Warm ale slid down his throat. It coated his nerves and downed his senses. Still bitter after the burn had been numbed; the ale was quite an awful one. But if Three-Fingered Jack's was known for anything, their fine ale and mead was not amongst them. Tristan wrapped his fingers around the bent, tin tankard and pressed the warped metal to his lips. Downing the last of it, the froth met his mouth. Dragging his unbuttoned sleeve across, he wiped away the last of it. He motioned for another one to the pretty bar-maid who knew him a little too well. She smiled as if she knew something and sauntered away. He leaned back defeated, into his chair and sighed deeply. As he closed his eyes, he heard the playful tones of his cousin, "What seems to be the problem old boy?" Opening his eyes, he pulled up one corner of his mouth in a lopsided smile. His cousin Edmund was sitting beside him at their table surrounded by the usual lot. His ebony-black hair was in a right disorder - his collar open, jacket off and sleeves unbuttoned. He looked much the same as Tristan knew he himself did. Perched on Edmund's knee was a particularly pretty red-head though she had the unmistaken quality of lower-class. Her dress was of basic linen, a rough shade of muddied brown. Her skin, although a pretty creamy color, was dirtied as well by the day's natural tolls. Her deep red hair, something she obviously took pride in, had been loosened from the bun she had kept it in all day - the remains of its hold still could be seen in the soft crimps in her hair. It fell over one shoulder and against the gentle curve of her chest - whose bodice had been pulled too low and now her pale chest was revealed in the most obvious manner. She looked up from Edmund's joyous face and into Tristan's brooding gaze. Her pale blue eyes quickly darted a gaze from her lap up to him and back again. She smiled, something wanting hidden in the corner of her thin mouth. She was a pretty thing - probably the prettiest in the room, but he had no interest in what she was hinting at.
"Ah, just wishing we could stay here always. No more dreadful dances. We will just keep here and never leave!"
[/color] he shouted, raising his empty tin, getting a few drunken yells from around the table. Edmund laughed and nodded in agreement.
"If only! Though if I may point out that tonight's dance had been your idea, I would have been quite content not seeing Miss Prudence Worchester." Tristan laughed heartedly and leaned forward into his chair as he replied in a strange sincere tone,
"But would your mother and father have been as happy? We may pretend we don't have to attend these things, but in all actuality we are at the mercy of our parents."[/color] His pint of ale was refilled and set down with a sturdy thump on the table. As he reached for the glass, his fingers brushed against the slender fingers of the bar maid's. He lifted his ale and gazed up to the girl who winked at him. He grunted out a laugh at the bawdy gesture and swallowed a large gulp of the bitter beer.
"But you aren't Tristan," his cousin retorded.
"You can do whatever you please. You won't be arranged to marry some pigeon-faced girl just because she has a good name and a dowry of twenty-thousand." The pretty red-head shot Edmund a look, but quickly submerged it in a swallow from Edmund's tankard. Edmund had seen though and bounced his knee which got her giggling and whispered something in her ear that made her smile even more so.
"Ah, not so much as you would think cousin..."[/color] Tristan replied in a soft voice that Edmund had not obviously heard for he squeezed the red-head, oblivious to Tristan's comment and called out,
"But you're my girl tonight Henrietta!" Tristan guffawed at Edmund's drunken behavior. His cousin was never this careless - it was usually Tristan whom Edmund had to watch. But three empty pints had done his cousin in.
Tristan smiled at his cousin before the table began in a slurring rendition of "The Lambeth Walk". Raising his own glass, he began to bellow out the song. He had been truthful earlier - he wished he could stay here always. In actuality, it was here - in lower class - that he belonged. But if that secret were to no longer become so, it would ruin his family. Soon though, he would leave England and travel the world - maybe have two or three wives in some distant, exotic country. As well as be far away from the hallowed halls and his grandmother's looming demands.
As the song ended, he chugged back his beer like any sailor or working class man who surrounded him at the table.
"Whar's your girl tonight?" asked Henrietta in a cockney accent. Edmund's laughter ceased as suddenly, for the two of them, the images of only just a few hours ago began to stir.
"Hiding," Tristan replied with a wink. Henrietta giggled and began singing along to the next song. Edmund stared another moment at Tristan before picking it up as well. Kissing the daughter of one of London's oldest aristocratic families in a coast closet had not exactly gone over well with Edmund. He may have had some rebellious streak in him, but the laws of the aristocratic world were still deeply engrained in his fabric of being. And although he was currently engrossed in the lips of Miss Henrietta, a working-class girl, he would eventually marry another aristocratic debutante and have lots of aristocratic babies. Edmund was a Beaumont, and Tristan was the son of a deceased, in-debt businessman. Tristan had breached all rules of social decorum and if Tristan and Lorelai had been caught, it would have meant the end to many things for Tristan and Edmund. And still...
Tristan ran his fingertips over the arc of his lips as he remembered their fervent, urgent kiss. Her body pressed against him, the crush of silk against satin; the waves of her chestnut hair falling against the milky white of her skin. She had seemed different to him. Beautiful, yes - but also self-possessive of some sort of confidence and boldness that pushed her away from any person he had ever known - upper or lower class. But it seemed he had been too quick to come to any conclusions about her. He still hadn't seen her walk though those dingy doors. He wasn't quite sure why he had invited her; she was just another aristocrat. And yet her presence kept nagging at him.
He was half-heartedly singing along with the fellows and their lady guests when a strange, warm breeze curled at the nape of his neck. It was the type of wind that carried the heaviness of rain and the thick warmth of summer's evening. With it, a subdued silence braided throughout the tavern's crowd. It didn't overwhelm, as boisterous laughter and shouts continued but there had been a pause. One of the reasons Tristan loved going to the tavern was its ability to submerge its occupants within its grimy, stained walls. So as Miss Lorelai Ashford weaved through the crowd in her crimson silk gown, she was practically unnoticed - many already too drunk with beer or lust to notice. Though it was difficult to miss a girl like her altogether - she was certainly not a frequent customer of Three Fingered Jack's and a few customers quieted as they watched her lithely search through the crowd. She seemed undaunted - she held no fear of this unknown place as she scanned across the drunken masses.
Tristan had not sensed her presence until her lips brushed against his ear in breathy longing. Her voice had been unfamiliar to him at first, it didn't carry the same crudeness or sharpness the women he encountered here had. It was of deep velvet, soft and plush. Though it had a power of authority - this voice was used to giving commands. Unwillingly, he felt his heart surge and stomach leap as he turned and looked into a delicate ivory face.
"Kiss me," she urged. Without question, he placed his hands on either side of her waist and looked up. Slowly, he rose as he kept his gaze locked with hers. He stood taller than her when he fully stood, their bodies within mere inches from one another. Beneath his hands, her ribcage expanded and contracted behind the tight bindings of her corset. There was something so fragile in feeling her breath and the faint outlines of her bones beneath his palms. And although the desire was great, he understood where they were. Edmund hadn't even noticed Lorelai, the tavern noise was so great, until he had stopped singing. Then he couldn't stop staring. Conscious of Edmund's scrutiny, he leaned in, his cheek pressing against her painfully soft one and replied in deep tones,
"Not here." He grabbed Lorelai's hand and began to weave her towards the exit. Edmund stood now, removing Henrietta from his lap as he shouted Tristan's name But Tristan had stopped listening.
He steered the two of them away from the front entrance and around the side of the bar. It was quieter here; away from the lit candelabras, people fell away to shadow. Behind a dark wooden column, badly worn away, a door hid amidst the darkness. Slipping out in the heavy night air, they fell into a quiet alleyway. The shouts of the tavern had been reduced to a muffled cry of pleasure. With a strange laugh on both their lips, they caught their breath. Looking down, Tristan noticed his hand still intertwined with her own. The pale of her exposed skin glowed beneath the creamy bask of the moon. Her fingers were thin and smooth - un-callused by her leisure of life. He tended to abhor those girls who had never done a day of work in their lives. But Lorelai's naked, soft fingers clasped with his, clutched at his heart. Traveling his gaze along her arm, around the gentle slope of her shoulder to the delicate curve of her pale neck, he at least met her eyes. A smile tucked into both corners of her full, flushed lips as she leaned back against the wall. He could have imagined it, but he swore he felt her gently pull him to her. Nevertheless, his body was quickly within a breadth of her own and he found he could not will himself to think.
The moon's ethereal light spilled over the cobblestones and across the crimson and ebony silk garments. Drowning their exposed skin in luminance, they seemed more like forgotten spirits than the mortals they were. He glanced once more into her eyes before he crushed his mouth to hers. Between his consumption of ale and the lust that coursed wildly through his veins; Tristan was beyond intoxicated. Rash thinking had left him long ago, before he ever met Miss Lorelai Ashford. He kissed her again and again, pushing himself closer, willing them to go further. Her slender fingers he had adored so much, clutched at his white shirt. His own hands, wrapped around her back, pressed deeper into her crushed silk dress. He brought up one hand and tangled his fingers through her chestnut hair as he lips brushed against the base of her jaw line. Slipping his hands down, he found her hips beneath all the fabric and slid her dress up against her thigh. He trailed light kisses against her collarbone and then found her lips and fell deep again. Her lithe hands fell to his ebony silk pants as their kiss lengthened. Tristan was drowning beneath this hold Lorelai had on him - that of which, he did not want to be rescued from. It was as if his entire being had been taken control of. Any worries or thought of the past and future had vanished. All that existed was the here and now - and all that he desired was Miss Lorelai Ashford.
Suddenly though, the door fell open as a group of sailors and their consorts came tumbling out in raucous laughter. Upon seeing Lorelai and Tristan in their disheveled appearance, they broke out in whoops and more laughter. Tristan, laughing faintly with them, untangled himself from Lorelai and released her skirts. She in turn, removed her hands from his waist. He bit on his lower lip - numb now - as he regarded Lorelai. She crossed her arms behind her back and regarded him with the same curious gaze. Had not the sailors interrupted them, he and Lorelai would have gone somewhere he didn't believe most aristocrats even did when married. He leaned one hand against the wall and stared perplexed at the aristocratic rose before him.
With a crooked smile, he asked quite bluntly,
"Who are you?"[/size][/blockquote][/blockquote]
ooc: ommgggg 2,189 words. i am soossooo sorry. that's obnoxious. >_<
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