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@fauxregard-blog1
text msg. | isabel
Silas: dearest isa, you never told your most favoritest brother what you want for jesus' birthday.
Isabel: The word is favourite. There is no word beyond favourite. Most doesn't belong before it either. I only have one brother, apparently an imbecile. Jesus' birthday is June. If you're asking a question, there should be a question mark.
Nicola Peltz celebrating her 21st birthday - January 9th, 2016
She receives a text message from her mother, and wonders how many people have been informed before. Wonders if Xanthe and Silas received texts from many others trying to ensure they were out of harm’s way, wonders if anyone even remembered that she was part of the plan. Wonders further whether she was simply an afterthought, contacted only so she wouldn’t fuck up and hold the door open for the Lohovary’s instead. There’s a part of her that’s thinking about it still. Another part willing to do all that she can to turn this around. It’s why she is halfway up a staircase. Stilletoed heel balanced on one step as the point of her shoe toes the next. And then she moves. Forward or upward, progression either way. Her feet settle on the next step and she edges her toes toward the back of it, all the way back until there is no room to go further unless it is up or away. So she lifts her foot again, lets her left teeter against the edge of the next step. So many places she could go if she goes back downstairs, so many things she could do if she goes upstairs. And while she has no true inclination that she can stop this, or change it, still she steps up again. Everything in this life, in this work is about confidence. And if anyone knows well enough how to act as though they believe in their own lies, it’s Isabel Beauregard. Underestimated afterthought or none at all. She could throw open the door and scare Adalie away, throw open the door and confuse Roman enough that he might lose focus for just a second. Could even knock, but then she’d be throwing away some of that smokescreen confidence. Instead she remains on the stairs, progressing at an odd pace, visible only to those at the top or those at the bottom. In the middle as always.
milomalloryhayes:
It’s an odd conversation so far. Just a few words strung together to sentences that should make no sense, but do. We can talk about anything you like, when we don’t know each other. It makes Milo smile, because it’s true. It’s always easier to talk to a stranger, always more honest, the entire conversation objective instead of packed with personal emotions. He knows what she means. He appreciates the sentiment. But he doesn’t want to talk, not about himself.
“L’inconnu du Nord-Express?” he repeats in an awful French accent. His coffee has become uninteresting, gently pushed to the side. Arms crossed and elbows on the edge of the table, Milo leans in a bit. “I don’t think that’s a ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ reference, is it?”
“Don’t stop believin?” such a strange sound from her accented English, and she hasn’t a clue as to the reference he is making, can only appreciate how they have confused one another. Cultural differences so quick to trip people up. “L’inconnu..” she seeks the English name from the recesses of her mind, certain she has heard it when she viewed the film in it’s original language. “Strangers on a train.” She need not mention she went through a Hitchcock phase once, finding herself in the so-called icy blondes of his vision. For once having a mirror that reflected better than she did for Xanthe or Silas.
She is a mirror now, leaning in to speak, conspiratorially, as though she is truly offering to murder someone for him. Perhaps she would. He deserves some recompense for being Cecily’s knight, and she is not arrogant to believe her attention or company, even as Isa Beauregard, is enough to serve as payment. Wonders if he questions his company as a gift to her instead.
FIN
npeltzsource:
Nicola and Will Peltz for Town & Country Magazine
oxfxrdprince:
“Then, Isa darling -” and he turns back to the mirror with a playful quirk of his lips. “I might have never have associated with you.” It’s his version of a joke, and he laughs at it too, a light sound. But staring into his own eyes in the reflection, Hale sees a hint of the boy he tries to hide. “I suppose we’ll never know. We are who we are.”
The tailor returns, and he once again obliges to the elderly man’s whims, standing straight and proud, chin tilted upwards with a regal quality that his family has been commended for. Looking like this, wearing clothes like these, the world almost forgets that the Rothschilds are bankers, that they first made their fortunes on the fortunes of others. Old money, but not all money is equal. To create an image was to build it up one gesture, one smile, one donation at a time.
“Hypothesis are dangerous things,” Hale says now, a mischievous edge entering his voice. “Ma cousine.” It’s a reminder of who they are. Because, in truth, he could see another reality. He might not be a Rothschild, and she might not a Beauregard: and they might be friends. They might be a number of things. What isn’t spoken but abundantly clear is this line - have I ever been known to pass up beauty? Instead, he makes conversation like always, with a charm that is either impersonal or terribly endearing.
“But really, sweetheart, all possibilities aside. I will be seeing you at the auction, yes?”
We are who we are, or we are who we pretend to be. She smiles, gently, and it’s a hair’s breadth away from her usual placid neutrality, yet it means all the difference, conveys something different. A smile in discomfort is an odd beast. She doubts very much that the beacon of a boy before her would have even noticed her existence, had her blood not sung out to his like a siren to shipwreck them both on the rocks of it. Her head raises to watch him, so far as she can without seeming to put effort into it, and she wonders if the figure he cuts is for her, or the tailor, for the audience as a whole, or simply for himself. Hypotheses are freeing things, but she supposes he’s right, because everything she wants to imagine for herself is dangerous, strips away her presumed identity and sends her toward uncertainty, gleefully so. Truly she can not be Icarus, when she heeds the warnings far too well, hears them from Hale now, and doesn’t dare to raise her head fully to the sun. “I thought you thrived on danger.” it’s easier to challenge him than it is to allow herself. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so bold, when there’s every chance he will find himself with something to prove to her, without the lnhibitions to reign him in. They may be family, but she thinks herself control and restraint where he is not.
“I can not imagine your attention will be called to me, but I’ll be there.” it’s a joke, and she wonders why she said it, can only excuse it as her run on thoughts and the fact she can’t clearly see him to warn herself of his presence. “There’s an expectation.” it’s all she needs to say to clarify everything, in her own mind, perhaps to his as well.
“You wound me with your assumptions, Isabel.” He raises an eyebrow theatrically at her image behind him, smile lighting on his lips. Despite all his pretensions, he craves the semblance of family; and the Beauregards are more than Edmund and Candice ever aspired to be. For that reason, he unconsciously tries to be good for them. A good nephew. A good cousin. It’s rare that he succeeds, but the thought itself is almost humbling. Almost. “In fact, I recently gave away half a million euros to the poor children of…” And he pauses, eyes narrowing as he thinks. “Hmm. Tanzania.” Hale laughs again, that sort of short, indulgent bark that all future businessmen perfect in their youth. “About to, anyways.”
It’s all in good humour, but he cannot help but wonder for a split second if he really is some kind of scrooge, if that’s how people view him. The thought is absolutely troubling. He’ll have Martha at the bank wire a couple million over to the charities this very afternoon.
The tailor moves away for a moment, and Hale is free to turn on his box, now facing the window and his youngest cousin as she waits for his answer. He spreads his arms altruistically, loose threads still hanging from his sleeves - but the smirk on his face is anything but. “Well, Isa darling, I was under the impression that you were a Beauregard. If I’m not mistaken, you should already be at the top of the guest list.” He’s still pleasantly surprised that she sought him out like this, but doesn’t want to let the extent of it show. These days, he tries more and more to hide the things that matter most. “I wanted to extend the pleasure of my company to some poor bird who doesn’t usually get the chance. Best present of her life.” He winks conspiratorially. All in good fun.
An almost neutral smile is all the apology and reward she offers for indication of his selfless deeds. A sparkle hiding itself in her eyes at the misremembered gesture. It’s not that she expects him to behave in any way, though her previous words seem to contradict that so perhaps she does? Perhaps she has some inclination of how Hale is or should be, the very thought abhorrent when she is so stifled by expectations placed on her, on who she should be. Then again, she is not Hale, but surely provides a certain image just the same as he, so can not attest as to whether his presumed behaviour is solely a mirage for the benefit of others and the detriment of his true self.
“And if I weren’t?” it’s an alluring question, if I weren’t a Beauregard, or even if I weren’t on the guest list at all? If there weren’t certain demands made of my behaviour, of my perceived character? It is her turn to raise an eyebrow, as though challenging him, at least his argued altruistic nature.
“Would you take pity on this poor bird?” And there it is, the most intoxicating idea that she could be an outsider, or could claim to be one far more than she is now. She is an outsider of sorts, not belonging so well that she is called Magpie or friend or even capable. The new kid has a charming ring to it, a sense of camaraderie, but still she is treated as ice. It’s her own fault really. Everyone else seems to fit so easily to find their place. There’s Hale shining golden as one touched by Midas, and yet he appears as Midas himself, so capable, gilded words curling from his lips. There’s no doubt his presence would equal the best moment of someone’s life. He’s extraordinary, like all the others who share Rothschild blood, all except one. She settles delicately against a poufé, almost at his feet, with space enough to declare them just shy of strangers..
Although the small blonde girl spoke with consideration and contemplation, Charles begun to wonder if her words were even directed at him, she was speaking in disjointed train of thought and at one point he entirely stopped listening because she was going in circles. Treasures, objects, these physical things that he could take. Of course it was a logical response to some degree, one that many of their colleagues had taken interest in too. Earlier on in the day, half the room had been looking through records of what material objects the Lohovary’s might wish to take. Charles however, disagreed with the entire notion.
He stared at Isa for a moment longer, realising she had nothing more to say before tutting and turning his back, pacing across the room. “No.” He simply said, his voice low and gravelled. Maybe he’d overestimated her. She was a Beauregard after all, he shouldn’t have expected anything outstanding. Charles continued to pace, stopping in the middle of the room to light a cigarette with a match, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes as the smoke filled his lungs, only opening them again when he exhaled.
“Roman Lohovary is the man that I was at his age, if I had been a wimpy fucking faggot with no self respect. If Roman Lohovary had any bollocks of his own, he’d have his own society by now. If he’s come here to leech off of our success, it is a fucking low move but I’ve a feeling he’s above that. He has money. He has people, he could have more if he wanted to. Wealthy people don’t need the objects we have, otherwise they’d just fucking steal them.” He paced again, smoking his cigarette and stopping by the window.
“Myself, ten years ago… the only thing that mattered… was power. It was walking into a room and asking if you were the most powerful person there. And if you weren’t… who did you have to take down to get there? The Lohovarys were a Heist family, the Heist family. But now, when there’s whispers in other international circles about large scale crime, Francis Villiers is the name they’re whispering. Roman doesn’t give a fuck about money, he just wants it to be his name that’s been thrown around those circles, he wants to build a reputation. And he’ll do it the same way I did. By killing a lot of fucking people.”
She wonders if maybe he’s been trained, as everyone seems to be, to disregard what she’s saying and say it back in a slightly different manner. Wonders more easily that maybe she’s the one who can’t properly express her meanings, a lifetime of keeping quiet and appearing disinterested leading to ineptitude. That’s certainly the estimate she will more easily concede, when Charles has reached a conclusion she did not seem to present; power. Yes, she had said it, when she had offered that he could not claim what they had stolen, but she had not presented her meaning as the renown of being the thief, the mastermind. It’s neither funny nor alarming, just obvious, that words are not her forte. She could be the smartest, most cunning, person in the room, but she will never be Charles Villiers, she will never say things that are blunt or easy to comprehend. She is delicate and deceptive, even to herself.
He’s ten steps ahead of her, or one hundred when he might be ten steps ahead of everyone else and she’s far far behind, fallen in fact. “What matters now?” this time she realises, or overcompensates, that her question might be less vague, “for you?” Ten steps, ten years. If he is ten steps ahead and thinks Roman himself ten years ago, then surely Roman is planning to be the present Charles, with no knowledge of this skin he seeks. It should have been the killing talk that stands out to her, the admission of guilt (in the eyes of many), guilt (to a good Catholic girl such as Isa), guilt (to an innocent teenage girl?), but it isn’t. She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t blink, doesn’t even notice. Could question how she would even react if she did notice, when the answer, once again, should be obvious. Disdain, disgust, disbelief, distress. None of those things take root in her, no seed to plant in the what if of reaction. Curiosity might have lain bare instead.
There’s no fear either, and certainly no shame in hearing the word no. It’s almost a prize to be offered such challenge and wonder if she might actually grasp it for once, might make him say yes instead. Someday, some point, somehow.
“Tu n’es pas mal,” is his quicksilver response, soft voice matching hers. He is torn between shame and pride; to have his youngest cousin see him like this, in this state of pure disarray. The two Beauregard branches, who once had been separated so distantly; has in recent years collided - and he can’t recall Isabel ever meeting him in anything but his best - suits and ties, false sophistication for a mongrel born into the wrong name, the wrong family. He meets her bright, still gaze and all those occasions seem to flash between them.
But he will not stand down. He wears his coat of blood and scars with a strange arrogance. It isn’t the pompous pretension that Hale or Silas don so well. It’s dark and rough, best viewed in the dead of night when his only witnesses are the street kings and city rats, the unruly mixes of people and places who know the price of such battle wounds, and how they mark him a champion in ways that society never would.
“What a strange place for a family reunion,” Dmitri says, half-meeting her gaze, half-skirting the horizon behind her. They speak English, and it feels unnatural for both of them - but it is Evie’s language, and so he treasures it, no matter how he stumbles. He can feel Isabel’s judgement as she evaluates him, and he knows with certainty that of all his golden-haired kin, he’s lucky to have chosen her from the crowd. If anyone must see his dirty edges and ripped realities, then let it be the silent one, the one who is oppressed by her siblings’ precedent, pushed into secrecy. Let her carry this one too.
Do you want me to heal you?
At this, his attention snaps fully to her. A rigidness breaks itself into his back. He laughs, harshly, turning his face away as if overtaken by a joke. Heal him. He laughs again, because it’s so ludicrous, the very concept of healing - weren’t wounds inflicted to be opened again? “No,” and he’s smirking in the dim glow of the streetlight, white teeth flashing a knife’s edge. “No, Isabel. Tu ne peux pas.”
Perhaps she should be surprised, should react in some way as evidence to disbelief that this really is her cousin, the Beauregard she should be so used to. Wouldn’t that be disingenuous, particularly with just the two of them there to witness, both more than aware that nothing should be surprising? More than that, they are not required, currently, to parade before others and pretend to be something they are not, deceive with a bond so encompassing as family. Such a cruel word for the ropes they are burned on. She could like him better this way, as pretense is scraped thinner at least. Though there’s something harrowing in the way he tells her she can not. For once neither a criticism nor a challenge thrown in her direction, and for once such familiar words earn a reaction. “Vous ne le souhaitez pas.” Statement or question is a question in itself. Conclusion then also.
A strange place indeed. Strange encounter. More comfortable than anything before, which makes it even stranger. An outsider’s perspective would deem her the strangest for even thinking it as right. Interesting, then, might be a more appropriate word. A leaning post in the wings for something pure and unrehearsed, “As pretending goes, so easy to be strangers.” she bows her head, determination subdued with the uncertainty of it all. gaze drawn to her feet as they tread such unfamiliar roads. She does not truly stand anywhere when she does not belong, blood meaning less than the allure of a magpie’s treasure cove. Dmitri, Hale, Xanthe, even Silas, scarce a glance to reach an appraisal of nil for Isabel Beauregard. She’s even scared to ask what he needs instead, if she can not heal him. “Could a stranger offer more reasonable than healing?”
“Have you come to ask for an invitation?”
Hale laughs, and standing upon the fitting box at Gieves & Hawkes, his eyes fixed upon his own reflection in the mirror, the sound is immediately made arrogant. Perhaps he didn’t mean it to be. But no matter - arrogance suits him well, just as it suits the venue; and the tailor at his sleeve knows that he must make the fabric fit just as well as his customer’s hubris.
“I’m afraid you’re too late.” He can’t make out who stands at the door, but considering that No. 1 Savile Row doesn’t allow just anybody to stroll in during a fitting, he assumes that the figure is one of his own. Affluent, or at least he hopes; to have made it this far in an establishment of such merit. Conniving, surely; to have intruded upon one of London’s most valuable customers in the middle of an appointment. A thief, perhaps. And if not, what’s the harm in a bit of banter? It wasn’t as if the Calvet auction was some secret affair. “I don’t just give away golden tickets to anyone, you see.”
“Are you suggesting you would give anything away? We both know that’s not true.” She passes over the threshold with all the grace and feigned dignity of someone ignorant of boundaries. Gaze as inert as it might be to find all manner of scandal on display, one never confident in expectation with the type of roue her cousin appeared to be, or the speed with which she had directed herself. Whether her presence is acceptable, never mind welcome, remains to be seen, but she picks up a silk pocket square as she’s crossing the space, no heed seeming paid to the way her fingertips dance against thin air and suddenly hold the item. She’s possibly not as good as any of the others at distraction or misdirection, but she doesn’t particularly need to be when her presence serves to either draw attention or force it away. In this one case (if only she knew) she finds herself similar to her cousin Dare you to look, but I doubt you’ll see. So she presses the item into the breast pocket of the suit jacket draped across the surface beside him, under no assumption that he will ever claim it. The pocket square is the colour of steel with just a tinge of blue, were she want to admit it she’d confess it is the colour of his eyes, the ones she tries to often to read behind. Alas, she will perhaps never present him with a truth. At least he might be aware enough to realise the accentuation, note the most favoured feature of at least one naive member of the Calvet family. Again, it is a loose thread, so unlikely to be pulled when she has offered little to no incentive to reach the conclusion. When it’s very unlikely Hale will appear at the auction as mere distraction, as a pretty jewel to entice a Calvet as their very real treasures are stolen away.
London is a different world with her best friend in reach and the society still deemed adrift to her, she finds she has more words, a certain promise hidden within them. “How early must I be to be gifted by you?”
Despite what all his studies had shown That what’s mistaken for closeness is just a case of mitosis Sure fatal doses of malcontent through osmosis
Love at first sight was a myth, a hilarious fantasy, yet when Santino was young he remembered the exact moment a fine-suited man with a funny accent introduced him to a pretty blonde girl in a blue dress with whom he was immediately taken. She had her own funny accent and mistakenly called him ‘Sohn-teno’, prying taunts and teases from his brash, childish mouth. But none of his syllables were savage nor his meaning malicious for he adored her funny, dignified words and what’s more? He adored that funny dignified girl.
— But that had never been any secret. Certainly he told her everyday, bravely, stupidly, passionately at the top of his lungs in that bright, offkey way that never failed to earn him sharp elbow to the ribs or God forbid, an even sharper quip from frosty lips. It hadn’t ever been a secret, but what it had become instead was a joke because how could fire love ice?
How could he when she wounded him every day and each time d e e p e r? Maybe it was because not afraid to hurt him. All the other girls would rather die than lay a hostile hand on their golden boy, tripping over themselves and drunk stupid with blind worship they for him, but not Isabel. Never Isabel, who remained cool and collected, arms crossed and blatantly unamused by her Saint Stupidé. Hers, but she was not his: that was the truth and the tragedy. Of all the girls who wanted and needed him like oxygen, it just had to be her who held his affections captive.
Insufferable, impossible Isabel but to him she was i r r e s i s t i b l e not because she was beautiful or smart or rich or refined (though all those things, by God, she was), but because rather than an object of affection or the ultimate prize, she treated him like a person. And so Icy Isabel had the ever Slippery Santino hopelessly snared.
Not that she cared.
The glacier girl was slipping away again, attempting to distance herself from him and drive him out as per usual. He should let her go, walk away and give her what she wants, but he’s not that smart. He does not think it’s possible to lose her. As Santino Capecchi, he doesn’t think it’s possible to lose anything at all, let alone a girl who’s always been there, leaving him reckless and idiotic. The bottle is falling and the choice is his. He could catch it, but there are a million bottles and there is only one Isabel Beauregard — so he grabs her hand.
The container clatters to the ground and rolls, but Santino doesn’t bat an eye.
“Bella, Bella, B e l l a,”
He holds hope that the obvious and flamboyantly Italian dramatization of her childhood nickname from him will even slightly soften her edges. Then before she can protest, he lifts a hand to his lips, it’s better than the liquor, his gesture friendly and joking, but like everything with them — underlined with a deeper, more important and often discontenting meaning.
“God, I’ve missed you.”
He calls her Bella and she thinks of a time when she might have grown to be something else, someone else. Calls her Bella thrice, as though he’s trying to remind her of possibility, of softness, of a version of herself too young and too determined to be as numb as now. If she’s surprised by the name, it doesn’t show. She’s always been Bella to he and to Cecily, at least in her heart, though she might not always show it. Bella, Saint, and Six between the two, protected and often concealed by the contrasting frost and light. If she’s surprised when he clutches her hand, it doesn’t show, or so she hopes. Makes no move to tear her loose hand from his firm one. She wonders sometimes if that’s the key, the way to be most cruel, to just let him hold on to her. Wonders, in fact, if he might quietly bore of her hand in his, quietly and then like shaking the leaves from the trees, boredom turning to hate. So she waits, even though she doesn’t want to see, not truly, stays with her hand in his as though she hasn’t even noticed. Maybe a fight against the idea at all, when she’s pretending to be ignorant.
The bottle rolls against the tip of her boot, and she doesn’t move to kick it, just as she doesn’t kick the puppy in front of her; the one she can’t decide as damningly loyal or just wrong. “You know what to do about that. Vous n'êtes pas stupide.“ She’s being the most bitter type of kind she can imagine, because she has missed him too. Perhaps it is easier for her, when she hears his name so often, has to think of him so often, this fantasy version that Cecily’s enamoured with. Easier, when she doubts he hears her name at all, let alone speaks it, when they are apart. Except really it should be more difficult for her, when her thoughts of him are tinged with guilt or venom or attempts to survive, her days dull and drab, lifeless without the security of that cheeky smile or Cecily’s cherubic grin. No one would ever take her for a sentimental fool, but she is fool enough for the three of them. Enraptured by the idea of who she is in his eyes, of who she gets to be with them both so far away from those who think to know her best. Jealous too that she can not, is physically incapable of saying his name with the softness Cecily does. Of saying everything she needs to say in just one gentle look, ‘save me. take me far from here.’ It’s been that way since they were children, where Cecily has nothing and she has everything. Only that’s never been true. Still she wonders if Santino is truly between them both, with only half of everything and halfway to nothing. Does he hide just as much behind his smile as Cecily does, deflect just as much with his words as Isabel does? The tip of her fingers trail across his palm as she drops her hand, slowly and all too quick. “It’s not as though I’m going to take the lead now, am I?” the brief chill of brutal honesty (I’ll never show I care, never plan for us) softened by the smallest curve of her lips. “Are you really so busy with all that learning that you’ve forgotten where I live?”
Nicola photographed for the Town & Country Magazine, November 2016 Issue.
The youngest Beauregard is no stranger to Chescote, even if she is to Adeline. The instances they met where accidents, almost, paths crossing in the hallways when the blonde bird visited Cecily, or in the kitchen when she needed to still her thirst, or in the dining hall when she remained for dinner. She is beautiful, Adeline notices, but in such a sad way. As if she should be the sun but thick, grey clouds of rain suffocate what should make her radiant. Adeline can smell it in her, the difference, the oddness, something they shared, even if Isabel’s is more harmless than what Adeline harbours and breeds inside of her. Still, she still smiles, and nods. “Of course. Come, sit.”
Adeline doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand why Isabel is here, with her, when she clearly didn’t come for her. “You’re visiting Cecily,” she says – states, because it’s a fact, and she needs to understand why Isabel wants to sit with her. Someone she doesn’t know, not the person she came here for.
“Thank you.” She doesn’t exactly sit as though connected to the grass, legs posed so stiffly and with such care that it seems she is floating on an invisible bench, disconnected. Still, she has settled to the earth, with as much elegance as she can muster, just across from Adeline but not so close as to seem an invasion. “I am.” there’s no confirmation needed when it was a statement already, but she finds herself unable to hold back from offering some security to the woman, or at least her words. “Were you painting?” this is not a statement when it could easily be the assumption, paint on fingertips and flesh is no grand evidence to a spirit seemingly untethered to convention. Who knows what Adeline was doing, whether she was merely embracing the colours or sending a message.
She’s heard it said before, that Adeline is a genius. Always seeming said solely with regard to her paintings by some, but maybe those are the wrong people to listen to. Maybe they can’t see the intelligence bursting in other areas, or simply ignore it. Isabel doesn’t know her, not properly, but she knows her well enough to think that she’s smart, realises she has control over so many without even trying, isolation when she prefers it.
Nicola Peltz photographed by Damon Baker for L’Officiel NL — November Issue, 2016.
The silence could be comfortable, could be freeing, if the unwritten rules of society didn’t hang between them.
She doesn’t voice it, and she doesn’t need to. Milo, over the years, has become good at picking up the tiniest clues. The way her eyes dance, settle on the menu; as if she is looking for something to do, for an escape, something, anything, that made it less awkward. Milo sets down his cup of coffee and looks at her. Between her siblings, Isabel always seemed like the quiet one, the…calmer one. Just as beautiful, just as radiant, but never actively seeking the spotlight. The few times Milo saw her he picked up as much; then again, it was difficult to outshine people like Silas and Xanthe. He wonders if Isa’s bothered by it, but he can’t imagine she would be.
It’s him who breaks the silence. “We don’t have to talk,” he assures her. Does she need him to say it out loud? That it was okay to just sit there, in each other’s company, but not be forced into a conversation? “Unless you want to, of course. That’s a different story, then.”
She thinks of scoffing, imagines herself doing just that, admonishing little huff of noise to prove to him that she knows. Instead, her lips tilt gently, not so much to encourage a smile, but just enough that she seems brighter. So many want so much from her, and perhaps he suffers the same, for it’s a kindness that he’s even mentioned it. A kindness or his own discomfort. Either way it doesn’t deserve the same sour response from her as others might. When he offers her the option she can’t be sure if it’s against his own interest, or if he prefers not to have control. Who is she to fault him if it’s the latter, when she never seems to have control of herself in the presence of others. Can control herself, seems controlled, but is merely filling a role she learned so long ago, almost automatically. “What would you like to talk about?” Her gaze drifts to meet his, still steely and determined but attempting to be softer. She doesn’t ask if he wants to talk, when his answer will inform her either way.
“We can talk about anything you like, when we don’t know each other.” Perhaps that is the only reason she’s speaking at all, when he can’t care for her words well enough for them to matter, to use against her, and she the same for him. What a grand opportunity, “Strangers on a train. L'inconnu du Nord-Express.”
Marcel tends to be of a slippery sort, not usually being found by other members of the society, because of his vices. He spends most of his time in and out of casinos, when he’s not taking Sofia anywhere she could possibly want to go. Cards are the reason he’s alive, but could slowly kill him, if he is not careful. He smiles at the Isabel Beauregard, who seems to be more grown up each day, and tells her the truth.
“Oh, not here. Luck wasn’t on my side at all, tonight.” he says with a laugh, “You cannot will them all, cherie.” he allows the smile to sit on his face. “I did not lose too much, though.” he promises. “Sofia will not be too angry with me, I’m sure.”
She lights her cigarette and Marcel accepts the lighter from her, returning it into his coat’s pocket and taking another drag from his own cigarette. She settles back, and Marcel allows himself a moment to breathe, one of the first he’d been allowed since the Heist had ended. Reflection was something he was sure he was going to have to do, but whenever he found the time he would take care of that. The world was moving far, far too quickly around him for him to take time for himself, often, and gambling tended to be what he did when he needed to decompress.Which was what led him here, to find a young Isabel Beauregard tonight. “Oh my, I’m far to young to be a grand-père yet, right?” He states with a smile, “RIght?” he repeats, his eyes a little bit panicked.
She’s carefully inspecting her fingertips, pulling a drag from her cigarette as she hears of his misfortune. And she huffs out a laugh with a plume of smoke. Not because she delights in it, quite the opposite, but because she’s reminded of the saying the house always wins. It’s strange how everyone seems familiar with the sentiment and yet no one ever uses it as a lesson. Thinks of asking him what causes him to cast the die, what number or stake would balance out all the times he has lost. What can he possibly gain from the risk, when he can gain so much from certainty instead? “At least there is that.” she does not ask how much is too much to be brushed off by him. “I don’t think I’ve ever risked anything.” it’s true enough, when she conceals the things of value to her so much so that no one would ever recognise the things she might treasure.
Her thoughts are interrupted before they have a chance to become too serious, too introspective, much like they always are through force or distraction. This time it’s the uncertainty she believes to hear in his voice, the confirmation he seeks, “I think biology might disagree.” she says the words carefully, as though she’s seriously considering his age and how likely it would be. A pause to let it sink in, before she speaks again, too fond of the man for it to seem like an insult. “Don’t worry, I think the fact it’s a cat means you can still claim to be young.” She stubs her cigarette out against the stone, the need for it seemingly dissolved in his presence. “You should bring Sofia around for dinner, so we might scheme to ruin your youthful persona.”
