31 October 1892 — Jekyll & Hyde Ball

After frustrating everyone in his party at the choice of potion by the entrance, Oz had eventually settled into his usual social routine. He was confident he'd been given the right potion, so wasn't preoccupied with trying to determine its exact effects. He was on his second glass of some type of strongly spiked punch. He'd been talking with a friend (whose mask did little to disguise his identity) and pretending not to be interested in what Christabel and her beau were getting up to at the other end of the room. Maybe pretending a little too well, because near the end of the conversation he actually did lose track of them. Should that alarm him? Was he supposed to be chaperoning his sister? He honestly didn't know; no one had taken the idea of chaperoning Christabel seriously for years.

He surveyed the room and spotted Daphnel, so at least he knew she wasn't off getting into trouble. He relaxed slightly and turned to Shallott, who had appeared by his side. "This whole thing seems highly suspect," he remarked.

It wasn't Shallott who had appeared — he'd only thought so because he wasn't paying enough attention (and the vaguely similar costumes didn't help). He had just made this remark to Christabel herself. Now, presumably, she would press him to explain himself. Dear Merlin.

---

Since their engagement Christabel's life had felt rather surreal - she was affianced! She would become someone's wife. When she thought of that her stomach did a little flip. She had been engaged an entire month! The banns were being read in England,, even if they had decided to wed in Scotland. Her troussou was nearing completion -as the first Dempsey lady to be headed for the aisle they were in heretofore untrodden territory, although her mother seemed to have the matter well in hand - even if her wedding was

'Oh! What does?' she asked, appearing at Ozy's elbow wondering what tantalising gossip she might be walking up on. 'Come on brother, don't be discreet now -whats seems highly suspect?' she tried to look in the direction he was glancing trying to discern who he was talking about by his eye line. But he was much taller than her and with a better view of the crowd and as such he could be looking at almost anyone.

She had procured two glasses of champagne and offered him one, hoping the liquid lubrication would encourage him to dish!

---

Oz glanced at the glass of champagne she had offered him and then to the punch he still had in hand, then shrugged and accepted it. He could polish the punch off fairly quickly, and that would be better than leaving his sister looking adrift with two glasses in hand, as though she had been abandoned midway through a conversation when she'd gone to fetch refreshments.

"The decor," he replied, not even attempting to pretend this was anything other than thin dissembling. "Too many husks of wheat and shriveled corn. They're covering for patchily applied wallpaper that's four years out of fashion, I imagine." Obviously she would not believe he had been intending to remark on the party decorations — as though this was the sort of thing he would even bother to form an opinion on — but with this blatant a lie he didn't imagine she would be inclined to press him on it, either.

"Where's your beau gotten off to?" he asked, hoping this would prove suitable enough distraction to send her spinning off after him.

---

'Yuhuh' Christabel said with a tone that told her eldest brother that she did not believe a word he had said. 'Come on darling brother, you can be honest with your little sister.' she said with no small amount of affection. As much as the Dempsey children tormented each other, he was still her oldest brother - in some ways his conversation with her had sort of caused her engagement - well sort of. As a result of her conversation with him she had asked her mother to see if there were any gentlemen that she knew to set her up with. She had of course not needed her mothers assistance but she had perhaps given Mister Daphnel more time because the threat her brother had made that when he was the Dempsey patriach the spinsters were likely out on their ear.

'What is highly suspect?' she asked him, pressing him again with a lop sided smile.

---

She hadn't taken the bait. Oz frowned, finished his glass of punch and waved it away with magic so that it drifted off towards the nearest table. "I wasn't talking to you," he pointed out. While this was true, it also seemed needlessly mean — which was not usually something that bothered him, but tonight he not only took note of it but had a sudden urge to apologize. That didn't mean he was going to apologize, but the urge was there and he felt he had to do something with it.

"Fine. You want me to be honest," he began, with a shrug that said then I hope you're prepared to deal with the honesty. "Daphnel. I find him highly suspect."

---

That he hadn't been speaking to her had been obvious, but that didn't make her any less curious as to what he had meant. She was almost sorry she had asked, but she wasn't sure what she had expected.

Her anxieties kicked in as he spoke. What did he mean by that? Ozzy had joked often enough about his sisters being bitter and aggravating women, or rather, she had always mostly assumed it was a joke. Perhaps he genuinely couldn't understand why anyone would want her. Why someone like Victor would want her. However, she also knew better than to show that weakness to Ozy.

'How so?' she managed after a heavy swallow, trying to control her poker face as best she could, following his line of sight to where Victor stood socializing. 'I think we as a family, are every bit as good as the Daphnel's' she said, annoyed at how defensive she sounded.

---

Christabel seemed to have taken his incredulity entirely the wrong way, which annoyed him. It may have been his fault for not being more forthcoming about his rational, but it wasn't in his nature to offer loquacious explanations without being asked; he was not a writer.

"Yes, obviously," he replied with some impatience. As much as he lombasted his siblings to his friends, or mocked them within the confines of the family, he would entertain no serious notions of Dempsey inferiority in any respect. And the Daphnels were ... fine, he supposed, but nothing so special that she could seriously feel self conscious in that regard.

"Perhaps it's not him so much as his timing," Oz reflected. "But it's suspect either way."

---

'Perhaps I've become affianced to a blue beard ' she said, attempting a joke, humour that didn't extend to her eyes, 'and you'll have to ride to my rescue by the end of the month.' She couldn't imagine Victor in that light, but then that was the point wasn't it.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, 'Out with it brother!' she demanded her eyes narrowed at him, in an expression that was meant to be jovial but was a bit more severe than she intended. She could practically hear the wheels turning in his head. 'What do you think he is wrong about it?' she pressed, glancing from her brother to her intended. What did he see that she didn't. This wouldn't be the first time that she had been wrong about a man's motivations.

---

Ozymandias couldn't help but roll his eyes at the mention of an old French fairy tale. "Nothing so theatrical," he responded. This was a very Dempsey concern to have about an upcoming marriage, he supposed, but the odds that Daphnel was secretly a murderous villain were practically nonexistent. Even if that was the sort of thing that happened regularly in this day and age, Daphnel hardly seemed like the sort who would have the stomach for it. No, Oz didn't fear for his sister's safety or comfort in her upcoming marriage. He was more afraid that she would find the novelty of it wearing off too soon, leaving the relationship stale and boring — which, for someone like his sister, might have been worse than being murdered on her wedding night.

"I just — don't think he loves you," Oz said almost delicately. He had no particular proof of this, just a suspicion. She had been out for years and he had been here in England, doing — not much of anything as far as society was concerned, apparently. If he had any depth of feeling towards Christabel, surely it would have come about sooner than his courtship and proposal had. Victor Daphnel wasn't a hermit, nor was he blind or deaf — if he was going to fall in love with Christa, he ought to have done it earlier.

---

The corners of her mouth ticked downwards for just a second, a glimmer of the doubt with which she herself wrestled. She didn't want to admit that Ozy was right - there wasn't a day in her life when she would have wanted to admit that her oldest brother was right about anything, but she had to admit that she had thought as much herself. She was almost touched that he thought enough of pending nuptials to have even thought about her relationship with her fiance.

She leaned a little closer to her brother, in an almost conspiratorial manner. 'I think you might be right' she said in a voice that sounded small and a little hollow in spite of her best efforts to keep it from showing. Victor had said many things to her, he had asked her to marry him without flowery declarations of love, he had told her that she had surprised him, that she was smart and amiable, but love - even affection had not been on the table. Not in his proposal, nor their garden interlude afterward.

What was worse, was that she thought she might love him.

'I'm not naive enough to think this is a love match Brother' she said again, her eyes never leaving the spot where her intended talked with his friends. 'I know he doesn't love me' she wanted to add something about how, Ozy wasn't as smart as he thought he was and that even know, there was nothing he knew that she didn't - but the barbed died on her tongue, and she swallowed it with the last of her champagne.

---

Ozymandias blinked at her and frowned. She knew Daphnel didn't love her. She wasn't naive, then — she was settling. This was by far the worse option of the two. If she had been ignorant of what Oz suspected to be the nature of the arrangement then all he'd have needed to do would be to tell her — which he supposed he'd more or less already done. (This level of forthcomingness was out of character for him, and he might have stopped to question it had he not been entirely distracted by the matter at hand). If she had determined to settle, though, the task was to talk her out of it — and given her general stubbornness that was much easier said than done. Could he even talk her out of it? Now that the engagement had been announced it would have ruined her to break it off, no doubt. Still, "ruined" while happily nestled at home amongst her siblings was better than trapped in a fraught marriage, in his opinion. Given that she had gotten herself into this predicament in the first place, however, it was probable that she didn't share that particular opinion.

Endymion would have been useful here, maybe — if she was inclined to take Endymion seriously. Though the irony of considering imploring Endymion to help talk Christabel out of a bad match when Ozymandias had (as far as Endymion knew) rebuffed his own efforts to do the same thing years prior was not lost on him. Dymion would probably consider that an admission of defeat on Oz's part, which, pettily, Oz was not inclined to grant him. Still — if it meant saving Christabel from her poor decisions, perhaps he'd have to set his pride aside and try.

"You don't have to marry him," he replied under his breath. He wished they were in a slightly more private area of the party, but he couldn't think of a way to navigate them to one inconspicuously — and anyway, if Daphnel saw the two of them leaving he might follow after them, which was the last thing Oz wanted. "If I bribed him we could dissolve this quietly."

---

Chris' eyes flicked suddenly from her future husband to her brother. Her stomach gave a painful swoop as he said he would play the gallant elder sibling, he would make it go away, so society need only mock her for her spinster status and not her failed marriage attempt. It was odd, however, to hear Ozy warning her off bad marriages when his own seemed like a catastrophe, as much as she liked Sina, she and Ozzy, fought so frequently and didn't even seem to like each other most of the time. She believed Victor liked her, even enjoyed being around her, but he hadn't said he love her - that had to be better than a spouse with whom you argued all the time - wasn't it?

His offer was kind, and infinitely more thoughtful than she expected. He had once told her that she could take herself to a hovel once he came to be the Dempsey patriarch. She wasn't entirely convinced he wasn't serious, so his sudden acceptance of her breaking off her engagement, hit her hard. She tried to read his face, assess if he was joking or teasing her. She didn't think she could see any signs of it, and she let out a long sigh, turning back in the direction of the dance floor where Victor was dancing with Beatrice.

'That's the problem Ozymandias, I think I do,' she managed with a smile that was perhaps more sad than genuinely amused. 'I love him' it was almost embarrassing admitting it but she felt strange, more forth write and warmer than usual, her emotions much closer to the surface than they were on a regular basis. She resisted the urge to lay her head on her big brother's shoulder. 'although if you make the offer to him he might accept it.' she laughed, she didnt mean for it to come out like it did, it had been meant as a joke but even as she said it fell flat.

---

What a mess. Ozymandias scrutinized her, trying to pick up any signs he could of whether or not that was the truth. Not that he expected she was lying to him, but it was possible she was mistaken, wasn't it? She had never been in love before (or at least, she hadn't read him in to any previous affections), so she might well have mistaken a crush for something more genuine. Unfortunately he didn't know what he might do about it if that were the case; he could hardly talk her out of being in love with someone. The only remedy for mistaken affection was time, and as she was set to be married in two weeks that was one resource they didn't have an abundance of.

"Spring weddings are in fashion, aren't they?" he pointed out. "You could have a long engagement. There's no need to rush into it if you're not — sure."

If she was in love with him, Oz didn't know that he could stop her from moving forward with it. He would have married Sina without her feeling the same way, he was sure — and as a matter of fact, he had married her without any explicit confirmation of how she felt, except that she had agreed to his proposal. Still — she deserved someone who loved her in return. He didn't want his sister settling for less.

---

She smiled fondly at him, his suggestion that she have a long engagement. She had never considered it. When they had discussed the location of the wedding they had opted for Scotland rather than England to avoid the 3 month wait that was associated with the reading of the banns in England. Had it been hasty? Was it perhaps too fast? She couldn't think of what else she would need to know about Victor to know that she would be happy with him.

Her feeling of loopy affection was really rather enjoyable. She placed an arm on his shoulder, with a gentle squeeze. 'I will be alright Ozy, I don't think he loves me, but I think we will be as happy as any couple is entitled to be.' she explained. He had sort of started this, his comments about how he would not be running a home of dissolute artists had spurred her to take her search for marriage more seriously. She wasn't Porphyria, and deep down she was deeply afriad of ending up with no one.

'Did you love Sina when you asked her to marry you?' this popped out without her really meaning to, she had never questioned him about his relationship with his wife. Assuming that her brother had his own reasons for marrying Sina. If she was honest she had always assumed that there had perhaps been a pregnancy scare, or some other compromise that had caused them to wed, since it often seemed like they had never forgiven each other for their wedding.

---

Ozymandias may have been more forthcoming than usual about voicing what he was thinking and feeling, but even so, this was a question too far. Four or five questions too far, in fact; Christabel had skipped several intermediaries that he didn't think he would have answered in jumping to this. Oz harrumphed and looked towards the opposite wall. He slouched slightly and took a drink of the champagne. The tone of his body language was sulky, and she could make of that whatever she liked.

---

She took his silence as confirmation of what she had said, that the feelings shared by the married Dempsey's had been, at best one sided. His sudden dislike for the tone of the conversation spoke volumes as far as she was concerned. It was really rather endearing. Perhaps he regretted his own one sided arrangement, and didn't want her making the same mistake. Whatever his reasons, she felt an unusually open faced affection for her eldest sibling. He drove her insane and she was as like to throw a book at him as anything else, but apparently, when the chips were down he cared for her long term welfare.

Chris took in his sulking form fondly, before raising on her tip toes to give Ozy an affectionate, sisterly peck on the cheek. . 'You know I love you, dont you Ozymandias,' she said, 'And I do appreciate your concern, but I think I have as much chance of happiness with Vicor as with any other man I might think myself inclined to marry. I have waited for a man to love me for me, and I am out of time.' This fact was a little sad, that who she was had been found so entirely wanting, but Mister Daphnel at least seemed to enjoy her company and he shared her interests. He was by far the best offer she had recieved and she grateful that he had seen her and seen value in it.

Yes there were no flowery words of love, but he hadn't lied to her, hadn't said it and not meant it, hadn't fooled her into thinking he loved her back. No. He had offered her a life with him, and that would have to be enough.

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