Bright and Shadow

Lupin had not known when Uncle Mortimor had proposed the plan how rare it was for Lord Maximilien to take a mistress. Indeed, she had not known that it was so far in the past beyond anyone's memory as to seem as if it had never happened before. He had frequented the major Establishments of Pleasure, of course - but never once, since his earliest adulthood, had he chosen someone to entertain him regularly. Lupin had not been told, and as she surveyed the crowd, but somehow the truth was flying to her on every glance. Lupin, Lord Maximilien, and Uncle Mortimor paused in the entrance way, the hushed people scattered out across the hall like so many spilled jewels, a small hiss of whispers like the falling of so many leaves.
Lupin realized at that moment exactly what position she was. She was now, with very little action on her own part, notorious.
This was not what she had planned. She felt, in the quiet and tense excitement that held Lord Maximilien, that this was the event for which he had fiven so much of himself. He stood beside her, his eyes victorious. His hand on her waist was cool, but she could feel the energy coursing through it. He watched the hall before him with the expression of a conqueror returning home. His powder was perfect, his linen shone, his diamonds sparkled. Everything was entirely due to his execution and powers of control. She was the bride of the evening, and she was to attend her wedding feast. Lupin felt suddenly as if she had lost her breath. It was strange and not right so much power in one room. The whole hall stilled for a moment, and Lupin, gazing straightly and directly ahead, suddenly saw the shadows in the room. The dusky ceiling, so far away, became darker, the shadows slid over the walls. She knew suddenly, there was more wrong than Lord Maximilien. Indeed, with what knowledge she knew, she understood he was caught in the greater energy of the evening.
Then, the moment passed, Lord Maximilien finished his mocking gaze's sweep of the room, and led Lupin to the great stairway that ascended to the ballroom above.
At the top of the white marble staircase, Uncle Mortimor whispered something to the footman, and Lupin knew it was to her name - or pseudonym. His eyes were alight with the excitement of the evening, his muted gray tones neat and understated as he walked with his precise step towards the ball rooms. The name would be a shock, she had no doubt. As would her own position in society when this was finished. She wrenched herself away from the thought. Her marriage to Lord Grefham had been a wonderful ideal, but was impossible. Her color high, as she entered the ballroom with her chin high, Lord Maximilien's hand gracefully beneath her elbow. Her entire energy was held within, her eyes were sparkling with nerves, but she knew that she was her own, on this night of bright and shadow.

Sound and Silence

Lupin looked up the long flight of wide steps that ran to the imposing arch of the chateau's entrance. People in colorful garb were wending their way up the wide and shallow ranks of steps, looking as if they floated in the flickering light cast by the many flambeaux. A low rush of sound emanated from the house; as if a large river were hitting so many rocks and tumbling about inside. It was nothing so comforting. The entirety of Paris - or those with any say in the running of the place - were within those walls.
She lowered her chin for a moment, as if gathering herself, then raised it. It was as if she were caught there for a moment, gazing up the stone steps at the looming facade of the chateau, her vision filled by the sight of it. She couldn't move for a moment, her hands catching up the hem of her swirling skirts. Then, forcing her spine straight she dropped her hands and stepped forward, rising upon the first of the stairs.
Her skirts billowed out in a mass of pewter. Behind her she felt Lord Maximilien's hand - small, graceful - at the small of her back. For some reason, the touch of him was hard to bear this evening. She straightened her spine away from his touch, but let its presence pace her steps as she seemed to glide towards the large doorway.

Within, all was starred by the thousands of fine wax candles lit about the room. Lupin's mind began whirring through the figures as she remembered the dark day of candle stubs and tallow in London. It was too much to take in - as the gleaming marble, gilt, and crystal overwhelmed her eye and senses. The ceiling rose like a dome above her, the whole heavens mapped out in amazing detail. The marble of the floors, cut and polished in an intricate circular patter, fanned below her silken slippers, though she could not hear her heels for the rush of sound and music that encompassed her. Everywhere the silks, satins, laces, and paints of France were put on their best display. It was not the fete of the week or the year, she realized almost unerringly. The drunken excitement told her it was, for some reason, the fete of the decade. Her eyes were very grave as she surveyed the mass. Something was expected. And when a hush fell over the room, she realized with a cold, clear knowledge, just what that was.

It was she.

The Figure of Deception

The carriage crest was unmistakable in the golow of the flaming embrasures of the billowing chateau where Lord Maximilien had chosen to debut his newest inamorata. If the crest was not recognizable, teh livery of the coachmen and the style of the coach itself would have given any onlooker with the smallest knowledge f Paris ton the complete understanding of its owner.

Such a constant, spoken of, and yes, even revered member of Paris society could not be found. The length of his tenure as an arbiter of good taste and human enjoyments alone was enought to make him the name of Parisien uclture - above that, his innate good manners and unshakable wit in the face of all disasters - political, social, cultural, personal - had rendered him a model of breeding in a society drowned in blue blood. Lupin knew his grace, wit and the constant, cool feeling that seemed to emanate from him. She also knew the feeling of social power that seemed to hover just behind him, as if his to command. One could not but wonder, however, if it was not a careful dance of just who could command whom.

The full strength of the Paris gaze would let her know - the dance was not so much careful as passionate. They loved Lord Maximilien as a society can only love someone who epitomizes and betters its own image at once. And they jealously guarded the name and image of that beloved. Lupin, until proved, was both an unknown interloper and the promise of a new toy from a beneficent godfather. Lupin stepped down from the carriage. As they watched her, the eyes of Paris would also protect her. For it regarded her as exactly what she pretended to be, and that was something her pursuers would never expect. Fail or succeed in the eyes of the ton, she was hidden in the refracted glare of their attention.

Lupin's gray silk skirts billowed out around her as she stepped neatly onto the gravel drive. She fel the small twitch of her skirst behind her, as if a watching eye had adjusted the generous train away from a bothersome snag. The flames reflected orange on her silver coutume, she was covered in the finest, dullest silver. Sheening quietly in the flames' light, her garb was deceptively simply cut. And yet so perfectly formed to her figure, and so cut as to proclaim her as nothing but what she could possibly be. A bodice of the most minimal design, cut to display a low decollatage, her neck, the sweep of her collarbones swooping elegantly, like wings, to either side. The bodice, with a boned waist cinched tight enough to make her breathing shallow and her silhouette acute, fell to a huge billow of swirling, ruched skirts. panniers caught up in sweeping folds to either side, a fall of skirts beneath them, her train yet another bustle of silver silk behind. Sleeves dropped straightly to her elbows, fitting slimly her upper arms. Her chemise, of finest lawn, fell from her sleeves in two, generous and billowing falls, simply cut without ruffles or ribbon.