"No, please." Rosalie pleaded instantly. "We - it was special what we had, it was precious and wonderful. An once in a lifetime love. And I destroyed it all because of a single misunderstanding. I have to live with that — I've been living with that." Rosalie would go to her grave regretting her choices that night.

"And I'm not - I - I don't expect you to ever forgive me. I'm not asking you to. All I'm asking is for you to allow me to search this room. It would've been mine and I just - it's my last hope. Please."

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stunning set by Lady <3

Ezra stiffened as she spoke, uncomfortable with the amount of emotion in her tone. She wasn't exactly emotional — she didn't seem liable to burst into tears, or anything — but it was still there, evident in how she spoke. It wasn't something he was used to, and he didn't know how to react. He still didn't know how much of what she said to believe, because it all still seemed incredible to him, but she seemed to believe it. She thought she would never love someone the way that she had loved him... and she wanted to search the room.

"I'm sorry," he said again. If his tone was more firm this time around it was mostly to mask his rising disquiet with this entire conversation. "Listen, Miss... Rosie," he said (almost reluctantly; he couldn't entirely remember if her last name was Hunniford or Hunnington or Hunningford or something else, but the way she'd said Your darling Rosie a moment ago had stuck in his memory). "I don't know you — at least for now — but I know myself. And if what you're saying is true, then I know I wouldn't have wanted to keep that ring."

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"If it's not here, I'll go and you'll hear nothing further of it from me." She meant it too, for there would be nothing else that could bring her back to her family. "I have a sister, and we already lost our brother. She can't lose me too. Just, please. Five more minutes."

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stunning set by Lady <3

"I'm not going to let a stranger go through my family's things," he said without hesitation. He wasn't unsympathetic to the situation she was in, but at the end of the day he didn't feel any particular connection to her, and late night confessionals in his private home already went well above his duty of care as a Ministry official assigned to her case. After a beat, he added reluctantly, "I'll look, and I'll write you if I find anything."

He'd been planning to look for the ring anyway, after he got rid of her. Her story had bewitched him enough that he wouldn't be able to let the matter rest without an investigation. He just hadn't wanted her to know that.

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I'm not a stranger! She nearly screamed. Except, it was the same line her aunt and mother had given her. They couldn't let a stranger into their home even under suspicious circumstances. Rosalie brushed a frustrated hand through her hair and huffed. He wasn't going to let her look, and Delphine was never going to remember she had a sister.

"Okay," Rosalie reluctantly agreed, for there was nothing else she could do. "I'm staying in a room at the Leaky. You can send an owl there if you find it."

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stunning set by Lady <3

Ezra nodded. He shifted back, to make a clear path for her to leave the room (there wasn't much of a pathway, between Cecilia's paintings), but then another thought occurred to him.

"You didn't tell me any of this," he pointed out. "Even when you decided to come here and try to find this ring. You didn't want me to remember?"

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Rosalie was almost to the door when he spoke again. She froze then, her eyes squeezed shut once more as though she could somehow block this scene from playing out. She was still furious that he had selected Miss Broadmoor from the crowd, still devastated that their destinies weren't as interwined as she thought them to be.

But, it was more than that too.

"I hurt you." She answered plainly, turning to face him once more. This time, her eyes were locked on his in the mostly dark room. "I would give just about anything to go back and change our path, to fix things. But, I can't. Letting you forget for a little while, it just seemed like the next best thing."

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stunning set by Lady <3

Ezra made a soft hm noise and frowned again. She said she wanted to go back and fix things but couldn't. But the incident in the modiste had given her an unheard of opportunity, because he didn't remember her at all. She could have told him any story without having to reconcile it with his side of things, and this was the story that she'd chosen to tell him.

"Alright," he said after a beat. He had more questions, dozens more, but he needed to think things through before he knew which ones to ask.

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"Alright," she echoed, unsettled now by his lack of response. "I'll uh - I'll see myself out."

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stunning set by Lady <3