Olivia stood at the harborside, watching as the last ship of the night unloaded. In her hand, she held a flask that she consistently took nips from. The world reeled around her, spinning as she poisoned her body with more drink. When the final man stepped off the ship and her efforts once again proved fruitless, the young woman sighed and walked along the docks, seeking the first open bar she could find. It didn't take long, and soon she was seated in a corner of one of the establishments.

She ordered an entire bottle of whiskey and a glass to go with it and set upon her usual habits. She drank. More and more. So much so that soon her vision was entirely blurry and she felt disoriented. Exactly what she needed! Tears brimmed among her eyes and soon spilled over as she finally came to the realization that her sister was right: he wasn't coming back. Her heart ached and pain bubbled in her chest, driving her to take a deep gulp from her glass. She refilled it.

Life was dull to Olivia; her heart had been torn in two after her betrothed came down with cold feet. Another drink, as the memory of standing brilliantly at the alter, alone, surfaced.

Olivia wept quietly, tending to her pain with more and more drink until she hit the point that there was no going home: she'd have to rent a room in one of the nearby hotels. It didn't matter though--alone, in a hotel room, she could escape the clucking of her family's tongue over her inability to finally stop mourning the man she loved.

Anthony had been in a bar near the docks, chattering on absently about things he didn't care about with men he didn't know. One drink after another, and it quickly became apparent that unless a miracle would happen that this would be the most interesting thing to happen to him tonight. Of course, not all nights can be full of daring escapades and bold robberies, but he still had wished they would be. Perhaps that wasn't a very smart wish, but a wish nonetheless.

The conversation had become nothing more than background noise to him a long time ago, and for most of it he just stood there with a drink in his hand, looking pretty. Looking around absently, he saw a woman sitting in the corner of the bar who wasn't there before, sitting there alone and just drinking, and though Anthony's eyes could be fooling him she almost seemed like she was crying? What the hell. Turning back to the men and making an excuse so that he can leave them, he walked towards the table with a slow and careful step.

He had never been the most empathetic or kind of men, but he wasn't completely evil. A drunk, lonely woman is a very good target for men worse than him. And so he ended up stood near the woman's table, a polite distance away from her, but still fairly close to her.

"You doing good there, ma'am?"

Olivia's head turned, dark eyes falling upon the scoundrel. It seemed to take a few moments for the socialite to process his presence through a stare clouded with drink. Her brow furled slightly at him, but the tears didn't stop. Nor did she make an attempt to wipe them away from her face. The way they flowed down her cheeks was almost unnatural, considering the woman didn't make a single sound. She was a master at the art of crying; after all, she had plenty of practice. 

She was also a prime target. Olivia bled wealth. It showed in the fine cloth of her bodice to the panels of her skirts. Even the petticoat underneath was too much--it was silk. She wore an engagement band on her finger, a lovely rock set inside it, and her brown curls were drawn back with a leather thong.

"I'm fine," she answered, her voice hardly above a whisper. Eyelashes fluttered as she blinked a few tears away and tried quietly to rein them in. The truth was, she didn't like that her vision focused enough that she saw him clearly. She wanted to pretend Anthony was her beloved, come back from the sea. After all, he must have left Whitby, right?

"I'm sorry for my rudeness," the girl--for she was only twenty-one--offered after a moment. "Where are my manors, good sir? Have a seat." She lifted a gloved hand upward, gesturing at the stool beside her.

Anthony stood there in an awkward and aloof way, moving his arms every few moments as if not knowing what to do with them. It's not exactly often that he finds himself before a crying, drunk young woman, asking her how she is. Though he would have maybe even been offended at the girl's rudeness, he kept his face blank, and didn't even make one snarky comment about it. But he couldn't help but wonder who this woman was and where she came from and why she was crying here in some random bar all by herself. It was dangerous for her. Some man could see her, drunk and vulnerable and alone, and do unspeakable things.

Afterall, she certainly seemed wealthy enough to have her own mansion or whatever that she could cry in without anyone else seeing her. Though the curiosity remained, Anthony didn't ask her anything of it, not now at least. He wasn't the best at talking to.....emotional people, but he figured that that wouldn't be exactly good.

"Alright, then, miss," he shrugged his shoulders slightly, looking at the woman. It was extremely obvious that she was not fine, but if she didn't want to tell him that then he won't pry. Anthony was almost ready to just apologize and leave her to wallow in her own sorrow, when the woman spoke again and invited him to sit.

So, he nodded at her in thanks and did that, of course. Sat and looked at the woman before him. If he were a monster he might have considered her an excellent target. "So," he said, breaking the silence between them. "pardon me for saying this, ma'am, but you don't exactly look fine." Smooth.

Olivia smirked, the expression lopsided and out of place on such a pretty young face. She lifted her glass, swirling the amber fluid in it around before bringing it to her mouth and drinking deeply from it. The young woman emptied the glass in what seemed like two swallows: a champion at the art of getting drunk, no doubt. 

She reached for the bottle that sat on the table, topping off her glass as rheumy eyes settled on Anthony. Her lips twitched as if she were about to speak, pink tongue moistening her lips as she toyed with the refilled glass. She was considering downing it as she had the first and the ones before that. Olivia was on a mission that was all too familiar to her. 

"Eh," she began, unsure of how to continue. Her words slurred when she finally found them. "I will live, always have always will, probably. Until I don't."

Her words made little sense, but she was too intoxicated to realize that. Instead, her nose wrinkled and she finally downed the second cup before, in quite an unladylike way, snaring the entire bottle and upending it in her mouth. It was impressive, the amount of alcohol the woman was able to consume without passing out. A sigh left her lips.

"You haven't happened to see a man leaving any of the ships that fit this description, have you?" As she spoke, she pulled a small notebook from only God knew where and flipped it open, sliding it across to Anthony. It was a description of her betrothed, a man who would not have been seen and was probably, for all accounts, long dead by now.

Anthony watched indifferently as the woman just kept drinking and drinking. Not a very smart decision. But he won't be the one to ruin her fun, for lack of a better word, by commanding her to stop drinking this instant. And he would be a hypocrite if he did that, anyway. Bouncing his leg in what was almost anxiety, he looked at the girl, listening to her speak of whatever the hell she was speaking about.

"If you say so," he flashed a brief smile, before leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table, adjusting the position of his hands every few moments as if letting them stay as the are would be uncomfortable for him. Though he had considered the idea that maybe he just isn't drunk enough to understand whatever the hell this girl's talking about, he didn't drink even a drop of alcohol. Not now, at least.

Anthony would have been kind of impressed by how much the woman could drink, were they in a safer place that didn't basically guarantee that a drunk and alone woman would get robbed and stabbed. But, he wouldn't be the one to do those things, not today at least. Averting his gaze from the stranger, he looked at the other people in the bar, only whipping his head back to face the woman when she happened to address him yet again. 

Anthony blinked as he tried to figure out from where the fuck she took the notebook, and then he himself grabbed the small notebook gently, trying to decipher whatever the hell is written in it. He's never been the smartest in terms of......reading and writing and such things, and so he just. Looked at the notebook. And then at Olivia. And then at the notebook. And then at Olivia. Just hoping that she gets the point without him having to spell it out for her.

Robbed and stabbed. Now that was a fate Olivia would no doubt claim better than the suffering she was forced to endure in the wake of being left at the altar. She tilted her glass slightly to the side as if threatening to spill it upon herself. At first, it looked intentional, but the young woman was hardly aware of how perilously close she was to causing a mess and making a fool of herself. She breathed in, sighed softly, and took the glass to her lips again.

She never invited strangers to sit with her, but then, no one ever tried to talk to her other than her siblings, it seemed. Olivia had become a bit of a pariah and a subject of pity among the gossipmongers, her tragic fate and steady mental decline a genuine concern among the local folk. Some questioned whether or not she ought to be institutionalized--the answer was probably yes.

Lowering her glass, she squinted her eyes as if it would make Anthony easier to see. It did not; it only made her look silly. Her face pinched as her mouth pursed. This time, without even draining it, she considered refilling it. The bottle was empty. She'd consumed the entire thing in one sitting, a feat most unladylike. Finally, she frowned.

"You can't read," she slurred. She couldn't either. At least, not with the way the alcohol made her vision swim. She exhaled deeply and shook her head. "Well that does me no good. He was handsome, with chiseled features and dark hair. Wonderful blue eyes, too. A fine young man."

Anthony slid the notebook back to the woman, very happy with the idea of not looking at it ever again. He tapped his fingers on the table—the fidgety little bastard he is—and looked at the woman with a look on his face that said a lot but also absolutely nothing at the same time. Most of all, however, he looked kind of confused. To not overexert his brain, he just looked at her, waiting for her to say something.

Instead of saying something, however, it seemed that she was dead-set on embarrassing herself and getting as drunk as humanly possible. Her determination was almost awe-inspiring, yet terrifying at the same time. Anthony couldn't help but wonder whether she really was so very heartbroken or whatever that she had drink and cry herself to oblivion in some no-name bar by the docks. Wouldn't it have been safer to do this at......home? Or a place less dangerous than this.

He was hardly one to judge, however. Though he would certainly never admit it if asked, he's had his fair share of crying in a nondescript bar alone because of a man. So perhaps that was why he was so....empathetic? pitying? towards this woman. Anthony lowered his gaze from her face to the table, his finger-tapping growing more intense as his mind descended into memories and thoughts he would have much rather not remembered. He got the sudden urge to drink, and would have done so, had the woman drank the entirety of the damn bottle.

He raised his head suddenly as she spoke again, calling attention to his illiteracy because absolutely everyone in this place needs to know that Anthony Rowe can't fucking read. "Doesn't do me any good either," he shrugged, listening to the woman describe the guy she's been weeping about the entire time. "that's pretty vague, isn't it? Quite a bit of men that look like that."

"What's his name?" Maybe he has heard of him?

If it weren't for the photo sequestered quietly and safely on the floor of her bedroom closet, Olivia Carrington likely would have forgotten what her dear betrothed looked like. With her level of intoxication at any given moment, it was a wonder the young woman could even recall her own name, let alone someone else's. Unfortunately, her betrothed's name had slipped her mind. Her mouth opened, tongue flapping uselessly as she tried to conjure something from the cobbed webs of her memory and frowned.

It wasn't that Olivia's memory always operated at the efficiency of someone three times her age; it was only that she'd consumed a few drinks too many and now her stomach roiled in disagreement. One hand fell to her stomach and she swallowed hard, determined to keep the threat of rising bile in the pit of her belly, where it belonged. After a moment, she flagged down a passing tender for a glass of water, which she thirstily drank. Carefully, too. When she was finished, she drew quiet breaths of air inward and sought to dry her tears, rubbing lazily at her eyes with the balled fist of her left hand.

"Haha," she chuckled dismissively, the sound a forced utterance of inebriation. "I can't... It's on the tip of my tongue, but I... I can't remember his name right now, I'm sorry."

Remarkably, her words were understandable. Or at least, she thought they were. And she was aware of their contents, enough so that she looked at Anthony in complete and utter shock. It was as if the socialite didn't believe she was quite as far gone as she was. She rose from the table, taking another swig from her glass.

"I probably should head back home," Olivia surmised after a few moments. "It's a pleasure to meet you, mister."

She stopped suddenly as if overcome with a sudden idea. "I have a picture at home if you'd like to see!" She doesn't seem to estimate the improprieties of what she's said.

Anthony clasped his hands together and put them under his chin, watching Olivia, waiting for her to say at least something worth saying. It seemed that that wouldn't be happening, however. Leaning back again as the threat of Olivia just straight-up vomiting all over the place became clear, he crossed his arms.She was wasted out of her fucking mind, huh? Anthony csn't recall a single time he's ever been this drunk. (Maybe that's why he can't recall it? Because he was that drunk? No, perish the thought!)

Anthony was unsure of what he should do in this situation, if he even should do something. There's a crying, drunk woman in front of him who seems very broken up about a man, and he doesn't really have much experience in socializing with crying, drunk women who seem really broken up about a man. All he really wanted at this point was to get the guy's name and see what he looks (looked?) like. For a moment he considered saying something, but quickly decided against it. When Olivia stood up from her seat, Anthony felt almost impressed, thinking that to be beyond her ability at this point.

"Pleasure to meet you too, then, miss," he said. It was absolutely not in any way a pleasure. But he's a nice and polite man so he will be a nice and polite man even to this woman. Though he did feel a bit of concern at the thought of her going back alone, for it could be dangerous for her. A drunk, lonely young woman walking home... Anthony looked away from Olviia for a moment.

"Uh, sure, I guess," Anthony stuttered, also unaware of the inappropriateness of what she had just said. He was concerned, and wanted to get this whole thing over with quickly. (Despite the fact that leaving her alone would probably get it over with even quicker. Anthony is not smart.)