#v: regency

[akumanoken]

Princess Sakura "I quite literally should be the last person anyone truly picks for marriage" Hanagawa

[williamwyatt]

o1. it is a truth universally...

Will dismounted his horse and handed the reins off to a helpful servant, nodding his thanks. The Oxfordshire Moores had a handsome estate to themselves, neither remarkable in size or in scope but well-maintained and clearly well-loved. It suited the couple he’d met the other day, his new neighbors for all intents and purposes. They hadn’t been the first to slyly mention having a beautiful, marriageable daughter, and he was sure they wouldn’t be the last. Still, he was never one to turn down hospitality.

He’d moved back to Oxfordshire recently from London, sick of the city’s oppressiveness after all the loss he’d encountered there. First his wife, then his father and mother in quick succession, despite his best efforts to care for all three of them. He hadn’t been in Oxfordshire since he’d been a boy with dreams of seeing the world, running off to London where he’d meet his future wife and whisk her all around the world.

Life truly was impossible to predict. 

Will ensured that he’d gotten no mud on his crisp grey suit or riding boots before nodding to himself and stepping up to the door, rapping lightly at the polished wood.

[nothing-ventured]

@erinthevampire

Thomas had arranged no accommodation in Bath until the very last week, when a frantic exchange of letters between his sister Olympia and her vast acquaintance had secured him a brief stay with family friends, after which the family would be leaving for the country for a wedding and it was understood Thomas would be finding elsewhere to sleep.

More letter writing was in progress even as he bid good evening to his host family just as dusk was settling, the last rays of sun bathing the sea in pink and golden orange. He made his way up to the Royal Crescent with his large sketchpad under his arm, unintimidated by the glittering company he found himself in but noting with some curiosity how very uniformly it glittered. London was never without some sign of squalor, no corner of it untouched by poverty, but on this street, at this hour, everything was as in a painting in which all ugly things had dutifully been excluded.

The house the address led him to stood lofty and among its fellows. The lady who had commissioned a painting, he had been told, was unmarried, fantastically wealthy, and private enough to frustrate gossips and invite invention. It meant little to him. Thomas preferred to make up his own mind about the people he met.

He checked his neck-tie in the reflection of the window-glass, went up the steps, drew in a breath, and knocked.

[nothing-ventured]

 @luckycaptainaubrey (cntd.)

“Yes,” said Jack, gesturing to the sea before them that was pitching and rolling with delicious unpredictability, “My heart lies with the service - it is entirely my life, and has been for quite a very long time. I say a man has not lived until he has set foot upon a vessel and felt it gripe and sway beneath his boots. It renders a man humble.”

Aubrey turned to stare at the queer little man by his side - perhaps the fellow was not so little after all, yet anyone could be considered small when standing next to Jack. “Come now, sir, you mustn’t stand in the wind, you’ll catch a fever. If you wish to look at the sea, should we not draw closer to the hull of my ship? It might afford us some shelter.”

The sky was bright and the sails were furled, offering no shade, and it hurt his eyes. Thomas squinted up at the captain and smiled. “You may have to guide me, I’m afraid, sir. It has been some time since I have been aboard a ship, and never one so cleanly. Never, in fact, on a Navy ship. Lead on and I shall follow.”

He was standing awkwardly in the middle of the deck, having been nearly trampled by busy sailors twice already. It was not inexperience but fear that made him lose his bearings. He had no reason in the world to assume he would be considered anything other than a regular paying passenger; no reason to think himself in danger at all, and yet the uniforms wracked his nerves. He was no longer twenty-six; it should not unsettle him so. 

There was nothing for fear but to tackle the subject head-on, and so he had started up a conversation with Captain Aubrey himself. Once an imposing figure, his features had turned from stern to beaming as he spoke of his profession. Another antidote for fear was love, and Martin Thomas loved people as a whole hopelessly, helplessly, even when they did not deserve it.

[nothing-ventured]

@captain-f-merivel

Thomas drags the table set against the wall off to the side and his easel to the other side of the room, making space in the small area that is his only room aside from the windowless den of his bedroom. He has invested in a mirror, which hangs on the wall opposite the skylight, reflecting some of it into the shadows.

It will only be preparation today, of course, but he wants the light to be good enough for him to make preliminary watercolour sketches as well, if possible. He stops to take the kettle off the fire just as there is a knock on his door. 

He opens it with a cheerful smile. He is not worried about this encounter--the captain is with a young lady, after all. “Good morning, captain, Miss Pratt. Come on in. Can I tempt either of you with a cup of tea?”

[nothing-ventured]

📝

(meme)

Crumpled up letter: 

My dear Captain, 

Forgive me for putting this in writing. I realize it is not terribly prudent. It is a difficult temptation to resist when this new messaging system in London is so convenient. One finds that the opportunity to scribble down any old though spurs one on to all forms of indiscretion. 

I wonder if one can discuss these matters in a more roundabout way, so as to confuse whoever might receive such a missive in error? You may have noticed I omitted your name in my address. And on the other hand, perhaps my habits of secrecy are as misplaced as they are sporadic. Perhaps, indeed, I am nervous to write to you merely because the gentleman who I am about to mention is one I have now wish to be in any contact with, and the matter is awkward. So, then, if I tell you that I have discovered some very old sketches of a mutual friend and that I think you might find them of interest, then 

Letter sent: 

My dear captain, 

I have rediscovered some sketches you may be interested in. I have enclosed one. 

Yours, Martin

[agentinred]

strangers don't last long here. / benedict

In the salon, the scent of varnish and linseed oil still lingered, like a sigh left behind by forgotten muses (or at least muses met momentarily only to be cast aside the next day). Carmen moved through the room slowly, not because she was uncertain, but because she understood with precision how people watched from corners they thought were discreet. Her gloved hand trailed along the edge of a canvas still drying, dark eyes catching in the fading light. She turned hearing his voice, tilting her head slightly, the deep red feather in her hat trembling.

“Oh, but that depends entirely on the stranger,” she responded, the syllables of each word lingering on her lips. “Some of us weren’t meant to last. Some of us were meant to haunt.” She stepped forward, gaze now fixed on a charcoal sketch of a woman’s profile: unfinished, ETERNAL. “Still, I suppose you’re not wrong. There’s a certain…reverence here for lineage, isn’t there? Even the brushstrokes know how to bow for the ‘well-born’.” Her gloved fingers traced the air just above the sketch, as though she were reading the ghost of a line, the artists’ movement, rather than the line itself. Then, as if in recognition, she said simply, “You know, we’ve met before. Not properly, but nearly. One spring, at the Royal Academy, though if I remember correctly, you were rather more interested in the sculpture room than in the company.” Her smile deepened, quiet and wry. “I don’t blame you. Marble is less prone to disappointment.”

Her smile softened, not for him, but for a thought that returned, gentle and unwelcome. She had been born here but raised elsewhere. Her childhood had unfolded in distant cities with different customs. Formative years had all but been spent among people who had never spoken of England as home. And so now, returned ‘home’, she moved through it like a guest in a house that bore her name but not her memories.  “When you say strangers don’t last long here…” she murmured, letting the words stretch through the air, “how fortunate for me, then, that I’ve made an art of overstaying.”

[agentinred]

the laws of men mean little to me. / sophie

Carmen stood at the window, gloved hand resting lightly against the sill. Though truth be told, it was not the view she watched but the world that PULSED behind it. The house seemed to respond in kind, creaking softly around them, as if it, too, had heard Sophie’s words and remembered far too much. Even here, in this quiet corner, the room bore traces of stories never spoken aloud. They did not know it then but the same rug under her feet had once belonged to a duchess who vanished with her gardener…the chandelier above them had survived a fire started by love…or jealousy? no one quite knew. All hushed by the LAWS written by men in search of ‘decorum’.

When Carmen finally responded, her voice was smooth yet filled with the depth of her inner thoughts. “Men’s laws,” she said, “are like fences built after the horse has already run. Decorative. Pretend. They convince themselves that the rules keep order, but it’s only because they’ve never seen what TRULY lives beneath it.” She turned toward Sophie, her face composed as if it were a study of restraint. “And that is what makes their laws so laughable,” A pause, a short huff let out as she shooke her head from side to side. “They spend their time drafting lines, convincing themselves they’ve created something solid, while we…well, we simply slip between them. Isn’t that the real art? Not in breaking the rules, but in knowing WHEN to make them bend in our favor.”

Prompts: 𝑽𝑨𝑵 𝑯𝑬𝑳𝑺𝑰𝑵𝑮 / @withguilt