Post by marquise léonie benoît on Apr 10, 2011 5:45:26 GMT -5
léonie alix benoît, marquise de aix
[/b][/color][/size] A Marquise Léonie Alix Benoît at the dear age of twenty has found herself upon the most curious of situations - entering into London's most tantalizing gossip. "[/i][/color][/font][/size][/ul][/blockquote]
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W R I T E R .
name: Grin~
RP experience:4+ish years
how did you find us?: aff. hopping
age: 18
gender: woman!
P O R T R A I T .
eye color: Very light beige-brown
hair color: A soft, tousled almost platinum blond, reaching to about her breast in soft waves.
height: 5'5"
body type: Average height with long, willowy limbs with slight curves.
distinguishing features: She has a very girlish face, which makes her seem a bit younger than she really is and gives her an air of immediate innocence.
fashion style:
M A N N E R S .
profession: Spice Shipping Merchant (more of a behind the scenes business woman, so it's okayif it's not included in her title I guess x3)
adoration for:
distaste for:
dreams:
fears:
Secrets:
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main:
P A S T .
family:
main:
Edgar threw himself into his work while Léonie was still an infant, leaving her in the care of a wet-nurse. His business continued to grow and flourish under his obsessive care. By the time Léonie was old enough to read and write, he began teaching her the ways of his business. He had fallen in love with Adelaide's independence and craving for adventure, and he knew that he didn't want his daughter to turn into some coddled young socialite. He would allow her to do as she wanted, true, but he wanted to be sure that she knew how to provide for herself if the time ever came where he was not there to handle the finances or provide for her. And so Léonie began her entry into the world of shipping and trading spices and textiles.
By the age of 15, Léonie (fondly called Nee by her father) had taken an active role in her father's company (Benoît Shipping and Trading) and was almost single-handled filing the shipping orders and helping her father with the book-keeping. He of course took care of the business deals, but Nee often attended these and kept her ears and eyes peeled and learned quickly on the job. By 17, Nee had learned of French culture (Nee's stern governess had taken this duty upon herself to teach it to her) as well as the ins and outs of the business world.
But tragedy seemed to follow in the wake of this girl's accomplishments. Her father had worked himself harder than his body could bear - and after several warnings from his doctor, he had taken seriously ill. Nee began to search for any remedy she could to aid in her father's recovery. The apothecary was of no ready help, so she turned to the Creoles she knew so well, who had deep roots in magic and were noted for their spiritual healing capabilities. Nee reached out to them for help - but even their 'connection' to the other side couldn't save Edgar Benoît from his fate. After a few months of battling the illness with Nee's tireless care at his side, Edgar passed away. Even though her father had raised her to be independent, making the funeral arrangements for her own father was more than she could bear; she broke down crying and her governess had to take over. Nee was but a young girl, left alone in a world where women had no stance - and she knew it.
Nee hadn't any choice but to contact her estranged family in France. She was but 17 and did not readily have the social standing or authority as it were to take over the shipping business. Her grandfather, the Marquis de Aix, had passed away years before, and her Uncle Gaspard had inherited the title and the land. Nee was sent to live with her Uncle and his young son, whose mother had died years before of tuberculosis. Gaspard readily took over his brother's company as well as care of his daughter, keen on dominating whatever his brother had created, human or monetary. It soon became apparent that Gaspard's interest in his young niece was more than it seemed. He was not just the sympathetic uncle he played to be - it soon became clear to Nee that there was something much more sinister about this man.
Since her father's death, Nee had withdrawn. But as she began to emerge from her shell when she learned of the atrocities her Uncle was committing with her Father's business, her spitfire tenacity and outspokenness became apparent. It was truly then that her Uncle began to take on that dark, wicked glint in his eye that Edgar and Adelaide had been so keen to escape. But Nee didn't see the desire in those sunken, hollow eyes. She didn't see the longing for a love long lost and painfully un-returned; a love that had escaped over-seas with his hated brother. But to Gaspard, she was here now. Adelaide's daughter - an almost breathtaking replica of the angelic woman he had loved for so long and had once lost. But he had gained her back, or so Gaspard thought in his own sick way.
Gaspard noticed that the more he began to pull apart his brother's business, the more desperate Nee got. So he deliberately began selling off shipments for less, losing mass amounts of money and nearly driving the business Nee's father had died to build into the ground. The Marquis seemed determined to have this young woman as his own, and it took a year and a half and a considerable amount of persuasive "discussions" (more like threats) to convince Léonie to become the Marquise, and effectively his wife. Nee agreed only on one condition - that she would be able to rebuild her father's business and have an allowance each month for it.
Gaspard agreed, although begrudgingly, but he knew that Adelaide's daughter would not budge otherwise. Besides, he prided himself on not being completely unreasonable with the women he loved. And so the two were wed, and though it was common for women to marry their cousins, it seemed strange for an Uncle to take such an interest in his deceased brother's daughter in the light of matrimony when he could have easily married her to other eligible bachelors, perhaps even his own motherless son once he became of age. Gossip and talk circulated, rumors flying about secret murder plots and hired guns. Gaspard feared that these rumors would ruin all that he had striven for and finally won in Léonie. So he fled to London after purchasing a lavish estate in Belgrave Square, trying to bury the fact that he had married his deceased brother's daughter out of spite for the late Edgar Benoît.
Struggling to uphold the strict rules of London society whilst still maintaining her father's business behind the scenes, Nee has spent most of her days in London trying to cling to the only memory she has left of her father, worried that he died in vain.
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E T C .
play-by: Ginta Lapina
password: evening solace
rp sample:
included in Amadeo Constantin's application, I believe c:[/blockquote][/size]
