Week 10 - Home Game - Intrigant
Sep. 21st, 2025 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marjoricaThe party could not be said to have been dull, for to do so would have been a most grave insult to the host’s generosity. It would have been a matter of a troubling lack of national pride, for the event had been staged in recognition of the abdication of Napoleon Buonaparte. Even now he was heading to exile on some island in the Tyrrhenian Sea and long may he rot.
Cassie felt a little bruised if she were to be honest. War was all that she had known from the time that she had been a child. No matter how genteel and bucolically wholesome her careful upbringing had been, it was so. The militia trooping by or the regiment riding off and away to glory was background. As was the uncle whose left sleeve was now pinned to the front of his shirt.
Thus she had taken a little time to herself, between dancing and ices, and stepped off to the side of the ballroom. With as much enthusiasm as she could muster, she surveyed the portrait of a woman from a bygone time, searching for some glimmer of fellowship. The currant bun face loomed from a coif of stiff lace, betraying nothing.
She became aware of a presence off to her right. Let the person address her, should they wish to encroach upon her time! Yet they did not. She relented and turned slowly in case it was some servant, tasked with humble reticence and instead looked up into the face of a young man.
His face was a touch too soft and asymmetrical and his figure a little too gangling for her to have described him as handsome. This, she sensed, was not what he was about at all. His hair framed his face in a tangle of artfully unruly curls. His attire was of the highest quality, yet the impression was given that it had been merely applied to his body like a rumpled disguise over the form of something far wilder. His full lips seemed unlikely to be coaxed into a smile, so plainly did he feel the dolour of the world. Stormy blue eyes burned in his face like hot coals. She felt that he must have practiced this look in the glass, possibly by the hour.
“Madame,” he essayed, “you are enchanting and surely a goddess walking among us. I present to you the humblest of offerings that I may crave supplication at your feet.”
One hand cradled a goblet of claret and the other came from behind his back to present her with a narcissus taken from one of the floral arrangements. How appropriate. His fingers brushed her gloved hand as he passed it to her.
There was quite the trend for many of the young men to present themselves as Lord Byron. She supposed that it was something for them to do in the long stretch of time between school and what might be considered adulthood. There was no rush for a man in their sphere to marry nor need they earn their way and, seeking occupation, a number fell on this as something to do.
Byron had received a great deal of acclaim as a poet and Cassie would allow that he was talented. It would remain to be seen, and that by greater minds than hers, whether or not he was a visionary. He was certainly precisely the sort of man that she had always been warned against. Tales of his exploits and outrages came via gossip pages and sniffed, vinegar-mouthed conversations in drawing rooms. They provided a far better illustration of what must be avoided than any governess who valued her employment might care to explain to her charges.
Byron, for all of the social disgrace that he had accrued, got the girls. He was the roaring boy who lived as he pleased, cocking a snook at the hidebound conventions of society. Many girls swooned over him when out of the hearing of Mamas. Cassie had often heard it said that a reformed rake made the best husband. She, as yet green in the ways of the world, felt that it was better if they could grow out of insouciance and thoughtlessness before others might be damaged by it. Perhaps no-one wanted a thorough sobersides for a husband, but there were miles of green land between that and heedless debauchery.
Yet here she was, confronted by someone who wished to present themselves as dark and dangerous. A little spice or the stalest of pepper? Enough behind the mask to pique her curiosity or just shopworn tiresomeness?
She regarded him coolly, the flower held still in her hands.
He continued.
“The world seems to cease around you, waiting to become itself anew by your whim or decree. I attend you, armed but with this simple offering, all the while left sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything…”
Oh. The misquoting of Shakespeare. She felt the ghost of a ruler stinging her knuckles as her governess had chastised her for falling short in her own recitations. She broke her silence.
“I would no doubt be delighted to meet you should there be anyone to introduce us. Until then, I suppose that I may endure the possibility of your writing a woeful ballad to my eyebrow…”
“I could, you know. Write a ballad to your eyebrow…” he responded, heat rising from his words like a fire invigorated by bellows.
“A woeful one?” Cassie asked brightly, cruelly.
“I have more within me to give than that. With naught but the jawbone of an ass shall I slay a thousand Philistines for thee. A thousand thousand. And when I call out in my thirst, thou shalt open a wellspring for me!”
The bible now. Did this denote hope for the churl?
“That is no more in my power than it is yours. And if it were, for you, the well would come up dry.”
“Never in your presence!” he breathed.
“A poet would go away now and write about this exchange. I would be obliged to deny it of course, for women’s reputations are as fragile as spun glass in this naughty world. Merely to speak to a gallant such as you, with no third party to protect me…”
“Society be damned!” he cried, but none too loud. His face was sullen now, pettish.
“If you were Samson with the jawbone of an ass, you may rest assured that I would shear your locks and thereby your strength as many times as I cared to. And I do not care. Please leave my presence.”
He dashed his wine glass to the floor and she flinched at the noise, the spattering of glass sherds and claret dregs. She flinched most of all at the violent intensity of the fury that had suffused his face. Danger at last.
She turned back to the portrait and addressed the currant bun lady, her only witness.
“He did not take long to break at all, did he my dear? I scarcely said a word before the rake became a lout. Pity…”
Cassie felt a little bruised if she were to be honest. War was all that she had known from the time that she had been a child. No matter how genteel and bucolically wholesome her careful upbringing had been, it was so. The militia trooping by or the regiment riding off and away to glory was background. As was the uncle whose left sleeve was now pinned to the front of his shirt.
Thus she had taken a little time to herself, between dancing and ices, and stepped off to the side of the ballroom. With as much enthusiasm as she could muster, she surveyed the portrait of a woman from a bygone time, searching for some glimmer of fellowship. The currant bun face loomed from a coif of stiff lace, betraying nothing.
She became aware of a presence off to her right. Let the person address her, should they wish to encroach upon her time! Yet they did not. She relented and turned slowly in case it was some servant, tasked with humble reticence and instead looked up into the face of a young man.
His face was a touch too soft and asymmetrical and his figure a little too gangling for her to have described him as handsome. This, she sensed, was not what he was about at all. His hair framed his face in a tangle of artfully unruly curls. His attire was of the highest quality, yet the impression was given that it had been merely applied to his body like a rumpled disguise over the form of something far wilder. His full lips seemed unlikely to be coaxed into a smile, so plainly did he feel the dolour of the world. Stormy blue eyes burned in his face like hot coals. She felt that he must have practiced this look in the glass, possibly by the hour.
“Madame,” he essayed, “you are enchanting and surely a goddess walking among us. I present to you the humblest of offerings that I may crave supplication at your feet.”
One hand cradled a goblet of claret and the other came from behind his back to present her with a narcissus taken from one of the floral arrangements. How appropriate. His fingers brushed her gloved hand as he passed it to her.
There was quite the trend for many of the young men to present themselves as Lord Byron. She supposed that it was something for them to do in the long stretch of time between school and what might be considered adulthood. There was no rush for a man in their sphere to marry nor need they earn their way and, seeking occupation, a number fell on this as something to do.
Byron had received a great deal of acclaim as a poet and Cassie would allow that he was talented. It would remain to be seen, and that by greater minds than hers, whether or not he was a visionary. He was certainly precisely the sort of man that she had always been warned against. Tales of his exploits and outrages came via gossip pages and sniffed, vinegar-mouthed conversations in drawing rooms. They provided a far better illustration of what must be avoided than any governess who valued her employment might care to explain to her charges.
Byron, for all of the social disgrace that he had accrued, got the girls. He was the roaring boy who lived as he pleased, cocking a snook at the hidebound conventions of society. Many girls swooned over him when out of the hearing of Mamas. Cassie had often heard it said that a reformed rake made the best husband. She, as yet green in the ways of the world, felt that it was better if they could grow out of insouciance and thoughtlessness before others might be damaged by it. Perhaps no-one wanted a thorough sobersides for a husband, but there were miles of green land between that and heedless debauchery.
Yet here she was, confronted by someone who wished to present themselves as dark and dangerous. A little spice or the stalest of pepper? Enough behind the mask to pique her curiosity or just shopworn tiresomeness?
She regarded him coolly, the flower held still in her hands.
He continued.
“The world seems to cease around you, waiting to become itself anew by your whim or decree. I attend you, armed but with this simple offering, all the while left sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything…”
Oh. The misquoting of Shakespeare. She felt the ghost of a ruler stinging her knuckles as her governess had chastised her for falling short in her own recitations. She broke her silence.
“I would no doubt be delighted to meet you should there be anyone to introduce us. Until then, I suppose that I may endure the possibility of your writing a woeful ballad to my eyebrow…”
“I could, you know. Write a ballad to your eyebrow…” he responded, heat rising from his words like a fire invigorated by bellows.
“A woeful one?” Cassie asked brightly, cruelly.
“I have more within me to give than that. With naught but the jawbone of an ass shall I slay a thousand Philistines for thee. A thousand thousand. And when I call out in my thirst, thou shalt open a wellspring for me!”
The bible now. Did this denote hope for the churl?
“That is no more in my power than it is yours. And if it were, for you, the well would come up dry.”
“Never in your presence!” he breathed.
“A poet would go away now and write about this exchange. I would be obliged to deny it of course, for women’s reputations are as fragile as spun glass in this naughty world. Merely to speak to a gallant such as you, with no third party to protect me…”
“Society be damned!” he cried, but none too loud. His face was sullen now, pettish.
“If you were Samson with the jawbone of an ass, you may rest assured that I would shear your locks and thereby your strength as many times as I cared to. And I do not care. Please leave my presence.”
He dashed his wine glass to the floor and she flinched at the noise, the spattering of glass sherds and claret dregs. She flinched most of all at the violent intensity of the fury that had suffused his face. Danger at last.
She turned back to the portrait and addressed the currant bun lady, her only witness.
“He did not take long to break at all, did he my dear? I scarcely said a word before the rake became a lout. Pity…”
no subject
Date: 2025-09-22 01:43 pm (UTC)I mean, it's a great line, but he threw his glass on the floor after that? What a wimp! She can definitely do better.
A very entertaining entry.
Dan
no subject
Date: 2025-09-22 08:10 pm (UTC)I had nothing to lose this week and was still thinking about edgelords.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-22 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-22 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-22 08:07 pm (UTC)What an impossibly wrong idea! It sounds like wishful thinking, doesn't it?
The young man in question sounds quite tiresome. The young lady, much more intriguing. :)
no subject
Date: 2025-09-22 08:16 pm (UTC)I am assuming that the real Lord Byron must have had intense personal charisma as he always had people lending him money, stepping out on their SOs and following him across Europe for…. not very much.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-24 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-25 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-25 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-26 05:48 am (UTC)Not very realistic, but I had fun.