A.N. Thanks as always to Foxfire for the beta – Don't know what I would do without you!  A special thanks to Vix and Angela over at LXG Fanfic for the quick responses when I sent out a distress call.  It is amazing how quickly details fade from the memory!

Chapter 7  - Fate, or Something Very Like

It would seem, to a less discerning mind, that the woman was doomed.  But she always a sly one; formidable in her apparent vulnerability.  I was reminded of it anew that first evening with the 'Gentlemen', amid the ruin of my library.  My half-listening, covering my surreptitious study of the beauty perching on the arm of my chair, was abruptly halted as the conversation of M's little band gathered before me turned to what I could contribute to their little group.  I am sure Nemo meant the question sarcastically and therefore shouldn't have been surprised at my terse but honest answer of "Experience".  Oh I would give anything to have captured the look that flitted across Mina's face.  It was mentioned that Alan and I had met before, at Eton.  Mina suggested a tableau of a schoolboy gazing in awe at the hero returning from his adventures.  Mr. Quartermain conceded this was not far off, only he was the schoolboy in question.  For a moment, the mask Mina always hid behind slipped and she wore such a look of discomfiture.  A hundred questions must have rushed through her mind, all possible variations of 'How?' and 'What?', but a breath later she had quelled it all into a look of polite inquiry.  She was never more alluring than in those rare moments of confronting something utterly unexpected. 

Was it that ephemeral vulnerability that first lured me?  Or perhaps it was only seductive in its scarcity?  In remembering what was to follow such a circuitous beginning, mad painters and bloodhounds scouring the city, it is almost miraculous our story happened at all.  I want to attribute it all to Fate or something very like it, some grand force of destiny.  Then again, perhaps Emerson is right – that fate is a name, a superstitious nomenclature, for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought (1), but I have to believe, I want to believe that there were forces larger than ourselves that drew us together for some purpose. 

Thinking back on it, we might have gone on like that forever, I the gentlemen watching the blood sport with a measure of disinterest from atop a mighty hunter, while my hounds nipped at her heels.  After nearly two months of chase, I was no closer to gaining any concrete lead.  With March well under way, I received unexpected news that jolted me out of my languid surveillance.   Edmund had come to them so physically weakened that his doctors despaired of preserving his body long enough to restore his mind.  Suspecting some lingering poisonous intoxicant, they bled him heavily but this course of treatment seemed only to weaken him further.  It was suspected that he had tried to do himself harm in those weeks he was alone with his delusion for he had deep lacerations and punctures on his throat and chest.  Soothing poultices and salves did nothing and, as he weakened these wounds reopened, festering and paining him greatly.  After much struggling to save him, animus and corpus, he slipped into a sleep from which he never awoke.  Upon receiving word of his death, I determined this 'merry chase' would end; I would have answers or, at least, the satisfaction of spilling some blood.

I waited until well after nightfall and drove the streets she was known to haunt.  My resolve did not waver when I was unsuccessful that first night and the diligence paid off the fourth night.  There, in a dark corner, deep in bowels of the East End, amid all its fetid vileness, was 'Thalia', charms on display, huddled under a dim gas lamp with a few true street women.  I opened the carriage window and called to her.

"You there, Thalia…"

Her eyes turned in my direction and she began slowly edging back into the shadows.  Her apparent aversion to attracting undue attention was her undoing.  I was out of the coach, pushing roughly through the crowd of bleating whores, falling over themselves in their attempt to secure a bit of the wealth my apparel and transport bespoke, and had a firm grip on her arm before she could vanish, as she had proven so adept at.

"Oh no you don't." I scolded tightening my hold.  "A word with you, Mademoiselle?"

Her eyes flashed and she tugged her elbow free.  " 'ey now, Lemme be.  You ain't me ponce.(2)"

"You gots no eyes, do you?" one of the crowd shrieked. " 'e's a real gent – look at 'em togs.  Lottie 'ere'll show 'im a nice time, if you're bung-eyed noddle."

Ignoring the offer, as tempting as it wasn't, I addressed her again. 

"Don't insult my intelligence with more of that Cockney cant (3).  Your accent is abysmal and even that – inventive - couture doesn't mask your breeding.  You're no star gazer (4), now are you?" I reclaimed her arm and steered her, despite her resistance, towards the carriage. 

"Why don't we have a little chat; about well-to-do Lords? And commissioned paintings?"  Her face remained a blank mask of incomprehension.  Speaking softly into her ear, I continued.  "And about your clandestine turn as Edmund's own dear lamia."

I felt her stiffen for a moment and a paler, much stiller woman alighted the steps of my coach, disappearing within.  Wishing the now sulking ladies adieu with a bow, I bid my man to drive on and prepared to confront my captive.  I doubt either of us suspected at that moment that something momentous was about to occur, that a single conversation was about to change everything.

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(1) The exact quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Conduct of Life".  "Fate, then, is the name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are yet unpenetrated." 

(2) Translations for the 19th century slang impaired (i.e. the vast majority of us):  A ponce is a pimp.  Togs are clothes.  Bung-eyed refers to being intoxicated and someone who is noddle is stupid.

(3) Dorian is actually confusing two different dialects of slang spoken by the lowest classes of London society.

(4) A particularly picturesque moniker for prostitutes referencing, one assumes, the vista a talented girl would most frequently see.