Never Go Gentle Into That Good Night
(Or, the one in which Isabel Vesper-Hollingsworth and Arthur Trent meet for the first time)
She enters Windmere Hall with some trepidation- her great-uncle had called her late last night and asked- no, summoned- her to his ancestral estate to discuss some Vesper business that was too risky to discuss over phone.
She was on holiday from Oxford and it's not like she had anything better to do, so she had acquiesced.
"Ah, Isabel," her great-uncle calls from the head of the table in the formal dining room. Windmere Hall was built originally in the 15th century, and therefore still has the unfortunate distinction of still looking like the set of some low-budget film about knights and dragons and princesses in dining room is no different- it's dark, gloomy, and has an inordinately long table in the middle, where her uncle normally sits like a lonely feudal lord.
But he isn't alone today.
On his immediate right sits a younger man who, even at a glance, looks wholly out of place in this room. For one thing he's quite tanned for someone in England, and for another, the second he sees her, he grins at her in an overly-familiar manner, enough to show off a set of pearly-white teeth. Isabel internally cringes.
American, she thinks, disgruntled.
Outwardly, she only pastes on a genial smile, striding to her uncle to greet him with the customary cheek-kisses, before looking expectantly between him and the man, who's staring at her with undisguised interest.
"Arthur," her uncles says to the other man, "may I introduce my late niece's daughter, Isabel Vesper-Hollingsworth. Isabel, my dear, this is Arthur Trent, a very promising recruit whom I am currently mentoring."
Isabel extends her hand for a perfunctory handshake, and he takes it.
"Arthur is to embark on his first solo mission for our cause," her uncle says significantly, his chest puffing out with more pride than the man in questions'.
And that's very good and all, Isabel irritably thinks, but what is the purpose of her summons?
So she asks sweetly, "and what can I do to assist, uncle?"
Arthur Trent's smile cannot get any more pronounced than it is at this point, but oddly enough, her uncle's demeanor suddenly shifts into something more awkward.
He moves a uncomfortably in his seat, unable to look her in the eye when he replies, "Erm, Arthur can tell you the details himself- I best be off. Good night!" He raises from his seat with little decorum or dignity, before practically running out of the room, leaving her alone with the ever-grinning American.
Coward.
"Hey, do you want to go to that little pub I saw on the way here?" Arthur asks her once her uncle has fled a significant distance. "No offense, but this place creeps me out. I can fill you in there."
Isabel looks at him, equal parts incredulous and considering.
"Fine."
The drive to the pub is bumpy (damn English backroads) and wet, and Isabel is actually glad to be in this nondescript, grimy pub where the average patron looks like a farmer.
They settle down at the bar and order, and then Isabel cuts right to the chase.
"Why was my uncle embarrassed to even tell me what your mission was?"
Arthur chuckles. "I guess he didn't want to sound creepy if he had to tell you that I might have to… uh-" he scratches the back of his neck, probably trying to figure out the most delicate way to put this, "... pretend to be romantically interested in a member of the Cahill family to get some information for the Vespers."
Isabel is not impressed. "So when my uncle said you were a promising recruit, he meant your chief talent is whoring yourself out for information?" She asks with a well-practiced sneer.
"Hey, that's not all I'm good for," he protests, "I'm also pretty good at other stuff."
Yes, she's aware- Arthur Trent, doctoral candidate at MIT, very good at math, and (apparently) very good at being charming if he has been selected for the very prestigious position of seducing a high-ranking member of the Cahill family for intel.
(Arthur had prattled on about a variety of different subjects, including little titbits about himself, during the drive into little village Windmere Hall is on the outskirts of, and this is everything she had gathered in those twenty minutes.)
"Who is your target anyway?" Isabel asks.
He replies without any hesitation. "Hope Cahill."
Well.
"Hope Cahill?" Isabel raises her brows with some amusement, when he registers as subtle mockery on her part.
"What?" He says self-consciously. "Do you know her or something?"
"Enough," she shrugs. In truth, everything she knows about the enigmatic Cahill heiress is from brief glimpses combined with second-hand information (mostly from various Cahill friends and Vikram), but she's always been good at reading people and understanding them, far more than they often want her to be.
"I've read her file," Arthur says flippantly, and gestures to the bartender for a refill, "she seems like an easy enough target."
He was an amateur, that couldn't be more clear in the way he had broken the first rule of espionage: never underestimate the enemy, and never overestimate yourself.
"Please," Isabel snorts, "what skilled seduction would you pull off? Boring her to tears with multivariable calculus?"
"Read my file, did you?" He winks at her roguishly, and Isabel feels the sudden urge to strangle this impudent American.
"My uncle must have mentioned you to me earlier in passing," she lies indifferently, "and I put two and two together."
Never underestimate the enemy- He has done it once again, except this time, he's underestimated her, and her ability to listen to people, even when they hardly listen to themselves.
"Where will you meet her, anyway?" Isabel asks.
"There's a bar she goes to a lot, based on the recon your uncle's people have been conducting," Arthur explains. " A lot of expats go there, so it won't be that hard to pass myself off as one of them."
"And then what?"
"I dunno… win her over with my smooth moves?" He jokes.
Isabel allows herself to huff out loud this time, so that he feels chastened enough to ask meekly, "what do you think I should do?"
That's more like it.
"First," Isabel says slowly, "she's probably a sucker for old movies and romance novels and all that-"
"How would you know that?" He asks, amazed.
It doesn't take a whole lot to amaze this man, Isabel thinks.
She decides to humor him with an explanation- this time. "She's the only daughter of an overbearing mother who, by all accounts, has sheltered her a great deal in terms of relationships. Girls like her always turn inwards and then to silly novels."
"You sound like you have some experience with that," he teases.
Isabel stiffens noticeably. "My mother," she practically spits out, "was as far from overbearing as one could get."
He looks at her with some curiosity, but much to her relief, he doesn't press any further about her sudden outburst.
(She dislikes that- the fact that she's technically indebted to him for this).
"I meant about liking romance novels," he instead says, barely missing a beat, allowing Isabel just enough time to gather her bearings.
"Right," she says. "Be charming without coming off as sleazy, attentive-"
"-like I am right now," he points out, and she scoffs.
"Not like you are right now, because right now, it is not working."
"But what would I do first- how would I approach her?" Arthur asks, perhaps a touch desperate, and Isabel wonders just how much help this man really needs in order to seduce a woman.
"Say something intelligent first- catch her attention- before going more personal with the compliments," Isabel advises.
He quips,"so I shouldn't open with telling he that she has a killer body?"
Ugh.
"Americans," Isabel pronounces, wrinkling her nose delicately, "are so crass."
He laughs- a booming sound that fills the pub with noise, and more than one patron looks up from their beer to see what all the fuss is about.
They must look quite strange together, Isabel realizes, him in jeans and a t-shirt, and her in Dior.
"So does she?" Isabel suddenly asks.
Arthur looks up from his drink. "Does she what?"
"Does she have a 'killer body'?" She repeats more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.
He smiles uncomfortably. "Well I wouldn't really know that, would I?"
"You can't pass judgement based on all those reconnaissance photographs you've apparently studied?"
Amateur.
"Or maybe I don't think it's right to," he shoots back, his cheeks rapidly reddening.
Well.
He's a gentleman.
She feels an uncomfortable twinge at that thought, because how rare are those? Sure, she's met a duke or two, several lords, and even a few princes and sheikhs in Oxford, but true gentlemen are hard to come by, and it's strange that she should find one in this plainspoken American mathematics student.
"Right," Isabel says slowly, "moving on."
"What's next?" Arthur asks.
"Strategic touching," Isabel says primly, and he promptly bursts out laughing.
"I- I'm sorry!" He says, doubling over. "It's just, when you say things like that-" a fresh wave of laughter overtakes him, "-you can't expect me to take you seriously!"
"And you clearly can't get your mind out of the gutter," she retorts, and he stops laughing immediately.
"Come on," he says indignantly, "you can't not mean that in somewhat of a sexual sense."
"But not blatantly… at least, not in the beginning," she says. "A lingering handshake, a brush against her arm, shoulders maybe-"
Suddenly, his warm hand envelops her own, and she looks up at him, slightly startled.
"Like this?" He asks, and Isabel is positive his voice has suddenly taken on a lower timbre, and his blue eyes gleam with something else that she can't quite place.
"Might as well practice," Isabel permits, telling herself that she won't allow this to go far anyway.
"She'll say something cute, or funny or whatever else," Isabel continues, "and look deeply into her eyes- yes, I suppose that works-"
He's looking at her just like she said he should, but it's different- her stomach coils tighter and she's almost sure it has nothing to do with the cheap beer-
-Suddenly, his other hand moves forward to tuck a loose tendril behind her ear, and Isabel inhales slightly, sharply.
"If you do anything more," she mutters, "I will not hesitate to break my bottle over your head."
His lips curl upwards.
"Come on," he murmurs, his heavy-lidded gaze landing on her lips, "don't you feel just a little tempted?"
"Not particularly."
To be fair, it's around 90% true.
"Why?"
Impudent, Isabel thinks, even as he lets go of her and she gathers her belongings to leave.
"Because," she says before walking out the door, and for the first time that night, Arthur sees her eyes glinting with something sharp and dangerous, "I'm not Hope Cahill, and never forget that."
This is, of course, just before Arthur leaves on a mission on behalf of the Vespers in order to seduce Hope Cahill for information on the Cahills, and somehow ends up smitten with her, and then eventually marry.
I figured this might be an amusing precursor to that fateful mission in Ankara.
A/N: Yes I know this was up in December, but I took the last month to edit this, as well as several other chapters in this fic.