Introduction
Isaiah Denham
A ddioddefws a orfu (lit. 'he who suffered, conquered')
Appearance
Notable Features
♟ Piercing blue-gray eyes♟ Crooked smile
♟ Often disheveled chestnut brown hair that betrays a habit of combing his hands through it
♟ Carries with him the musky scent of tobacco and stubborn pride, with undertones of industrial spirit
Personal Style
Stubbornly prideful to a withering fault, Isaiah's style exemplifies his attempts to identify himself as distinctly separate from his father, and there is a skilled master tailor in London with whom he maintains regular commission, ensuring he always looks sharply dressed in gambling halls and courts alike. Brocade waistcoats and silk hats and finely-made gloves—and yet all of this effort to present as polished and knows-what-the-fuck-he's-talking-about is raked away with routine comb of his hand through his hair.Rt. Hon. Isaiah Denham
Denham House ✦ Covent Garden
Denham Chambers ✦ Fleet Street
Circumstances
Currently
Isaiah Denham is trying, and failing, to balance the mess that is his life. There's the Mary Squall case, a legal tangle of murder, intrigue, and moral compromise that keeps him awake at night. There's the family empire, a coal-stained albatross around his neck that won't let him breathe. There's Mother, ever insistent that he do his duty and marry, as if that would fix a single one of his many, many problems. So he does what he's always done throws himself into the law, into the vice-drenched underbelly of London, into his bad habits and worse decisions, and hopes that something, anything, makes sense before it all burns down around him.Health & Capabilities
Headline reads: Sickly Victorian Baron Spites Childhood Ailments to Recklessly Fly Toward A Just SunTranslation reads: Isaiah did not have a particularly strong constitution, but you'd never know with how brazenly he throws himself into everything: his work, his greatest loves, his greatest weaknesses.
His youngest years were marked by a feverish disposition, the worst of which seemed to subside once he got into Eton, and as an adult, he has adopted a Daedalus-like inclination toward great heights, often ignoring the suffering his body endures in the name of drugs, sexual liaisons, pugilism, and liberty.
Socioeconomics
As the second son and middle heir to the Coal Baron of the Vale, Isaiah grew up in the lap of industrial wealth and privilege, and he carried this fact around with him like chains. Inheriting the barony in early 1887 only managed to add heavier weights to the end of these, and in a vainglorious effort to discard what he feels to be a burden, he devotes himself toward finding ways of subverting the system from within.Skills & Talents
🙡 Fluent in Welsh, English, French, German🙡 Proficient in Greek and Latin
🙡 Excelled in the classics, rhetoric, and moral philosophy in Eton
🙡 Most reprimands from the Masters among his peers
🙡 Studied Jurisprudence at Balliol College, Oxford, completing his BA (if only just)
🙡 Has managed not to sire any children, though not for lack of practice
🙡 Has never been shot (cannot boast the same luck with stabbings...)
🙡 Had only been threatened to be disinherited once (on record)
Present Relationships
Polly & Cesare Celetti: Two years ago, this pair of shits fell into Isaiah's lap (along with a considerable sum of their money), and he's been working to keep them both (and himself) out of the papers (and prisons) since. Not that their professional relationship is the only reason he keeps finding himself at Polly's place, well into the night, drinking brandy and challenging their conceptions of each other ...Iwan & the Morgans: Tredegar and Glamorgan have always been flush up against each other and in each other's business dating back generations. Friends since childhood, Isaiah once knew just how to encourage Iwan into trouble, but now, years and injuries later, there's something new in their friendship. A growth, a maturation. A humor.
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Mother: Lady Margaret Denham, Dowager Baroness of the Vale of Glamorgan
Lady Margaret Denham is a woman of quiet, calculating force, a survivor of marriage to a domineering husband and mother to children who were never truly hers to shape. Once Margaret Llewellyn, she was wed into the Denham family for her bloodline and connections, a move of strategy rather than sentiment, and she played her role with precision: producing heirs, maintaining the household, and ensuring the family's position remained untarnished. She mourns Jamie, her golden firstborn, in the only way she knows how: privately, efficiently, with little patience for weakness. But is Isaiah who unsettles her most. He was always too wild, too clever for his own good, too eager to bite the hand that shaped him, and now, against all logic and better planning, he holds the title that should have been Jamie's. She does not waste time on grief or sentimentality, and if Isaiah is to be Baron, then she will ensure he does not squander what his father built—whether he likes it or not. Their relationship is one of brittle expectations and unspoken resentments, her love a thing of sharp edges and colder realities, but there is something in him, something she cannot dismiss, and she will not allow him to throw it away on his vices, his ideals, or his foolish notions of justice. Wanted; age 56; Possible faceclaim: (Younger) Harriet Walter or (current) Frances O'Connor.
Younger Sister: Lady Tiffany "Neenee" Hawksworth
Tiffany Hawksworth, affectionately called Neenee since childhood, is the only person alive who Isaiah has ever truly felt responsible for, and she knows it. The youngest of the Denham children, she was a delicate, sickly thing when born, an afterthought to a father who only ever cared for his sons and a mother who had long since hardened herself to affection. Where Jamie was the heir and Isaiah the problem, Tiffany was left to carve her own space between them, and she learned early that survival in the Denham house required charm, adaptability, and a sharp enough wit to disarm rather than confront. Widowed young, she was married off in a move that benefited everyone but her, and though she played the role of dutiful wife until death freed her from it, she is determined that she will not be passed off again like a piece on a chessboard. She has always understood Isaiah better than anyone, just as she has always known how to handle him, her presence both a balm and a thorn, teasing at the wounds left behind by their father while reminding him, with no small amount of satisfaction, that she is still here. Tiffany knows how to navigate society in ways Isaiah never could, and though she delights in needling him, she remains his closest confidante, the only one who can push him without pushing him away. Wanted, age 26, possible faceclaim: (Younger) Charlotte Spencer
Identity
Hobbies
Arguing — Some people talk to fill the silence. Isaiah argues to understand. To press, to test, to watch the way a person holds when pressure is applied. He does not argue for dominance, nor to hear himself speak, but because nothing is real until it has been tested. He does not always fight to win. Sometimes it is better to see how the other person plays.Horsemanship — Izzy does not ride for pleasure. He rides because speed makes sense in a way that nothing else does; because control at a full gallop is real in a way that conversation, expectation, society, are not. When he rides, there is nothing except the movement beneath him, the wind against his skin, the singular moment where his body moves before his thoughts can catch up.
Fox hunting — The ceremony is tedious, the company worse. But the hunt—the patience, the inevitability, the moment where the outcome is already written into the air before it happens—that, he understands. The kill means nothing; the moment before is everything.
Fencing — A controlled fight. A refined argument. A test of precision, of restraint. He fights the way he speaks: never wasting movement, never lunging too soon, always reading before he strikes. The best matches are the ones that demand something from him. A duel that ends too quickly is a duel barely worth having.
Playing the violin — Isaiah does not play carefully. He does not play with restraint. He plays because the energy has to go somewhere, because the alternative is worse. The notes are sharp-edged when his thoughts are too loud, drawn-out when his hands need something steady. And he'll play until the weight behind his ribs settles, or until exhaustion wins.
Gambling — Not for money; never for money. But for the read of it? The moment before the call, the flicker of hesitation, the way a man shifts when he does not trust his own hand? This is the game that Isaiah lives for, and it is not just in the cards. It is in the people, in the way they break under pressure, in the way they convince themselves of a win before they have it.
Pugilism — Some things just cannot be resolved with words or sharp, pointy sticks. Some things should not be. Isaiah fights when he needs to, when there is too much energy beneath his skin, when the tension has nowhere else to go and the sound in his head is too loud even for his other indulgences. It is not a reckless thing for him—he fights the way he does nearly everything else—deliberately, intentionally, nothing throwing a strike unless he means to land it.
Drinking — A habit, not quite a crutch, not quite a vice. A glass to mark time, to punctuate a long night, to slow his mind when it will not settle. Whiskey, mostly; brandy, when in the right company. Never gin.
Habits & Routines
🙡 He runs his fingers through his hair constantly. It is not a nervous tic, it is not even a conscious habit half the time. It is just something he does when he is thinking, when he is considering a remark he may or may not say, when something irritates him, when he needs a moment to pause. The gesture disrupts the careful polish of his appearance, the sharp tailoring, the structured waistcoats. It makes him look careless; he is not.🙡 His nights belong to Fleet Street and Lincoln's Inn. His chambers are where he works, but also where he exists, where the expectations of his inheritance feel further away. He works because there is always more to be done, because as long as there is something unfinished, there is no excuse to stop.
🙡 He does not sleep properly. Four, maybe five hours at most. Never enough, never deeply. Never long enough for it to be rest. Some nights, he does not bother trying.
🙡 He smokes when drinking, but not always the other way around. Cigars when the company is good; cigarettes when he is alone.
🙡 He never leaves a room immediately after finishing a drink. It is not a superstition, not exactly. Just a habit, a moment to settle before moving again.
🙡 He stops at the threshold of every room before walking inside. Not hesitation; just assessment. A flicker of a gaze, a breath, a quick calculation of what awaits him before he allows himself to be seen.
🙡 He rarely eats before noon. Sometimes it's because he forgets; sometimes it's because he refuses. But most of the time, it's just because the mornings are always full of things that feel more urgent than food.
🙡 He knows the names of the people who move around him. The clerks who bring him case files, the footmen who serve his drinks, the woman who polishes the brass outside his chambers when she thinks no one is paying attention. He asks after them. Remembers the answers. Keeps the details tucked away where no one expects them to matter.
🙡 He carries a pocket watch but never winds it. His brother's. He does not need it for the time.
🙡 He writes letters he does not send. Some are arguments he will never make. Some are things he should have said but didn't. Some are meant for people who will never read them. He keeps them anyway.
Personality
♟ Determined ♟ Charismatic ♟ Independent ♟ Empathetic ♟ Patient ♟ Discerning♟ Pragmatic ♟ Quick-witted ♟ Rakish flirtIsaiah Denham is a man molded by a life of trouble, not all of which he caused directly, but who's counting? His mind never stops, his tongue is ever ready to deliver a sharp and salacious comment, and if the only and last thing he manages to do in his life is everything he's ever wanted, it'll still never be enough.
From his earliest years, Izzy buckled under authority, and the more his domineering father engineered ways to crush him, the more he sought out ways to subvert him. The wisest thing the 5th Baron ever did was recognize the brilliance in his legacy, but he only had room for one heir; what started as attempts at gaining his father's attention soon transformed into a willful curiosity and hunger for life.
Drink, smoke, fuck, argue and win. The more he has pushed himself toward these goals, the more he has found himself on both sides of the law; and he's not nearly humble enough not to use his knowledge of both to his advantage. Unfortunately, his hubris is a well-earned gift, and he doesn't know when to stop while he's ahead.
Arguments, debates, discussions all drive him toward the answers to all of life's question, and at the heart of it: his need to protect others from the same oppression he's endured. How to do so? A question he may spend his life answering, but in the meantime, life has found a way of diverting a road paved with even the best intentions, creating a veritable detour into the South of Wales and forcing him to reconcile with the demons of past and present.
Background
History
🙡 I. A Boy
If Denham Hall had ever been a place of brightness or cheer, it was long before my time.My earliest years are some best left forgotten.
To say that I was never the favorite would be a statement so self-evident that even a blind man could see it. Jamie had always been the first, the best, the golden son. The one who would inherit everything. That was never in question; it was as natural as the turning of the seasons or the tide coming in at Penarth Bay.
Mother loved him as only a mother could. Father loved him more. Our sister, Tiffany, loved him the least, but that was no fault of her own. The fault was entirely Jamie's, for being loved too much by everyone else.
I was born second, and that was my first mistake.
My second mistake was in nearly killing my mother in childbirth. She survived, but my father always said she was never the same after. He never forgave me for that, and I never forgave him for blaming me, so I guess in some ways, it made us even. After all, a boy learns, early, the ways his father loves or does not love him. Some fathers are cruel. Some are distant. Some are ghosts even in life.
My father was all three.
In March of 1861, Tiffany was born, a tiny thing, red-faced and alien. She was the smallest person I had ever seen. Her tiny hand could not even wrap around my pinky finger. The doctor said she and Mother might not make it through the night. Jamie and I stayed by their side, while Father pissed himself into a bottle of brandy in his study.
I was only four, but I knew in that moment that if I had to move mountains to protect her, I would.
🙡 II. Escape to Eton (1869 to 1875)
The first real escape I ever made was to Eton College. I left Denham Hall behind, and I could finally breathe. Or so I thought.The freedom was an illusion. Eton was its own kind of hell.
Boys like Jamie thrived at Eton, with its rigid traditions, its endless rules, its unwritten laws of favoritism and brutality. Boys like me, too smart for their own good, too quick with their tongues, too unwilling to kneel—well, we either learned how to fight, or how to take a beating.
I fought.
I got into my first scandal before the end of my first year. A prank turned into an outright act of defiance, and suddenly my name was on the headmaster's desk, and my father's patience was thinning. It wouldn't be the last time.
At fourteen, I discovered gambling. Not just for fun, but for sport. I was good at it. Too good at it. The masters disapproved. The other boys envied or resented me, depending on the night. I lost a great deal. I won even more.
At fifteen, I discovered drinking.
At sixteen, I discovered women. Some married, some not. Some willing, some only for a price.
By seventeen, I had my second scandal, which was much worse than the first. A tutor's daughter. A fight. A broken nose (not mine). A note sent home.
Father was furious.
For the first time, he did more than just yell—he threatened to pull me out of school altogether. I knew that wasn't a real threat; he didn't want me at home any more than I wanted to be there. But I also knew that if I didn't toe the line enough to graduate, I'd be handing him a victory. I'd be proving him right, that I was reckless, useless, wasted potential.
So I did what I do best. I survived.
I finished Eton with barely a mark of academic excellence but a reputation that followed me like a shadow.
🙡 III. The Balliol Beatdown (1875 to 1879)
Oxford was meant to tame me.Balliol College was one of the most intellectually prestigious institutions in the country, and my father expected that its centuries of tradition would force me into submission. It didn't.
If anything, I only became worse.
The third scandal came in my second year. A high-stakes game of cards, a wager too rich for my own good, and debts I had no way to repay. I had already lost too much money, but the only thing more reckless than betting it was backing down.
Father paid my debts. Not out of kindness, but because he wouldn't have a son of his publicly humiliated for a common gambling scandal. He made it clear that he was ashamed of me. I made it clearer that I didn't give a damn.
The fourth scandal came not long after. A woman, of course. The kind I shouldn't have been seen with, but couldn't stay away from. The kind that reminded me I was alive.
By the end of my time at Oxford, I barely graduated. Father pulled strings to make sure I did. He made it clear that if I failed to become a barrister, I would be disowned.
That was the only reason I went to Lincoln's Inn.
🙡 IV. The Inns and Outs of the Law (1879 to 1882)
If Oxford was meant to tame me, then Lincoln's Inn was meant to break me.It didn't.
I threw myself into my studies, but not in the way my father had hoped. I didn't want to be a barrister for the elite, playing by the rules of the wealthy to keep their pockets lined. I wanted to play the game my way.
My mentor, the Honourable Worthington, Esq., saw something in me, something he called dangerous, brilliant, useful. He taught me the rules, and I learned how to twist them.
In 1882, I was called to the bar. I was ready.
Father was not.
🙡 The Demon Lawyer of Fleet Street (1883 to 1887)
With time and perseverance, I acquired my own chambers in Fleet Street and began taking cases that interested me. Not the ones my father wanted.Criminal law. Social justice cases. Defending the underdog.
Father hated it.
He had only ever seen me as a pawn, a tool to protect the family's legal interests. But I wasn't playing that role. I was playing my own game.
The second threat of disinheritance came in 1887. This time, he meant it. We had our worst fight yet.
He said I was a disgrace, a failure, a disappointment. I said he was a tyrant, a coward, a bastard.
We never spoke again after that night.
A week later, he died.
A foundry accident. Jamie was with him, along with seventeen other souls.
And just like that, I was Baron.
I have spent my whole life running from the weight of this name, and now it sits on my shoulders like an iron chain. I do not know if I will break under its weight, or if I will forge something new from it.
Either way, it will not be what my father wanted.
Plotting
Romance
Isaiah Denham is a man who loves like he argues: with wit, with fire, with a sharp tongue and a sharper eye for weakness. He doesn't do things by half-measures, doesn't waste time on anything that doesn't hold his interest, and doesn't believe in soft, easy affections. Romance, for him, is a battlefield, and he thrives in the tension of it. He enjoys the game, the chase, the challenge, the sharp back-and-forth where every glance, every word, every moment is a test of who will break first. He isn't reckless with it, but he isn't cautious, either.There's no neat category to place him in. He is indulgent, but not indulgent enough to let himself slip. He enjoys pleasure, but only when it's earned. He takes his time—not to hesitate, but to savor, to watch, to understand. He enjoys control, but only because he understands it can be just as intoxicating to lose it. He doesn't demand submission, doesn't expect obedience, doesn't care for quiet, yielding affections. If he is going to be with someone, they have to meet him at his level, challenge him, make him work for it.
And yet, for all his posturing, there's something underneath it; a kind of rawness, a kind of need. He doesn't love easily, doesn't fall neatly into the kind of affections that make men settle down, but when he does care, it is absolute, consuming, unshakable. It's not devotion, not in the way people expect, but in the way he pays attention, in the way he remembers, in the way he never quite lets go. He is not an easy man, not a simple one, but he is intense, deliberate, and utterly unforgettable.
Friends
Isaiah Denham's friendships are a tangled mix of genuine loyalty, mutual indulgence, and shared defiance. He surrounds himself with intelligent, sharp-witted company, people who challenge him rather than bow to him, who can match his sarcasm and quick thinking without letting him off too easily. He thrives in friendships that are equal parts camaraderie and chaos, whether it's sparring in courtrooms, drinking each other under the table, or engaging in ill-advised schemes just for the thrill of it. Despite his libertine habits and self-destructive streak, Isaiah is deeply protective of those he considers his own, and though he might roll his eyes at sentimentality, he has been known to quietly step in when his friends are in trouble, handling debts, smoothing over scandals, or ensuring someone gets home safe even if it means carrying them himself. He is not always easy to be close to; he disappears when life becomes too suffocating, throws himself into reckless pursuits without warning, and deflects concern with biting humor. But for those willing to endure the sharp edges and restless temperament, Isaiah is an unwavering ally, a confidant who keeps secrets like currency, and a friend whose loyalty is as fierce as his temper.Antagonism
Isaiah Denham has never made a habit of keeping his head down or staying in his lane, which means he has no shortage of people who would rather see him fail—or worse, disappear. His work in criminal law and social justice has placed him squarely in opposition to the wealthy, the powerful, and those who see justice as a game rigged in their favor. He has defended men the Crown wanted hanged, challenged industrialists who built their fortunes on suffering, and exposed corruption in places that prefer their sins remain buried. There are landowners who curse his name, magistrates who would rather he never enter their courtrooms again, and business rivals who see him as an inconvenient obstacle to be removed.But not all of his enemies were made in court. His vices have ensured that he has gambling debts in places where debts don't go unpaid, wronged lovers with powerful husbands, and old friends turned bitter adversaries. He provokes, he needles, he refuses to yield even when he should, and there are plenty of people with reason to resent him. He has stepped on the wrong toes, spoken the wrong truths aloud, and gotten involved in fights that were never his to begin with. Whether it's a professional rivalry turned personal, a family grudge that never died, or a more dangerous enemy from the underworld he so often indulges in, Isaiah is no stranger to standing his ground even when the odds are stacked against him.
Other Plot Requests
Isaiah may have inherited the Denham name and all the responsibilities that come with it, but his heart remains firmly split between two worlds: Wales, where his family's power is rooted, and London, where his worst impulses thrive. There is no avoiding the industrial empire he now oversees, nor the landed estates and political entanglements that come with it, but that doesn't mean he won't resist every expectation placed upon him. His holdings in Wales are a battlefield, one he barely acknowledges but cannot ignore. Collieries, ironworks, and rail investments that fuel the Denham wealth, controlled by men who see him as either a necessary evil or a liability waiting to collapse under his own vices. The barony demands that he play the part of landowner and industrialist, but Isaiah has no interest in being another ruthless magnate like his father. How much he can change—or sabotage—without bringing everything crashing down remains to be seen.Meanwhile, in London's underbelly, Isaiah is no less entangled. His penchant for gambling, vice, and the company of criminals has put him too close to dangerous men, too deep into debts, and too comfortable in places no Baron should be. He knows the workings of Whitechapel not from passing observation but from first-hand indulgence, walking the line between defender of the law and participant in the same sins he pretends to disdain. He may take cases that put him at odds with the Crown, the gentry, and the courts, but that does not mean he is above bending the rules when it suits him. Whether he is drinking his way through an illegal gambling den, offering legal counsel to someone who should be behind bars, or narrowly avoiding a knife in his ribs over a bet gone wrong, Isaiah has made it abundantly clear that he is not a man who stays where he belongs.
Kinks
Izzy's intimate pursuits defy tidy categorization. Whether against the curve of a settee, the press of a carriage door, or the hush of a too-public hallway, he approaches pleasure as he does every negotiation: with patience, precision, and the unwavering confidence of a man who knows exactly how to dismantle an argument—and a lover—with nothing but well-placed pressure and time. His touch is both a statement and a question, a careful, relentless case built piece by piece until there is no defense left to mount, no verdict but the one he's already written into the curl of his fingers, the press of his mouth, the slow, deliberate unraveling of restraint.
He does not command surrender; he makes resistance untenable. Every caress is a leading argument, every whisper a challenge, every delay a calculated test of endurance. He is merciless in the way only a man who understands patience can be, dragging out every second, pushing just enough, never too much, always exacting, until his partner is left trembling, undone, and pleading for a verdict that only he can grant. His pleasure is not in taking, but in guiding, in controlling the tempo with the same deft touch he applies to cross-examinations and wagers alike—relishing the slow-burn satisfaction of watching someone yield, not because they must, but because he has made it impossible not to.
Isaiah's approach to intimacy is a study in contrasts: indulgent yet unrelenting, measured yet utterly ruthless, a giver to the point of cruelty. He does not waste time on the ordinary; he crafts each encounter like an airtight case, built with care, argued with precision, until every last gasp is a foregone conclusion, and the only thing left to do is let the inevitable run its course.
He does not command surrender; he makes resistance untenable. Every caress is a leading argument, every whisper a challenge, every delay a calculated test of endurance. He is merciless in the way only a man who understands patience can be, dragging out every second, pushing just enough, never too much, always exacting, until his partner is left trembling, undone, and pleading for a verdict that only he can grant. His pleasure is not in taking, but in guiding, in controlling the tempo with the same deft touch he applies to cross-examinations and wagers alike—relishing the slow-burn satisfaction of watching someone yield, not because they must, but because he has made it impossible not to.
Isaiah's approach to intimacy is a study in contrasts: indulgent yet unrelenting, measured yet utterly ruthless, a giver to the point of cruelty. He does not waste time on the ordinary; he crafts each encounter like an airtight case, built with care, argued with precision, until every last gasp is a foregone conclusion, and the only thing left to do is let the inevitable run its course.
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