Heart Fortune Cut -- Jace at a Social Club

I think I started the scene in Heart Fortune where Jace went to a noble social club, if not, let me know and I'll post the opening: "If possible, I'd like the bar." Even the entry area was too quiet for his tastes. He didn't like eating in tomblike quiet.

"Of course."

So she took him to a room that was slightly more active than the front, with a group of men in the corner.

Instead of seating him at the bar, she showed him to a booth opposite the long wooden counter.

"Your server will be right with you," she said and walked away.

Jace looked at the menu. He wasn't hungry, but, again, how often would he be in a place like this? No prices showed on the thick papyrus, naturally, and if you had to ask, you couldn't afford it. He wondered if he had enough gilt in his bank account to pay for a drink here.

The onion soup sounded good, as he told the friendly waiter when he came by. Jace ordered a short whiskey and a cup of onion soup and studied his very, very rich surroundings. Antique, dark paneling on the walls, the ceiling wood beams and copper patterned inserts, the booth seats of the finest leather. Definitely out of his class, and maybe he was fine with that. Inheriting or managing wealth like this must focus a lot of expectations on a man.

He didn't know whether D'Licorice or T'Licorice could walk into this club or not – and the fact that they might be able to rubbed at him, had rubbed at him before he'd arrived in Druida City.
He'd known himself and known his class before Glyssa had turned up at the camp and insinuated herself into his life – all right, before he'd accepted her into his life, he could admit that bit, at least. But now he had some sort of relationship with a woman that had led him to sitting here, in a club he'd never think of entering. Because through Glyssa, Jace had met Laev T'Hawthorn. Without Glyssa that wouldn't have happened.

Jace wasn't sure he knew himself any longer. It felt like he was on one of those rickety hanging rope and wooden bridges across a deep and rocky canyon. Heel-and-toeing soft-footedly across, aware one misstep would have him plunging below, screaming all the way down, lost.

He didn't know who he was becoming, and especially didn't know whether he wanted to change into that guy.

There were perks. The soft cushion under the fine-grained leather his ass sat on was one of them. The smell of that leather and the rest of furnishings and the topnotch alcohol. Everything around him radiated skilled craftmanship and wealth. Jace studied the handcarved design of the bar, masculine and elegant and something he could use on his next leather project. The bar had to be a few centuries old and he hadn't seen that design before. He could tweak it and make it his own – gold on midnight blue would look prime. Those weren't Laev T'Hawthorn's colors and Jace supposed he owed the man a piece of his work. He wondered what noble's colors were midnight blue and gold, or was there more than one. He could find out such things, Lady and Lord he knew how to research that since he'd worked with Glyssa. Might aim projects at certain Lords and Ladies, make some good gilt. TO BE CONTINUED