(no subject)

[butdeeplyfelt]

Vanessa Ives, coming home late at night -- she lowers herself slowly from a hansom cab, wine-red skirts gathered up for safety from the muck that already soaks through their hems, and the thought of home lies uneasily beneath her skin. If she had ever wanted a home on earth, it would not, she thinks, have been Grandage Place; but nothing else has so deserved the title. She belongs in such a place, half-rotting, clinging onto gentility through its name and nothing else.

And she lives there with Sir Malcolm Murray, and on that... on that she keeps her own secrets, even from him. She's been out in his place tonight -- tracking down a man rumored to have certain abilities beyond the worldly -- and she had hoped, not for his sake, to bring him better news.

Her bootheels strike across the creaking floor as she lets herself in, and she shivers; the night is cold for early autumn, and the house colder still in its open spaces.

Comments

[excepthelast]

Sir Malcolm stands in the spot that he visits so frequently these days that he fears a depression has been worn into the floor beneath him. One hand on his hip, the other clutching a glass of fine scotch, he stares at the map stretched across his desk.

Africa.

The Dark Continent had captured his imagination and his spirit over and over again, right up until it claimed the life of his son. And now even though his heart burns to leave the gray, sooty streets of London for the desert or the veldt, there is no way he could bring himself to leave. Not when his last remaining child's life and soul are in danger. Not while there is still so much work to do.

Not while there is Vanessa to mind.

Sir Malcolm's head lifts as he hears the young woman enter the house. He glances at the clock. "You're late."

[butdeeplyfelt]

"Does it matter?"

Deliberately turning her back to him, she begins to take off her gloves -- one careful finger at a time, frustratingly slow and confining, but the autumn chill creeps into her bones without them. They are, all of them, growing older; save for Mina, trapped in her unending girlhood, and Peter.

"I would have thought you'd be pleased," she adds, speaking to her hands, "to be rid of me for the evening. I would have thought it a hopeful sign. The man's no good."

The forces within her had barely stirred on walking into his dingy little sitting room -- a hint of something, perhaps, but built up with open parlor-trickery. She hadn't spent the whole of the evening with him.

[excepthelast]

"Hmpf," is the extent of Sir Malcolm's initial reply before he takes another long sip of his drink. The spirit burns its way down his chest, giving him a moment to consider his words. It's no good, of course, as Vanessa has the infuriating penchant for making him anything but the cool, collected Great White Explorer that he once fancied himself to be.

"While we are only just starting to scratch the surface, we are seeking to stand against powerful forces. Your being late could rise from something as simple as a thrown horseshoe. Or you could be laying in an alleyway bleeding to death."

He takes a deep breath to calm himself. "Sembene should still have your supper, if you wish it."

[butdeeplyfelt]

"I'm touched by your concern." Her voice crackles, dry-twig harsh, and carefully she sets her gloves down without turning to him. "And surprised to have missed your company tonight, then, if you think my life so endangered."

There was a time I would gladly have killed you, she remembers; shudders finely to her core. There are times she believes he still craves it.

"Just as well that your vital work kept you indoors," she says. "I mightn't have liked you to accompany me where I went afterwards."

[excepthelast]

Sir Malcolm sets down his glass with such care that it's obvious just how much frustration and pique is being contained within his form. He stalks his way around the desk, his gaze sizing up Vanessa in a manner eerily similar to the way he would regard his prey during hunts during his travels.

"Your life is only endangered if you continue to take foolish risks with it," he nearly snaps. Although what he would make of her demise is the darkest of mysteries. Part of him knows it would rid him of a burden and a weakness he's been carrying too long. The rest of him cannot imagine existence without her, as contentious as that existence might be.

"And what inadvisable behavior would that have been, hmm?"