A/N: Massive thank you to my beta loves, williamsholdens & evennstars 3 Your read-throughs have meant no end of help to me, because I get so lost in my own writing that it's hard to see what a reader sees sometimes, so THANK YOU! [I'm sorry I write so much... I know it's a lot of work].
Also, a massive thank you in general to xxsparksxx, who will forever be my greatest Philip/Vera writing idol.
This project has become such a labour of love for me. I've been working on it for about a month now, since I had a conversation with my wonderful housemate in the pub about how interesting ATTWN would be in Soul Mark AU, since it's all about morality/life and death.
It has grown into quite a monster... and this is just the tip of the iceberg (a 20k+ word iceberg)... So, make sure to REVIEW if you want more!
(Originally posted to my AO3 goodgirlwhoshopeful)
xxx
1939
P. Lombard [Philip]
DOB: September 12th, 1909
Place of Birth: Lucan, Dublin, Ireland
Status: Unmarked
Philip had never known why he had not been born with a Soul Mark the way everyone else had... but he had a theory.
It was said to be something that had always existed in human beings, though no one seemed to know how or why; dark pigmentations of the skin that existed from birth, shifting by the age of puberty to spell out clear words.
Usually, these read one of two things, depending on the course one's soul would take: the name of one's soulmate... or one's last words.
The fact Philip had never had a Mark that he could distinguish of either type was incredibly rare within itself, but, in his mind, suggested one of two things: either he was never to love... or he was to take a life, as was the wives tale about Unmarked individuals.
By the time he was seventeen, it became clear that for Philip Lombard, both were to be true.
As a boy, life on the streets of Dublin had been rough. As a city, it was a mass of contradictions – a second city of the British Empire but a first city of nationalist Ireland, with divisions of class and culture being incredibly stark. When Philip thought back on it, he realised what a city of diversity it had been. Rich and poor, immigrant and native, nationalist and unionist, Catholic, Protestant, Jew and Quaker, Marked and Unmarked alike – all bound together in the life of the city. He also realised, by now, what an utter shit-hole it had been.
Philip's past was something he did not address often; he considered it irreverent and an unnecessary blot on the canvas of his life that could only improve. Not long after Philip was born in 1909, his mother, a sweet but spineless woman, had moved her family into central Dublin from the southern suburb of Lucan to find what little work she could to provide for her and her four children. The reality of what greeted their family, however, was not the life his mother had hoped for. Tens of thousands lived in tenement slums, starved into ill-health, begging on the fringes of society. With a high death-rate, thousands of families, including his own, living in one-roomed accommodations, the slums haunted him in his dreams; dark, disease-ridden and ignored. It seemed ludicrous really, that a man who killed for a living would be haunted not by blood, but by dirt and squaller.
That, and then the turbulence of the Irish Civil War began.
He remembered his mother's exhausted, sallow face, each day that she traipsed home from her work in service. His father, of course, was nowhere to be seen most nights, as he indulged in practices that Philip now assumed, as an adult, were most unsanitary.
The suffocation of their family of six living in one room, simply separated by cloth hung from the ceiling, seemed to gnaw at his sanity and tolerance from as early an age as he could remember. By the time war broke out in 1914, he was a frustrated and furious boy of five, who already knew his life simply had to amount to more. As he watched the young men wave goodbye to their families in pursuit of gunfire and glory, Philip Lombard had also felt...smug, as though he had come to a realisation that all his patriotic fellow human beings were too stupid to see.
Never would he be tricked into such pageantry in the name of fighting another man's battles.
As a result, it became clear to Philip, before it occurred to anyone around him, that he was different, even in the earliest days of his Catholic upbringing. As much as he had tried to conceal it, his Unmarked status was known by all the other boys at school, as their streets were so overcrowded with families living on top of each other in order to live within commuting distance of the factories that there was no hope of privacy. He considered this 'close-knit' environment to be suffocating, as he was never alone with his thoughts, his confusion, his rage.
When someone wronged him, he could not fathom the concept preached to him by the priests in his school, or in church on a Sunday, of forgiveness and 'loving thy neighbour'. Instead, Philip soon learnt he felt no sympathy when he threw a punch that made his former tormentors cry. He felt little to no connection to his fellow man, something he did not communicate to anyone, for he learnt early on that ordinary men would never understand.
"Y'are nothin', soft bastard!" the other boys would sneer at him, taunting him with kicks to the stomach that made him wretch in pain. "Me Ma' say you're unmarked so y'must be nothin'!"
He'd gotten his own back, of course. That summer, manhood had finally taken a hold on his frame. No longer was he the spindly child they remembered, so when they'd thrown a punch next time, he had been them to it. (He joined a bare-fist boxing club, as was usual for men in his suburb, having been so sick of every man he had ever known, especially his own father, pushing him around with foot and fist).
For years, he went about his business and paid no attention to his lack of a Mark. Once he learnt to fight, he realised it was a talent he could harness. He got involved with the nationalist groups in Dublin's underground, fighting with letterbox bombs and furious rallies against their English oppressors. It was a welcome release for his internal fury, his frustration for the world he found himself trapped within taken out on bricks through windows and mischief in dark alleys.
It was there he found others like himself, Unmarked and angry. It was there he learnt to fight with knives instead of fists. It was there, in a turf war over territory, he killed for the first time...and felt the euphoria it triggered through his veins.
Years later and it was now his living, to kill. It was not that he planned it this way – it had been much more of an opportune vocation. One day, when he had worked his way to the top of the gang hierarchy through his skills of intimidation and fear, he realised he could achieve much more elsewhere. His...expertise for getting rid of people quietly was in high demand with those in high places, who needed an anonymous face to do the deed. Then, just like that, he realised it was never a coincidence that was an Unmarked man.
The money was nice, he had to admit. He abandoned Dublin not long after his first big contract kill, as it allowed him enough to finally leave behind the suffocation Dublin had come to represent for him. Using the funds he'd accumulated and hidden under his floorboards of his one bedroom pit, he had thrown himself onto the next ship to England – third class, of course, for he did not yet have the wardrobe for anything grander. Arriving in London, he pulled in favours from contacts he had gained and from there he sat back and watched the jobs simply roll in.
The thing about the likes of men who had the money to pay a killer, Philip realised, was that they usually, usually, only wanted to kill those as equally powerful as themselves. Therefore, for the most part, he was hired to kill the scum of the earth; men whose arrogance and greed left them contributing nothing to the world and yet taking everything, while the likes of his mother had not a loaf of bread.
If he were an ordinary man, he liked to think he still would still feel nothing for those he killed in those first few years, considering they were the so-called 'un-killable' – serial killers, corrupt leaders, the democratic opposition of corrupt leaders, rapists who mascaraed as politicians... Most deserved no mercy.
That being said, there had been some whom he killed that could only be considered as collateral damage, later on; the tribe in Africa, who had lied to his face about the diamonds he had asked for; mobster's wives who walked in at just the wrong moment; and on one occasion, a crying baby. He tried to avoid such instances, because no one needed the blood of infants on their hands. It incurred so many more consequences and mess than was necessary, but sometimes, such events were unavoidable.
Besides, if there was ever a person to carry out the unavoidable, it was Philip.
Aside from that, he did not dwell on why it was that he felt nothing when committing such an act. After all, what use was harbouring on questions he could not answer? He did not know why he had the inhuman indifference that he did, just as he did not know why he did not possess a Mark.
It simply was what it was.
He had no interest in romance either, so the lack of a soulmate, or the assurance of one appearing into his life thanks to some Mark on his skin, was insignificant to him. He did learn early on, however, that his ability to suppress his true motivations and reactions, instead projecting a natural charm was enough to get him women affections when he wanted them. By his early twenties, Philip physically indulged in whomever took his fancy and, with practice, wooing women became comically easy to him, to the point it was almost dull; a simple game of cat and mouse.
No mouse ever had the patience of a cat.
Which is why, the day Philip first set eyes on Vera Claythorne, he had been most surprised by the way she stormed away from him. (He had not grown accustomed to women saying no to him, after all).
He painted a smirk on his face to keep from laughing aloud as she stormed off. He had been admiring her legs, all shapely and enticing, and the way her skirt had ridden up all the way to exposing her to top of her stockers. He was intrigued at first as to whether she had sat like that on purpose, for surely no woman in a conservative outfit such as the one she wore would be so unaware of an outfit mishap?
The answer came to him a moment later, however, when she insistent blank gaze had broken from the view out the window and seemed to sense his own on her, almost as though he had called out her name. The moment her sharp eyes locked onto his, even from across a carriage, Philip Lombard knew she was not like the women he came across, day in, day out.
Mostly, he knew because she did not submit; she did not downcast her own gaze in bashfulness, or flap flustered under his ungentlemanly scrutiny. No, instead, Vera had defied him with her eyes, pointedly pulling don her skirts and moving away from him in sharp, decisive movements.
He had already seen, in the few seconds their eyes had met, what kind of person she in fact was. She had no idea, of course, just how exaggerated, unsubtle, ridiculous – ludicrous – her disguise was to a trained eye such as his own. Having always had an ability to read people like open books, all he saw when he looked at Vera that day were smoke and mirrors. Her face clearly wiped aggressively clean of all rouge and powder, she wore a high-neck blouse and trimmed lime-charcoal skirt that settled at the shins – all clearly not attire in which she was comfortable by the way she fidgeted and walked rigidly, forever smoothing the fabric down. She did not even notice her garters were showing and would not have if it were not for the fact that she had caught him staring. She evidently did not wear this skirt often. He twisted his lips as he directed his gaze from the window, delighting in the way his photographic memory and vivid...imagination...allowed him to envisage a scenario much more satisfying than the one he would have to put up with in reality; one in which he followed her into the secluded carriage and fucked her against the wall, stockings, high-neck blouse and all.
She would love it too – he knew that. The way her gaze lingered on him a second too long before her eyes flashed with anger – (anger that was too delayed to be sincere) – told him that.
Little did he know, of course, that he would end up stuck on an island of death with that very woman...and come out the other side closer to her than he had ever been to anyone.
V. E. Claythorne [Vera, Elizabeth]
DOB: May 8th, 1914Place of Birth: Chagford, Devon, England
Status: Unmarked
Vera Claythorne had never had much time for men, but when she had indulged, it had always been with those she was told she could not have; Alice Celanese's sweetheart when they had been eighteen and careless; the boss of her first teaching job; Hugo...
So, truly, it hadn't surprised her retrospectively that she had been drawn to Philip Lombard so gutturally and instantaneously. When they had both stood on the dock, it sunk in that the man who had so vicariously been staring at her legs was too a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Owen... and suddenly she was glad. Something within her, that always fought against the grain, could not wait to know him better, even if it was clear she shouldn't.
It was then she had felt her skin itch for the first time, the way the girls at school had always whispered about, when their Marking would begin to appear. It had bothered her a lot in those days of puberty just why it was that she had to be one of the Unmarked minority. They said it meant something bad, rather than good, that she would be 'trouble'. Her own mother had been awful to her once it became clear she was not going to develop a Soul Mark like all the other girls and boys. It seemed to solidify the uncomfortable disconnect that already existed between them, until, one day, when the time came when Vera was of marrying age, it was simply too much. Vera left home with no sorrow in her heart; instead she felt eagerness for the world that may reside outside she tiny Devonshire village.
So, like all others who had stifling upbringings in the countryside, Vera headed for London.
From there, she worked in schools, finding it deathly boring but convincing herself that everyone felt that way. Perhaps that was why she found herself taking as many of the male staff members as lovers as she could, whether they had wives or not. She liked the thrill that accompanied them lying for her, her lying to get them alone... It was all a game.
Her mother always suggested she would be a harlot, since she had no Soul Mark to suggest otherwise, so as she grew older, she asked herself, why fight it? She liked sex. Women weren't supposed to admit such things, of course, but she did. She adored the thrill of it; the ability to make the most ferocious and aloof of men succumb and submit to whatever she wanted. It was a heady drug in itself, never mind when it was combined with alcohol, which it usually was.
Such thoughts had come back to her at the dock, as the skin along her collarbone began to tingle and itch with an alien intensity. In an attempt to distract herself, Vera allowed herself to focus on the sharp lines of his face, just for a moment; the way his impressive jawline ticked when another man seemed to try to take charge, but relaxed upon catching her eye.
"Mister...?" she trailed, deliberately cornering him into telling her his name first. She attempted to do so in her most nonchalant of voices, already assessing that this was a man put off by intensity.
"Lombard... Philip." Again, her skin had itched, in the most aggressive and burning of ways. She could see herself in his sunglasses and made sure that she did not squirm or react too much to his presence.
Somehow, she already knew that would not be wise.
P. Lombard
He had been incredibly surprised when he saw the enticing mystery brunette with the skirt and the stockings and the feisty eyes get off at the tiny station by the harbour and even more taken aback when she also walked down to the dock.
He felt her gaze sweeping over his face whenever he was turned away from her. The first time, this was no doubt an attempt to appear scathing of him, but afterward, he felt content and smug in the knowledge she kept looking. In his many a liaison with women, Philip Lombard knew this could only mean one thing.
If there had been any room for doubt in his mind of her attraction to him, it dissipated under her fleeting, insistent glances.
When she asked his name, he was surprised by the guttural urges that surged through him at the sound of her voice. It frustrated him, considering she had said just one word. He was not a fifteen year old groping himself over dirty postcards behind the pub anymore, for God's sake!
He did not look at her again after that, enjoying the prospect of toying with her. Her room was down the corridor from his own, he'd noted as Mrs. Rogers accompanied her there. His ignored the uncomfortable tightening in his trousers at his thoughts digressed toward that of her being just a few short paces away, undressing herself...freeing her supple body from the restraints of that ridiculous disguise.
Good God, how he'd love to rip that awful skirt off of her... preferably with his teeth.
He smirked to himself as he lit a cigarette and went about unpacking his case, laying his dinner suit out for pressing. Such outcomes, as enticing as they were as they layered in his imagination, would have to wait.
Something told him Miss Claythorne would not be easy prey.
V. E. Claythorne
After her run in with Mrs. Rogers below stairs, Vera felt rattled. She did not like being treated as though she was incompetent – she did not like being told she was wrong. She had simply been attempting to assess the building in which she resided, supposedly as an employee, after all! It was hardly an unjust expectation.
Consequently, when she had made her way into the drawing room to explore where she would not be challenged and come across Philip, she felt her tackles rise even higher.
"There's one in my room, too," he'd said as she had been gazing at yet another copy of the Ten Little Soldier Boys. She hadn't heard him come in, but she sensed that was his intention; sneaking up on people so he always had the upper hand. "I imagine there's one in every room."
"Well... 'Soldier Island'. It–it makes sense – s'amusing – " She found her tone was stiff, the tiny trace of a stutter even creeping into her speech under the weight of his presence. He spoke then about their hosts being inclined to whimsy over his crystal brandy glass; his words almost a slur. (She wondered if he'd been drinking before dinner, or perhaps that was simply her ignorance surrounding the Irish lilt that made her think so). She gazed over her shoulder toward him and instantly wished she hadn't; the sight of him in a perfectly fitted dinner suit making her want – a most violent and urgent sensation that she had not expected and was most inconvenient. She did not want to feel such a draw to a man who leered at her the way he did.
Instantly, she steeled herself to such urges, for she was here to work – actually work – and this man was nothing but trouble; trouble being something she could do to steer clear of, considering the reason for her leaving her last employment. "I cannot comment on our hosts."
His next words are almost a husk as he settled into a lounge chair, rolling the brandy in his hand. "Good little secretary."
Despite the low tone of the words, she knew he meant for her to hear them. She could hear the smirk he barely kept from his voice. He was taunting her.
Without the patience left in her to challenge him, she swallowed, knowing she had to quit the room. "Excuse me." Any longer in the company of such an arrogant man would not doubt bring out the side of her that she kept hidden; the real her, who lied and cheated through life to get what she wanted, who was indelicate, blunt, impatient and promiscuous and liked it; who no one understood.
As she went to pass him, she was surprised to find he halted her, blocking her route with his foot. He rose her eyes to her with a roll of the head, motioning with his glass. "We've got off on the wrong foot, haven't we?"
The question is low, not raised in tone; he wasn't really asking, but making a statement. She lowered her eyes to the floor, unable to look down on him in such a beautiful suit. Partially, the site of him below her gave her such a feeling power, arousal stoking so powerfully within her that she simply could not cope with. Mostly though, she did not want to blow her cover; she did not want this man to know her, to see her... At least not until she knew him better.
"But you do have very pretty legs; it would be remiss not to admire them."
Vera ground her jaw at his audacity as his gaze dropped to openly gaze over legs.
That and he simply made her fucking infuriated.
P. Lombard
He could not help it; he'd simply had to say it. He wanted to see that flash in her eyes. He wanted to see the real Miss Claythorne again.
"Mr. Lombard!" And there she was. He knew that tone. This was a woman on the edge...and how he wished she'd snap.
"You seem to be under the impression that I am a particular kind of woman."
In his mind, visions of her skin, silhouetted and bare, flashed through his mind's eye and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
"And I can assure you I am not." She was looking him in the eye now, standing above him with a gaze that glinted with fury and spoke straight to his groin. "I do not like to be looked at."
He met her eyes and did not falter. He did not even blink; as was his way when he was in pursuit of prey.
Like the cat, he was ever-patient when he knew what he wanted, unfaltering and quiet. "I get instincts about people," he murmured, enjoying the way she squirmed under his stare. She swallowed hard, the movement of her throat stirring his chest. "I get an instinct about you."
He lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper, knowing by the dilation of her pupils and the way her chest rose and hell that he already had her – hook, line and sinker. "I think you're pretending."
He saw the panic in her frame before he saw it in her eyes. Yes, little liar, he thought. I see you.
Marston interrupted them then with his usual, ridiculous pomp. Philip had disliked him before he even spoke a word, the way he sauntered before a roomful of strangers as though they should all just about fall to their knees before him. He despised such men and their entitlement. It made his fingers itch with murderous intent.
As Marston prattled on about the Corcoran, Philip felt his patience becoming dangerously frayed, mostly because the twat spoke to him as though they moved in the same circles, when they both knew full well he did not and had no intention of ever doing so. "Anyone who is anyone knows them." The boy was so incredibly up his own arsehole, thought Philip. Anyone who's anyone. Who even said such a thing? Philip was half tempted to rise to his feet and show the damned fool just how much of a someone he could be; someone to be feared, that is. (In fact, he'd been hired by the Corcoran for a hit or two, now he thought about it. What an image his petulant fool's face would make if he knew).
His jaw ticked as he watched the young man's mouth continue, regardless of the fact neither of the other souls in the room had contributed anything to the conversation.
As Marston asked for his drink, describing it 'pink as a virgin's blush' purely to instil a level of discomfort and a message of flirtation to Miss Claythorne, Philip was not sure why, but he really did not like that. He did not like the idea of other men making her squirm and fight her instincts – not when he could be doing so. He did not like the idea of other men objectifying her gender before her, implying sexual relations in front of her, because that meant they were most likely imagining her, nude and sinful, in their depraved minds... Something that Philip Lombard suddenly decided should be a privilege only he could enjoy.
He focused on the awful Englishman's face either way, though not out of interest or want to do so, but in order to prevent himself showing Miss Claythorne too much of his interest – which, in that dress, was considerably difficult.
"Are you a betting man, Lombard?"
The boy seemed so intent on making a point. Philip couldn't help but flick his eyes to Miss Claythorne, who was nursing a sherry in his peripheral vision, knowing she was just the type to wager a risk, underneath it all.
"Depends." If the bet involved Miss Claythorne...
He then made an ignorant comment about war, only for Philip to suddenly lose all hope and interest in the boy. It astounded him how those with such money and status could be so detached from the society they profit from so.
"So, how about it? The bet?"
He let his gaze linger back to Miss Claythorne then, enjoying the way she fidgeted and – barely – managed to keep from looking at him. He allowed his gaze to roam over her despite Marston's presence and watched her squeeze her thighs together beneath her dress – a move so slight he was not even sure she realised it. (The fact Marston could see his appreciation of Miss Claythorne made him feel territorial, like a tomcat staking his claim, which left him feeling high and powerful, as though he'd taken a hit of whatever powder Marston was so clearly high on.)
The blue silk clung to her in all the most agreeable of ways, the movement against her skin much more flattering than that ridiculous skirt she had worn on the train, which had seemed to hold her like a straight jacket. Granted, this dress bunched around her hips a little, but all that did was allow for an utterly tantalising display of her backside. It was a delightful dress, but something told him she was partial to cuts of cloth even more enticing than this... and that the body beneath could put even the finest silks to shame.
She had her own hand curled around her own middle, as though to hold herself together. He identified the feeling as the same he himself had felt watching her walk away on the train; that inward conflict to revert to complete animalistic mating rituals that almost, almost wins out. She turned her head, evidently hoping to candidly watch his face as he replied, but instead caught him looking right at her. Typically nonchalant as Miss Claythorne seemed desperate to be, she instantly turned her gaze away, but it was too late.
More cautious men would warn that Miss Claythorne did in fact despise his leering behaviour and his blatant intentions, and perhaps it was true...but as Philip considered Marston's words, he realised her attraction to him was his instinct, so of course it was right.
Little Miss Claythorne could lie and lie until the crows came home to roost to all the others on this island... but the odds of her doing so convincingly to Philip just feel from minuscule to absolute zero.
There was no point challenging the instinct of Philip Lombard, for you would always lose.
"The odds are too short." He directed the words at her, not the English fool who had actually asked, for the answer he gave was not answering that question.
It was answering the one that hung, massive and deathly silent, tangled in the fabric of his acquaintance with Miss Claythorne.
Marston left then, since neither Philip or Miss Claythorne were paying him any attention. The silence he left behind was stark as the delightfully stubborn woman before him still refused to shift her gaze, even now they were alone. Suddenly Philip felt the urge to do something he had done so very few times in his life, even if just for show: to apologise.
"Oh, alright, Miss Claythorne!" he drawled begrudgingly, tipping back his head to drain what was left of his liquour. "If it'll make you happy – I'm sorry for staring." Except I'm honestly and entirely not.
He was not sure why he thought that would be convincing, or exactly why even said it, but either way, it wasn't.
"Mr Lombard – I doubt you are ever sorry for anything."
With that punchline, she took her own cue to leave. He felt his internal sexual appetite sag with disappointment at the prospect, but at least her quitting the room meant he could watch her body in that dress as she did.
She was rejecting him.
Perhaps she deserved more respect than he had given her credit for. Women usually never saw through his ability to rid them of their clothing, never mind challenged him on it. Miss Claythorne, whether she liked it or not, imprinted herself into the canvas of Philip's life that day – her intrigue too great to be ignored.
He swallowed his frustration at her rejection, the burn of it unwelcome in his chest. "Smart girl," he called after her, inwardly scolding himself at the way his attempt to sound nonchalant came across so forced. With a deep breath, he retrieved a cigarette and poised it between his lips, feeling the familiar tick and tremor as his body anticipated the soothe of the smoke.
How intriguing... The little liar was perpetually tightly wound... He'd keep that in mind for future reference.
V. E. Claythorne
Throughout dinner, Vera also forgot of how her Mr. Lombard had set her blood boiling, instead enjoying civilised conversation with Judge Wargrave. It was a delightfully refreshing change, not to be looked at like a sitting duck for a while.
That being said, she had to force herself not to be distracted by the way Mr. Lombard tipped his glass and downed his wine in one, or by the way he smirked upon the Judge's mention of girls sharpening hockey sticks. (He evidently liked the idea of overexcitable schoolgirls – which did not surprise her in the slightest).
That is, until conversation turned to Soul Markings.
"It's most frightening, quite frankly, just how many Unmarked young girls there are walking around these days. Such sinful beings."
Vera barely contained her body's nature reaction upon Ms. Brent's words; a stiffen that had been conditioned into her after years of being laughed at and ridiculed. (On one occasion, even laughed at just prior to sex). It's hardly someone's fault if they're born without one, she wanted to say, but she knew that would make her own Marking status obvious. So, instead, she remained quiet and observed.
"It's a reflection on the youth of today, I'm sure of it. All quite too self-involved to deserve such destiny to be given to them," agreed the General with a typical stiff upper lip synonymous with the military. Vera shifted in her seat and picked at her food.
"I'm not sure it's quite as simple as that," she found herself saying, nonchalantly lifting her glass to sip on her wine. "I have come across many a girl with such an affliction in the class I teach and they seem neither self-involved nor impetuous."
Beside her, there Judge seemed deep in thought. "While I appreciate your point, Miss Claythorne, I cannot help but assume a correlation when near-all those I have seen hang have been Unmarked individuals."
Vera pursed her lips to keep from saying anything incriminating, the thought that the Judge might just be right – and therefore her mother, too, for that matter – making her feel a little bit ill.
"I myself always had the Mark of my dear late husband," Ms. Brent began again and Vera found she had to clench her hand into the fabric of her dress under the table. Her voice was always so blasé, as though her norm should be that of everyone.
"I, too," agreed the General. "My wife, that is."
"I've never quite discovered whom mine is supposed to signify," said the Doctor in a voice that Vera already knew was falsely nonchalant. She could think of only one thing worse than no Mark, and that was having one and never finding the person whose initials were permanent on your skin.
Most tellingly, though completely unsurprisingly, Mr. Lombard remained silent on the issue. As the likes of Marston rattled on about how he had yet to meet anyone without one – 'So, it must be a lower classes thing' – Vera found herself wondering whose name marked his skin, considering that whomever it was was incredibly unfortunate.
Mr. Lombard on the other hand... Well, the idea of another woman's named marked into his skin seemed to irk her. As such a realisation, Vera found herself staring wordlessly at her plate. She really did not like the idea of that... But, why? He wasn't a nice man. He was not even a polite man... So why on earth did she care?
After dinner, she stubbornly vacated and allowed the men to be left with their whiskey, their cigars and their stories. She despised such conventions, but despised women such as Ms. Brent more, who seemed to think that convention did anything other than hold an entire nation back from development and enlightenment.
"Are you Marked, Miss Claythorne?"
The question was hardly a surprise; she knew Ms. Brent had been dying to ask since she had remained relatively silent on the subject at dinner. Now, Vera was poised and ready in her response, the same lifelong lie she had learnt to tell since puberty slipping easily from her tongue.
"Yes – since thirteen, I believe." She sipped her coffee and offered very little elaboration. "I haven't met him yet."
"Ah yes, well, I would not worry about that at your age – at least not for another year or two."
Vera gave her a tight-lip smile to keep from giving a verbal snipe she would later regret. Count to ten, Vera.
In the moment of quiet that followed, static crackling and the whine of microphone began that nagged at Vera's ears... Then, a voice boomed throughout the house that would haunt her dreams for years to come.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Silence please! We have been charged with the following indictments..."