The Love Interest

Third day blues, alas, have hit.  It's taken me two hours to bash out a couple of thousand words, which was a blow as yesterday I was hitting over 4k by the end of a couple of hours.  I've also had to ditch about 840 words in total over the course of three days.  Of course they're still counted and at the end of the novel in very small type so that I don't have to read them.

My favourite ditched line, NSFW due to language, appears after the line-break:
“If I wanted to know about your bastard drawing I’d bloody well ask about the cunting drawing you little shit-arsed fuck-faced bastard!"

Also, my Main Character, William, now has his love interest.  I'll post the first few paragraphs of this meeting simply because I like insta-feedback and lovely people say such nice things!  Also, it suffers from the standard verbiage of NaNo...

       Hot sun burned down from a cloudless sky, making the stones warm to the touch and the ribbons of roads wending their way through close-packed townhouses shimmer in an unreal fashion.  Whatever the rumours, the streets were not paved with gold, but with the sheen caused by rotting vegetable matter left after the market glinting in the light one might be forgiven for thinking otherwise.  Despite the heat there were plenty of people abroad, darting to and fro in the complicated dance of day to day living like so many ants picking their way around the ant-hill.  Here there were office workers in their day suits making the lunch run or else delivering messages in person as some businesses seemed to prefer; there William saw men on telephones in the boxes on the square, hats off and overcoats turned untidily about them to try and lessen the heat and in the distance there were women in small groups and knots making the rounds of department stores and grocery shopping.

       It was the square that had held his attention for the best part of the day, an open expanse of stone and marble shining in the sun and caressed by the soft, salty breeze from the sea and the heavy scent of fish and decay from the docks beyond his view.  There were trees planted down each side in almost perfect straight lines and the flowerbeds in the centre had been planted by someone with a knowledge of mathematics because there was a definite Fibonacci pattern to the colours and the spacing between the plants.

       “Hello there,” a male voice, slightly older, with a hint of something else about it, “You’ve been here a while, haven’t you, boy.”

       William whirled round to find himself face to face with someone slightly older than himself, immaculately dressed and well turned out with the faint hint of expensive cologne carrying on the breeze.  “I…”

 
           “Oh no,” an elegant wave of the hand dismissed William’s words, “I should introduce myself first, boy, you will find that names are very much power in these places.  I should think, therefore, that you are not local.”  He was wearing a silk waistcoat, from which hung an elegant golden watch chain, and his face sported a bushy moustache styled to points, beneath which there was a pointed and well kept goatee that ended short of his chin.  The face was smiling, with small creases that suggested that this was a usual state of affairs.  “My name, boy, is Jeremy, and you would do well to remember it.”  There was a signet ring on his left little finger and his right held a pipe well tamped with tobacco but unlit.  He doffed his hat, a normal style but for the material, which seemed to be more straw-based and summery than most that William had seen worn.  “Now, you have my name.  I should require yours in consequence.”