Love. Perhaps when she'd been little, she'd wanted something like that fabled prince charming to come along and sweep her off her feet. Maybe at one point in her life she would have wanted nothing more than to have men swooning over her, craving for her affections or even just a passing glance. Those fantasies, those foolish desires to be chased and courted until she almost couldn't stand it, they had all died quickly. It was hard to say when she'd suddenly become more keen on living her life for herself and no one else, the French woman hardly even able to recall exactly when she might have stopped with those girlish thoughts of handsome young men wearing their best suites or tuxedos just so that she might give them a fleeting smile. For all she cared to remember, she'd been nothing but young and foolish without even the slightest idea of what it was she truly wanted from the world. Now, that being said, Adelaide was not against the idea of falling in love. Not in the least. But when her father decided that love came second and her mother tried to convince her that love would come eventually, she knew that there was no way she would find the man for her back in France. That was the one ever so steep downside to being the daughter - the only daughter - of Renard Vincens LaBelle IV. He wasn't a king, but to the young woman he certainly seemed to act like one and there were days that it was hard to believe that she was of his flesh and blood. Just how unreasonable was it that Adelaide wanted to find love instead of marry and hope that it grew in her metaphorical garden? Had it really been asking so much that she be the one that find the man that she would be happy to spend the rest of her life with? It hasn't been like she asked for more than the simple chance to make such a decision for herself instead of allowing him to pick through those eligible bachelors of high rank to find those he thought were best for the dark-haired woman, but it felt instead like she were asking for world peace; it would never happen.

None matter what her parents tried to coax the girl into, when she had grown from that childish innocence and really began to think for herself, she'd had such talent of fighting them nearly every step of the way if she did not want the same things that they did. They had all been petty little things like attending formal events when she'd rather just stay in her room and read those books she so loved, the very first thing of that so-called passion that had found her then. When they would have her meet boys her age that were from nearby cities, bred of noble pedigree with that terribly snobby attitude that gave her people a bad reputation for being nothing but arrogant and self-absorbed, she would argue and do what she could to lock herself in that large and extravagant bedroom back on her father's estate. Sometimes it worked, and other times it didn't and she was forced to walk through the gardens with some boy she really didn't care for. Looking back now, she realizes that such "play dates" had been their earlier intentions of trying to find someone that would be a good match for their growing daughter who, as she grew in height and elegance, also grew in determination. Some might even have considered her rebellious, fortunate that her mother and father put up with her defiance rather than disown information her and forcing her to live on her own. Yet, when the day had come that they first announced to Adelaide that suitors would begin visiting her so that she might find suitable husband within the parameters a beset by the nobleman and her mother, that was when her defiance grew to its largest extent. They would come in those fancy suites or tuxedos with their best manners and words prepared, and she would meet them with disinterest - even having once set Rose and Reginald after one particularly persistent man, and that had been the last she'd ever seen of Monsieur Bernard.

Eventually, and fairly recently at that, they'd decided to give the woman her space with the hope that maybe once she saw the world for what it was beyond those high walls and fences, she would find that home was best. Ah, but little did they know that in letting her move away from their always critical and watchful eyes, they were nearly saying farewell to their daughter who would do whatever it would take to never return. She hadn't told them that she would never be going back, not yet. Perhaps a part of her was not sure how she would like Sacrosanct, if she would find whatever it was that she was looking for there within the big and foreign city, and burning that figurative bridge was not the most intellegent of her choices she was now finally free to make. There was much that the young woman had yet to piece together on how to ensure that she never had to return, but she would secure her own fate one way or another, that much she was very certain of. If marrying for anything less than love was the one and only thing that would keep her in the good graces of her parents, then she was prepared to find her own way without their money. No, Adelaide had never had to work a day in her life, but unbeknownst to her mother and father, she was ready to do just that if it would prove the only way to secure her freedom, and ultimately that pure and true happiness that eluded her. After all, her education had been expensive, so finding a way to perhaps starting her own business here in this country should be a relatively easy task to reach. She did not expect this path she'd set herself on to be as easy as her life had been up until recently, but it was that very awareness and readiness to take control of her own life and write her own story that only nurtured her ever fierce determination be no one's puppet. Not her father's, not her mother's. She was Adelaide Claire LaBelle. She would be the sole author of this novel called life, and she dared the world to try and stop her.

The drunken fool does not heed her warning as she struggles to free herself from him, and as he seems to try kissing her, there is suddenly anther presence behind her, accompanied by level and ice-cold tenor tones."I believe the woman asked you to remove your hands. You should do as she says". She turns those glittering sage eyes to look upon the one who ushers those words to her distasteful admirer and she finds an equally well built man standing their with long brunette hair and narrowed hunter green eyes resting firmly on the man that matched him nearly pound for pound it seemed. The drunkard spits a vulgar sentence towards this man who had only just appeared from the sea of faces gathered around the stage, but it was when he dared to call the French woman entrapped by him his whore, those eyes full of disgust turning rapidly into fury and defiance glare up at him. It was an insult of the worst kind, though some would be surprised to learn that the biggest crime to Adelaide about that slurred sentence was that he dared to claim her as his. Of course bring called a whore was entirely unacceptable, but for him to try and say that she belonged to him only infuriated her to the point of where she nearly reached out to slap that unshaven face of his herself. Before she can even usher a word, the other man clearly in a much more sound and respectable state of being responds."Never use that word again. It's distasteful". Suddenly the man with his hands on the French woman's wait laughs and she is able to pry free from him when he turns to grab a bottle and hurls it at the other, easily able to counter the attack with his muscled arm though not without a grunt as glass pierces through his skin. Adelaide watched now in wide-eyed surprise at the sudden escalation, and as quickly as it all started, it is abruptly ended as the long-haired man swings his fist and lands a heavy blow to the side of the drunkard's face and sends the man crashing to the burlesque floor.

In a matter of seconds, two enormous men appear from around the bar and begin to seize the man who'd dealt with the drunken fool and she is almost astonished as the unnamed face seems to comply so readily when in her mind he'd done nothing except what someone should have already taken care of long before it had gotten to the point it reached. He turns to her in that moment, hunter greens meeting sage."You alright?". That had been the very first gesture he'd thought to give, and it certainly doesn't go unnoticed or unappreciated."Yes... Thank you", is her genuine reply and as she watches the two bouncers leading the man to the front door, she reaches into her frock coat pocket to pay for the hardly touched wine. She casts a downward glance at the drunkard who was now beginning to come to his poor senses again and deciding that she had best make her exist as well, she turns on those black heels and exists the burlesque only moments after the man had been escorted out into the cold as well. Straightening her scarf around her neck, her gaze turns to the man's bloodied arm and though she is wary of him, she can't help the genuine concern that flickers over those elegant features. Approaching him to stand beyond his reach simply because she didn't desire to deal with any further handling than she had tonight, she stood there with slender hands tucked into her wool coat pockets. "I appreciate what you did for me. Please, allow me to introduce myself. I am Adelaide", she says in those silken accented lyrics to the stranger. Her pride would have liked to think she could have handled herself just fine without this man before her, and yet she would be lying to herself to believe such a thing. Sage eyes study the blood trickling from the punctures along his forearm and it is then that she feels compelled to repay him for his honorable act in defending, as far as he knew, just some wayward foreigner who happened to find herself in the wrong place at the wrong time."You should have those wounds tended to. I would like to repay you for your act by cleaning them".