Over the Water

To keep the charade, it took Uncle Mortimor and Lord Maximilien a very few days to outfit Lupin with the finest of things. But she was kept away from the prying and hungry eyes of Parisien society, in the veriest dark, to heighten the suspense. It was to be one night - Lord Maximilien had planned it so - one night when she was to be brought out, brought out as the newest choice of Lord Maximilien, that staple of Paris ton.
Uncle Mortimor, though he tried to be in brown moods the entirety of the time, could not suppress a strange relaxation that made him less tense and more accepting of the vagaries of this strange adventure. It became clear that he loved Paris, and having once been forced by the clarity of their danger to accept Lupin's fall from her status as lady, he soon became complicit, and a willing member of their small trio.
It was a warm and balmy night, and Lupin had a terrible headache. All day, Uncle Mortimor and Lord Maximilien had simultaneously quarrelled and combined forces to put the final touches on her debut evening. She had been told to bathe, she had been plucked, powdered, scented, manicured. She stood now by the bedpost, her hair down about her chin, wrapped in a simple dressing gown of silk. The candles were burning low, having been brightly afire since the first hint of dusk to contrive the long operations.
Lupin looked dourly around the room, at the remnants of a day entirely devoted to appearance. There was no hint that a huge storm had not ransacked the room. All the maids had cleared a few moments before to fetch her dress, the wigger, and her paintist - who was to be Lord Maximilien himself. She had stood forgotten, like a doll thrown away after a day of hectic play.
She sighed and held herself up straighter. It was not the oddness of this frivolous, ungrounded commital to beauty that was bothering her (though it was nagging at her nerves). It was the fact that something was amiss. Something dark and nebulous hovered just outside her senses. She shook her head, and tried to fight off the feeling of forboding. It was no doubt her nerves. No doubt her nerves.
She crossed the room to the door, and made her way down the dark hall. She felt calmer in the dark, and her eyes were more at rest. More than anything, she had the overwhelming desire to hide, but she shook her head impatiently, and made her way down the hall to Lord Maximilien's room. Perhaps he was ready to continue the ministrations - she was impatient to leave, and begin the doubtless exhausting evening.
She stood indecisively at the door for a moment, her spine straight, but her hand not certain whether to interrupt his privacy.
She raised her hand and knocked, quietly, but firmly.
Light footfalls were heard on the other side of the portal, and the door swung open. Lord Maximilien stood on the other side, his bright eyes glittering.
"Are you ready to continue my coutume, seigneur?" queried Lupin quietly, her chin up, though there was an uncertain look in her eyes.
Lord Maximilien stepped back, allowing her into the room. "Oui, mon enfante, pas de doute," he followed her, closing the door softly behind them. It was a veritable magazine of beauty, Lord Maximilien's room. some five doors opened off of the main chamber, each with a catalog of beautifying implements and potations.
Lupin looked around her surprised, oddly.
Four large windows faced la boulevard, all open to the warming night air. The candles blazed brightly in candlabra. Lupin held herself from moving towards the window. The breeze beckoned her, but she knew it would be courting disaster to show her face in such a way.
Lord Maximilien looked at her curiously. "You think it is not convenable to be seen in my chambers?"
Lupin smiled a small smile. "It isn't the propriety, my lord. It is my own suspicions."
"There is no better disguise than the one closest to the truth. They would not suspect my - maitresse - d'etre la cherchee; to be the one for whom they search. With a wig or without, you are not where, or whom, they expect."
Lupin looked at him for a moment. Her senses tingled. She wanted so to feel the breeze, but the nebulous feeling followed her still. It was as if the whole sea were rumbling just outside her senses to feel it. She took a step to the window's side, and felt the coolness of the night run over her skin. Something else, as well. Something she recognized but could not resist. She took a step into the light. Silhouetted, she stood for a moment - long enough to see the form on the walk had seen her. The tall, graceful form of someone very familiar. She whipped herself back out of the window, closing her eyes tight, and holding every breath in. Surely not. It could not have been. Her heart beat a heavy, quick rhythm of alarm and fear. No. No.
Moving with absolute decision, she pulled the drapery pull, letting the dark velvet sweep across the window. She snuffed the candles succinctly, and then striding back to the window, pulled the edge of the curtain away and gazed out at the street. It was empty, completely void. Surely noone could have disappeared so quickly. She sighed, and though her heart beat a strange rhythm still, she shook her head. Her gentleman would not follow her to Paris. He had turned back in England. And he would not know her if he saw her. She looked down at her hands, those he had held and traced at Graye. He would not know them now - soft and trimmed, all scented and pearly.
A deep pain ached somewhere inside, but she raised her head and looked back at Lord Maximilien, who surveyed her oddly, but with a gentle sympathy.
"It is nearly time to leave," she commented straightly. "Surely we should prepare?"
He bowed elegantly, and she swept past him towards her own chamber once more.