Following a long night of shake downs with Baldan, Desidério rolls out of bed rather late in the morning. The day's too far gone to call for a proper breakfast from the brasserie downstairs, but they have hot coffee all day and so Desi spends what constitutes as his morning sitting in the narrowing sliver of shade on the glorified ledge the apartment considers a balcony while drinking three cups of the stuff in succession with little more than two hardboiled eggs and a fat heel of buttered bread to accompany them.
He despises a cold breakfast.
To add insult to injury, he finds that as he sits there in the burgeoning heat of the day that he is still thinking about the absurd thing that scoundrel Something-Or-Other Rossi had said the night before. Which is silly. A man will say just about anything, even the most far fetched nonsense, when he is being held by his ankles over a long drop off a bridge. And in any case, it's generally not a good idea to take a gambler at his word even when one is not threatening to send him plummetting into the Viverna.
And yet.
Desidério drinks down the rest of his coffee. He makes no hurry about dressing or about the walk that sees him delivered back across the very bridge in question. And he certainly doesn't rush his way into his ex-wife's office, preferring instead to dawdle on the step of the little lending enterprise in order to press Nynona, the errand girl, for whatever news her sharp little ears have picked up. She's rewarded with a cigarillo from his polished case for it. Only then does Desi pass into the cooler shade of the old usury den.
He takes the direct route across the faded mosaic tiled foyer to the stairs, which he springs up two at a time to avoid being caught by the startled clerk calling desperately up after him, "Oh no, please, Messere Amanza! She is engaged with a client—!"
With that in mind, he doesn't bother to knock when he reaches the correct door. Desi simply lets himself in.
Here is a truism of which Lady Fonteyn—as she frequently prefers to be known—is fond: a man who does not knock upon a door has well-served himself with whatever he finds behind it. In this instance,
Something-or-Other Rossi has a brother, who has a cousin, whose husband is a noted jeweler. He is presently sat before Veronica's desk, appraising what looks suspiciously like the ring Desi had presented her with prior to their marriage through what she is certain is not in fact called a monocle, but might as well be, and there is a split second where she considers the many different ways she might handle this situation and settles upon: holding up a finger to the open door, her attention remaining on Messere the Jeweler, who is saying, apologetically,
“The piece itself is of little consequence, Lady Fonteyn, but the stone might fetch you a fair price.”
“Well, and so will your appraisal, messere,” she says, sunnily. Less so: “Desidério, you do not have an appointment.”
It would take a half dozen paces to cross the room and begin throttling Messere the Jeweler and the impulse is, Desi thinks, really only there on account of how remarkably little throttling he has actually done in the past twenty four hours. So he checks himself before he gets farther than two.
"I must have the wrong date in my little book," is declared with the breezy confidence of unhooking the sword from his hip. It's laid on the sideboard. "I'll just wait. Don't mind me at all."
He offers the pair of them a smile without any teeth and retreats with apparent patience to one of the room's latticework windows. There, he might take up smoking without being oppressive. He might from that vantage observe the proceedings like a particularly cold-eyed little falcon intent on terrifying whatever rodent might be unlucky enough to pass under the shadow of his sharp beak.
Messere the Jeweler, who understands himself to be sensible rather than anxious, would be forgiven for considering whether the whole arrangement might have been purposefully done in order to ensure a fair assessment of the Lady Fonteyn's things. If he flicks a cursory appraising look (half of which is comically magnified) in the woman's direction, and strictly forbids himself from thinking of the sword on the table behind him as he clears his throat and tilts back toward examining the ring further, then it must either be entirely by happenstance or strictly based on good instincts.
there could have been worse than this gentleman considering whether or not he wishes to be visited by Messere Amanza afterwards if he should make the mistake of either shortchanging her ladyship or embarrassing her with a flatteringly high estimate she will be laughed away from sale with. He may also never do business with her again, but that is a more minor concern and she's sure that if it proves the case she can reverse it in the event she wishes it otherwise.
She's resourceful, with or without resources.
“And if you would be so good as to seal the appraisal when we have agreed upon it—”
she says this as she crosses the room, turning her face pointedly away from the path of slow curling smoke as she opens the window nearest Desi.
The line of Desi's shoulders pivots by no more than a half degree from his hawkish observation of the appraiser at work. He does however turn his face to look at Veronica. Holding back a lungful of sweet smoke, and so communicated silently in tandem with the hot air drifting in through the open window: Excuse me?
The look that returns to him is meaningfully stoic. Does she dislike the smoke so particularly or just Desi's familiarity? Does it matter. They are sharing a moment of true, mutual inconvenience.
(This is also how she has on previous occasions described their brief marriage.)
“But do not let me hurry you,” she finishes, pleasantly, ostensibly speaking to the jeweler and gazing critically at her ex-husband.
He doesn't bristle. That would be stupid. Desi does however hold her eye even as he tips his face away to blow smoke out the side of his mouth.
"Does that glass of yours see enchantments, Messere? I've heard rings are easily cursed."
Rossi's brother's cousin-in-law has set the ring down on the square of velvet cloth laid alongside his tools. The magnified glass is fit back into its little case. Click. "No, the piece is quite ordinary. Er—magically speaking, I mean."
"Strange."
Maybe someone ought to have their finger checked. But not by the jeweler, who is bowing his head very studiously to the task of filling out the requisite scrip and stuffing it into an envelope.
Anyway blah blah blah one thing leads to another and that thing leads to another thing and that thing leads here: a sluggishly warm afternoon with all the windows open to encourage a cross breeze, the Lady Fonteyn on the tail end of doing business with a number of significant names who are attached to the trading and lending house in Tantervale and who have been persuaded to consider selling their interests in the aforementioned business for a song, and Desi—arranged in some chair in the corner with his sheathed sword balanced lazily across his knees.
It's been clear from the last hour of financial diliberations that no one is getting stabbed or poisoned, and so he's taken to smoking from the rattan chair. Despite the excess of ventilation, the cigarillo smoke still hangs in dregs about his person and the foggy, muddled quality of his surroundings sharpens the glint in his dark eye considerably. He's been watching her for the past handful of minutes, and say what you like about Desidério Amanza but the man has a keen eye.
Veronica has been known to declare him to be just that thing, on more than one occasion, and then found herself in need and obliged to concede in tones of severe aggravation that perhaps that might not be just exactly the case. He is provoking is what he is, and it is provocative, the way that he is watching her. It is precisely why they are no longer married, she tells herself, wrenching her thoughts to the work at hand. He is always focused upon the wrong thing.
(He is often focused upon her, and it's why they were married in the first place.)
(It is a coincidence that the mere suggestion of Desi focused upon someone else as intently had by happenstance coincided with the breaking of that vase. Because it was an accident. And unrelated.)
She can feel his gaze on her, a prickle at the nape of her neck where she is so familiar with the weight of a hand; that any time she might glance, she could find his eyes, as she might find him to hand at her elbow. It is astonishing and she is astonished that she manages to see out the end of her meeting without embarrassing herself, a thing she has no intention of admitting when she wheels on him:
“This is my place of business, Desidério,” an outburst which carries a great deal of accusation, nonspecifically.
He has risen to his feet by then. Regardless of the purpose of his presence being more or less to reassure everyone that Lady Fonteyn has the means to produce a beating and a mind to protect her assets, it would have been rude not stand in order to see out the little assembly of partners and their solicitor and so on. Why, he'd even realigned the points of his attention in order to give them a few flat looks and a nod or two! This, for the record, officially makes him a perfectly innocent party when she rounds on him.
Five years ago, Desi might have bristled to any accusation with a surge of heat from under the collar. But he's sensible now. He has the restraint to first smart back, "I would hope so."
(It would be inappropriate for an Antivan lady to entertain so many men in her private apartments.)
"What? It seemed as if it went well."
(He's already leaned the sheathed rapier there on the rattan chair arm with the distinct air of a swordsman who seems to be under the impression that he won't need it any time in the next, oh, half hour. Give or take. It's hard to tell the time when the sun's on the wrong side of the trading house.)
(If he needs his rapier in only half an hour, they are having a terrible evening.)
She breezes forcefully past the first implication, in much the same way he had hers — with practise, where she might not have done in earlier days between them — and sets her hands at her hips in little fists, the better for shaking at him (or curling into the front of his jacket, as they have likewise been known to do) if she is so inclined.
Her mouth presses into a thin line. It isn't entirely suited to the shape; it wants to curve at the corners, or plump at the lower lip, or any number of much more expressive things. She stands too close, and she says: “What do you mean to accomplish?” as if there are many and varied possibilities that he needs to narrow down for her.
He isn't a tall man, Desidério Amanza. Slight would be an entirely fair descriptor. When she stands close enough like so, he has to tip his face up if he wishes to scowl very directly at her. So instead of doing that, he first puts his cigarillo out with a habitual tap tap against the dark leather of his belt and—
"What I mean to accomplish? I don't remember you shaking this rumor out of Rossi's pockets." —rummages around in his coat until he secures the silver case into which the mostly smoked cheap cigar can be tucked.
Snap goes the tooth of the case's clip. When sweeping from it up to her face, his eye line is somewhat required to pass across the tops of her breasts where they're swelling up out of her bodice.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He despises a cold breakfast.
To add insult to injury, he finds that as he sits there in the burgeoning heat of the day that he is still thinking about the absurd thing that scoundrel Something-Or-Other Rossi had said the night before. Which is silly. A man will say just about anything, even the most far fetched nonsense, when he is being held by his ankles over a long drop off a bridge. And in any case, it's generally not a good idea to take a gambler at his word even when one is not threatening to send him plummetting into the Viverna.
And yet.
Desidério drinks down the rest of his coffee. He makes no hurry about dressing or about the walk that sees him delivered back across the very bridge in question. And he certainly doesn't rush his way into his ex-wife's office, preferring instead to dawdle on the step of the little lending enterprise in order to press Nynona, the errand girl, for whatever news her sharp little ears have picked up. She's rewarded with a cigarillo from his polished case for it. Only then does Desi pass into the cooler shade of the old usury den.
He takes the direct route across the faded mosaic tiled foyer to the stairs, which he springs up two at a time to avoid being caught by the startled clerk calling desperately up after him, "Oh no, please, Messere Amanza! She is engaged with a client—!"
With that in mind, he doesn't bother to knock when he reaches the correct door. Desi simply lets himself in.
no subject
Something-or-Other Rossi has a brother, who has a cousin, whose husband is a noted jeweler. He is presently sat before Veronica's desk, appraising what looks suspiciously like the ring Desi had presented her with prior to their marriage through what she is certain is not in fact called a monocle, but might as well be, and there is a split second where she considers the many different ways she might handle this situation and settles upon: holding up a finger to the open door, her attention remaining on Messere the Jeweler, who is saying, apologetically,
“The piece itself is of little consequence, Lady Fonteyn, but the stone might fetch you a fair price.”
“Well, and so will your appraisal, messere,” she says, sunnily. Less so: “Desidério, you do not have an appointment.”
(He never has an appointment.)
no subject
"I must have the wrong date in my little book," is declared with the breezy confidence of unhooking the sword from his hip. It's laid on the sideboard. "I'll just wait. Don't mind me at all."
He offers the pair of them a smile without any teeth and retreats with apparent patience to one of the room's latticework windows. There, he might take up smoking without being oppressive. He might from that vantage observe the proceedings like a particularly cold-eyed little falcon intent on terrifying whatever rodent might be unlucky enough to pass under the shadow of his sharp beak.
Messere the Jeweler, who understands himself to be sensible rather than anxious, would be forgiven for considering whether the whole arrangement might have been purposefully done in order to ensure a fair assessment of the Lady Fonteyn's things. If he flicks a cursory appraising look (half of which is comically magnified) in the woman's direction, and strictly forbids himself from thinking of the sword on the table behind him as he clears his throat and tilts back toward examining the ring further, then it must either be entirely by happenstance or strictly based on good instincts.
no subject
there could have been worse than this gentleman considering whether or not he wishes to be visited by Messere Amanza afterwards if he should make the mistake of either shortchanging her ladyship or embarrassing her with a flatteringly high estimate she will be laughed away from sale with. He may also never do business with her again, but that is a more minor concern and she's sure that if it proves the case she can reverse it in the event she wishes it otherwise.
She's resourceful, with or without resources.
“And if you would be so good as to seal the appraisal when we have agreed upon it—”
she says this as she crosses the room, turning her face pointedly away from the path of slow curling smoke as she opens the window nearest Desi.
no subject
The line of Desi's shoulders pivots by no more than a half degree from his hawkish observation of the appraiser at work. He does however turn his face to look at Veronica. Holding back a lungful of sweet smoke, and so communicated silently in tandem with the hot air drifting in through the open window: Excuse me?
no subject
(This is also how she has on previous occasions described their brief marriage.)
“But do not let me hurry you,” she finishes, pleasantly, ostensibly speaking to the jeweler and gazing critically at her ex-husband.
no subject
"Does that glass of yours see enchantments, Messere? I've heard rings are easily cursed."
Rossi's brother's cousin-in-law has set the ring down on the square of velvet cloth laid alongside his tools. The magnified glass is fit back into its little case. Click. "No, the piece is quite ordinary. Er—magically speaking, I mean."
"Strange."
Maybe someone ought to have their finger checked. But not by the jeweler, who is bowing his head very studiously to the task of filling out the requisite scrip and stuffing it into an envelope.
no subject
It's been clear from the last hour of financial diliberations that no one is getting stabbed or poisoned, and so he's taken to smoking from the rattan chair. Despite the excess of ventilation, the cigarillo smoke still hangs in dregs about his person and the foggy, muddled quality of his surroundings sharpens the glint in his dark eye considerably. He's been watching her for the past handful of minutes, and say what you like about Desidério Amanza but the man has a keen eye.
What good would he be to her otherwise?
no subject
Veronica has been known to declare him to be just that thing, on more than one occasion, and then found herself in need and obliged to concede in tones of severe aggravation that perhaps that might not be just exactly the case. He is provoking is what he is, and it is provocative, the way that he is watching her. It is precisely why they are no longer married, she tells herself, wrenching her thoughts to the work at hand. He is always focused upon the wrong thing.
(He is often focused upon her, and it's why they were married in the first place.)
(It is a coincidence that the mere suggestion of Desi focused upon someone else as intently had by happenstance coincided with the breaking of that vase. Because it was an accident. And unrelated.)
She can feel his gaze on her, a prickle at the nape of her neck where she is so familiar with the weight of a hand; that any time she might glance, she could find his eyes, as she might find him to hand at her elbow. It is astonishing and she is astonished that she manages to see out the end of her meeting without embarrassing herself, a thing she has no intention of admitting when she wheels on him:
“This is my place of business, Desidério,” an outburst which carries a great deal of accusation, nonspecifically.
no subject
Five years ago, Desi might have bristled to any accusation with a surge of heat from under the collar. But he's sensible now. He has the restraint to first smart back, "I would hope so."
(It would be inappropriate for an Antivan lady to entertain so many men in her private apartments.)
"What? It seemed as if it went well."
(He's already leaned the sheathed rapier there on the rattan chair arm with the distinct air of a swordsman who seems to be under the impression that he won't need it any time in the next, oh, half hour. Give or take. It's hard to tell the time when the sun's on the wrong side of the trading house.)
no subject
(If he needs his rapier in only half an hour, they are having a terrible evening.)
She breezes forcefully past the first implication, in much the same way he had hers — with practise, where she might not have done in earlier days between them — and sets her hands at her hips in little fists, the better for shaking at him (or curling into the front of his jacket, as they have likewise been known to do) if she is so inclined.
Her mouth presses into a thin line. It isn't entirely suited to the shape; it wants to curve at the corners, or plump at the lower lip, or any number of much more expressive things. She stands too close, and she says: “What do you mean to accomplish?” as if there are many and varied possibilities that he needs to narrow down for her.
no subject
"What I mean to accomplish? I don't remember you shaking this rumor out of Rossi's pockets." —rummages around in his coat until he secures the silver case into which the mostly smoked cheap cigar can be tucked.
Snap goes the tooth of the case's clip. When sweeping from it up to her face, his eye line is somewhat required to pass across the tops of her breasts where they're swelling up out of her bodice.
"That's what you could be thanking me for."