moritat | Victorian weenie au

Once it was just Paloma, the man who pretended to be her husband, and the maid. With the man's propensity for luxury, decadence and social standing, a small wonder he had employed a team of seasoned servants before his flight. A three-story mansion is too much for even a ghoul to handle without extra help.

A depressed male in uniform opens the door to Jekyll after no sooner than a half-minute. Someone's recently had a cigar in the rich, ornamented parlor. Smoke curls up from a corner behind a stool. He sighs with deep resignation at the suitor on Miss Vasquez's doorstep.

"Sir, beg your pardon, her divorce has not yet been officiated."

"--Ah, no, of course. I am here for no such means!" Wait, he has the flowers, those would need an explanation. "These are a token of apology, nothing more."

Is this...her butler? Does she have many suitors coming by? She must, he imagines. Oh, but he isn't a suitor! "...Dr. Henry Jekyll?" Will that help him get in?

The butler stares morosely, through more than at him. He seems immovable from this doorway and liable to be difficult for the sake of being difficult.

"Late hour for visiting. Sir." The implied accusation hangs there.

Well now he's crossed the line and offended the doctor. Such accusation in his tone! As if he visits for an improper reason! All he wishes to do is speak with a friend. Jekyll grows increasingly defensive, especially in having to explain himself to a doorman. "Surely you are aware of the hours Mrs. Vasquez keeps, at what hour am I therefore expected to call!"

He tries not to be rude, at least. Only defending himself, only getting worked up in embarrassment. He still has a good name to keep. "If it please you, may I come in." It isn't really a question. "You do her an injustice in distrusting Mrs. Vasquez's nobility, no matter the nature of my own intentions." Which by the way are pure too!!!!

Life's dealt the man bad cards in recent years, or else the hoity toity lord might subdue his murky attitude. But there's a dull apathy in his hooded eyes that regard Jekyll with a vast disaffection.

He doesn't think of what he says before he says it. "Miss Vasquez prefers we not use her married title."

Everything else is soundly ignored.

Edited 2016-01-06 07:14 (UTC)

"Oh-" he hadn't known that. He thought he was being very proper and good by keeping the Mrs. "Will you please call for her, if nothing else!"

Agitated indeed. He just wants to go in, he just wants to see her. Why does this man have to make it so difficult. "I am her physician." WILL NOTHING GET HIM INSIDE

And so it is that this lowly servant gazes as neutrally, as unmoved at the doctor as he had before.

Mr. Bagger, for that's his name, places his hand further up the doorframe. Could be he's prepared to shut the door in the fancy man's face. The first flicker of amusement tugs up the corners of his mouth. How revitalizing. "The lady isn't on the premises to receive her physician's apology, sir."

Oh, yeah. He might be clinically depressed, but he ain't dumb.

If that was true, he would have said so at the start. Indignation rises for the blatant lie, and with it something worse inside Jekyll. Has red started to drip into his eyes? It's murky, but against the green that is normally there, the bits of red are unmistakable. All at once he reaches out to grab the man by the collar with both hands, speaking in a lower, aggressive tone of voice. "See here now. You'll let me in. I wish to see the lady."

It will be the sole warning afforded to the poor man.

Luckily for both the men's fates, a rasping voice from a nearby stairwell sounds off: "Harry?" Traces of alarm threaded through gladness.

And Mr. Bagger raises his hands in placation, finding that his apathy hasn't extended to imminent physical violence. "Miss, a guest to see you!"

Paloma whisks into view behind his terrified face, sniffing them out but immediately. Her mouth falls open, and she inhales sharply.

The man that is more Hyde than Jekyll turns his gaze to her, and luckily, is placated by it. The flowers have fallen to the floor in the doorway, but without a moment's hesitation, he bends to scoop them back up gracefully. A good thing they haven't been trod upon.

"Miss Vasquez, how good to see you, I had begun to fear you were out." Says the dude who was ready to kill a man.

She missed the good parts, Paloma can see, but chooses to wait for an opportune time to ask her butler what happened. He's politely but summarily dismissed to check on an unwell maid, and her full attention rests on Jekyll.

If ... that is Jekyll.

Her mouth works. "Mister ... Hyde?" Are flowers his style? Would she know his style? Her fingers curl into her (high) collar.

"--No, certainly not." It was close, but that side hasn't won over entirely. With the relief of rage comes relief to his soul. Sweeping his hat from his head, he bows, and offers up the bouquet. "Good evening."

The pretty things are a killer distraction.

"Oh ...!" Butlers and narrow misses fly clean out of her head. She's too excited to accept his gift, burying her face in the petals and breathing deeply. "And what a good evening!"

Above the flowers, the warm brown of her eyes lifts and seeks out his, crinkling in a wide special smile. "I have an empty vase to fill."

"I hope you will enjoy them." He can't help feeling a little giddy, with all those butterflies fluttering about in his stomach. "And I apologise for having not paid you a visit at home sooner. I received your note, of course." Ah, no, he just wants to run right up to her and kiss her, with that beautiful smile!

"I know what you attend to, please, you are forgiven."

With Mr. Bagger left, it's up to the lady of the house to finish shutting the door behind their guest, which conveniently brings them closer.

Certain no witnesses lurk in the parlor or next room over, Paloma leans onto her tiptoes and hops to plant a kiss on his cheek in gratitude.

"Your butler has warned me against unseemly intentions," he laughs, even as he bends a little to assist.

Even funnier is 'what he attends to' - what does he attend to? These days, not much besides being crazy. He isn't a vampire, but he shares a very similar schedule to one, preferring the dead of night to any other time, even as himself. He can't exactly take patients at three in the morning.

He attends to the dead. Cleaning and hiding them can be time-consuming ...

Her laugh is low and private, too reluctant to drift from his side. "Yours? Mine?" The bouquet nestles comfortably between his elbow and hers, enabling this close flirtation.

"Mine, I think." Imagine that, Dr. Jekyll, improper, unsightly! As if he would ever have anything but pure intentions. "Certainly I have no such thoughts, I wished only to see you." Yeah sure. Honest.

"I thought perhaps to ask if you should like to attend the theatre tomorrow night?"

Paloma chooses not to dwell on the licentious poisons Hyde dripped into her ear.

The hand that's begun to slide toward his wrist cuffs as if with a mind of its own returns to herself, bunching a fistful of dress fabric around the legs. Otherwise, she valiantly tries to affect an image of moderate enthusiasm ... as opposed to the delighted, silly idiot who'd rather like to waltz him on the spot.

"I am not engaged with any more terrible -- vultures? Vulture men hoping to steal my house from under me. Tomorrow night I am yours."

His hand too wishes to seek out her fingers, but suddenly his expression hardens. "What do you mean? Who is trying to do such a thing, and what for?"

A RICH GENTLEMAN'S TIME TO SHINE let him take care of this shit.

"Are they here still?"

Her smile at the line of questioning is too quick to be natural for the subject matter, and her grip on the flowers too tight.

"It is said that alone, and Carlos's fortune left to my account, I must need a ... companion, or an investor, or the two." Their false smiles and insinuations just shy of flirtation bruised her, which she could not let them see lest they taste blood in the water. Paloma's eyes dart up to look wearily at him.

"They do not remember their intention by the time of their leaving."

"Good." He won't question how that came to be, so long as they've left her alone. "If you should...need any such excuses, or assistance, I would be glad to help. I do have a particular advantage which may be useful."

"Tell me what that may be, up the stairs? There is a vase to fill."

Once upon a dark and sinful night he followed her up a different staircase, a creaky thin set stripped almost bare of paint. This one's bonafide mahogany and fitted with a lushly designed carpet. Biblical paintings line their ascent and stop at the second level with a depiction of Cain, the notorious betrayer. Paloma stares too closely at it.

"His collection."

"Why, the colour of my skin and my sex, of course." At least he realises.

He pauses to look at the paintings, admiring each. Some may not be dissimilar to paintings he owns himself. "Quite remarkable, I have always appreciated Biblical artwork." It's a good thing to look at while trying not to think about the last time he followed her up a set of stairs.

Don't look at that swaying ass, either. Pure, virginal thoughts.

Paloma rests a palm over the knob on the upper landing. As if hiding the bouquet of flowers from view of those works of art, she keeps it slightly behind herself. "And my curse also is my blessing. Some of the men who leave, they believe they go with what they came for. Or else become suddenly kind to me ..."

Cain remains in the same seething position.

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wink wonk

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Nobody treats her like this, she's too rich

Re: Nobody treats her like this, she's too rich

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