Description

Personality

Quick-witted, charming, with an unusual penchant for acting, Ian is also mercenary, ruthless, self-serving and defensively distances himself from anyone who might suspect him of caring about them. That said, he can also be brave to the point of self-destruction if he feels enough to merit it, which admittedly isn't very often.

History

Son of a disgraced British diplomat and an indigenous Otavaleños woman, Ian grew up in between two worlds. On the one hand was the community of eccentric ex-pats who flocked to his his father and on the other was the Andean Indian culture his mother still maintained ties to. His father; Sir Richard Thornton had fled Britain five years before his son's birth to escape charges of fraud and, after flitting around Latin America, had finally settled in the Imbabura Province of Ecuador. There he lived like a king; the meagre amount he had managed to con out of Great Britain was worth a fortune in Ecuador. Moving into a rambling white-washed Spanish colonial house, he became a common feature in the streets of Ibarra and soon attracted a motley court of rag-tag Europeans. Anahuarque Barrera, the pretty daughter of a upper-middle class merchant caught Sir Richard's eye and she, enthralled by the exotic nature of this white-skinned man and with a taste for adventure, married him. Soon after, Ian was born.

His mother died a few weeks later, from complications relating to his birth and Sir Richard was left alone to look after his infant son for a year. However, over in England Sir Richard's lawyers had finally, after a long and complicated inquest, managed to find a loophole that negated his fraud charges. Having earned enough to return to his homeland, Sir Richard left Ecuador and took Ian with him.

Gradually his father built back up the dubious shipping empire that had originally incurred his fraud charges and when he was old enough, his son took over, trading refined sugar, coffee and even precious gems from South America to Europe. His decadent lifestyle finally catching up with him, Ian's father died when he was twenty and he was left as sole owner of the Ibarra Shipping Co. He soon came into conflict with the Ruthfords- an aristocratic family who had a large chunk of their wealth derived from the success of their own trading company. They did not take kindly to the half-breed son of a disgraced diplomat intruding on a territory they had maintained for hundreds of years. Ever since, Ian and Osborne have been vying for dominance, with Ian unafraid to employ decidedly underhand tactics to get the best of his rival. With El Nino and an unseasonal bout of Atlantic cyclones setting in late this summer, many of Ian's ships are grounded and he's stuck in London for the next few weeks to do nothing but tiresome paperwork. He's heard of Osborne's uncharacteristic pursuit of the heiresses of a family fallen on hard times but takes little notice until he is approached by one of them for help...