October 6th, 1888 — Muggle Town in Wales
Richard Gladstone

Of all the decisions Bella had made in her life, this was perhaps the worst.

The first time she'd made a mistake to run off to a rural muggle town with a man, it had been a mistake. She hadn't gone to Ireland that time with the intention to snog Ben Crouch's face off, but tonight with Mr. Gladstone—well, in Bella's narrow mind, that was one of the two options. The other, of course, was to return teary-eyed after officially breaking things off with him, but there was truly no telling how the conversation would end. Bella could be stubborn, but Mr. Gladstone was aggressively nice (and not to mention handsome!).

Bella had chosen the muggle town nearest where the Scrimgeour family kept their Welsh estate, but she knew from her parents' comments years ago that they never visited. There was nothing there, they'd said—and that was exactly why she'd chosen it. No wizards, nobody of note, no towns close enough for gossip to spread. Nothing.

They'd arranged to meet inside an inn, lest Bella find herself piss drunk inside one of the town's only pubs. That was an impression she'd been willing to give to the mysterious Ben Crouch, but not to the wealthy, sweet, responsible Mr. Gladstone. (Though that didn't stop her from stashing a flask of whiskey in her coat pocket in case the conversation got too tense and too emotional for her. Nothing wrong with a bit of preparation, right?)

After an hour of stress-pacing through the halls of the inn's halls, she heard a familiar voice speaking to someone. She took hesitant steps towards the nearest corner and, holding her breath, peeked around.

"Mr.— Richard," she breathed, a shiver running down her spine as his first name left her mouth. She would have greeted him formally, if not for the stranger staring at her; despite knowing that she'd never see him again after tonight, she didn't want him to think her some sort of... woman of the night!

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— MJ is MAGICAL —

Richard wasn't the sort of man that did this - meeting women he did not have a formal attachment to in a secret rendezvous. He didn't even do so with the women he did have some form of formal attachment to. This was beyond him but it was her. He would have scaled mountains for her and all those grand gesture sorts of things.

He was nervous, certainly. He had never done anything like this before after all. He was almost excruciatingly honest but he had needed to see her. To speak to her. To see if there was any hope at all of the two of them being able to go forward with things.

Richard addressed the man at the front, not really knowing the protocol here. The sound of his given name in her voice had his heartbeat quickening. He almost called her by her surname but quickly corrected himself to the given name she tended to sign letters off with. "Bella, have you been waiting long?" He asked.

  

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The jolt in her chest after hearing him use her first name was undeniable, but she wasn't sure what caused it: nerves, fear, adrenaline... affection? Ugh, she needed to sort out her emotions soon. Tonight.

"Not too long," she responded with a nervous chuckle. "I—I've paid for the room already. It's right down the hall." She tried to brighten up, but her heartbeat pounded in her ears like a clock ticking down to doomsday. Could they even hold a heartfelt conversation without stiffening up? Would all the romantic tension between them dissipate once he realized she wasn't the same Bella he'd once known? This was a nightmare.

"Come this way, I'll show you." she added, motioning for him to follow before turning on her heels and practically fleeing down the corridor.

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— MJ is MAGICAL —

Richards throat felt a little dry when Miss Scrimgeour - Bella - said she had paid for the room already. He was going into a room with a woman he was not related to. One he had feelings for. Apparently, Richard wasn't too much of a gentleman to not have certain thoughts briefly flicker across his imagination. It was enough to cause his cheeks to redden slightly.

He followed her down the corridor, to the room in question. He hesitated slightly - there would be no turning back from here no matter how the conversation they would have went. But it was something that needed to be resolved.

And so, Richard Gladstone, the impossibly gentlemanly gentleman, made his way into the room, his heart pounding a mile a minute. He felt like his hands should be clammy but thankfully they weren't.

  

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He was silent as he entered through doorway into the room, sending a flurry of thoughts through Bella's mind. Was he... upset? Afraid? Nervous, just like she was? Probably, she thought. She'd been the keeping him on a leash for the past two months—who knew what sort of explanations he'd contrived in the time between their scarce letters.

As soon as she clicked the door shut, she turned and pinned her back to it, her hands finding their way to the poorly-sanded wood. For a minute, no words left her mouth. All she could do is stare at him like some sort of madwoman, her gaze locked on his for moments at a time before it flickered down to every detail of his outfit from head to toe. It was only after an appropriately awkward silence passed that she found her voice.

But—of course—it wasn't what she'd wanted to come out.

"I brought, uh—whiskey. Do you want some?" she asked, her cheeks turning pink as they stood alone... in the small room... with a bed right there, as if it was calling for her to be the whore everyone accused her of being. Could she do this without breaking down? Could she do this without making a fool of herself?

Of course not. She was Annabelle Scrimgeour.

"I think, we should, um—talk. I think we should talk before we drink. Before I drink, at least."

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— MJ is MAGICAL —

She wasn't speaking and that was a bit worrying. Richard looked at her, taking in her features. Her blue eyes, her hair that looked auburn in some lighting but brown in the next. That scar that went down her jawline. Richard wasn't really sure what to say to her to start them off so for the moment, he simply took her in. Wanting to remember very clearly.

Just in case.

Whiskey? He shook his head at the offer, agreeing with her words that came next. "No whiskey for me for now, after we've talked maybe." Because maybe then he would need it. His mind couldn't really get past the fact that he was alone with her in a room. He was almost subconsciously making sure she had as much space as she needed to not look like a deer about to take flight.

"So, the main thing at hand," he started, figuring that he might as well get right to it. "I have a deep and devoted affection for you that I believe started when we met and only grew the more I got to know you. That continued to grow as I fell witness to everything life was throwing at you." She was one of the strongest women that he knew with a perseverance he had witnessed in no other.

He had been pacing as much as one could pace in such an enclosed space as he spoke before stopping so that he could look at her. "That is to say, I'm in love with you. Quite thoroughly. Rather took me by surprise, really, to discover it," he said, unable to help a small chuckle. It was amazing how things just happened in matters of the heart without you giving it the express permission to do so.

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   Bella Scrimgeour

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This... this was where things were different from her rendezvous with Reuben Crouch. Reuben Crouch had taken her to the pub in Ireland for a drink—for fun—whereas Richard Gladstone now stood before her, proclaiming his love for her inside this tiny, inn bedroom. Yep, this was much, much worse than running off with Reuben Crouch.

"So... the amount of love you have for me is inversely proportionate to the quality of my emotional state," she tried to joke, but it—like most things in her life—fell flat. With bothered huff, Bella wrapped her arms protectively across her abdomen. Her tone then grew more sincere—darker, but nevertheless more sincere.

"I've liked you since the Coming Out Ball," she admitted, diverting her gaze to anywhere but him. "Months passed with no signs, no signals, and I assumed you felt nothing for me. There was a nine-month period where we could have..." married, she wanted to say, but that wasn't a word that had ever left his mouth, let alone hers, "... been together, and no one except my parents would have made a fuss."

Her eyes finally met his, her gaze having softened from her wide-eyed alarm. "Those nine months ended when I was disgraced. My feelings for you haven't gone away, but to act on them would be the most reckless, irresponsible, damning, and arguably predictable thing I could ever do."

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— MJ is MAGICAL —

Richard allowed a nervous chuckle at her comment, not sure what to make of it. Then she was speaking and she was making some very good points. "My timing has been horrible. I did not realize the extent of my feelings until it was too late." She had been in that hospital bed, looking so broken and then he had known. He would always despise his lack of self awareness for that.

He moved towards her - what was the point in maintaining propriety in distance when they were already squirrelled away in a room together? - and chanced reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. If she would let him. "And it's the opposite on my end. It would be the most unpredictable thing I could ever do." They were already doing way more than what anyone who knew him would ever do. He loved her, she had admitted feeling similiarly. One could not help the feeling of joy soaring through him despite the sorrow it came paired with due to the circumstances.

  

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Despite her defensive stance, there was truly nothing to defend herself against. Just a man she cared about, standing in front of her, in a small, private room... Nope, there was really no way this would end well for her.

The brush of his fingers against her cheek sent a shiver down her spine, and it took everything she had to fight the impulses to pounce on him. It was not a desire to kiss him that pushed her, but rather the knowledge that doing would be the easiest path. There would be no discussion of the future, no answering questions she didn't have the answers to, and most importantly, she knew he wouldn't fight it. She knew that. She knew he knew that.

Somehow, she managed not to budge. Maybe it was the fear of what would happen next, or maybe it other reservations she couldn't pinpoint—but nevertheless, she stood frozen, watching his every move like a hawk. "I... I don't know what you want me to do. Really," she admitted, all too aware of how fast her heart was beating. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do." Was there actually a right way to handle this?

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He didn't either. Didn't really know what he expected they could do. But here, being alone with her made caring what opinions would come from outside this room very hard to maintain. Not that he had cared much to begin with. "What is it that you want to do?" He asked, figuring that was a good spot as any to start. "If there weren't these... circumstances. What would you want to do?" He wasn't adverse to eloping, really - people had been eloping all over the place recently anyway.

  

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There we some many answers to his question, but few that she was willing to admit to. It would be impossible to reveal her reservations without disclosing her poor behavior from long ago—the same behavior he'd dismissed as nothing more slander when it had speculated about in a copy of Witch Weekly. She wasn't perfect.

Thus, she did the more responsible irresponsible thing: she hesitantly stepped forward and raised her hands to caress his cheek. It was a far more intimate touch than fumbled hand-holding they'd shared at the hospital, but it felt weird. The touches she'd shared with Ben Crouch had been fueled by nothing more than physical attraction. It felt foreign and strange and forbidden—sort of like how it had felt touching Jamie's bare chest after he'd been injured, except Mr. Gladstone actually liked her for who she was. There was something about the combination of physical and romantic attraction that sent her heart racing, and she honestly wasn't sure how to cope with it.

"I'd do this," she murmured, tracing a pattern across his cheek and down her jawline. "I always felt so tense in the hospital. So many eyes watching all the time. Always judging..." She trailed off as she begun to count the freckles as her fingers crossed them. A moment later, her gaze rose to meet his. "What would you do?"

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Richard watched as she stepped forward and briefly closed his eyes at her touch. He could so easily turn his head just a little and kiss the palm of her hand. So easily. What would he do? "I'd marry you. Still would," he stated bluntly and just as honest as he always he, as he took her hand and pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand.

  

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Bella could feel her chest tighten as the word "marry" left his lips. That was a word they hadn't yet used, neither in spoken conversation nor in writing, and it brought a whole new slew of emotions. It was practically a proposal without the question mark, but she supposed it was better phrased this way—she didn't have to make any decision on the spot. "I would too," she murmured, gently stroking her thumb across his bottom lip. "... if circumstances weren't what they are." She'd wanted to marry him. How many times had she dreamed of introducing herself as "Mrs. Annabelle Gladstone" only to dismiss it as a silly dream? Too many. Way too many.

"I loved you, too. I-I do, but—" There was no good way to verbalize her fears, not without upsetting him or making a fool of herself. "If I were to marry you, I would have love and comfort... but what of freedom? Adventure? I don't want to be locked away in some country estate." And that was assuming his theoretical marriage to her didn't offend his parents so much that they wrote him out of their will.

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Richards features softened at her words. They were on the same page when it came to that, it seemed. At least when it came to their thought on it. She stroked her thumb across his bottom lip and his chest felt like it was tightening slightly.

Then she was saying she loved him which she hadn't really said before now. Not in those words, anyway. |I want to be your husband, your partner, not your jailer," he breathed as he leaned in a little closer. All his thoughts on propriety were giving away to something stronger stirring within himself. He didn't let himself think too hard about it before he leaned in to gently brush his lips against hers before pulling away slightly.

"You could even work for Mister MacFusty still, if you desired it. We could run around the globe, even." Hell, he'd move to the Hebrides for her, find an nice place to build something. Something that could be their own.

  

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He didn't want to be her jailer, but Bella knew any marriage between them would see them both locked up in a metaphorical sense. Social doors would be closed to them forever. He could lose his job—his livelihood—his family. He seemed certain that he wanted her no matter the cost, although Bella imagined his mind might change the moment he saw the sacrifices in action. There was something romantic about the prospect of leaving behind comforts for an everlasting love, but Bella doubted that Mr. Gladstone—a man who flourished in a secure job at the hospital—would bode well living like her. (Merlin, he might not even understand it.)

Bella's eyes went wide when he touched his lips to hers, but had fluttered shut by the time he pulled away. Any rational thought process came to an immediate halt; her lips were tingling and her cheeks were aflame. It was not her first kiss (nor did she imagine it would be her last), but it felt very different from the ones she'd shared with Ben Crouch. Before she could even respond, he'd continued speaking.

"I-I couldn't marry you and work for him," she breathed, clearly still caught off guard by the contact. "It's not a permanent position. He—well, I'm fairly sure it was one offered out of pity."

And she couldn't wander around the Hebrides married—not with Jamie there. It was in that moment that Bella realized she liked him, too. (The more she thought about it, though, Bella realized Jamie had only ever looked at her like she was an annoyance. An inconvenience. He'd probably be pleased if she disappeared and left him alone. It was nothing like the sincere adoration that Mr. Gladstone expressed.)

Fuck it. Without a moment's notice, Bella leaned up and kissed him, winding her arms around his neck.

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Richard supposed that was true. "You could be a herbalist, then or a healer for the lower classes that can't afford to go to the hospitals. There's so much you could do," he said. She was a trained in healing witch and he knew that she had loved her job. Well, he assumed she had anyhow. She could do so much good with the training that she had been provided. It was up to her though, he wasn't going to make her do anything that she didn't want to do.

And then her lips were on his and that was all he could think about. As her arms went around his neck, his went around her waist, pulling her close to him. He was hardly the playboy sort but he had kissed a girl or two in his past. Nothing compared to this.

  

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