Gin Mills and the Goods

Lady A

"Ravan, that's her!" Hort tugs on his friends arm. "She's there!"

"Mystery true love?" asks Ravan, peering over his shoulder at the woman sat, resplendent in her furs. "She looks..."

"Swell?"

"I was gonna say upstage, actually." Mutters Ravan.

Looking at her disinterested, aloof face, her eyes that pass over everyone as if they're not even there, there's a niggling doubt at the back of Hort's mind that suggests that maybe, just maybe, Ravan might be right. But he's drunk and she's beautiful and he can't bring himself to consider it.

"Eh, she hasn't met me yet."

Ravan snorts. Hort frowns.

"Oh, yeah! You're, what? A butcher's boy? Bull, she won't even look at you, I'm tellin' ya."

"Wanna bet?" challenges Hort.

"Nah." Ravan finishes his drink, uninterested. Hort grabs his sleeve.

"No, come on-"

Unfortunately for them, whilst Hort and Ravan bicker, someone else enters the booth with Hort's mystery love, someone who both young men completely fail to notice, even when Ravan bets Hort another cocktail. Even when Hort straightens his jacket, smiles, stands up, and strides over.

As it happens, he doesn't notice at all, until he emerges from the crowd on the other side, just opposite said booth.

His face crumples.

Because the eyes currently staring back at him from the booth are not the striking green that Hort had been so taken with, despite his brief look at them, but a deep, almost black, brown.

And they are very familiar.

Oh, this is just great.

Hort stares at Nicola, Nicola who shouldn't even be here, because she ran Gavaldon, Nicola who he broke up with because he was enamoured with- with-

Hort doesn't stop himself fast enough, and Nicola isn't stupid- in fact, she's always been very clever.

So when Hort glances at the blonde girl, and Nicola follows his gaze, and the blonde girl looks up and Hort smooths his hair-

He what-?

Shiiiiit.

He's put his foot in it now.

Nicola puts two and two together, and stands up, shocked face melding into something much more vicious. Hort takes a step back- and slams right into a massive man twice his size, who spills his drink down a woman's front. She shrieks, he swears, and both of them wheel to face Hort, who is far too drunk and far too confused to talk properly, let alone apologise in a satisfactory manner. Hort backs away again, mumbling something he hopes sounds like an apology-

And backs right back into Nicola, but even as he does so, he notices how his mystery woman has already waved for a replacement for the man's drink and a shawl for the woman, how astute-