April 26th, 1888 — Black Home, Cumbria

I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
Hannah wasn't here. Thom didn't know where she was, but he knew where she certainly was not, and that was at this damned party. He'd even arrived relatively late after seeing through some last minute additions to the first advertisement for Quaderash, and he had even had the presence of mind to feel bad about leaving his antisocial depressive of a wife alone at a house party for a few hours to fend for herself, only to discover upon his arrival that she had not come, and no one seemed to have any supposition that she would.

He was, to be brief, not pleased. But he could hardly be obvious about that. It was embarrassing enough to be here alone; to be here alone and surprised by it would be a social blow from which even a charismatic gentleman like himself might spend a month or more recovering from. He didn't have a month to waste lying low, like Hannah was doing. The social season was almost upon them, and Quidditch would start up in a week. He had a gala already scheduled, and a new sport in the process of being launched. He didn't have the time or energy to deal with still more whispers of marital troubles. Merlin, why couldn't Hannah just be like every other society wife? It wasn't as though he was making inconsiderate or unreasonable demands on her time. Chastity had never struggled to do the bare minimum required for a woman of her status, and she had been raised by a bloody map maker.

Now that he was here, though, leaving would have been akin to flying a white flag admitting to the embarrassment he had tried, so far, to at least disguise. He'd put it about that his wife was very ill (which, for all he knew, might have been the truth; it wasn't as though the two had spoken in the month prior to this) and tried to divert the conversations, whenever possible, to other matters. Of course, it was inevitable that sooner or later he would find himself engaged in a conversation with the hostess, though it made him feel the slight of Hannah's absence all the more keenly. Ursula, he assumed, would not believe the lie that Hannah was simply home sick. Maybe she would be kind enough not to bring it up, but after how they'd parted ways last summer he wasn't sure he'd earned any kindness, in her eyes.

"Mrs. Black," he greeted, formally but pleasantly enough. "Many happy returns."

  

Ursula had been expecting the R.S.V.P. to come from Thom himself and that it hadn't had stung a little, but overall she had just been relieved to know that the Pettigrews would not be in attendance.

It was, needless to say, a shock to find him standing before her as though it were the most natural thing in all the world. She was taken aback and didn't hide it very well. "Mr. Pettigrew," she glanced around pointedly in search of the blonde creature he called his wife. Obviously she wasn't there and she'd known as much beforehand. Was it a calculated move on his part or was she really infirm? Could Witch Weekly be on to something?

That it hadn't escaped his notice that it was her birthday, despite her specifically excluding any mention of it from the invitations, was touching but she rather wished he hadn't mentioned it all the same. "I was under the impression you weren't able to make it...?" How long did he intend to stay? Was he to stay the whole duration? What was she to do about sleeping accommodations? Worst of all, she'd probably be unable to be truly at ease the entire time he was present.

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Thom could read her well enough to know that when she pulled her eyes away to scan the room, she was looking for Hannah. Or perhaps he was only being paranoid? He had been silently assuming that everyone who saw him tonight was doing a double-take and looking for his absent wife, after all. Perhaps Ursula was no different, or perhaps she just didn't want to make eye contact with him. They certainly had enough of a history to legitimize that.

"I believe my wife may have sent her regrets," Thom explained — he had to tack on I believe because he didn't actually know, and how bloody embarrassing was that? "Unfortunately, she's rather ill."

  

"Yes, she said as much in her letter but gave no indication you would be attending." Once the words she had spoken had echoed in her ears for a few seconds, she realized they sounded accusatory and for the sake of treating him as neutrally as possible, it wouldn't do at all. She hadn't thought he'd have wanted to come anyway, surely that wife of his had given him a perfect excuse to get out of it, why hadn't he used it? Again she wondered if he had ulterior motives - a year ago he had cornered her at her party - what if 12 months on he still wanted her? Worse still, what if he didn't? "I wouldn't have thought you'd have wanted to come without her. Are you staying for the whole weekend?"

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Thom stiffened slightly at that. He hadn't known whether or not Hannah had responded at all, and for all he'd known she really might have intended to come and fallen seriously ill at the last moment (unlikely as it seemed). The fact that she had written ahead to tell Mrs. Black she would not be in attendance, and hadn't told him, was rather infuriating. Was it an oversight on her part, or had she left him out of the loop because she had suspected, rightly, that he would object to her rather transparent attempt to hide herself away from society for another week? Either way, she had set him up to make an utter fool of himself, which was exactly what he had done.

"Not if it would prove an inconvenience," he said after a long moment of silence. "I wasn't aware that my wife was so unclear in her response. I don't mean to ruin your birthday," he continued, honestly. This entire weekend would have been awkward enough if he had been able to just treat it like any other social outing, as he'd intended to do. Being deprived of his wife and left on his toes all weekend would only make it worse, and if it was unsettling Ursula as well —

Merlin's beard, what had Hannah been thinking?

  

"It's not an inconvenience at all." Her hasty reply was in stark contrast to the weighty silence that had preceded his and she immediately and very literally bit her tongue. In an effort to make up for seeming churlish she had gone too much the other way and it wasn't even the truth. It was a hideous inconvenience! The rooms were sorted, she hadn't accounted on needing another - where would she put him? She could think of a solution that would have pleased her to no end once upon a time but that wasn't helpful now.

Why had she said that? She could have had rid of him, not that she would have bluntly put it that there was no space, but she would have said enough to sound unwelcoming and then she could have breathed easy for the rest of the party. Now she was going to be stealing furtive glances in his direction whenever the sound of his voice wafted across the room, any time she spotted him out of the corner of her eye in the company of a woman, in moments with Rufina when she wondered if her doomed affair was on her friend's mind with him nearby.

But Ursula was over all that. She had taken time and put him and those feelings behind her. He was nothing to her now, he was just a man who looked like someone she had at one time felt affection for.

"Nor have you ruined my birthday, this isn't even a birthday party." It would also take a great deal more to spoil it, considering her track record of miserable birthdays. This time only a year ago she was in a deluge of tears after an uncomfortable confrontation with him. The events of that night had gone on to ruin a lot more than her evening. Fearing things were in danger of becoming more familiar than she could handle, she tried to shift the focus to the missing wife. "I hope Mrs. Pettigrew's illness isn't too serious." That was likely to become the third lie of their conversation so far; she would much rather hear that Hannah Echelon was dead than recovered.

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Thom almost started to protest when she said it wasn't a birthday party, because he knew the date, and he knew her birthday. He wouldn't have forgotten, even now — but he couldn't just say that, given the circumstances. Even if they had still been on good terms with just the two of them, he wouldn't have wanted to be so blunt in a forum where they could be easily overheard by any of her guests. Keeping track of birthdays was something Thom didn't even do for his relations, most of the time. It was certainly suspiciously close for a woman who was allegedly just the wife of a friend.

And then they were back on the subject of his wife. Thom clamped his mouth shut in an effort not to make a face. "I'm sure she'll recover," he said, a bit tightly despite his efforts at nonchalance. He didn't know at all whether Hannah would recover from whatever was really wrong with her, and he didn't know how to try and help her. It certainly wasn't something a healer would be able to mend with a quick spell, but it was something that would really have to get better sooner rather than later. He could hardly forge into the social season without her, after all of the rumor-mongering they had been featuring in recently.

  

Ursula forced what was supposed to be a courteous smile but it was closer to the expression she might've made if she were at that moment sucking on a lemon and trying to be discreet about it. "That is reassuring to hear. Do give her my regards." She hoped he didn't. She also hoped Hannah didn't recover from whatever illness she was troubled by.

"Well, I do hope you enjoy the weekend and don't feel too terribly for having been absent from her bedside. Who could possibly reproach you a little merriment?" Ursula was growing increasingly impatient to be away from him, his rotten wife had truly been a poor choice of topic (as it always had) and almost as bad as discussing her age. Merlin's beard, thirty-one. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must see to it that you have somewhere to sleep tonight." As soon as the words were out she wished she'd said it some other way and hoped her embarrassment wasn't as telling as it felt.

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What would Ursula think, Thom wondered bitterly, if she knew just how long he had been absent from Hannah's bedside? Of course that wasn't what she'd meant (or maybe it was; with Ursula it was sometimes impossible to say whether she was putting undercurrents and subtext into her speech or whether he was imagining them there), but it was the first place that Thom's mind leapt at the phrase.

"Thank you," he said, caught off guard a bit by what she'd said but trying not to show it. Was she trying to imply something? Surely not, after so long apart. Surely not, in this particular venue of all the possible ways she might have reached out to him if she intended to rekindle things. Surely not, after the note their affair had ended on. She'd made it quite clear that she had no further use for him; he was just one of a series of men she'd used to escape the tyranny of her husband's dismissal.

"I'll — do my best to enjoy myself," he said with some difficulty, quite glad to find that the conversation was ending.