Victor's residence: Mina & Victor
It was not done, a woman traveling alone of an evening, to the house of an unwed man, expressly to visit with him. There were certain liberties afforded a woman of questionable reputation, such as Mina, but the world was not nearly as forgiving as that. She was yet young, and she was landed and wealthy, and her marriage had been quietly set aside. The scandal had been covered up beautifully, like flower arrangements distracting from marred spaces on wooden tables, and she retained enough respectability as to not render her a social pariah. But venturing out like this, it wouldn't be acceptable. It was a thing done only by poor women of no standing, but not by the only living child of a Lord. Daylight lent respectability to all things, and the darkness rendered them all filth.
Yet, Mina walked out in opulent black and trim of palest purple, netting obscuring her features, and she hired a cab with no familial crest. Inside, the carriage was dark and lush, and it felt like a thing meant for assignations. Mina knew of such things. She did not remember names, and she did not remember how it ended, but she remembered the beginning.
The carriage rocked on cobblestones, and it left the fashionable district behind. The respectable district followed, and there was nothing fashionable nor respectable about the docks they neared and passed. The carriage stopped before a poor block of buildings, and Mina wondered that her father should know someone from such a part of town, but her father was a man of many faces, and no one knew that so well as his daughter. Yet, she'd not expected the address. Victor was eloquent, if tentative, and she assumed him gentry, if not nobility.
She exited the cab, black and lavender and netting covering her pale features, and she stepped over children gathered on the steps in play. No one from her circles would admit to coming here, and she was secure in not being recognized among the residents. She wondered, as she daintily climbed the steps, if Vanessa visited these rooms with any frequency.
Then, she was at the door, and she knocked quietly, her gloves kid dyed lavender, and her netting drawn low.