December 31st, 1890 — Podmore Zoological Gardens New Year's Festival
He was here for Araminta, playing the chaperone so that his sister might attend the festivities of the evening, their mother having taken ill over the holidays. The stink of her twin's shame and their father's criminal acts grew fainter by the day, and Julius was hopeful that, by the end of the next season, she should be happily married.
But he was here for Eloise Manwaring. It was a matter of days before she would return to America, to her husband and so Julius Scrimgeour had chosen the event she would not be at, knowing all to well what would happen if he saw her again: a stolen embrace and then something decidedly more in the gardens, the giving in to passions, the crossing of boundaries that they had managed to evade even as their youthful selves had planned to run away together—no. What had happened should not have happened and would not happen again. He was here, she was elsewhere, and as the new year began, she would return to America and he would move on with his damn life—probably for only the first time in earnest, but still.
And so, Julius thought, he was also here for himself. After all, he was nearing thirty; it was well and truly time to find a wife.
"Excuse me, Miss," he greeted, endeavouring to do just that, "but might you have room on your dance card?"
— graphics by mj ♥ —