Naruto: MadaSaku - Regency AU - "La Rose à l'Aube"

[moor]

Chapter 01:

Spring

March’s soft afternoon light filtered through the lead-trimmed stained glass, showering Sakura in rainbows as she read her adventure novel. The tinkling of the tiny bell strung over the open door alerted her to her mother’s summons and Sakura quickly dropped her feet down from the coffee table to the well-polished, wide plank floor, her furtive, guilty glance over her shoulder reassuring her no one had spotted her in her father’s office. Carefully she folded and tucked her novel into the drawer of her father’s heavy desk inside their parish home near Cheltenham, sealing it shut again so he wouldn’t notice.

“Coming,” she said calmly, tucking the loose tendrils of her hair into her chignon as she met her mother in the sitting room. “You called?”

“My little dove, were you caught with your nose in a book?”

Lifting her chin, Sakura shook her head. “No, I was working in Father’s office.”

“Mmm,” intoned her mother, Mebuki.

In her empire-waist gown and soft slippers, Mebuki stood and observed her only child. Mebuki herself was the only child of her own parents, gem-smiths and jewel mine-owners with contacts all over the known world. Upon her marriage to her husband, Father Kizashi Haruno, she had inherited her family’s enormous wealth. Kizashi, the eldest son of his aristocratic parents, instead of taking on the leisure of a Gentleman, had turned to the Good Word. His gentle humour and warm personality had cracked Mebuki’s stern personality and together they had lain the plans to invest their considerable combined wealth into the less fortunate. Mebuki’s quick mind and cutting tongue had earned her a reputation as rather a critical shrew; only her family recognized her analytical tendencies charitably, where she put her faculties to prodigious use organising mission work from their rectory throughout London, their downtrodden parish, and the East Indies.

She turned that analytical eye on her seventeen year old daughter.

“Your fingertips are salty with ink, your shawl is skewed, and your hair… is nearly flawless,” mused Mebuki aloud. Her tight lips softened as she reached up to re-pin a lock that had slipped into her daughter’s brilliant emerald eyes. “There.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Sakura drew her handkerchief from her bib pocket. “I finished my chores,” she said, wiping the book’s ink from her fingers.

“I am sure you did, however you did not seek more work when that was done.”

“I helped this morning.”

“You have fine strong arms and find strong legs and an unfortunately astute brain inside your skull that is well aware it can process more knowledge than Oxford’s finest on any given day,” said her mother sternly. “I asked for your assistance reviewing the sums for the next mission. Did you forget?”

“No,” sighed Sakura. 

“Why did you not come find me?”

Mentally wincing, she nonetheless straightened her shoulders.
“... The book I read became very exciting...”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed.

“Which means to say that you deliberately, against my express wishes, selected a novel on the topic of a gruesome murder or salacious mystery, am I correct in my assumption?”

Sakura very much wished to take a half-step back from her mother.

“Gruesome… Er… Salacious is such an unfortunate word—”

“You seek entertainment of a most foolish, sinful kind in a house of God, child—I feel the murdered would profess to being the unfortunate!”

“I find it a very moving enticement to remain on the path of goodness,” insisted Sakura.

Her mother shook her head at her with a huff of disappointment.

“Do not let your father catch you reading that nonsense,” chastised Mebuki, her expression severe.

“Absolutely not,” promised Sakura. If her father knew she’d found his novel stash, he’d take more care in hiding them from her. Again. “Would you still like help reviewing the accounts for the next mission? Is it the one for China?”

“If it would not trouble you terribly from your foray into murder and deceit.”

Sakura pressed her lips together but her mother’s gimlet eye didn’t miss her effort to conceal her nascent grin.

“I can fit it in between body snatchers,” promised Sakura.

“Heavens above,” said Mebuki, swatting her daughter’s shoulder, though she, too, had relaxed. “The numbers do not lie. Please make them make sense.”

“Yes, mama.”

 

Settling her skirts, Sakura sat at her mother’s desk in her personal parlour in front of the clear glass window, her inkwell and a sheaf of fresh, unlined paper ready. Mebuki passed her daughter the two ledgers, one from the rectory, the other a record from the mission in question. Setting them beside each other, Sakura set about balancing the sums to track down the errant one.

 

Uchiha Madara checked his pocket watch outside the House of Lords. His hair fortunately concealed the throb in his temple. There was no sign of his usual livery. His brother was once again late returning with his new carriage.

Mindful of the debris in the street, he stepped to the side to nod at his fellows and tucked the silver watch back in his vest. Then, as he straightened his hat, he found his hackles rising in suspicion.

“Duke Uchiha,” greeted the hunched priest that approached him from the west. The pest’s usual cane, tipped with deer horn handle and cloven foot, tapped his approach. “How fortuitous. A moment of your time, perhaps?”

“Father Danzou,” greeted Madara coldly. “To what do I owe the grace of your presence?”

His tone conveyed abundantly how welcome the priest’s presence truly was, not that it stopped the dreadful copper-chaser. 

The old man’s rusty laugh ground uncomfortably against Madara’s eardrum, as he’d likely intended.

“Your counsel is sought by many, I suppose it is reasonable for you to suspect even a man of the cloth.”

As a truth shared only with his closest ally, Madara would have suspected Danzou of treason and worse, man of the cloth or no. 

“I have come to ask what ails Your Grace,” continued Father Danzou. “And to offer panacea to your esteemed soul, should it be required, and ask why our congregation has lacked your great patronage of late,” he inquired. “Hath one of our parishioners offended thee?”

“Duty has bound my time and hands of late,” answered Madara.

However Danzou stared at Madara’s hat, silently admonishing the Duke for his failure to doff or remove it in greeting.

Madara cared not a whit for the man’s censure.

“May I ask when we may expect your great patronage and influence again, Your Grace?”

“It would be ungentlemanly of me to provide a word that may be broken by a twist of fate,” answered Madara. A familiar jingle of livery chimed nearby, growing closer. “If there’s nothing further, Father?”

“How terrible a sin it must be, to shoulder your estates’ affairs wholly on your own,” broke in Father Danzou sympathetically. “Have you plans to marry, or at the very least, attend the debutante and season balls this spring and summer?”

A-ha. So the mamas of the ton had coerced the man into haranguing him that day? Madara withheld his huff, though it was a close thing. 

His brother Izuna’s familiar tap-a-tap-tap inside the carriage as it pulled to a stop beside Madara relieved him of his need to perform courtesy beyond the minutest social requirement.

The footman rudely stepped in front of the clergyman and lowered the steps before opening the door to the carriage for Duke Madara.

“Should I ever find a woman my match in wit, strength and mental capability, I look forward to proposing marriage on the spot. Though the likelihood of such a woman existing would doubtless count as a divine miracle. Good day, Father,” said Madara, stepping into the carriage. 

When Father Danzou made to follow him, the footman cleared his throat and packed up the stairs again, hindering him.

With a wave of his hand, the driver and footman boarded once more and the carriage, dressed in the Duke’s prestigious livery, carried on to Mayfair.

They had passed the square before Izuna met his brother’s even gaze. They removed their hats and set them on the cushioned, crimson, padded velvet seats.

Izuna broke the silence. “I apologise. I was kept longer than intended as I did not realize my orders would be ready.”

Madara stiffened in his seat.

“Orders?”

“I am to return to France,” said Izuna.

Alone with his brother, Madara allowed a frown to mar his brow and full lips “So soon?”

“I shall take it upon myself not to be derelict in bringing back some of your favourite damask silk, inks, those chocolates and the turkish delights—”

“Do not speak so casually of the fact that you face the business end of a Hell’s sea of firearms and blood,” said Madara coldly. “Will you not accept the Marquess’ position I can arrange for you, with Their Majesty’s approval?”

“Brother,” said Izuna, smiling softly. “Do you not trust my skill? It was you who trained me.”

Madara knew that all too well. He, too, had fought prior to the passing of their father, returning only to take on the mantle of master of their estates. His awards now sat in a yew box inside a secret cabinet in his elaborate writing desk. He had no desire to watch any more of his compatriots fall, terminated by a whiff of grapeshot, serenaded by booming, sulphurous smoke belching and billowing from a canon’s mouth… least of all his brother.

“I have need of an heir,” reminded Madara. 

“Then you should make an attempt to smile at the young ladies who throw their handkerchiefs in your path,” grinned Izuna. He was one of only two members of the human race allowed to tease Duke Madara Uchiha, and unfortunately he knew it well.

Madara groaned and rubbed his eyes with his broad palm.
“Please visit at least one ball this season, Your Grace,” implored Izuna. “Consider it a personal favour, as I will be away. Describe it down to its gaudy flowers and decorations and overly ruffled, ribboned, feathered maidens, in your letters to me. I shall look forward to each one with glee.”

“I have no doubt,” groaned Madara, massaging his temples.

“One ball. Just one,” pleaded Izuna. “I am sure I can collect several more of those particularly illustrative, interesting manuals, if you do—”

“Remember that you are and remain a Gentleman,” interrupted Madara, sensing exactly where his brother was going.

“We can be Gentlemen with illustrated, literary pursuits of a particular nature,” said Izuna. “I find the French’s joie de vivre particularly enticing when it comes to baring their… human nature.” He paused when his brother did not contradict him. “I have a list of the volumes I already shared with you. I promise no duplicates… unless…?”

“All I ask is that you come home, safe and sound, healthy and hale,” said Madara, lifting his hand to hold his brother’s teasing gaze with his heavy one.

“That will render me greedy, then, as I intend to ask you to share with me your thoughts on the young ladies you are to meet this season so that, should you not decide to court, I may borrow your notes and select one for myself!”

Madara’s hand fell to his lap.

“You understand that that reeks of the ‘mail order bride’ poppycock the matching agencies profess to employ?”

“If the choice is based upon your stringent notes, I have no doubt that the choice will be a perfect match.”

“My god, you are serious,” said Madara.

The carriage passed through the gates of Madara’s main London house and into the rear court- and carriage-yard, and then slowed to a stop. In the shade of the carriage house waited Izuna’s phaéton and matched pair of Cleveland bays. In comparison to Madara’s carriage, with its doubled pairs of ebony Friesens, the phaéton seemed almost minuscule, however the Duke had a reputation to uphold and such occasional ostentatious displays were de rigueur.

The footman lowered the stairs once more and the men debarked from the carriage. The stable staff were already hitching up Izuna’s horses as the men faced each other.

“You need not rush,” said Madara.

“Ah, there is much to be done before I depart for France in a fortnight,” said Izuna apologetically. He offered his hand to his brother. “Promise me you will see me off at port?”

“Of course. But you must come around to dine before you leave. The staff will never forgive me if I fail to give them an opportunity to bleed their hearts for you before you set off.”

Izuna grinned and they shook hands.

Sensing their masters’ parting, the staff hurried to bring Izuna’s phaéton and horses to his side, bowing to the men before handing over the reins. Izuna tugged on his gloves and accepted them.

“You will do as I asked? One ball?” cajoled Izuna.

Madara’s expression soured.

“One and one only,” he said, lip curling in derision.

“Good man,” grinned Izuna. “I’m off.”

“Thursday, come by for supper,” stated Madara, holding the reins of his brother’s carriage while he ascended. The bench seat squeaked and the reins jingled as Izuna accepted them. He tipped his hat at his brother with a nod.

“Thursday,” he agreed.

With that, he set off into the late afternoon glow towards his own London house.

Concern brewing in his breast, Madara followed him to the courtyard entrance and watched him go, the phaéton manoeuvering easily among the stately traffic that passed by.

For Madara, however, it was as if hawks had sunk their talons into his heart meat. Change was on the horizon, and he knew not who or what or how, and thusly, knew not how to prepare for its arrival.

Such feelings were distasteful, he found, and pressed his lips together tightly as he returned to his home.

The rest of Part One will be available soon on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beyondthemoor !