Things were all so contrarywise, lately.

Huddled away in her plush corner of the Uptown pub, Lilliana was quite alone. Her dress carried a subdued palette of grey and lavender, effervescent taffeta and silk swathing her milky skin making her look like quite gloomy confection. A finger cake served at a wake, perhaps, if people ever did such absurd things. Thick scarlet waves pulled up into a bun and concealed by a lacey cover. A lace-swathed hand swirled the thunderhead violet wine in a crystal glass. The usually sugar sweet, too sweet woman looked like a fashion conscious dirge.

As if those details alone were not contrary enough, she was drinking. Just a smidge more than a good lady ought, or so she thought herself -- mind, she was only nursing her second glass. It was a sweet South Hessean pumblewine, a rare Amandou 2703. If she was going to relinquish propriety by skulking about in pubs drinking away her nerves, she was at least going to do it in high style.

Lilliana was leaving for Brunnhold on the morrow, and her delicate sensibilities were in quite a wreck. Little things like familial guilt and dread for little sisters gnawed at her. All she wanted for now was that artfully chilled bottle of wine and the one of many dust choked tomes on Anaxi law she huddled over at her table. Head bowed over a book, red lips bitten, a lock of hair twirled around a little finger -- the pose might have looked a bit like a schoolgirl, but Ana felt more like withered old lawyer.

Oh, she knew she must look absolutely bitter! She knew too well the laws of honey and vinegar, that you attracted more flies with sugar. But Ana wasn't looking to attract anything. Especially not insistently buzzing little flies.

For Benjamin Tulven Guess, things always seemed to work for him. He had a good business in a fine city, he had a certain amount of notoriety, and his fair share of fun. He would of course, if anyone asked, equate this to his amazing luck. He knew better though. For him to live the way he liked, Ben had to work, and work he did. He didn't sleep, barely ate, if he wasn't working at one project or another he was on the town, trying to find an interesting diversion from said work.

So it was with no small amount of hope, and a touch of curiosity that he walked into the Paper Tiger, and saw a beautiful woman nursing a dark glass of wine, intently poring over a rather thick book.

Many questions could have went through the young architect's head. "What is a lawyer doing researching a case at the Paper Tiger?" "What would entail her buying such a vintage from Hesse?" "She looks troubled, I wonder why she's alone here."

Then again, Ben's mind rarely housed questions, and even rarer when it came to the subject of women, especially one so soft and sweet as this lady looked. He was no longer Andin Ountahi, but Ben still maintained a very Hessean ideal of beauty. Which is to say, curves were a very, very good thing. Nonetheless, there were rules to such engagements. One could not act a cur, nor should he overly intrude.

Walking up to the laced lady, he took a seat beside hers and looked at the glass she was nursing. "Pardon me, madame, but I do believe that is a pumblewine from one of the southern Hessean vineyards, and from an exceedingly good year, if what I can catch of its bouquet is any judge." He allowed himself a small grin at the woman as he continued. "While I do not drink, it has me rather interested. Perhaps you would be so kind as to allow me a sip to assuage my curiosity? In return for paying for the bottle?"

Ana couldn't hold back the faintest of gasps at this sudden appearance of the gentleman beside her. Her little gloved hand fluttered up to whipped peaks of her cravat.

"Oh, mercy me. You startle me so, sir!"

She pursed her lips curiously, squinting at the strange gentleman who had so firmly taken up roost beside her. Dark skin, thick blonde hair. Some foreign Hessean thing, then. That would explain the undue forwardness. Ana's eyes were demurely downcast, speaking more to the table moreso than the man himself.

"Why...yes," she ventured politely -- not too polite, mind. Not inviting the attention, but not banishing any thoughts of further interaction either. It was a slippery tightrope to walk, but it was an art Ana had worked quite studiously to refine. "Do help yourself, good sir. And what, might I do be so probing as to inquire, coaxed such attention?" A serious line creased her brow for a moment, but it dissipated with the slow blossom of a smile.

"I daresay, sir, are you a sommelier?"

Ben dipped his head when he was made aware of how startling his introduction was. "I must apologize then, it was not at all my intention to distress you."

The smile returned when he was asked if he was a sommelier. Behind his black glass spectacles, he rolled his eyes. "I'm afraid not at all, madame. As it is, I am Benjamin Tulven Guess, an architect of all things!" he took up the glass and swirled it about. "In all honesty, I'm not at all sure what caused me to ask, but I am off work, and I am happy indeed you would allow me to indulge in such frivolities as a passing wondering of your wine." The beautiful woman drinking said glass may have had something to do with it though, his mind said. Ben happily agreed with his mind as he took a sip.

'A gentleman must be able to speak eloquently and knowledgeably in a number of subject, not only on his occupation and interests. Such subjects include wine, sport, interesting news both local and national, and some magic theory.' This was from Ben's most thumbed through book, "Ethics, Etiquette, and Good Behavior of the Modern Gentleman". Ben wasn't at all an authority at wine, but a diligent work ethic and adherence to his code of gentlemanship meant that he had over his time in Vienda amassed a mighty knowledge on the identification and classification of wines.

"Hmmm, excellent bouquet as I said," strong bouquet means florid pumbleberries, he could think of only three major vineyards in Southern Hesse that would have grown such fruit. "Hmm, quite sweet, and a bit heavy. Certainly an old vintage." Hmm, sweet, not sandy soil then... he had knocked one of the vineyards out because the soil was more suited to the making of dryer vintages, so the choice down to two vineyards in southern Hesse that could have made such a wine. Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out a way to figure out which it would be, and decided to leave it in the hands of his excellent luck. "Hmmm, I would have to say this is a... 2703... Minkado, isn't it? Well I shall find out as soon as the bottle arrives!" He motioned to the bartender that he would be taking up the glass as well as the bottle, a perfectly natural motion for him. While not a drinker himself, Benjamin Tulven Guess was a natural drink buyer. "And what, might I do be so probing as to inquire, is your name, madame?"

And as the Hessean gentleman had summoned it by magic, just then the bottle did arrive. Svelte and elegantly curved, the glass blowers commissioned to craft the Amandou family’s bottles were clearly worth every concord. The deep purple wine inside was rendered nearly black in The Paper Tiger’s low light.

Ana dipped her head, a faint smile gracing her lips. “I am Miss Lilliana Steerpike,” she murmured, peeking at him from behind the short veil of black lace stitched into her pillbox hat. “And your title, good sir?” All of this demure playacting could very well be genuine this time around. For once, Ana did feel almost as vulnerable as she put on to be. She was not unfamiliar with the gracious accosting of gentlemen, but she was unfamiliar with how to handle them in a rare of moment of emotional duress. That ruby-red smile didn’t whip across her lips half as quick or sincere as it usually did.

Little gloved fingers slid over the glass face of the bottle, tracing the faded letters stamped into the wreathed parchment. “Ah, but here you are mistaken, sir...” she said, the faintest edges of polite teasing hemming her voice. The server girl had left another slim crystal glass in wake, but Ana made no move to fill it. Instead, she placed the bottle primly back on the table alongside her still open tome. It was not a lady’s place to go fussing with bottle corks. It was all far too ungainly a business.

“Why, sir,” she said, peering up into his eyes – well, his reflective black glasses, “what curious spectacles those are.”