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 Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 9:25 pm
The vaulted ceilings and extravagant decor were all things that Jordun was accustomed to seeing; what he had not entirely prepared himself for was the bustle of party-goers crowded before him, all bedecked in elaborate gowns and heavy jewelry and perfectly tailored suits. It was to Jordun a veritable crush of people, all here to attend the party of Duke Something-or-other, and for no real apparent reason other than that it was a party. The small and sleepy town of Wellisbury where Jordun resided with his father certainly did not provide entertainment on such a grand level.
Then again, that was probably the reason he had been sent back to Palisade in the first place. His father had spirited him away to their estate in Wellisbury five long years ago to prevent him from publicly shaming the family with his lack of social graces, but now Oban Kinross seemed to have changed his mind. If anything, the lord had faith in his elder son's ability to teach the younger to act with some semblance of nobility.
"Well... what now?" Jordun found his question came almost as a whisper as he and Andrus swept through the vast doors into the grand ballroom.
"Now, you mingle," Andrus answered, amusement bringing a laugh to his voice as he cast a sideways glance at his younger brother. "Relations will not cultivate themselves while you cling to me like a burr, dear brother. Go find somebody to talk to." And with that, Andrus melted into the crowd, much to the delight of the young lady who managed to catch his arm and begin a conversation.
Jordun watched and within moments lost track of his older brother. He bit his lip and cast an almost furtive glance around the room, fighting off the nagging intimidation he felt from the sea of unfamiliar faces. Mingle, yes. That was the game plan.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:57 am
Paul would, perhaps, be an immediate choice. Partly this was because he'd had enough drinks to make his smile spread just a little too wide, to make his eyes too bright, to make him talk [and maybe flirt, just a bit] with everyone and anyone around him. Partly it was because he just stood out, wearing colors a little too bold for most men, just dancing the line between trendy and risque.
At this very moment, he was at food again, one of the delicate crystal glasses perched uncertainly on the edge of the table as he poked around for something sweet. His hair tumbled down into his eyes and, at any second, that glass could slip out of his sight and off the table to smash on the ground. Paul seemed entirely unaware.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:17 am
The refreshment table was, indeed, Jordun's first instinct, if for no other reason than that going to get himself a drink would stave off the need to mingle for a few moments and give him some time to steel himself for what he assumed would be a stilted, awkward conversation with one stranger or another. And all of them highborn lords and ladies who might very well frown upon his relative lack of social graces... but it wasn't his fault entirely that he was unsure how to approach them and what would or would not be proper.
Upon reaching the table, his attention was immediately taken by one man's bright outfit - a little too bright, perhaps? Certainly, in comparison to the clothes he had seen Andrus wear... then again, his brother was not given to extravagance when it came to style, and Jordun himself was a poor standard to measure against; his fashion sense was next to none.
Still, he found himself watching curiously and wondering if perhaps this would be the right man to approach for conversation. You have to begin somewhere... Jordun anxiously pushed hair out of his face - suppose the bright man completely rejected his attempts at conversation? - and approached.
"I hate to interrupt, my lord," he said, managing somehow to keep the stutter that sometimes graced his speech in situations of high anxiety out of his voice. "I just... thought I ought to rescue this before it smashed." He grabbed the glass and lifted it as if to lend proof to his words, managed a smile (why did smiling perfectly seem to come with such ease to Andrus? Was it simply practice, or was there some sort of genetic component to it all?) and placed the glass back onto the table, well away from the edge.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:47 pm
He grabbed that glass just in time -- because at the sound of the voice, Paul pivoted, a small pastry in hand, and his hand went right through where it had been settled. Without Jordun's aid, it would have at least been spilled over the carpet. At worst, shattered to a hundred pieces. And Paul still clueless.
He blinked at it, and then flashed a bit of a grin, surprised perhaps. "Oh, they'd never forgive me, I already broke one tonight..."
He was likely surprisingly casual, easy-going, reaching out to take the glass back from Jordun and toss away its contents before setting it -- more carefully this time -- toward the center of the table. His fingers were sticky, and he hesitated before not giving over that hand. "Sorry, do I know you?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 5:16 am
He is as regular a man as the rest of them, Jordun told himself mentally, though perhaps "the rest of them" was not the best standard for normalcy. He was surrounded by the rich and the noble, after all. Still, the thought helped and Jordun only sort of wished he had pen and paper on hand to convey his thoughts; he was always vastly more eloquent on paper than he was in speech.
"They wouldn't hold it against you for long," he told the man. "If you broke enough of them, you would only give them an excuse to buy more pleasing ones." Jordun much preferred the subtle, curved types of glasses that were almost flower-like in their design and grace. These ones were angular and hard, and the thick glass walls... He stopped himself. Now was not the right time to be nitpicking.
Jordun reached to shake the offered hand, someone observant enough might have noticed the faint ink and paint stains from yesterday's inspire painting session that would take another day or two to scrub completely clean. "I would not imagine you do," he admitted. Absent as he had been from Palisade for the last years, few would remember face, though perhaps some one still remember his name from the rumors that had gone around when he and his father disappeared that day. "Jordun Kinross. I live on my father's estate in the south, though you may know my brother Andrus. He... frequents these parties, if I've heard correctly."
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Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:04 pm
'Observant' wasn't usually a word that people used in combination with Paul's name -- but that was because they just didn't know him that well. They expected him to notice things that simply didn't matter to him, like numbers, like money, like blown out lights and broken steps and problems around the home. Things Paul pointedly ignored, things he hired people to take care of for him.
This was different, though. This was something that immediately caught his attention, when he took Jordun's hands. His own palm was baby-soft and pale, long-fingered nails perfectly manicured, and it likely made Jordun's look scruffy in comparison -- but that didn't matter. He took the hand and turned it over, spreading Jordun's fingers for him, expression going immediately bright.
"Do you write, or do you paint?" Either way, it was something that made Paul's eyes greener, excited as he looked up to Jordun's face. The rest didn't matter. He forgot to introduce himself.
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Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:27 pm
Even as their hands met, Jordun realized half in horror that it was the wrong hand! This was the hand that held brush and pen and looked mildly colored most days, the hand that he pointedly did not use to shake hands - and for a very good reason. Even when his hands had been scrubbed free of paint and ink, there was usually at least one nail or other slightly rimmed with color that was (so said his father) completely unacceptable in social situations.
He felt blood rushing to his neck at the same time as he felt his hand being turned over, and mentally prepared himself for the judgment that seemed poised to follow. A comment, perhaps? A look? He could almost hear his father's disapproving voice roaring in his year, berating him for yet another failure.
But then...
Jordun didn't realize he had been avoiding the other man's gaze until he brought his own snapping back to curious attention. "I..." The shock had knocked the words from him, though he had never been eloquent to begin with. What was this lord doing, in any case, that he was standing here noticing Jordun's embarrassingly unkempt hands instead of talking up one of the myriad other people in the room?! But it occurred to him that the conversation had been his idea, and this... situation was all his own doing. "Both, a little, I mean, I dabble, or, experiment, or..." He trailed off again, thinking he ought to have stopped at "both."
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 1:17 pm
"Me too." It came out sudden, thoughtless, pleased, his eyes wide and earnest -- and yes, maybe a bit touched with alcohol, something that put his expression just a bit out of focus. Jordun's father probably would have berated him for drinking as much as Paul had drunk, too, and for dressing the way he dressed, and for the familiar manner with which he held onto that hand...
"Just the writing. A bit of poetry. Though, it's been on hold recently, what with all the work we're..." All at once, he blinked, realize that he'd forgotten to offer up his own name. And carefully, deliberately, he curled his fingers back around Jordun's hand to shake it properly. "Oh. Paul Blair."
He didn't add his title to the mix.
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 3:11 pm
He was acutely aware of the hand clasped in hands - Paul's hands, as it were - and it took all of his willpower not to let his imagination run wild and convince him that the entire room had somehow become aware of it too and was now staring intently at the two of them. It was not an easy task, and knowing that his inner dreamer had the tendency to grossly exaggerate details did little to settle him.
So Paul's admission to writing came as doubly surprising for Jordun, whose concentration was suddenly and intently refocused onto the conversation at hand by those two simple words. Me too. Once again, his will came under great duress as he forced himself not to gape in awe at the revelation. Granted, writing, as a literary activity, was hardly as frowned upon as painting and art but Jordun had met few enough writers that it was enough to throw him off. Not that he hadn't already been put a little off kilter by this boldly dressed and obviously quite colorful nobleman.
"Pleased to meet... Pleasure." Hand still clasped in hand, he suddenly thought. Albeit, in a handshake, but it made him no less conscious of that fact and his eyes went from Paul's face to his attire to the dance floor, landing everywhere but on those hands of theirs.
He cleared his throat. "If I may, what exactly- What I mean is, why? I mean, what put it on hold?" Jordun did not feel impressive in the slightest. "The poetry, I mean."
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Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 9:53 am
"Oh, well." Paul let go at last, with one last brush of fingers over Jordun's palm: thoughtless, something he'd probably done a hundred times, especially when in his cups, His tone was absent, casual, but maybe a bit too much so, now. He was not very good at soliciting money, and thus far it had mostly been goodwill for his father funding the repairs.
"A combination of things. The worst of which being the...the renovations to the Woodhaven estate." It sounded better than 'repairs'. Sounded better than 'reconstruction'. Sounded better than 'buying back.' If Jordun asked around, these were the words less careful people would use.
"It goes well, if slowly, you know how these projects are. The more money you pour in, the more people seem inclined to hurry..."
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Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 5:47 pm
Jordun felt his core stiffen unexpectedly at the brush, a touch so natural and yet... so not that it left him even more flustered than he had been just a moment before. No amount of telling himself to calm down would stop the flush from creeping up his neck and to his ears, so he focused instead on the conversation, on words. He was already anxious, and now with this sudden, inexplicable breathlessness that gripped him, he could feel that old stutter threatening to make its return. But it was important that they come out as clear as he could possibly make them; first impressions mattered, after all.
"Ah, renovations," he managed to say, though part of him was still wondering about that soft touch of fingers to his palm. Wine, he insisted mentally to himself. Wine is alcoholic. "I have... have only ever heard stories, but... must be difficult, yes."
What he heard next helped calm him - a little. The combination of "renovations" and "money" caught his attention and through slightly narrowed eyes, he studied his companion, trying to gauge Paul's angle. If it was a money issue... well, then Jordun thought he need not worry. His brother had learn every trick in the book when it came to dealing with people - Andrus knew even more than their father did at this point - and he liked to tell Jordun that anyone with a problem that could be solved with money was hardly a problem at all. Relations, according to Andrus, were built on mutual favors and when it came to money, the Kinrosses had plenty of favors to lend.
"Wel- ... too slowly, did you say?" Jordun wondered if his attempt at being subtle would be... well, too subtle. That would hardly have surprised him.
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Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 11:42 am
Paul's reply was a shrug, smooth, slow, eloquent. Likely, it was meant to be relaxed, laid back. Unconcerned. It failed utterly at that, and instead conveyed false indifference, the true hunger shine through, whether he wanted it or not.
"Well. I'm not the best with money, it's not the sort of thing...you know." And maybe Jordun did. Andrus was perhaps good with money, but most of their class had a tendency to hemorrhage it, if not kept in check. Paul, himself, had a reputation for it. A reputation that became a self-fulfilling prophecy...
"Sometimes, I think I'm being duped by my contractors. Who am I to say if their charges are reasonable...?" And, judging from that flighty expression and his utter cluelessness, they probably were.
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2013 5:42 pm
"Oh, of course. Money. It is... challenging, certainly." Living in Wellisbury didn't afford Jordun too many opportunities to spend recklessly, but he didn't doubt that the chances were plenty in Palisade. As a man who utterly lacked the ability to differentiate between potential fraud and genuine cause, he was as likely to simply throw money at con men as he was to spend it on something real.
And he had heard plenty of his grandfather's spending habits.
Jordun cleared his throat, wondering if and when he was going to gather himself and quit sounding completely uneducated. He felt a blithering fool next to Paul's much more refined and eloquent speech. "Ah. I wish I could claim to know some about contractors," he managed to say. Unfortunately he had not been near a construction site in his life, much less had dealings with any sort of contractor.
"But if... well, I would be happy to provide a fellow lord some... monetary assistance, if ever you need it."
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Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 4:42 pm
"Oh, you don't say?" The way Paul's expression lit up was totally genuine: a hundred percent. Surely, beneath his tone, there had been an edge of hinting. He already had collected a considerable number of backers, and that couldn't merely be an accident. Blind fumbling didn't generally yield results. And yet. There was no wicked satisfaction or smug pride. Just good cheer.
"Perhaps you should lay eyes on the project first. Bit cold in Woodhaven this time of the year, but it does make for a good bit of quiet." He offered a smile: all teeth, bright and easy. "Samael likes it."
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 1:02 am
"We Kinrosses try to be good neighbors," Jordun said with a small nod. "If at all possible we- that is, I would be happy to assist." It was good to be generous and better if it was personal, after all.
"I am always eager for a good bit of quiet," he answered, doing his best not to sound overly eager. Palisade was a lovely city, but he had come to the conclusion that the countryside was far more peaceful and harmonious. It provided better inspiration. "It has been many years since I lived permanently in Palisade. I'm afraid I've grown quite used to the quite."
And quite missed it too, especially when he found himself in a bustle like this party. He felt a little like a fish out of water, flapping unsuccessfully about in the grand upper-class world of Sunderland's capital. No wonder his father had taken him to Wellisbury all those years ago.
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