April 3rd, 1891 — Black's

The word for how Ford was feeling was restless, he had decided, which made sitting at home with his siblings all night impossible. He might have managed chaperoning Verity somewhere if they'd had anywhere to go, but the social calendar was still a little lean despite the arrival of April. Half of high society was out on a cruise ship, and the other half had postponed their events until the ship was scheduled to return so that their guest lists weren't so terribly affected, which meant there was little to do either this weekend or the next weekend. Normally that wouldn't have bothered Ford in the slightest — he preferred quiet nights to big parties, anyway — but he'd lost his book to the Black Lake that morning, and he and Noble still weren't talking, so his two most frequent evening activities were unavailable. And he needed something to distract him after this week — after Dorian Fisk and after the not-very-helpful conversation with Leonid Fisk two days later. He couldn't just sit around replaying the moment in his head all night — or at least, if he was going to do that, he couldn't do it at home surrounded by his siblings, because if any of them noticed him daydreaming and asked what was on his mind he was probably just going to die rather than being able to answer them.

So he'd headed out to Black's because it was really the only place left to go. He hadn't had high hopes of seeing anyone familiar (the club was more useful on weekdays, he felt; people tended to come here to unwind after work on nights there were no events scheduled, so it was busiest in the middle of the week) but shortly after arriving he noted Macnair. Ford hadn't seen him since the boggart last week (could that really have been only last week? It seemed an age ago), and he might not have approached him now since they were hardly close. Macnair was the only person Ford could see right away that he was even passingly familiar with, though, and risking conversation with him (which might have been presumptuous, after sharing such an unexpectedly personal and intimate moment with him last week) was preferable to just sitting alone with his thoughts somewhere in a secluded corner.

There was already a bottle of red wine on Macnair's table, so Ford decided to head that way instead of the bar. That was certainly presumptuous, but they'd shared a bottle last time they'd seen each other in the club, so maybe Macnair would offer again. If he didn't, Ford could go buy himself a drink in a moment, and it would be easy to pass it off like he’d just wanted to greet the other man first. Actually, this was an excellent plan, Ford reflected, because if Macnair obviously didn't want to talk to him he had a built in escape route; he could go to the bar and not return to the table afterwards.

"You look pleased with yourself," he observed as he approached the table. "Good news this week? Or are you sleeping better without a boggart overhead?" Ford wouldn't have mentioned the boggart if Macnair hadn't looked to be in such high spirits, but as it was it was hard to reconcile the man sat before him with the one who'd trembled in his attic a week earlier.

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