He got out the other bottle from the pocket of his duster and handed it to her.<br/><br/>"Awright.  Might as well start at the beginning.  We've got time for the long version."  He cleared his throat.  "Fuck it.  For this part I'm going to have to use my proper accent, it always comes back when I talk about this anyway."  He suddenly looks much younger, less hard, and his voice comes out soft, with an upper class accent.  "I was born in London.  1857.  My family was the cadet branch of a much more prestigious family, but we were still in the gentry.   Comfortably well off.  Only child, mother's pet.  My father died when I was fairly young.  I went to proper public schools, and ended up a properly educated, completely useless upper-class twit.  I spent my days hanging out in salons with other similarly useless young men, and pretty women trying to snag a useless but well-off husband.  I fell in love, or so I thought, with one of them.  Cecily.  Wrote scads of completely dreadful poetry about her."  He stopped and looked over.  "With me so far?"