The Amazing Adventures of Vane and Troy

[osprey_archer]

I have to leave Lily Dale today, and feel rather as though I am being pushed out of paradise. It is so quiet here! So quiet – and so many flowers – and I’ve gotten such a lot of work done – 7,000 words on a new novel!

Which is perhaps too similar to The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball in some ways, by the by, but perhaps that one was not quite ready for prime time yet, poor thing.

But there are no rooms at the inn, so I must be moving on. I’m heading up toward Oneida, I think. We shall see if I actually make it all the way to my stated destination this time…

***

Oh, and also – I hope you’re happy, you monsters:

“Lord Peter Wimsey was one of your schoolfriends?” Troy asked.

“A schoolmate, at least,” Alleyn said, after a slight hesitation. “We investigated a case together at school.”

Under other circumstances, Troy might have laughed, or pressed for details. But now she simply smoothed the letter in her hand and frowned down at it again. “And now he wants me to paint his wife, the suspected murderess.”

“Acquitted,” Alleyn reminded her. “Not all suspects are guilty, you know.”

“Of course,” Troy said. Her own days as a murder suspect rose in her mind. She pushed them ruthlessly back. “But no one seems to have impressed this on the press. A suspected murderess painting a suspected murderess – soon I will be painting nothing but pretty murderesses for their rich foolish fans. So many criminals have the most boring faces.”

As she spoke, a newspaper photograph from the Vane case floated up in her mind. The girl had looked almost ugly, with a sullen mouth and a strong, dark brow.

It was the brow that made Troy pause now. There might be something in that. One could not tell from a newspaper photograph.

“I suppose,” she acquiesced, “it will do no harm to meet her.”

Comments

[evelyn_b]

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, but hardly anyone suspects Troy of murder anymore! So it would only be a little bit sensationalistic!

“A schoolmate, at least,” Alleyn said, after a slight hesitation. “We investigated a case together at school.”

<3

[osprey_archer]

Troy can only hope that the press isn't having a slow day when news of this portrait gets out! Otherwise all that old scandal will doubtless be revived.

[evelyn_b]

Poor Troy was just trying to help promising young artists! At least she can tell the press-hounds she was never actually charged with anything!

But it's going to be a nuisance all around if anyone notices that she and Notorious Acquitted Murderess Harriet Vane both married a prominent investigator in their respective murder cases. Does this constitute a trend? Is someone going to write a trend piece? Is Scotland Yard going to have to have a series of awkward meetings about not fraternizing with murder suspects? I hope so.

[osprey_archer]

Perhaps Scotland Yard won't see it as a trend, given that Peter Wimsey is nothing to do with them? There's only Alleyn and his puzzling decision to marry a former murder suspect. Perhaps he might get a private Very Serious talk, but the Yard probably won't feel the need for public meetings with their detectives.

[thisbluespirit]

It was the brow that made Troy pause now. There might be something in that. One could not tell from a newspaper photograph.

Aw, very Troy! Also Alleyn's contained disapproval of Peter, because obviously that is no way to go about things professionally.

<3

[osprey_archer]

I suspect that when they were solving that case together at school, Alleyn was appalled by Peter's methods, whatever they may have been at the time. He determined to become a policeman so he could go about solving cases the right way in the future.

[thisbluespirit]

LOL, yes, absolutely!

[evelyn_b]

This is 100% plausible, but I hope you don't go around trying to tell Alleyn he was influenced by that obnoxious Wimsey kid. Good police work is its own reward and he hardly ever thinks about the o.w.k. at all except when some overzealous and underinformed reporter decides that all crime-scene-haunting poshos are the same person.

(Peter is all too delighted to tell the press about how Alleyn's sterling qualities and steadfast friendship have informed his career. Alleyn, needless to say, rather wishes he wouldn't).

[osprey_archer]

I bet Nigel Bathgate has to set some reporters straight down at the reporters' pub, or wherever it is reporters hang out. No, the Handsome Detective is obviously not Peter Wimsey, why would they even think that? He's not even properly police!

Do you think Peter realizes that he is a thorn in Alleyn's side, or is he dazzlingly oblivious? I could see it going either way. I imagine they belong to at least one of the same clubs - possibly it's Alleyn's only club; I can't see him collecting clubs - and whenever they meet there, Peter is wreathed in smiles and Alleyn wishes that he'd stayed down at the police station, where one is safe from amateur detectives.

[evelyn_b]

NEITHER HANDSOME NOR A DETECTIVE. >:( Poor Nigel. And his reporter bros think he's just mad because they scooped him. They can't understand the issue at all.

Peter probably plays up being dazzlingly oblivious to hide the fact that he's slightly hurt, maybe a little more than slightly, because he's always genuinely happy to see Alleyn (who is intelligent and conscientious and can be counted on never to want to talk detection shop or posh nonsense). And they used to be such good friends! Meanwhile, Alleyn is too polite to tell Peter he's a disgrace to the profession.

[osprey_archer]

Poor Peter. Alleyn is one of the few people who really understands about Shakespeare, and they used to be able to talk about it for hours, but now there is this reserve around Alleyn whenever they meet... and of course Peter deals with it by heaping up quotes and acting ever more foppish, which surely only alienates Alleyn more.

There's perhaps some extra angst to be gotten out of this if Alleyn were ahead of Peter in school, so that Peter has always looked up to him and striven to please him. The timelines are elastic enough to make this possible, I think?

[minutia_r]

Also this whole exchange makes me happy. Poor old Peter (who totally has it coming).

[osprey_archer]

Peter was probably such a show-off when he was in school. Alleyn was fond of him but also appalled, even then.

[sovay]

"A suspected murderess painting a suspected murderess – soon I will be painting nothing but pretty murderesses for their rich foolish fans. So many criminals have the most boring faces."

Yay!

[osprey_archer]

Troy envisions the day when people start hanging her paintings in the Notorious Murderers section of the waxworks. It is a hideous thought.

[missroserose]

I love the story of your inadvertent discovery of Lily Dale! Here's hoping you return someday when you need it most.

[osprey_archer]

It would be a great place for a writing retreat. Someday...

[ladyherenya]

A suspected murderess painting a suspected murderess – soon I will be painting nothing but pretty murderesses for their rich foolish fans.

Ha! Oh Troy...

And Alleyn and Wimsey are around the same age and could easily have been at school together, I hadn't considered that.

[osprey_archer]

Troy has struggled to be taken seriously as an artist! All that work cannot end in her becoming a portraitist of murderers!

I can't take credit for the idea of Alleyn and Wimsey at school together; evelyn_b suggested it to me.

[minutia_r]

I am! I am happy. XD

[osprey_archer]

I live to please!