Re: victor & irene; mariner's inn at midnight
She had known her accent was too clear, cut-glass broken in an establishment closer to a brothel than a tea-room. Irene had momentarily forgotten, but she remembered it now. Her eyes glittered silvery as the watch that had been put away, and anger at her own carelessness made her voice harder, clearer.
The opium addict (for he was: he had the soft, white hands of a surgeon or an academic Irene fondly imagined, as she had absolutely no idea what a surgeon or an academic might look like as neither had money nor influence; he wore shabby black as if shuffling through the world made it less apparent, blurred as it was with the poppy to soften hard lines; he was delicate, Irene decided, with her chin cradled in the cup of her hand and her fingertips resting lightly against her cheek) awaited his companion. Who he was, Irene guessed was either a supplier or an assignation.
The nervous young man looked as if he was untouched, unsullied. Sal's eye was highly attuned to that which looked most attracted to being thoroughly muddied. Irene curled her fingers into her palm, the snippet of paper entirely obscured.
"No," she lied with perfect equanimity. "I enjoy the surrounds, sir. I have come to take the air." Her smile twitched into the corner of her mouth: it was a tease, and Irene dearly loved doing so. But likely he was doing his best to determine if she was a fallen woman or merely one that liked to ape the gentleman. The coat was designed to suggest the latter, but the woman in the chair was clearly accomplished femininity.
"This isn't the kind of establishment one might loiter awaiting a companion." Of course it wasn't. It was where crooks, thieves, harlots plotted. That was entirely the point.