Cordelia tried her hardest not to trip over the wobbly and crooked cobblestones that lined the streets of London. A hard breeze had pulled her hair from its originally neat bun, and her hands were aching and calloused from carrying her heavy luggage through the twisted roads that surrounded her mother's townhouse.
On the train, Charles had told her the address of Lord Elderwood's house in town. Now, however, with her brain so very crowded with an overload of thoughts and feelings, she was struggling to remember it. So optimistic about how her first meeting with her mother would go, she had turned away the cab, but now she wished that she hadn't.
The wind was blowing in large, dark clouds, and she could feel that infamous London drizzle begin to fall on her thin coat. She remembered Charles saying that he was planning on staying in a pub not too far from her for a little while-was there a chance he was still there? If he was, what was it called? The Griffin? The Lion?
The Lion's Head.
A woman pushing a pram was hurrying past her, and though she was certain she looked a wreck, she reached out and called to her. "Excuse me, miss. Can you please direct me to the Lionshead pub?" The woman, visibly put off by Cordelia's interruption and appearance, quickly hissed directions at her, and walked away at an even faster pace than she was walking before.
As the pub's name would suggest, an ornate painting of the head of a lion hung from the outside windows, and Cordelia's heart began to flutter. She tried to peer through the tinted windows for any sign that Charles was still inside, but seeing none, she walked right in.
The Lion's Head Public House was most definitely not a woman's place, which was apparent to Cordelia from the second she entered. All around her, male students crowded around manuscripts, darts were flying overhead, and alma maters were being mumbled by drunken lips. It was hard for her to picture Charles anywhere near a place like this, as much of an academic as he is.
As little interest that she had in peering further into the Lion's Head's depths, Charles was nowhere in sight. Moving through the stumbling young crowds, Cordelia received her fair share of looks and glares. "Charles?" she had begun to shout, even condescending to shout out "Charlie?" Still, she received no reply and no visual on her friend.
Her search was halted when a main stumbled from one of the high tables and stepped in front of Cordelia. "I can be your Charlie, miss," he said, slurring his words. Cordelia took a step back, bumping into the belly of another student.
"No, I'll be yer Charlie madam," he said, ending his sentence with a belch. Cordelia tried her hardest to summon the etiquette lessons that had instilled into her any semblance of manners that she possessed.
"You gentlemen are both very kind, but I'm looking for a very erm...specific Charlie," she said, trying her best to wedge her way past the pair. A crowd was forming, and lots of the men around her were laughing. "Have any of you seen a Lord Charles Heyworth? He told me he'd be around here somewhere," she said, quickly adding "he's expecting me" in a voice bolder than she felt when it seemed no one was listening to her.
The men were moving closer to her, and she gulped when she realized there were no friendly faces to be seen in the room. She was roughly bumped from her side by a group of men shoving themselves to get closer to her, and her suitcase fell from her hand onto the floor, its contents spilling out. Cordelia grimaced as she tried not to imagine the delicate clothes being stomped into the sticky floor of the pub. "Look at these!" One man exclaimed, picking up her brassiere, "I imagine you look a picture wearing just this," he joked, earning a chuckle from his friends.
A tear fell down Cordelia's cheek and she tried her best to smudge it away before any of the men saw, but it was too late. "Aw love, are you crying?" He asked, feigning a sympathetic tone and pout in her face.
"Give that back," she said, as strongly as she could. She surprised herself with how weak she sounded. "Please," she added, feeling completely hopeless. The clothes in her suitcase were thrown around, and the only thing she could be grateful for was that they hadn't found her jewelry case yet. Her pleas were met only with laughs from the men around her, and she was trying desperately to collect her belongings from them as best she could.
The sooner she could get out of the pub and find Charles, the better, she thought, though that was easier said than done. She was becoming flustered, and the more aggravated and distressed she appeared to these men around her, the more cheerful and antagonizing they became. She began to feel dizzy from running around the crowd in circles, and the already warm pub became sweltering as she began to feel there was no air. Though Cordelia considered herself a tough person, she felt helpless, like when Malcolm had attacked her on the veranda.
She had never fainted before, but she could feel a light-headedness coming on, and apparently, the men did too, for one of them added: "look at that, she's gonna faint!" She began to sway, and before she closed her eyes, she saw a familiar face step out from behind the door to the restroom, running in her direction.
"Gentlemen," the face seemed to shout, "I'll have you leave my companion alone at once," he hissed, with more authority than Cordelia had ever heard him speak with before. Charles' warm, brown eyes were the last thing she saw.
________________________________________________________________________________
"Cordelia? Cordelia?" Her face was against something hard and cold, and when she went to pick her head up off of it, her cheek was slightly stuck to the surface. She winced as she sat up, and blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Upon seeing her waking up, Charles' tense brow softened, and he greeted her with a smile. "Oh thank goodness," he said, removing the cool rag he had apparently been holding to her brow, setting it on the table she had just been passed out against.
"What happened?" She mumbled, looking around. The bar was a lot emptier now, and opposed to before, the men around them were quietly sipping their drinks, paying them no mind.
"You fainted, Cordelia, on the...floor," he said, looking to the grimy floor with a scowl.
"Wait, where's my luggage?" She said, sitting up straight and looking around for her clothes and suitcase frantically.
"Relax, relax," he said, placing a hand over hers. She tried to ignore the tingling feeling that crept up her arm when he did so. "I collected your clothes that these men had taken out and put them back in your case, though I'm afraid as you so aptly noticed earlier, my folding skills aren't entirely up to par," he said with a smile. This earned a giggle from Cordelia and a nod of thank you for what he did.
"Thank you for taking care of me, I didn't mean for any of this to happen," she said, shaking her head with dismay as she looked around at where they were.
"Here, have some water," he said, moving a clear glass towards her. She put out her hand and shoved the water away.
"What do you have that's stronger?" She questioned, earning a cocked eyebrow from Charles.
He returned with two glasses of scotch, and set hers down in front of her. She went in to take a sip, but he held up a finger. "Before you drink, I want to know why you're here. Why did you come looking for me? What happened with your mother?" He asked, concern all over his face.
"If I'm going to tell you," she started, "we drink first."