Call-outs
and silvery peals of laughter were abundant on that particular morning
at Phoenix Hall, and it was into this pretty world of fineries and gaiety
that Kitty stepped into, her delicately painted Oriental fan held in her
hand and a bright smile of greeting on her lips. Lady Jean Grey was the
first girl to greet her, the glow of a soon-to-be-bride shining in her
blue-green eyes, her luxuriant, shimmering red hair a perfect complement
to the pearl-white satin crinoline she wore as her morning dress. Faithfully
beside her as always was her soon-to-be-betrothed, Scott Summers, the Marquess
of Carlisle, a handsome, dark-haired boy of eighteen who'd known Jean since
they were both children. Scott had inherited the title of Lord Carlisle
at the tender young age of sixteen, following his parents' sudden demise
two years earlier aboard a doomed passenger cruise headed for France. He
had known that he would be married to Jean someday even earlier than that,
for ever since the two were toddlers, there had been an understanding between
the Carlisles and the Greys to unite the two families via a matrimonial
alliance.
"Lady
Katherine, I'm so glad you were able to come," Jean greeted with the cordiality
of a good hostess, while Scott hastened to add, "Indeed, Lady Katherine;
this party wouldn't be quite the same without your presence." Kitty grinned
at this polite lie, for she doubted that her "presence" would be easily
missed at a social gathering of well over a hundred people, but she nevertheless
dipped a quick curtsy and replied sweetly, "That's very kind of you both."
As other guests soon commanded Jean and Scott's attention and the pair apologetically excused itself from Kitty, the young lady from Kent took the opportunity to wander about and quietly examine her surroundings in a discreet search for Lord Alvers. Most prominent amongst the milling multitude of guests was the silver-haired Duke of York standing with his handsome pair of seventeen-year-old twins, Lord Pietro and Lady Wanda, the former dashing and arrogant with his sweeping mane of platinum-gilt hair that matched his imperious father's, the latter smoky and seductive, glaring in poorly-concealed boredom with blue eyes that peered cat-like from under midnight-colored bangs. A more different pair than those two couldn't be found, for the suave and narcissistic Lord Pietro was a clever gambler, a most sought-after partner in both whist games and at waltzes, a frequent spectator at races, and an infamous libertine in upper-class-society England who was rumored amongst the dowagers of that country to shamelessly frequent the Cremorne Gardens in Chelsea. His twin sister, Lady Wanda, on the other hand, took no such advantages of the decadent lifestyle that being a direct heir to the Duke of York's fortunes offered, and the only aspects of Victorian recreation that she seemed to enjoy were the rougher ones--deer stalking, archery, racing on her fleet-footed mare, and, much to the chagrin of her governess and the distress of her dressmaker, mountaineering whenever she could get away with it. However, while Wanda was always an interesting person to talk to, and while Pietro was far handsomer than he needed to be and a divine dancer, neither of them were Lord Alvers, and Kitty soon moved away after exchanging greetings with the pair and accepting with giggles and pink blushes Pietro's extravagant flirting, her mind made up to find that elusive gentleman from Ireland, wherever he might be.
At
the same time that Kitty was searching for her beau, another girl was distressing
over hers, barely avoiding bumping into others on several occasions, too
distracted to notice where she was going.
"Go
away," the burgundy-haired, ill-humored Rogue snapped grouchily to a servant
offering her a tray of gourmet finger sandwiches, but her olive-green eyes
showed more anxiety than aggressiveness, and after a while she forgot that
she'd been unreasonably rude to another and sighed and clutched at a folded
letter which she'd been wearing on a chain around her neck for the past
three days.
Rogue had been born Lady Marie of Layiton seventeen years earlier, but when her mother tragically passed away shortly after childbirth, the devastated Lord Layiton had decided that England held too many painful memories to be endured any longer. America in the mid-1840's had been booming with prosperity, what with Manifest Destiny sweeping the nation and King Cotton ruling the world, and that was exactly where Lord Layiton uprooted his young family. Soon enough, he had established a flourishing cotton plantation in Mississippi, then one of the richest states in the country, and it was in this simple, country environment that little Lady Marie grew up.
It
was also in America that she'd been fastened with the nickname that soon
became a part of her identity until even those closest to her had trouble
remembering that she had been originally named Marie at her deceased mother's
wishes. The re-christening had taken place at a mansion in New Orleans,
Louisiana, where the mischievous young son of a man her father was visiting
on business had caught her trying to steal a spoonful of ice cream that
was being saved for dessert that evening.
"Remy
sees dat you're a pretty lil' English rogue, chérie," he'd told
her with the smirking suaveness of a swaggering boy of twelve, and the
eight-year-old Marie had quickly withdrawn her spoon from the ice cream
upon being caught both red-handed and red-faced.
"You're
a nasty scamp for calling me a rogue; mah name's Marie," she'd bristled
in helpless fury, a near-perfect Southern accent belying her English heritage
as she spoke, but Remy LeBeau would only smirk in that maddening way, and
from that day on, the name Rogue had stuck, whether its new owner liked
it or not.
But from a childhood rival grew a charming beau in her teen years, and Remy had been all set to propose to her on that fateful day of April 18th, 1861, when the attack on Fort Sumter had sparked the powder keg that would explode into the American civil war. Lord Layiton, fearing for his only child's safety, had sent Rogue on a passenger ship to England the very next day. Not long afterwards, her new home announced its neutrality in the war, on the same day that a letter arrived from Remy telling her that he'd decided to enlist in the Confederacy and would soon be joining the regiment of Louisiana's own General P.T. Beauregard. Rogue began wearing each folded new letter from Remy on the slender gold chain that was an heirloom from her mother's side of the family, but the English aristocrats were more lenient than expected to this unrefined habit...amongst other unflattering behavior such as a careless disregard for titles or that awfully provincial Southern accent that even two years of living amongst the finest circles of upper-class English society had failed to erase. After all, the nobles reasoned, she had lived with those unrefined Americans all her life which explained for her lack of interest in titles, she had a sweetheart fighting in a faraway war so naturally she was apprehensive and distracted, and besides, her father had been a mere baron, anyway, so really, nobody ought to expect her to be as refined as Lady Jean Grey, daughter of the Earl of Grey, or Lady Elisabeth Braddock, daughter of the Marquess of St. Andrews.
Rogue simply turned a deaf ear and a dark scowl to both her critics and her defenders, and continued to move woodenly through parties, silent as a ghost, a worried frown knitted into her eyebrow that seemed to get worse with each new letter from Remy. In some strange way, she had been able to look beyond the rallying cry of "Cotton, Slaves, and States' Rights," and sense all the tribulations of an agrarian nation trying to wage war against an industrial powerhouse, despite Remy's attempts at easing that fear in his letters through his boundless praise for General Beauregard, his jesting, self-important remarks about his own bravery in battle, his joking predictions that by war's end he would emerge a decorated hero, his attempts at laughing off the hardships of life on the front, and, most importantly of all, his repeated reassurances that the war would be over soon enough and he could come for her.
It
was this last letter from him that had left the pale, slender redhead so
worried and aggravated. Remy had been injured. A minié ball had
taken out his left knee during a brief skirmish with a Union cavalry troop,
but before he'd even had time to finish convalescing in a Mississippi military
hospital, he'd been drafted into General Pemberley's army to defend the
Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg against the advancing forces of Ulysses
S. Grant.
"It
looks to be a long and hard battle ahead of us, but our morale is high...for
Grant will never succeed at taking Vicksburg, not with Remy holding them
back, so don't you worry about a thing, chérie," ran the last line
of his latest letter to her, but rather than easing her mind, it had the
effect of sending her into a frenzy of anxiety and concern for his safety.
Remy injured! Remy injured and soon to go back into battle! Rogue believed
in Remy--after all, hadn't he written her two weeks earlier about having
been promoted to major following particularly heroic conduct in one battle
or another?--but major or not, he would still be re-entering the war with
a halfway-healed knee and under a commanding officer whom he'd hardly ever
met before Vicksburg. And every Southerner knew that Grant was a butcher,
one who would slaughter as many men as it took just to win a battle...and
her poor injured Remy would be rushed back to battle to fight against this
man, to be used for target practice for the boys in blue.
Rogue
clenched her teeth and tried to wipe a bitter scowl from her features as
she glared around at the happy, carefree guests. If only England would
join the war on the South's side, surely Remy wouldn't have to rush off
to defend Vicksburg then! And besides, England needed cotton...and France
too. The whole Western world was in want of cotton, yet none of them was
willing to lift one finger to help King Cotton against those meddling,
self-righteous Yankees!
"Is
the war going so terribly, Rogue?" a sweet, innocent voice spoke up, snapping
Rogue out of her thoughts. The green-eyed girl hastened to rearrange her
thunderous scowl into a more pleasing expression in case the voice should
belong to the hostess of this party, but soon discovering that it was only
Lady Katherine who'd spoken, gave up on putting on any pretenses.
"Not
too
terribly, Ah suppose," she conceded irritably, "but Remy, he's...he's...Look,
never you mind about mah problems, Kitty. After all, your beau's
safe and sound and everybody knows that he'll show up at the ball tonight
like some Prince Charming." Despite herself, Kitty felt guilty, both for
prying into another's affairs and also somehow for having a betrothed who
was safe while another's was in never-ceasing danger of being blown away
by a cannonball or taken down by a merciless hail of Union bullets.
"I'm
sorry, Rogue," she stammered awkwardly, trying to sound as sympathetic
as possible. But, whenever she thought about Lord Alvers waiting for her
somewhere in this manor, she couldn't help but light up the whole room
with a bright smile of happy anticipation.
However, nine hours and three wardrobe changes later, Kitty's expression had slowly metamorphosed from a happily upbeat smile into a small, disappointed half-frown, for the evening ball had arrived and Lord Alvers was still nowhere in sight. Kitty had entered the ballroom in her brand-new, sapphire-blue watered silk gown and matching velvet dancing slippers, accompanied by a male escort as was appropriate--a nice, handsome German boy named Kurt Wagner who'd introduced himself as the son of the Duke of Strasburg or some other such place. She had danced with her escort first, again as was appropriate, and after going through the steps of the Sir Roger De Coverley and the two waltzes following it, he had smoothly introduced her to her next partner, the way it was expected of male escorts. An endless string of dancing and pleasantries had followed, during which the distracted Kitty had always kept an attentive eye out for anyone who might be the elusive Lord Alvers, but after the first hour of the ball had passed, she had given up hope that he would ever be there, and had excused herself from her current dancing partner by making up a little white lie that she was feeling too faint to dance any longer. Disconsolate and somewhat annoyed that Lord Alvers had chosen those wild Irish over his own betrothed, she had allowed herself to be accompanied across the ballroom and toward the resting area where the chaperones sat, keeping a close eye on the young girls to make sure they didn't get too close with their dancing partners.
At the same time that Kitty tiredly took her place with the matrons and the chaperones, a late--quite late--arrival to the party appeared beneath the arching doorway of the ballroom. He was a tall, dark-haired youth of eighteen or nineteen, ruggedly handsome with his snapping coal-black eyes and lopsided smirk. Despite being dressed in the most elegant tailored broadcloth suit that money could buy, there still clung to him an air of untamed wildness, a lust for life and adventure that was kept barely concealed beneath a veneer of sweeping debonairness. He bowed a respectful, somewhat apologetic greeting to Lord and Lady Grey, before striding into the room with the self-assuredness of a man who knows he can easily own the room--the entire estate, in fact--should he wish to. His sharp dark eyes easily took in the multitude of extravagantly-dressed girls in one sweeping glance, before settling on the pouting blue eyes and miserable look on the face of a particular girl in sapphire-blue. Something about her made him pause on her rather than going on to the gorgeous redhead in white dancing a few feet away, and he narrowed his eyes in recognition as a grin began to tug on his lips.
Kitty
sighed and rested her chin on the palm of one hand, absently running the
fingers of the other one through a loop of satin ribbon adorning her dress.
"Forgive
me, Miss," an amused male voice spoke up from practically right in front
of her, making her hasten to correct her posture. A dark-haired young man
was grinning down at her when she raised her face to his, before continuing
in an accent that was strange to her English-bred ears, "Do forgive me,
Miss, because I find it rather strange this English custom of making bonnie
lasses--pardon, I meant to say beautiful young ladies, of course--sit on
the sidelines at a ball." Kitty snapped up, confusion merging with automatic
anger that he might have insulted her coursing through her slender frame.
Why,
he just accused me of being a wallflower! her mind bristled, as aloud
she said in the coldest voice she could muster, "I didn't know my not dancing
was so offensive to you, sir." The young man looked as though only a tremendous
amount of self-restraint on his part was keeping him from laughing out
loud at her remark, before he settled for a simple, "Then please forgive
me again, Lady Katherine, for I had been hoping that you would take my
words as a compliment." A small part of Kitty wondered how he had known
her name, but ingrained courtesy kicked in to wipe away her confusion as
she automatically apologized, "I'm sorry for being so rude, sir. I'm afraid
my mind was on other things...You see, my betrothed was supposed to be
here at the ball tonight, and--"
As
soon as those words had slipped out, Kitty immediately clamped her mouth
shut in dismay. What had possessed her to confide such a thing in a total
stranger, and one belonging to the opposite sex at that? But as she sat
there in mute horror, the stranger gallantly pulled her from her embarrassing
situation by saying with a hint of laughter in his voice that the distressed
Kitty failed to catch, "He must be a cad, then, for not showing up, and
with such a beautiful girl as his betrothed."
"He
is
a cad," Kitty agreed heatedly, momentarily forgetting all the lessons of
conversation etiquette that her governess had painstakingly instilled in
her. "He's an inconsiderate, black-hearted wretch and I can't stand him;
why, I wouldn't be surprised if right now he's off consorting with some
heathen Irish girls and--" She froze in mid-sentence, as a sudden, horrific
realization struck her like a thunderclap. While she'd been venting her
frustrations, the young man before her had been wearing a grin that grew
wider with each angry word, till at last his features had morphed into
an impish expression that held all the familiarity of a face seen long
ago. Kitty's hand went up to her slender white neck, dropping her lace-embroidered
handkerchief in the process, and as he bent down, still grinning, to solicitously
pick up her dropped item, she saw once again how frighteningly familiar
his tousled dark hair and swaggering nonchalance was.
When
he offered her handkerchief to her, all Kitty could do was stare dumbly
back at his face, making no motion to speak or even accept the embroidered
slip of silk until he took one of her small, slender hands and pressed
the item into its frozen fingers.
"By
the way, I've realized just now how rude I've been for not introducing
myself. Sorry," he drawled languidly as he drew himself to his full height.
Grinning down at the petrified girl sitting before him, he told her the
name that she already knew all too well. "My name is Lancelot Alvers. Call
me Lance, everybody else does."
*Author's Note*
-Manifest Destiny: the belief, largely shared by Americans, that their
destiny of expansion into Mexican and Native American territories was obvious
-Cremorne Gardens: the reason that it's so bad
on Pietro's part to being rumored of visiting the gardens often is because
after the 1850's, no respectable lady ever went there and the only women
who would go were prostitutes, often dressed in flashy clothes and accompanied
by rich gentlemen who could afford their "services;" therefore if Pietro
frequents the Cremorne Gardens, then it's assumed that he also consorts
with these fancy women
-the Sir Roger De Coverley: a type of dance
-conversation etiquette: one of the major rules
on conversation in those times was to always speak calmly, respectfully,
and chastely, and Kitty basically broke that rule by insulting Lance right
to his face without even knowing it
Hey, not bad, an update...and only took me about eight days to do it! Sorry about the wait, I'll try to work faster, but in the meantime, let's clear some things up. First the part about Rogue--I figured it would be pretty strange for a noblewoman to be christened Rogue, so I decided to go with her rather unpopular movie name and called her Lady Marie. But, I thought my explanation for her nickname of Rogue was pretty cute (and don't go bursting my bubble either, I like to think my little loopholes are ingenious, lol). Also, I just had to make her a Southerner in some shape or form, even if she is living in England, so I used the Civil War to get her out of the American South and into Kitty's circle of friends. And as for both her and Remy's accents, forgive me if I hopelessly butcher them, I've never been able to do accents very well.
And as far as Kurt goes, I really crapped out on that one and have no idea if there is such a title as the Duke of Strasburg. If anyone knows of an actual title of German nobility, let me know and I'll change it to something that actually exists.
Also, about certain characters' viewpoints in this story, particularly Rogue's on the war and the Northerners and some of Kitty's remarks about the Irish--don't go lynching me, I'm definitely not a rascist, but for the sake of accurately portraying popular beliefs of that time, I kind of had to make some of the Evo people act a bit OOC at times. As for me, I know better than to support oppression and cruelty, whether it's white-to-white or white-to-black; however, keep in mind that this story is supposed to take place in Victorian England, and let's face it, nobody was all that tolerant or open-minded back in those days.
Last but not least, thank you soooooooooo much
to all my wonderful reviewers! I was pleasantly surprised when I saw how
many of you enjoyed my fic:
Firiel11--glad you like all the research about
the titles of the nobles and stuff, but I really only glossed over it and
left a lot of stuff untouched. Hope you enjoyed this second chapter
lil--yup, research is definitely scary. My head's
still hurting, lol
cheeky-bear007--really, you've actually been
to Kent? That's so cool; plus I'm really glad that at least I made Kitty
the lady of a pretty place, and not some toxic waste dump! Sorry to hear
about your history class, if it makes you feel any better, I'm suffering
through lessons about Carnegie and Rockefeller in mine
roguelebeaux003--think of this as a romance novel
without all the sentimental mush (hopefully!)
Kitsune Jagan--so glad that you liked Southern
Belle, I'll try not to disappoint with this story
**edit**--I actually like stories that
have more description, they really let you picture the whole thing in your
head. Does that make me a geek? Sorry I didn't hurry this time, but at
least I finally got off my ass and wrote some more
Icestorm162--thanks a lot, hope you liked this
chapter as well
LadyEvils--well, I really needed a sentence that
would sort of provide a crappy cliffhanger for the first chapter, but don't
worry about the Lancitty thing--I can't give away too much, but I think
this one'll have a happy ending
Laureate--sorry about not continuing Tall,
Dark, Handsome Stranger--I got stuck like you won't believe on that
one, and I really wanted to finish it, too. I'm really glad you like my
period pieces (is that what they're called? Whoops, didn't know, lol),
and did you even have to worry about Wanda not making a cameo? After all,
she is my favorite Evo chick. As for the Lancitty thing, I hate
to sound mysterious, but you'll see ^_^
Well, that's it for this time. See you all around for the third installment, in the meantime, please R&R--I really love getting feedback on my stories, especially when they're romance ones because then I can know whether I'm doing a good job with the pairing or whether the fic's spiraling down to Soap Opera Hell! Lol ^_^