Gina Marie grew more and more nervous as the airship continued its landing protocols, the mountains rising up to fill the windows of the machine as they arrived in Leinhart County, the home of Brisbane Estate and Brisbane Castle and the new Lady Brisbane herself. It was a single stall air terminal here, nothing like the bustling one they'd left behind. A set of stairs was waiting to be wheeled up to the departure porthole, and passengers would climb out to disembark here. Gina Marie and Bane waited in their compartment, and Gina Marie chewed at her lip wondering just how she would be getting off of this machine and if any of her dignity would be intact afterwards. "Your friends, will they get off here as well?" Bane asked, it was the first thing he'd said to her in the last hour, and now he was speaking without really looking at her, but rather out the window still as their ship descended.

"The Stanleys live in Hamil," she answered politely, her fingers fidgeting in her lap as her gaze darted from Bane to the window and back and she tried to decide which made her the most nervous of the two options.

"Hmm." Was all he said, but he'd been quiet this morning. Gina Marie had woken to the sound of Bane speaking to the bellhop at the doorway, ordering their breakfast. As he'd promised, they'd not returned to the dining room for the meal, but had waited for the beds to be once again transformed into cushioned benches before enjoying their bounty of eggs and toast with tea.

She Couldn't remember waking up at all through the night, or anything She'd dreamed of either. She vaguely remembered taking her hair down, but Bane had been the one to find her pins for her this morning, so she wondered if She'd stayed awake even long enough to put them away herself.

"It looks cold," Gina Marie commented as the ship at last screeched into it is resting place and attendants dashed forward with the staircase on wheels.

"My sister and her family will greet us at Brisbane Castle," he explained, as if he knew She'd been scanning the crowd for someone who looked like they would be related to Bane.

"Leinhart!" called a conductor as he and a few of the porters began unloading luggage from below. A few passengers began down the stairs, but Gina Marie doubted there would be many who's final destination was Leinhart. But it was theirs. Gina Marie hugged the coat tighter around herself, and touched her hair self consciously.

Just as Gina Marie's thoughts began to race wiht what she would wear to dinner... or for a nightgown at that... she noticed an odd looking bloom peeking out of an inner pocket of Bane's great coat.

"What is that?" she asked, mouth twisting in curiosity as she glanced from teh black rose to Bane's face.

He tensed immediately, looking away from her as his jaw muscles flexed as if he were working to keep his mouth closed tight against something he should not say.

"Bane?" Gina Marie repeated, reaching out to touch his arm. The large man flinched at the contact, making Gina Marie instnatly regret the impulse. Recoiling, she folded her hands together and looked away, out the window again. Only now instead of considering the work it would take to get down the stairs, or what Bane's family would think of her only owning one dress... Gina Marie's brain raced to make sense of the single black rose.

It hadn't been there yesterday... he'd thrown the coat over her like a great quilt on two occassions... she would've noticed a black rose... the symbol of death... the sign of the Rose Plague, placed on those who fell victime to the sudden and wicked illness.

Why did Bane have such a thing now?

The thought still clambered around in her head as a hired locamotive cart pulled them through the small hamlet that sat at the base of the mountain where Brisbane Castle was located. These were a mining people, knowledgeable of the earth and its precious resources, but not much for conversation or friendliness. Thus Gina Marie found herself deposited by her new husband of three days and two nights in a smart little dress maker's shop with little explanation and total abandonment.

"She'll do best in jewel tones," one of the shop ladies was saying, chin bent to her hand in thought as she circled Gina Marie's figure.

"With the classic cut at the natural waist," the other confirmed, nodding placidly. Gina Marie guessed them to be sisters because of the way their noses matched.

It took little over an hour for the two old birds to produce bolts of chartreuse and wine colored velvets, sapphire and emerald satins, a deep golden yellow day dress and a true purple woolen coat with matching peacock feathered top hat. Gina Marie took it all in numbly, trying to calculate just how much she would owe Bane in the end. But then She'd convinced herself she would keep none of it except to replace what had been stolen, which was not all that underhanded after all. And upon hearing that every stitch of clothing she owned had been commandeered by highway bandits, the two sisters went into an underwear tizzy, producing a bounty of corset, nightgowns, petticoats, under bustles and chemises, all the while clucking as two disgruntled geese would over a dirtied gosling.

Doted on as she was by the two, and mesmerized by the colors and designs they promised to have done by week's end, Gina Marie had quite forgtten baout the bad omen Bane carried in his coat, beside his heart. Instead she twirled a little frivolously in front of a tri sided relection of herself, the wine colored velvet dinner gown She'd chosen to wear for her first meal with Bane's family moving like smoky water in the sunlight that came through the shop's window.

A bell tinged, alerting the shop occupants that someone else had arrived through the front door.

"Best to put on something more practical for this weather," one of the sisters suggested, handing Gina Marie the emerald satin day dress and nodding towards a large brocade curttain that seperated a small closet from the rest of the room, where Gina Marie could change. Acknowledging the older woman's advice a bit begrudingly, Gina Marie took one last look in the mirror at the lovliest dress She'd ever worn and went to change as She'd been told.

"And did you see the Bear is back in town?"

Gina Marie heard a woman's voice coming closer to where she was busy undoing the buttons on her back. It must be whoever had signaled the bell onnly a moment earlier.

"Have you seen his new little wife?" a second voice asked, this one sounding a bit nasally, "Just how long do you think the poor thing will last?"

The first speaker scoffed in a tinkling noise, something she probably practicied weekly in front of her mirror.

"Well three times as long as the last Brisbane Bride," the first replied, as though She'd labored past her outburst of laughter at last, "Poor woman was dead before the wedding night was over!"

"Can you imagine?" came a third voice, this one mousier than the other two, "Do you like this color, dear?"

"I never heard how she did die," said the second voice, with barely masked curiosity, "Only that it was covered up with all that money he threw at her family."

"Oh I heard that as well," called the mousy one, moving so close to Gina Marie's curtain that she felt herself physically step away, further into the little alcove of protection.

"Something like one hundred thousand credits," the second one added, and the mousy one gasped.

"Well it would take much more than that if a husband broke my neck," the first one replied haughtily. The other two gasped, and Gina Marie froze.

"A broken neck?"

"Oh poor dear!"

Both voices replying at once, giving the first just the audience She'd been hoping for - both aghast and intrigued.

"Poor Cora, she was a dear friend of my second cousin's neighbor's sister you know, ran positively screaming from the bedchamber that night... the Beast caught up to her and they argued - before he threw her down the great staircase - all stone mind you,"

"Oh no!"

"How terrible!"

Though they didn't sound all that horrified at all, just more intrigued than before.

"She died instantly," the haughty voice concluded with a mean satisfaction.

"And I heard he never shed a tear!" added the mousy voice.

"I heard she haunts him still," the nasally second offered up, as if competing for intrigue with her companions.

"No dear that cut would never do for your figure," came an unsolicited reprimand from the first. And then -

"Haunts him still -" the haughty one confirmed, picking up where the other had left off, "That's why he is shut up that tower of the castle you know - can't seem to escape her undead spirit!"

"Oh how thrilling - do you like this bonnet?"

The others replied with nays, and their voices drifted away from Gina Marie's curtained position. Gina Marie herself had sunk to the cold wooden planks of the shop floor, the beautiful velvet gown puddled around her, half hanging from her shoulder, the buttons undone and forgotten as she chewed at her lip.

Dead bride? Broken neck?

None of it matched anything he'd said in his letters or since. He'd never mentioned another wife, a previous marriage...

Gina Marie's mind raced, trying to put together the pieces of what She'd just heard, then trying to dismiss it as fruitless gossip. But it lingered in her mind, that name... Cora... why hadn't he told her? And then a chilling thought came to her, sending a stone to the pit of her stomach. Would he kill her as well?

"Where is she?!"

Gina Marie jumped at the sound of his voice, he was already inside the shop and She'd missed the warning tingling of the front bell.

"Sir -" one of the dressmakers attempted, but Bane bellowed over whatever She'd been about to say.

"it is been over an hour!" he growled, "How long has she been back there?"

Gina Marie fumbled with cold fingers to finish the task of unbuttoning as the sound of the dressmakers voices continued to try an dissuade her husband's tirade. Had it been like this? Had he gotten angry and thrown his new wife to her death in a fit of rage? She'd seen him angry... She'd lied to him for Saint's sake... but never in a rage to kill...She'd never been afraid he'd cause her physical harm... so then why was she shaking? Why Couldn't she reach the buttons, as if her fingers were too frozen for the task.

"George?!" her named tore from his lips just as the heavy curtain was whipped aside to reveal the Marquis in all his furious glory glowering down at her where she still sat in a puddle of velvet on the floor.

Gina Marie blinked as the sudden light blinded her, taking in the huge outline he made greater by his overcoat, the scent of his person as he pervaded the small space, the span of his shadow as he stood over her, frowning. Those harsh scars seemed to stand out fiercer than before against his dark beard, marring the corner of his mouth and giving him a wickedly unknowable countenance. Gina Marie felt fear for the first time since meeting him... she feared She'd stumbled into something She'd never been prepared for. A piece of her plot that very well may kill her before she achieved her goal at all. This monster of a man who would sooner kill a bride than look at her... and if he'd loved the first... what chance did Gina Marie, the liar and betrayer have of surviving marriage to the Beast of the North?

But then...

"George?"

She blinked up at him stupidly, the fear in his voice breaking through her own panic, sparking compassion in her chest without permission. As he knelt to join her, Gina Marie read the traces of terror about his eyes, the concern all over his mouth, and felt again the warmth she always did from his presence.

"What happened?" Bane demanded, both hands coming to her shoulders as he searched her face for an answer, "Do you feel alright?" he asked, almost in a whisper as one large warm hand moved to rest against her face. Gina Marie was shaken from her thoughts at the shiver that went through her from the contact.

"I am fine," she lied breathlessly, "I fell," she added, gesturing to her injured leg where it was folded awkwardly underneath her velvet skirt.

"You're sure that you are alright?" Bane asked, easing back a bit as he took in a breath as if he'd been holding the same one for too long.

"Fine," she choked, giving her best attempt at a reassuring smile. It was in that moment that both of them realized at likely the same time that Gina Marie's gown was not fully buttoned and hung immodestly off of one shoulder... the exact shoulder where Bane's thumb seemed to be subconsciously rubbing a circle to no particular tempo.