Welcome to A&A!

[Gwyneth Pritchard]

It was all Miss Smith’s fault; she’d left an uncomfortable atmosphere behind her. Because of that, Gwyneth just did not know quite what to say. If she had been with Tamsin, she would have probably held a bad-tempered discussion about the deficiencies of the two that had just left. But Gwyneth wanted Emma to have a good opinion of her, and she was sure that saying dreadful things behind another person’s back was not going to raise her in Emma’s eyes. She bit her lower lip, and stared out at the park with a rather blank look, trying to think of something that she could say that would not make her sound like a horrible person.

A shift of motion beside her made her look back towards Emma, and she met her friend’s open gaze. It seemed as though the other girl was searching for something in her face, and Gwyneth wondered uncomfortably if Emma could read her thoughts. “Am I an absolute beast for finding relief in their absence?” It so echoed Gwyneth’s own thoughts that she had to laugh, the sound bubbling up low in her throat. “No…not at all, unless I am one as well. I wished nothing more than for them to be gone.” And now that they were gone, her opinion was most certainly unchanged. She grinned at Emma, relieved, and slightly conspiratorial.

The tug of Emma’s hand on her arm brought Gwyneth into a slightly unwilling walk towards Dorian and Marie. Marie had clearly captured the hearts of both siblings, and Gwyneth found herself rather liking her odd chattering speeches, though she was not quite sure what to think of her or whether or not she completely approved. She stood beside Emma as her friend remonstrated with her brother. “I…I don’t believe that we have been introduced, Dorian. How could you be so rude?”

“Forgive me. Marie Garcelle Dargeaux, if I may introduce my sister, Miss Emma Clayborne, and her lovely friend, Miss Gwyneth Pritchard.” He barely paused, though he seemed to consider his words before he gave them. Gwyneth tried to come up with an acid interpretation for his hesitance, and then for Dorian’s sudden glow of a smile, but failed. However, that was no call to let up on resentment. He didn’t have tact – no, she had been wrong to think of it that way. He had a sort of caddish charm, perhaps.

“I am so delighted to meet you, Miss Clayborne. I’ve seen you a lot in the windows and I always wanted to meet you. My Associate is right, Miss Pritchard. You are lovely, and I hope you will be my friend too.” Gwyneth gravely returned Marie’s courtesy, and then her face flashed into a smile. “I hope that I shall. Thank you, Miss Dargeaux.”

“And as you know, I’m sure, by your comprehensive investigation, my name is Captain Dorian Clayborne.” Marie looked up at Clayborne with an expression that suggested that he had won her over entirely, and remarked, “I did know that, but proper introductions are always appreciated by everyone.”

There was no accounting for tastes, however. Dorian turned towards Gywneth and Emma, and inquired with a look that was just full of guile and confirmed Gwyneth in the opinion she had just mentally stated, “Marie just suggested a route for us in the park. Shall we start the tour together to see how masterful our guide truly is?” She distrusted the expresson on Dorian’s face; however, Gwyneth did not have any objections. In fact, rather the contrary. “Yes, let’s!” she said cheerfully. Emma seemed to be of a similar opinion.

“Tell me, Marie. Where are your parents?” Dorian had returned to Marie, and at this point Gwyneth was – once again – about to ask Emma what she had been reading (she had been storing up the question for quite some time now) but she was stopped in her tracks, nonplussed, at Marie’s answer. In fact, her train of thought was not less than completely derailed. In the basement with the bodies? The explanation arriving shortly afterwards that he was at the morgue did not really quite dispel the rather disagreeable shock that had come with Marie’s odd speech.

She made an attempt to put it back together, which resulted in her rather abruptly asking the question that had been jumping around her mind for several minutes. “You said you had been reading, Miss Clayborne! What do you like to read?” Gwyneth felt clumsy, just blurting it out like that without preamble or warning. But she had no idea how to respond to Marie, and in addition the girl had not been addressing her to begin with, and she simply could not think of anything else unless she were to stand there like an idiot.

[Emma Clayborne]

The little girl was truly the sweetest thing. It was clear that the liberties Dorian was giving her made her prone to taking great advantage of the attention. It also wasn't too far off to recognize the admiration she had for Dorian. Emma noted with slight mischievousness the careless affection and informality in the child as she held Dorian's hand. It was the type of unaffected truth that Dorian revered so much. Her suspicion of his reaction to such an affront on formal discourse was validated the moment that he curled his hand around Marie's chubby little hand.

A flare of temper had been rekindled at the continued mention of the murders, from which Dorian had so protectively censored her. For that, she pursed her lips not in anger at the child, but rather in her continued imprisonment from the topic. She looked away abruptly, perhaps as an attempt to channel her placid temperament. Reaching a bench by the poplar stand, she sat herself down. Sweat began to bead at her hairline.

She found it rather queer that Marie had seen her from windows. This stuck out in her mind most assertively. Marie truly felt that she was an detective of some sort and, although it was still very endearing, Emma wondered first what she had ever done to spark any attention from the outside world and two, how difficult it must be to keep Marie from trouble and harm's way. Emma hardly ever made it outside of the confines of her home due to her afflictions. The doctors, she recalled, had recommended to father that she could vacation to Italy and their sulfurous springs; however, father refused such a venture much to her consternation. He cared so much for her welfare that she was shielded from the English air so much. And yet, despite father's efforts, someone had seen her. She existed to someone beyond the boundaries of her world. Emma felt overjoyed at that moment even though the feeling was absolutely ridiculous.

She came quickly out of her dreamy state when Gwyneth addressed her directly by asking of what book she had read. Looking at her, embarrassed at her own daydreaming, she blushed slightly and parted her lips to speak when nothing came to mind. A sudden panic brought fear into her pale eyes. What had she been reading before? Emma could remember that she was struggling at the time to keep civil conversation, but what had she chosen to speak about. It seemed as if she would have to bring up one of her favorite authors in order to smooth over her feaux pas.

"Forgive me, I....I" her brow creased and her smile appeared as if she were amusedly worried. "I'm afraid I may have forgotten!" She chuckled nervously, praying for mercy from Gwyneth for performing one of the most haphazard violations to proper conversation that she could ever remember.

"I think I was about to say that I had been reading William Wordsworth and I wanted to comment on the fact that he would be envious of us on such a day as today." Nervously, she fought to make sense. "I could picture him sitting at a park bench such as this and writing one of his poems."