A Broken Thread Spins On...

Lupin could not make herself move. She stepped forward to the top of the stair.
“Who were you speaking to, Alistair?” she asked abruptly, looking at him, unblinking.
Lord Grefham’s eyebrows rose slightly. “A mere friend, my dear, a very slight acquaintance,” he replied slowly, stopping at the landing near her.
“I did not like the look of him, my lord,” she told him intensely.
“I do not either, my dear; however, some acquaintanceships are necessary.”
“I find those sorts of acquaintanceships distasteful in the extreme,” she remarked frostily, doing a very good imitation of his lordship himself. “And I do not see a reason for their existence at all!” she then cried hotly, tears starting to her eyes, and she presented her back to him. “Indeed, such friends drive me to – Oh, I cannot! My lord,” she said, turning again and stepping up to him, “you make it impossible for an individual to protect her own welfare!” She raised her chin precipitously, and her eyes brimming as she did so, told him obstinately, “for it seems I would rather be by your side than protect my own life!” Her head then drooped a little as she held his eyes. “I do not understand, my lord, however, how you can – desire to…” her voice faltered and seemed to be caught away for a moment, “…erase me – on the turn of a day. Somehow I cannot believe it.” She seemed to simply recede away from him as she stepped back, like a vapor behind a breath would do.
Lord Grefham grasped her arm with a vicelike grip.
“Do not touch me please, my lord,” said Lupin quietly, meeting his eyes. “You need not capture me, for I have no place to run.” She twisted her arm behind her and only succeeded in drawing herself closer to him. “Leave me be!” she flared suddenly. “Have you not done enough?! Will you not let me be free in my captivity! How could you plot and plan against me! What have I that you could possibly gain?! I am a nothing – a nobody! I’ve nothing to give you! I’ve nothing to give you!” Her nose was very red by this point, her jaw aching and she had wrested herself from his grip viciously, leaving her skin bruised. “What you saw in me I do not know, but do not punish me now for your own folly!”
Lord Grefham had not had a very long time to process this, neither in the flow of words had there been very much opportunity for reply, yet as Lupin subsided, worn out once again, he did not break in with explanation, but taking her in a gentle yet firm grasp, led her downstairs to the library, and shutting the door behind them, locked it.
His heavy-lidded eyes were uncharacteristically compassionate as he looked upon her.
“Lupin, I would not hurt you,” he stated simply, standing by the door, then moving towards her slowly. “I would not harm one atom of you might the gods strike me from above, but others – others my dear, wish you grave mischief.”
“Truly?” Lupin stood by the window and her voice was very quiet and quite flat. “I did not see them consorting with – a hired assassin, I suppose,” She whirled, “was that what he was? Was it? – He didn’t seem one at all.” She had advanced a step upon each verb, but halted upon encountering the settee.
“Oh? Do you know very much about the type?” He enquired courteously.
“No, but I may if I spend much longer in your company!” She flashed back.
“You would in any case, I am afraid,” said his lordship tiredly, grimly, turning to the high mantle, and setting his snuffbox on it he toyed with the cleverly engraved lid. “In fact,” he continued, looking down at his hand, “I believe you have already.”
“I do not understand you, sir,” she said stiffly.
“It is not – an easy story, my dear.”
“My life is full of difficult stories, my lord; one of which is your current retention.”
He turned towards her, his brow raised. He bowed in her direction slightly. “If you would be so kind as to sit,” he motioned to the long settee.
“Oh Alistair, I do not want to sit,” she told him, coming up to him, “I only want to know the truth!” She stood before him, and looked him clearly in the eye. Suddenly, her gaze sharpened on something she saw there. “Something is very wrong my lord,” she said quietly, her gaze intensifying. “What is it?” she asked cautiously, “tell me.” This last was stated very intensely indeed, and she had drawn so near him as to almost touch him; a mere breath stood between them. His gaze held hers caught, and everything went very still for a moment.
Lord Grefham seemed to take a breath just as Lupin drew in, Lord Grefham’s hands inadvertently rose to her waist, where he pulled her closer yet. She sighed and rested her forehead on his chest, letting herself lean into him as he drew her in. She wrapped her arms about his waist very tightly and gave up. She could not defend herself against a trust such as this – such an inner knowledge of safety immersed her that she embraced it. She would fight if death came for her, but she would not fight life as it pursued her.
“Lupin,” Lord Grefham’s voice was very low as it sounded near her ear, “I do not think stockings will do for our upcoming journey. You will want to change, no doubt.”
Lupin’s head shot up and she looked at him straightly. “Very well, my lord,” her eyes flashed as she said this, “but the story cannot wait much longer. I shall be awaiting you in a quarter hour.”
Lord Grefham’s eyes were dark as he watched her quick exit, and as he turned towards the mantle piece once again, his gaze was very hard.
It was a short while later that Lupin, Lord Grefham and an imposed duenna were gathered together in the carriage. It seemed, once gained, Lord Grefham was loth to compromise his charge’s reputation. Lupin, garbed carelessly in a beautiful dark russet traveling dress, long jacket, and sturdily buttoned boots, leather gauntlets and sweeping hat complete with bright feather, sat negligently in one corner of the carriage and glared at Lord Grefham, seated nonchalantly unapproachable in the other. The lady’s companion proceeded to knit what appeared to be a very wooly snake, seemingly deaf and blind to those about her. Lupin, of course, assumed the snake would become something, and as it happened, was presently proven correct as the sock appeared somewhere in the environs of ----, some 20 miles on. By that time, little had changed, in fact, the same corners were inhabited by the same pair, and the carriage proceeded at the same precipitous pace as in the beginning. Little had happened in the interim, indeed a lunch, a change or two of horses, and a few attempts by Lupin to read an enticingly illustrated book on pirates had all occurred quite without happenstance. Lord Grefham had sallied few comments, only withdrawing at one point a small book from one capacious pocket and opening it placidly, much to the dismay of Lupin, who had hoped for at the very least a veiled promise to prove her trust. She instead was forced to the horrible expedient of viewing the passing landscape and dreaming, which it seemed, after a time had lolled her to sleep.
The setting of the sun and the encroaching darkness had overtaken the caravan by some hours when they rolled into the grand drive of a very fine establishment. Their rooms were procured without trouble and Lupin, awakened but momentarily was sleepily escorted by her quiet companion to a spacious chamber abovestairs. She was grimy and very hungry, and felt the same could probably be said of her female escort. This personage, after seeing her into a clean dress and fresh water, however, complained of a headache and declared herself more than content with a dinner on a tray abovestairs.

A Lost Interlude - Lupin meets Lord Grefham and he explains re: his relationship to her and her father... Then she goes to bed and the horrific dream of his death returns. She must leave, and does so by climbing out the window and taking a horse from the stable.

The night was windy and quite cold by the hour of four. The damp of an autumn had turned to the ice of the night, with a white moon flying through the fleeting sheets of cloud above. Lupin and her mount made their way through byways and side paths, it was a slow manner, but it lost them in the area. The time to prepare had been too short to allow for mapping plotting, even had she desired to do so. She had not. The only thought in her mind was to get away from his lordship and her endangerment of him. She pressed on as quickly as she dared through the darkness, passing by sleeping houses and barns, stacks of hay looming like large monsters creeping out of the dark edge of the forest. Her mind was consumed with the feeling of desperation gripping it, and she could not leave the image of Lord Grefham stretched before her on the bloodied ground. Her one hope was that he would not follow, but leave her to her own fate with good riddance. On that score she was to be disappointed, though she did not know it.
His lordship had passed onto the stairs, and gone by Lupin’s door with some niggling anxiety pulling at him. He had come out of the parlor heaven knew why, an odd compulsion gripping him to know the fastness of the hostelry. Regardless, he had come to the landing in front of Lupin’s chamber without thinking, and paused there, holding the candle aloft, checking the safety of the latch. It was at that moment that the wind, blowing hard against the unsturdy window jamb inside, sent a strong draft to the door, rattling it so hard as to set it ajar. On the wind’s calming, the heavy piece swung inward, even as Lord Grefham was moving to shut it with a frown. It laid the bare room to full display. The fire had gone out; but the shutters, opened by that same mischief-maker, the wind, let in the glaring light of the moon. The bed was neatly laid out, the coverlet without wrinkle, the bolsters pristine. Lord Grefham paled in the moonlight and his nostrils flared. But one thing marred the bolster’s curve: it was the small package, forming a dent in the pretty pillow-cover. His lordship crossed to it in one swift movement, and seized up the small object. He opened it with one tear. The sparkling ruby fell into his long fingers. It shone almost black in the dark. He gripped it in his palm without a word, and left the room abruptly.
His lordship called for his horse sharply, upon reaching the stables, jolting the sleepy ostler out of a restless slumber. The man opened the stables to retrieve his lordship’s personal mount, brought with Lord Grefham from Derbyshire, and let out a cry of alarm. One of the stable horses had been taken! Lord Grefham acceded with a grim nod, and mounting his own horse, tossed the ostler a bag of coin heavy enough to make up for the loss of such an animal. It was the next morning that the stable boy, cleaning out the boxes, found the gold coin tossed upon the floor by Lupin’s trembling hand, and looked upon it as massive good fortune.
Unlike Lupin, Lord Grefham knew exactly where to go. He canvassed the area as thoroughly as he dared, following one dark road after another. Finally, growing sure of the futility of looking for her here, he wheeled his mount and set off towards London.
While Lord Grefham searched, Lupin had found herself in the middle of a farmer’s harvested field, very tired and tense. Her horse, not used to such rough treatment, had slowed inevitably to a walk, and Lupin, feeling desperation and pity in equal amounts at this juncture – the desperation stronger, yet it’s cause farther away, and the pity weaker, but closer at hand – dismounted and began to walk her horse in the general direction of the large boulder she spied near a low row of bushes. She hoped she would find the edge of the field and a road of some sort there, for the sun would be up in an hour or so, and she would hate to be caught and held as poacher or trespasser.

Words Lost to Memory

Unfortunetely, despite my deep feelings regarding the story of Lupin St. George, in a fit of despair over ever writing for anything or anyone other than my sense of artistic purpose and myself, I threw the interim - a matter of some 15 pages - out.
I have the continuing story, but after most of the interesting and beautiful and anticipated part has had done.
I will synopsize, and hopefully make my way back through the departed pages as time allows... Look for it forthcoming.
Synopsis:
Lupin, frightened by an undeniably forboding sense, flees her townhouse and takes on the guise of a stable boy, only to be hired by Lord Grefham in a strange turn of events. In his stables, she finds Flanders and realizes that despite Lord Grefham's cruelty, lonely ways, and rakish lifestyle, she understands him very well. She learns even more about him during a three month span as his tiger.
After a harrowing attack on her life by a large and runaway carriage while she is waiting for him outside the opera (wherein she manages to save the life of another carriage boy who is too frightened to move in the face of impending doom), Lord Grefham takes her away to the country, where he reveals he knows all - and more. Lord Grefham also quietly and self-deprecatingly proposes marriage. Lupin accepts.
Three weeks of idyllic happiness ensue, wherein walks, embraces, and many conversations are shared - including conversations regarding Lupin's sense that the happiness cannot last. Lord Grefham does not react well to these feelings. He gives her a large ruby signet that has run in his family for a long time. She wears it with a sense of joy.
Lupin begins to have a dream wherein she is standing over Lord Grefham's dead body in a forest, and she knows full well that she is the cause of this death. She tries to put it out of her mind.
Lupin overhears a conversation in which Lord Grefham is arranging to have her erased from all records. She assumes the worst but cannot flee him, her love is too strong. He explains that he doesn't have time to explain, they must leave that morning and marry on the road. There is mortal danger. He promises to tell her later, and she cannot mistrust him.
At the posting house Lupin corners him and makes him explain. He explains that he, in fact, was the last man to gamble with her father and won her from him before her father took his own life. Not only that, but he also knows there was a rumor circulating that her father had a great fortune hidden somewhere, which he meant to leave to his daughter. Thus the attempts on her life.
That night Lupin awakes from the dream of Lord Grefham's death once again. She cannot make it stop. She knows she must flee him to save his life, even if it means sacrificing her own. She leaves her ring on her pillow cover and takes a horse from the stable, leaving a few coins in return. She is no thief.
She runs to London, to her townhouse, hoping she can find some money with which to keep running. She finds that her Uncle Mortimor is there. Aunt Harriet has died, and left Lupin with her entire fortune. Lupin is now rich. Lupin does not care. Lupin must get away as soon as possible. Uncle Mortimor reveals that Lupin's father also had the gift of highly honed intuition, and promises to help her escape those that are trying to make attempts on her life.

Something Discovered and Something Lost

The hand dropped her to the ground unfeelingly once they had reached their destination. She spluttered a little and sat where she was, falteringly regaining her composure. The gentleman who owned the grip that had saved her sat upon his horse, hands crossed over the reins, wordless. Finally, Lupin moved to rise. She rose to her knees, and there, hobbled by skirts and cloak, sat back on her heels, looking back at the scene of the accident. She noticed Flanders had bolted. She scanned the edges of her view anxiously, rising a little on her knees to get a clearer sight. She wondered if she saw a black shadow in the far stand of trees, but could not be sure. Her anxiety deepened. She had just lost at least a hundred pounds if he did not return. She might as well have given away two pleasant years of life. How could she recover her stallion? If anyone in the least intelligent found him, they would note his purebred lines and keep him for themselves. London was no small country village; a horse could be thieved easily. All this went through her head as she searched the park with her gaze. Of a sudden, she realized suddenly her rescuer and his mount stood yet by her, and turned to them with a start. Looking up into the gentleman’s face, she was about to make her thanks and leave, when she paused suddenly, and frowned fiercely. It was the gentleman, her gentleman, from the party. The one she had watched and followed. The blue brocade. She forced herself to stop gazing at him, and spoke with a semblance of firmness.
“Thank you, sir, for your kind – er – assistance,” she stated simply, looking straight into a pair of eyes that looked urbanely back at her.
“Are you a little mad?” The voice was perfectly polite, calm, a pleasant question
Lupin frowned again. She was disturbed by this familiar line of questioning by such a stranger. It could not be that he knew her, and she would not assume that he did. He was a gentleman, a proud and willful man used to being treated with respect by all and sundry.
She rose. “No, I am not mad.” She replied, her eyes snapping, but her voice perfectly decorous.
The gentleman studied her rather speculatively for a moment. “I believe your horse has bolted,” he commented calmly.
She raised her chin and looked straight at him. She was quiet for a moment as she studied him, his eyes, the small wrinkles about his mouth. That voice was so very familiar to her. She felt oddly at ease. “Yes,” she said, feeling strangely comforted. “And I must go to search for him,” she was really feeling quite brilliant, for just having fallen from a horse, being dragged along the ground, and meeting the key to a great mystery. She looked brightly up at him again. “I must go, sir, but I would ask your name.”
He was looking into the distance, but his eyes rested upon her in a warm, sleepy quiz. “I will indeed, miss, if you will grace me with yours.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Perhaps, but I think it is your place to fulfill my wish first.”
He bowed low and elegantly, with a slight flourish of his feathered hat. “Grefham, Lady, your most humble servant Grefham.”
Lupin looked him straight in the eye, and he gazed straightly back, with a slight question, a mocking one, in his. She said solemnly, honestly “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir. I must beg your leave.” And with that, she turned on her heel and strode decidedly away.

Lupin soon found herself in the eaves of a small copse, whose trees sparsely covered the ground at first, but fell closer and closer in as the eye wandered ahead, until she could see naught but wood and trees and bush to her front. She reasoned Flanders would not have gone a path that did not offer some incentive to the equine brain. A meal, a mate, or a road home were all possibilities, though the chances of a mare’s presence in the dismal rain, now sleeting slyly yet steadily upon Lupin’s head were slim. Suddenly, she saw in her mind the glassy black of Flanders wielding again high in the air above her, and suppressed a shudder. Nevertheless, she pressed on, searching every knoll and copse she could discover. When the darkness began to grow in the shadows, Lupin realized she had searched as much as was possible to her that day.

Dejectedly, she walked down --------- Street, her woolen cloak and the dress beneath it sodden, the little warmth she could muster prickling around the scratchy material at odd points, like her shoulders and hips. The rest of her – her nose, her fingers, and her waterlogged feet – moved half frozen. Lupin had decided to have a lark and had found disaster. Not only had she lost a year’s subsistence, but a fine amount and a good stallion, to boot. She quietly walked round the back of the house to enter, for always in the back of her mind there lay a small, quiet voice tallying up the damage a certain move might do to the clean surfaces of the mansion. Her chill and tired legs carried her to the servants’ entrance. Her mind concentrated through the rain on the rusty lock, and finally she wearily made her way up the deserted stairwells to her bedchamber.

A Soaring Vantage Point

A Short History and a Mystery Intensifies

That evening at Lady Vanigne’s stalked her every thought. Surely there was not some strange connection between the two of them, she and the gentleman? Lupin had only ever heard of such things in quickly hushed talk or allusions to cults in the books of the limited library. Surely it wasn’t possible to be the victim of such nonsense, not she, a normal, quiet girl in pleasant England! Such happenings as psychics and mind control belonged in some darkly shadowed forest in the life of a gypsy maid named Lucia or some such. Lupin was not convinced of her own quixotic ideas in the least. Surely the gentleman had simply decided to turn about and rejoin the lively party. That he did little when he returned to the light and people, or that he seemed woefully disinterested when he did were not taken as valid arguments. The vision? (She shuddered to think of it so.) A lonely person’s graphic imagination, was all it could have been. And Lupin quite decidedly got up from her seat by the window and trod out of the quiet breakfast room. Unfortunately, her lurid imagination did not leave her with such assured alacrity. Indeed, her thoughts could not but turn to the prior evening, despite her best efforts to the contrary, and as time and time again she pulled herself away from the dreaded topic, she became inevitably frustrated with her own inability to quell this obsession. She spent her day in pursuit of diversion. A book passed beneath her gaze for a moment or an hour or two, but as pages were turned by her dismissive hand, Lupin would find herself in the middle of chapter she wasn’t aware she had begun. She had gathered her groom and mount and attempted a ride in the park, but a miserable mist of rain had descended upon the city, and Lupin, though willing to ride through the mizzle, was not able to bear the dreariness with which her groom approached the subject.
Finally, in desperation, Lupin took the steps downstairs to the low back entrance the servants were wont to use, when t was not their day off – or when they were more plentiful than they were at the moment. She had begun to explore the servants’ quarters and their realm when she was very young, when her nanny had been let off, and Mrs. Fortan had been put in charge of her well-being. That wise housekeeper had introduced her to a bustling fury that lived beneath the calm interior of the London townhouse, and Lupin had soon been adopted by all the members of the staff, from the most discerning butler to the haughty house-maid, right down to the stable-boys, who had curbed their forked tongues in her presence. Slowly, as funds had dissipated, her large band had been let go, given references and perhaps a week’s pay and were never seen again. When she was twelve, finally Mrs. Forton had been forced to leave because her sister’s family had fallen ill, and she had never returned. The housekeeper to work in her stead had never been found, and Lupin had drifted into the job. As maids left, ells of the house had been shut up. The world of the residence had dwindled each anum to an increasingly smaller and smaller isle of rooms. Soon, Lupin imagined, there would be little left to survive in. That much which she herself could look after, with the help of a maid or two twice a week. There was little amusement now in Lupin’s life, and less funds. Aunt Harriet was very seldom in the mood for London, and kept to her house in Kent, wherein she lived the life of a demi-recluse, happy in her solitude, increasingly unmindful of her charge in London, or the monthly bills that must be paid. Or, indeed, the very presence of London at all.
And Lupin, though she wrote until her wrist ached to request sufficient allowance to buy those necessities which were crucial to life, had fallen upon ever-growing difficulties. Only old Bailey’s son, Young George kept her company these days; the companion, Miss Collit, had had to leave in the absence of any money to employ her, and though Aunt Harriet had been written about the impropriety of the situation, nothing had been sent to remedy it. To buy the black and gold gown of the previous night’s ball, Lupin had frivolously taken from the small amount of gold she had saved from her father’s legacy. It was her only pin money; her small allowance. He had gone long ago to seek his fortune at the side of what was politely described as a ‘gentleman’s entertainer’, and Lupin had never known him. That he knew of her was also a question, for her mother had died in childbirth some eight months after he had departed. Her stash of gold was from the jewels Uncle Mortimer had pawned that had belonged to her father. Uncle Mortimer had then given the money to her, to keep until that day when she was in desperate need of it. Her life was crashing about her ears, she had little idea of how to survive and her nerves and mind were frayed to an indescribable thinness by boredom and lack of society. The dress had been a last siege on the reality that seemed like a strange sort of fiction. It had been the out post swamped by soldiers of an enemy land. She had won that only battle, an found a mystery within. Something to allay the torture of waiting for the end. Lupin took the steps two at a time. It did not matter now whether or not she acted like a lady. She was hardly even a person in most people’s eyes, she knew so few of them. She went quickly to the stables. George, the groom and stable boy was nowhere to be seen. She had a distinct feeling he had gone home for the day. And why should he not? On what she paid him he shouldn’t even be here a quarter of the time he was. She walked to her mount, Celeste. A beautiful mare, Celeste was a royal chestnut, one foreleg graced with a pure white stocking. Regal, elegant, she was a lady’s horse. Lupin could not bear to part with her, or with any of the three pure blooded horses in her Aunt’s stables. She trod to the next stall. Within lay Queen Mary, who had but foaled a week before. It had been successful, a great miracle, for it had been but George and her to see to the process. She was glad to see the angular colt nursing at his dam’s belly. He would have to be sold, of course, but she would get more for him if she could break him first. A year or more until that would be possible. She did not think the money would last. She reached into the stall and stroked Queen Mary’s muzzle. Certainly an awful predicament. She went past Pegasus’s stall quickly. He had been her uncle’s horse, and the memories were still rather fresh. She passed the last stall. Here, in deceptive meekness munched Flanders, a great black stallion. He was a rather wild one. A strong man’s mount. George was the only one who could handle him now. She had gotten him with another, smaller black, Sir Percy, but the smaller mount had since been taken to Kent. Why her aunt had chosen to leave Flanders there in London had puzzled Lupin no end. But left him she had. Lupin supposed that if she would sell any of the horses, the first must be Flanders. She held no loyalties to him, he had no progeny, and he was not her own mount. Of a sudden, she felt an urge to ride him. She had never done so, and if she was to sell him, she wanted to at least have ridden him once in her life. At that moment she fully dropped the pretense. She was no more a lady; she was a person in difficult circumstances. And as such, she would do the things and take the few pleasures that were afforded her, whether they belonged to the lot of a lady or no. She boldly fetched the bit and saddle, and marched into Flanders’ stall. His eyes followed her. She knew he had no notion of who she might be and was most probably feeling a little frightened. She put a calming hand on his neck, and stroked him slowly, letting her hand feel the power in his arch, letting him feel the superior power in her hand. She quietly went to his head and slipped on the harness; with a slight tossing of his large head the steed took the bit, and allowed her quick hands to buckle and fit the equipage upon him. He was soon ready. She tightened the last buckle of the saddle beneath his tail, and he was done. She led him out to the open part of the small mews, and unheeding of her dress or the mizzle in the air, she stepped up the mounting block and caught her balance in the side-saddle. She was much used to the idea of her legs hanging over one side, but Flanders was not. The black started, and began to jostle, side to side, a nervous sidling. Immediately, Lupin took him firmly in hand. She tucked her skirts more fittingly beneath her so they would not aggravate him, and with a slight loosening of the reins, and a nudge of her calf, she begged him forward. He went willingly, nearly dashingly, as he became used to the rider on his back. He was, unfortunately, fresh, however, and when she gave him a bit more head on the street, he began to canter nigh to an uneasy lope, the power of him surging forward to gallop. She let him canter broadly to the park, thankfully but a few squares away, and there happily let him go to a full gallop. She was not cautious today. The wind blew her cape out behind her, her hood had since blown back at her neck, and her hair was quickly tearing free of its moorings; sagging awfully with each jolt. But Lupin did not care. She leaned into her great black steed, flying across the wetted green, towards a line of trees beyond, and a grey pond that was but an iron puddle through the misting. Freedom tore at her heartstrings, a sort of freedom she had not felt for many a year, since the one night she had danced beneath the moon. She was not a lady, she was not indentured to a life of servitude, but only to herself. A life not lived by anyone before. That she felt strongly enough to carry her over the seven seas. The winds of hope had been harnessed and her ship would sail where she wished. She was free. And then she saw it, flashing before her eyes, an accident. A hole lay before her. Flanders’s fall was so clear in her head she was sure it was real, yet she galloped still. She tried to pull him up quick, but once given his head, he was not to be stopped. Lupin moved without thinking. She pulled him hard to the right, and though he slipped on the sodden treachery of the ground, she held him still. But something she had not forseen was at her right. Another horse, and rider, and Flanders balked, reared, throwing Lupin, and he slipped heavily. Thankfully, without her weight, he managed to regain his balance, but he was wild. His hooves crashed on the muddy ground, tearing up the soft grass. Lupin, bruised from the fall was very close to his descending hooves, indeed, another stomp of his massive feet and she would be beneath him. She cried out, and rolling like a flash, she managed to elude the danger by a hairsbreadth, but she was still close. She had not time to rise – a hand reached to her collar, and wrenching her up by the neck of her cloak, half-dragged, half-strangled her to a safe distance.

Secrets and Answers

The confusion reigning in her mind did not dismiss the fact, however, that she felt none other than a little silly following a voice in a dream, or that courage was fading even as her resolution grew stronger. Indeed, she wondered why she was so willing to make such a huge leap on so transient of grounds, for if Lupin was anything, she was consistent in her urges, or at least she had made herself so. But despite self doubt, a trailing sense of essential questioning, and a good deal of terror at the proximity of risk, Lupin forced herself to continue. Her only chance to solve the mystery would be to ask the gentleman his name and identity in the world, and the only way to do that would be to somehow induce him to dance with her. She had very little recourse as to how, exactly, for to ask him for one would be unutterably unconventional, and the chances in his solicitation of her were slim indeed. Lupin could only imagine one route to the desired goal. Long ago, in the past upon a window seat, she had read a very interesting strategy in a horrid novel of little Culture or Taste. The heroine, being a damsel of much distress, had inadvertantly fallen into the arms of the Horrid Villain and been forced thereby to dance with him. Lupin hoped that such things worked in opposite roles; that is she hoped he would be forced to dance with her. Firstly, however, he must be lured to the scene of the plan, and so there must be suitable bait. Lupin imagined the presence of a certain libation would most probably invite curiousity, and so she disappeared into the yard, hoping he would not vanish in the interim of her absence. Her absence did not occur quite as soon as she had hoped, however. Indeed, it was not fated to happen at all. For as she rushed from the whirling scene, a hand gripped her arm.
“My dance, I believe.” A long voice, thinly veiled by a slur of alcohol, but not untowardly handsome. Lupin twirled to see who dared importune her on her mission. It was a tall gentleman, dressed predominantly in an impudent purple velvet. His hair was powdered, his eyes no abnormal size or shape ‘neath the half mask he yet wore. Still Lupin’s reaction was one oof severe distaste.
“Your are mistaken,sir,” she stated coldly, but as she did, she was cut midsentence when he pulled her into the moving circle that lay before them. It was a strange country dance just recently imported from Germany, by a close friend of the Lady Lavigne, and it involved the close embrace of the lady and man executing its steps. Lupin was neither amused nor even slightly interested by the novelty or the impropriety of such a display. She was thoroughly annoyed and not a little frightened. Feelings of entrapment wove with those of frustration and confusion at unknown social codes. She had been told never to leave a man on the dance floor, but surely if one was press-ganged into such a situation? Her black velvet half-mask made it impossible to see her unwanted companion’s face, and Lupin was dearly glad that it was so. She did not want to look at him when she began to struggle. At the right moment, in the dance she broke away, or she jerked out of the man’s embrace, but, unfortunately, he held still her hand in his own, and kept them soundly in his grasp, pulling her back to the steps. She did not do this willingly, and managed to step recklessly upon his toes, housed as thy were in expensively flimsy shoes. He seemed to see this as a challenge, and though she valiantly pulled and pushed, little came of it, save for a small commotion to the other pairs of dancers.
She relaxed suddenly and without warning. And she stayed that way, as if she had relinquished her being to some higher god and died beneath the hands of a stranger. She followed her partner’s steps move for move until he was self-assured. He could not hold her vice-like and dance with her at the same time. She submitted to his highly flamboyant turn, and then, at the end of the flying circle, she let go of him, and stepped quietly back. He stumbled, and realizing what had happened, began to curse. Lupin quickly slipped away into the shadows cast by the multi-jeweled silks and expensive velvet that cost a poor man’s year's salary. Lupin dissolved into the scene and disappeared. Her quarry had disappeared as well, and Lupin had a distinct impression he would be nearly impossible to locate in the crushing gala. She felt as if she had been given a sour lemon in lieu of a candy drop. Her mouth was cold and her stomach felt old and thin. After so much! She had lost her hope for any understanding.

* * *
Answers are secrets and secrets are treasures stolen and lost – bought and traded. The impression from her dream stayed with her for hours after she had awakened. She had been searching, searching through brandy and cellars for the treasure – for the jewel. She had found naught but a note read by a familiar voice. She thought it was an answer. She couldn’t remember. But the essence fo the dream stayed constant despite forgetfulness. Secrets and answers were one and the same. Somehow she must purchase her secret.

The Hidden Mind

The lanterns shone brightly in the dark, spreading gold around their cages and coloring the black of night with warm yelow. Lupin was quite sure she had never seen something so beautiful as the scene that lay out before her. Colored fabrics, rich and brilliant, swirled blithely around a square alight with hanging lanterns as people mixed and flowed about a darkened park. Here and there embraces could be seen, quick and stolen in the shadowed trees. Lupin watched all, her attention sharply turned to the dance floor where well-matched dancers twirled beneath the starry night. The lilting melodies rang out, a stream of emotion that ran beneath every movement of the costumed bodies. Lupin sat in black, a shadow, shrouded by the dark of a cedar behind her. The low, curved tree branch made for a well-fitted seat, the evening warm.
She seldom wore any finery, but a stray invitation to Lady Venigne’s masquerade had surreptitiously slipped into her hands, and Lupin had not let the chance go by unused. Black had been the dress, for sale in the costumer’s shop, black and heavy gold. She had taken it at once, no question in her mind. The oddness of its fashion only intensified its beauty. For a girl of her age and unmarried state such severity was not, by any means, the fashion. But Lupin had never known the fashion, so it was not a large departure for her. She sank farther into the cedars, and watched the dancers vicariously from her scented box.
Her heavy velvet skirts were an effective cushion, but their breadth longed to swirl on the ground below. Her gown was a partner in her envy. Yet she sank yet farther still into the branches, pulling her very form and shadow closer to her. The light and the society of others had never been her forte – or rather, she had never been given the chance to conclude if they were, for her circle had consisted of naught but temper and imagination. So far, in her stolen experience in these noble gardens, imagination and a lively desire to be solicited to dance had reigned her evening. But Lupin suddenly decided to not allow her evening to mirror so exactly her life, though that life would begin anew on the morrow.
She had taken a chance to be here tonight. She must take another to make it successful. Yet she rested still where she was. It was not cowardice that stayed her, though that was very present in her breast, it was another form of fear:w the fear of discovery. A male voice, mixed with that of a woman was just below her. They had gone unnoticed in her abstraction. She knew the voice, and though she did not know how, it was oddly familiar to her nevertheless. The timbre sent frissons down her spine, the cambre was so well known to her it nearly brought her down disgracefully from her seat. She knew the voice. She knew the intensity. She knew the dream.
* * * * *
The man below her strolled by, his arm linked with that of a richly, if barely, dressed woman who easily held his attention. But suddenly he paused beneath her. Lupin held her breath instantly, as the hem of her velvet skirt hung in heavy shadow a mere hair’s breadth from his shoulder. The lady stopped, and gestured to him with such an air of mystery about her Lupin herself felt nearly compelled to follow. The masked woman continued into the trees, but yet the man stilled beneath Lupin’s seat. Suddenly, Lupin saw him stare straight into her eyes. She felt with every fibre of her being “Don’t follow her.” She knew not why; the feeling was so intense, she nearly swooned.
But it had never happened. She had never met his eyes. The man lingered but yet a moment, and turning, set his steps into being lost in the shadowed color of the fete. Lupin slipped to the ground, and silently followed. Her own sanity was being seriously called into question, yet she followed the blue brocade costume doubtlessly.
She followed him to the game room, where he played desultorily at dice and chatted briefly with an acquaintance who called him ‘Robbie’. She followed him to the dancing stage where he watched in seeeminly bored unamusement as masked forms swirled by. Finally, she watched him proceed to the refreshments and partake heartily of the wine. He looked mightily as if he wished he could have found the master of the house’s brandy table.
Thus far, Lupin had discovered very little about her quarry. She had come upon a great deal about herself, however. Indeed, she had found in this brief interlude that she was more than fascinated by this man. There was a pull that linked her to him. And she had found that to acquire the reason for this disturbing bond she was willing to face fears she had nt even known existed within her. Confusion reigned in her mind, but her very self knew that she must answer this ultimate question.