August 19th, 1892 — Private Homes - Fluu hide and seek

Christabel had not been sure she was intending to attend the Fluu event hosted by the Wildsmiths until the last possible minute, and if she was honest she wasn't sure if she wanted to avoid Mister Daphnel.  Not because she was especially annoyed at him, but rather because she wasn't sure how much of their conversation he might have retained, tipsy as he was - and her  defensiveness still made her cheeks blush.  Her conversation with her mother had given her some longer term comfort about her prospects but didn't especially wish to be reminded that other people were thinking of her as over the hill. 

Still - the prospect of a different kind of event had it's appeals after a season that had been ball heavy. 

Mister Daphnel was one of the first people she spotted on arrival, probably because she didn't know the other attendees all that well.  There was little point avoiding him, the party being as small as it was, and she would only make herself more conspicuous by her avoidance. 'Mister Daphnel' she greeted.  ''Are you intending to be a hider or a seeker?' she asked him as casually as she could.

---

Victor had only two hesitations about moving things forward with Miss Dempsey, neither of which could be assuaged by a simple conversation with anyone in his family or hers. The first was the nature of their last conversation. He recalled it in broad strokes but not in specifics, which meant he was aware he had likely made an ass of himself but ill-equipped to muster any meaningful apology. The second was the simple newness of the acquaintance. Was it possible to be sure about a choice of bride after so few interactions? Marry in haste, repent at leisure, as the saying went.

There was no cure for the second qualm besides finding more ways to spend time with her, however — if the first had not left her too angry with him to allow it. He thought they'd ended on amicable enough terms, but tonight would be the truer test... if she came at all. He wasn't sure she would, but he hadn't been at the party long before he spotted her, and she greeted him of her own volition, which was likely a good sign.

"Miss Dempsey," he returned with a smile. "Whichever one is your opposite."

---

Christabel was immediately pleased that he seemed inclined to pick up where they had left off at the Mayhews house party, rather than re-litigating the awkward conversation from the Prewett ball. The klakon to start the race sounded. 'A good choice, it wouldn't do for us to be the same side in anything!' she remarked, she had decided that the best way to overcome the awkwardness of their last encounter was to address it head on. 'I believe I'm hiding' Chris added with a pursed lip smile.

'and I don't intend to be found easily!' She grabbed a handful of fluu powder and dashed it into the fire place, whisking away to the Wildsmiths other home, before onward to another home, before finding a spot to hide. Fairly confident that this, their second battle, she would win.

---

Victor's eyes lit with mischief at her answer. This was the spirit of things; it oughtn't to be any other arrangement than her hiding and him seeking her, so he was pleased she'd fallen into that role without his prompting. He watched her dash off to the floo, then consulted the pamphlet all of the attendees had been given with the acceptable addresses for the day's event. He'd heard her say the first address, but she wouldn't have stayed there, he didn't think. Did he know Miss Dempsey well enough to suspect which of the other she might have gone to?

No, he absolutely did not. He thought he might have ideas about ways to flush her out once he did find the right house, though, and there weren't too many on the list.

He chose the address closest to the bottom of the register, since it seemed reasonable to approach this systematically. Victor flooed over, glanced around, then cast a spell. When nothing happened, he moved to the next house up the list and cast again. A burst of magical energy in the rough shape of a hound threaded its way through the house, searching nooks and crannies for signs of life.

---

Chris pressed herself back against the side of the fireplace breast, trying to remain unseen in the hopes that he would give the room a cursory check before moving onto the next house in the list. There was a whoosh in the fireplace a few rooms away. DRAT! So soon. Someone's seeker appeared in the room, and with a shriek, that surprised even her, she started at it's sudden appearance in her presence.

She sprinted through the house. Her best hope was to hope the seeker, whether is be Mister Daphnel or not, had wandered away from the fireplace and she could sneak back through before the seeker alerted it's master to her presence.

She skidded to a stop in the hall outside the main room with the fireplace, and pushed the door open a crack. Peeking her head inside, she didn't immediately see him and she slipped into the room. The coast appeared clear, hadn't seen the seeker since her scream, so perhaps it and it's caster had gone back through the fireplace to somewhere else.

She tiptoed back across the room, the fireplace and her re:escape tantalizingly close.

---

Victor stood in the front room, listening while his spell sought out his quarry. The spell had been designed for hunters to use in flushing game birds out of the brush, but it seemed to work just as well with young ladies; he heard a cry from elsewhere in the house and took off in that direction, trying to figure out exactly where it had come from. He ducked through a door and down a hallway, but he wasn't familiar with the house, and the corridor twisted in ways he didn't expect. He realized he was being taken away from the source of the noise instead of towards it and doubled back. By the time he returned to the room with the fireplace the house was quiet again; his spell had dissipated and the woman who'd cried out had gone silent again. He was already thinking of whether he could use the same spell again to narrow in on her or whether he would have to change things up, now that she knew what to expect, but it turned out neither were necessary: when he threw the door open to the main room once again, there she was right in its center.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, feeling quite proud of himself.

---

Chris let out another, rather undignified shriek. Somehow, inspite of the fact that her rationale brain understood that there was no real danger in this hunt, her lizard brain hadn't gotten the same memo and had reverted to a some sort of primordial prey mode. So much for playing it cool.

She put her hands on her hips, 'Well guessed Mister Daphnel! she acknowledged with a mock gentlemanly bow, but slowly backing up, wondering if she could make it to the fireplace and throw another handful of fluu before he took the few strides across the room. She never had much of a pokerface, but the whole situation felt like a cat preparing to pounce on a mouse, there was a small chance if she moved slowly enough the prey drive would not trigger and he wouldn't give chase.

'You've done very well finding me so quickly.' she palmed the fluu powder from the pocket of her dress. 'A heart congratulations for almost catching me.' her head quirked to one side and she smiled archly.

---

Victor was wearing a wide smile as he watched her reaction change from fright to mirth. He might have launched in to an explanation of how he'd done it (not one to miss the chance to be called clever, particularly when he thought it well-deserved), but what she said next gave him pause.

"Almost?" he repeated with a frown, then understood her meaning. He was across the room, still framed in the doorway, and she was halfway to the fireplace already. She meant to give him the slip!

"Accio," he cast swiftly at the jar of floo powder on the mantel, unaware of what she had hidden in her pockets.

---

The look of realisation on his face was really rather delightful, and she realised if she got away she would cherish that small victory. As he tried to waylay her escape by summoning the fluu powder she ducked, out of instinct, even though jar was no where near her. The daughter of Eamon and Lowri Dempsey was not one to be caught out so easily, and she could not help but laugh like an archetype villain.

It was perhaps precipitous, she hadn't escaped yet, but she was sure she would. 'So near and so far Mister Daphnel' she said, still backing up towards the fireplace. She span on her heel again and made the few yard dash to the fireplace, with a surprisingly girlish laugh. She threw the powder into place and tried to mutter the name of the next location as clearly as she could.

---

He caught the jar of powder against his gut as it whirled towards him. Victor couldn't make out why she was laughing like that when he seemed to have won, until she spun towards the fireplace. He gritted his teeth and bolted after her, but a second too late. His fingers just brushed her wrist before she disappeared in a swirl of green flame.

Fortunately, he had all the tools needed to chase after her. He'd heard the address clearly and he still had a whole jar of floo powder in one hand. He threw some powder in and spat out the address, and he was through the fire and in a new house only a few seconds behind her. He dropped the jar of floo powder (hopefully whoever else ended up in the house they'd just left had thought to pocket some as she had, or else they'd now be stuck) and launched himself at her. His first thought was preventing her from fleeing again, and to that end he wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. It was a most indecorous position, but that had not yet occurred to him.

"That was most unsportsmanlike, Miss Dempsey," he huffed.

---

She was just through the fireplace, the force propelling her a step or two. It was going to be close, and she looked around frantically for a hiding spot, or a way to evade him before she could fluu again, but he was too quick. She heard the fireplace woosh again, and before she could take a step, her eyes widened and her mouth formed a shocked 'o', as his hands slid around her waist.

She looked back at him over her shoulder. It was a position with a gentleman she had never been in before, and she wasn't entirely sure how one was meant to respond, and yet the strange intimacy of the position caused her breath to quicken a little. 'That's your first mistake Mister Daphnel,' she managed, quietly, her voice hushed, 'You assumed I had an intention of being a good sportsman.'

---

As the adrenaline of chasing her across the room and through the floo subsided, Victor became more aware of his situation. He was in someone's house — he did not even know whose, and since he'd only repeated the address after her he wasn't even entirely certain if this was one of the houses on the party menu or somewhere else entirely. He was alone with a young woman, with his arms around her waist. She had lowered her voice. He didn't know which of these facts impressed most upon him, but he was suddenly keenly aware of the gravity of the moment.

He was unsure what to do about it. She hadn't tried to struggle out of his grasp or brush him aside; was she inviting this? Had she expected it, when she teased him and then dashed through the fireplace? If so, that could mean she was even more clever than he'd given her credit for and intended to trap him... or it could mean that she liked him more than he'd thought.

He tilted his face towards hers, but otherwise remained still — paralyzed with indecision.

---

The vaguely strangeled feeling of unexpected intimacy, not emotional but physical at least. For someone, unused to that manner of contact with the opposite sex, it was heady and was throwing her off more than she would like to admit - as though she had gulped a bottle of strong wine, that was now hitting her too hard with it's effects.

She had no inclination to run, for several reasons not least of which being the same impulse that kept rabbits pinned in the corner of the trap. Was this how it happened? It felt silly to have so little experience or frame of reference for something that apparently occurred with regularity to young ladies. Other young ladies her treacherous mind added.

She took his tilted head as the appropriate signal - it would be rude wouldn't it? To refuse an offered kiss? She decided on yes - that at the least it would be something she had never experienced before. A stolen kiss from a gentleman at a party.
She leaned in and pressed her lips to his.

---

Victor had let his eyes trail down from her eyes, over her jawline and down the length of her neck and towards the soft skin just before where the fabric of her dress began. He wasn't watching her lips when it happened, so the kiss caught him by surprise. Victor inhaled deeply. He moved one hand from her waist up to the side of her face and he returned the kiss, though only briefly.

That more or less decided things, didn't he? He could go home after today and announce that he'd made his decision; he wasn't a rake, to kiss a woman in someone's parlor when he had no intention of moving forward with things.

That said, he also had no desire for anyone to know he had reason to rush; a scandal would help no one. He broke off the kiss and dropped his hand from her face. "Whose house are we in?" he asked.

---

Christabel felt electricity charge along her spine. He was a very good kisser - she assumed with literally no frame of reference. 'Uh' she managed, taking a breath and swallowing hard as she regained the active control of her faculties. 'the eh...The Westgates London Home' she managed, trying to gather her faculties.

'We should... she smoothed her unruffeled dress, feeling strangely disheveled in spite of the relative chastity of the kiss. She gestured to the fireplace, 'perhaps head back to the Wildsmiths, you've won the game after all' she managed, trying to lighten the mood, as the air suddenly felt thick - was that in her head? He did still have an arm around her.

'I'll admit when I've been bested.' she managed a small laugh, that she really hope didn't fall flat.

---

Victor was gratified that he at least knew the people who owned the house he'd just unintentionally kissed a woman in. There were worse places they could have been — her house sprang to mind as one example. If she'd been meticulously planning to trap him, she probably would have gone somewhere they had a better chance of being caught. If she intended to trap him, she wouldn't have let him stop kissing her with such little ado and turned her attention towards adjusting her skirts. Which meant, he supposed, that she liked him. A thrum of satisfaction ran through him at the notion.

He let his hand slide off of her waist, slowly — one might have said reluctantly. He wasn't sure what to do next, since he had hardly planned for the day to go this way, but in any case she was right that they couldn't stay here.

"Are you up for returning?" he asked. She looked a bit flustered, which he supposed was to be expected given what had just happened. "If you'd rather return home I'd be happy to escort you."

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