shiny-haired Mr Maito, leaving her to deal with the angry chit. Only, Naru didn't turn around, she feigned ignorance and continued daintily eating her plate, a grey napkin on her laps. The girl made a frustrated sound and occupied (rather rudely) the seat Sakura just vacated. She flipped her black hair and glared at Naru, remembering to straighten her back just before she started talking.

Thus another of her conversations was one from an angry girl, a lady telling her about Sakura's lack of decorum, Mr Tobi and many others. But as the party came to a close and she watched several couples dance the last dance, Naru wistfully thought of Sasuke. Remorse filled her lungs, she felt bad for earlier, and deep longing to have a dance with him: it would be so sweet (Naru enviously looked at Sakura in her gown swirling and stepping and skipping with a bright eyed man who was just as enamoured with her as she was).

The morning found our blonde having breakfast in her apartments, on her bed, as she also went through her letters. She was reading an invitation to a flower-viewing outing when her lord entered the room un announced and strode confidently to her bedside to greet her. Naru, caught unawares, tried to make herself more presentable, stuffing loose curls back into her nightcap and tugging her clothes at various places.

'Oh, my lord!' she exclaimed, terribly horrified. 'I am sorry, I didn't know, I am so dreadfully unpresentable!'

'Don't, I find you just lovely, I say charming.'

She was reaching to pull the nightgown higher when Sasuke caught her hand and pressed a gentle kiss to it, then he eyed her nightcap. Naruto flushed, embarrassed, and glared slightly at him (forgetting about her manner when it came to her taste in things), daring him to say something about it. Uchiha, being the guy he was, a bit too happily, obliged.

'Just what is the nightcap supposed to be?' he asked. 'I am sure that I have never seen an animal like it.'

'I don't know either,' Naru confided with a sip of the milk. 'But I just liked it.'

'Say, Naru?' Sasuke said after a very long silence, in which he studied (a nearly squirming) Naruto as she tried to choke down some delicious-looking hard boiled duck eggs. When she looked to him with those innocent eyes he was a second too late to speak. 'Would you like to come with me on my week-long trip to Merrion?'

Her face lit up for a a brief second, Sasuke thought he saw her whisker marks glowing and for a moment he was hopeful. For during the very short time of their marriage (even though she never refused his advances), she never did once return or react to his advances. Nor was the Lady seen commonly with her husband as was per usual for couples, she never demanded his presence, or asked him to be her escort. The best thing he could think if was a week away from his hogging half-cousin (Sakura loved keeping Naru to herself to spite his disapproval of her devotion to that slow-top Mr Maito) all to themselves away from the engagements the Season always brought.

'I would really love to...' she began.

Sasuke mentally yelled at her, then why don't you? All negatives began in the same manner.

'..but I cannot.'

'Why?' Sasuke asked.

'The masquerade party gathering,' she explained tragically.

Sasuke couldn't repress the incredulity he felt. 'The one at Ringstead's?'

'Yes,' she sighed.

The Earl could easily win this. 'It shall be a dreadful bore.'

Naru accepted, there was no use denying that, but then remembered the reason for her reluctance to leave. 'Oh, but poor Sakura shall be do very put down, she has never attended any masquerade balls and was really looking forward to this one, you know and I really can't let her go all alone-'

Sasuke, in that moment, felt a deep loathing resent for his cherry-haired cousin, he growled (a brow twitching). 'Hang Sakura!'

Naruto giggled child-likely and elbowed him, before abruptly composing herself and blushing at her loss of manner. But the young Earl had merely gazed with a brooding quality to his fascinated eyes.

'Naru,' he called.

Naruto glanced up at him when he called her; she liked the way he said it, it sounded almost like "Nell," she stared with a beating heart as he caught her chin and started drawing closer. She was pretty sure that he could hear her erratic heartbeat! And maybe if one tried to, they could have fried an egg on her face, it was aflame!

The door opened and her dresser appeared, disappearing just as fast when she realised the situation.

But it was already too late, Naru had jerked away, vividly blushing, Uchiha looked at her with a strange shadow in his eyes, before bidding his lady farewell and leaving her apartments feeling all the embarrassment that was natural for a man to feel when he had just been caught, in the morning, about to kiss his wife.

Turbulent thoughts dominated his mind.