He considered her choice of location, not for the sake of deciding if he would accept it — he would have met anyone anywhere if it seemed likely to be interesting — but rather to glean any clues he might about what sort of trouble she expected to get into tonight. It would be trouble, one way or another; married women were not meant to sneak off with strange men and two bottles of wine, even if all they did was drink. And he doubted that would be all they did; he had a reputation, particularly when it came to married women. She would have already known that; there was hardly anyone left in Britain who didn't. So: a study on the third floor. There were also bedrooms on the third floor, which would presumably be occupied when they rendezvoused. Maybe she didn't intend to get up to any trouble that might be overheard by an adjoining room — or maybe she just wasn't confident in her sneaking skills and didn't want to risk trying to leave the house for a more secluded spot. She probably did not intend to meet up and then sneak out, if the room was on the third floor. Could one acquire a magic carpet on short notice, he wondered? Probably not.

"I'll be there at half twelve," he agreed — choosing the time felt like a fair compromise since she'd picked the location. And if she objected to the lateness of the hour, he could claim he'd only intended to ensure she had plenty of time to procure the wine... but he didn't think she would object. This whole thing was her idea, after all.

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It was not difficult to acquire a pair of wine glasses; he just asked for them, along with a bottle of wine he had no intention of drinking. If the servant who obliged thought anything about a bachelor ordering a bottle of wine with two glasses to his private room after dinner, they were too well-trained to indicate it. He left the bottle in his room, pocketed the glasses, and slipped through the mostly-quiet house ten minutes before he was meant to meet her. He found the indicated room, unlocked and just as she had described it — perhaps he ought to have checked before, in the daylight, but he hadn't bothered. He set the glasses on a bookshelf, easily deniable if someone else interrupted him here before she did, and settled in to the chair nearest the window wait.

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Henry Bythesea, as it turned out, did not like Don Juan Dempsey. He lectured Sera on playing croquet with a man of dubious reputation when they were getting ready for dinner, and did not stop his reading of the riot act to her when both were freshening up afterwards. With his lecture done and apparently absorbed, Henry departed to meet with the other men. Sera rolled her eyes and adjusted her hair pins and went off to meet the other women, where she also needed to — was determined to — acquire two bottles of wine.

They were playing cards, predominately whist, and one of the valets kept bringing bottles of wine in and out. They were not the best attended bottles of wine in the world — Sera was starting to suspect that some of these née Echelon-Arnost women were lushes — and on her way up, nearly half past midnight, she grabbed two off of the platter in the hallway.

She slipped up to the third floor. Originally Sera had picked it because it was one floor below the room she was sharing with her husband — if he was going up the stairs before her, she may be able to hear him. Now, she was less interested in her quest of avoiding conflict, because the conflict had already found her (and because she had some wine when she was playing cards.)

A knot of concern appeared between her eyebrows on the way up the stairs; she was worried about being seen, more by Henry than by anyone else, as there was enough drinking happening that it seemed fine to wander.

She pushed the door open with her hip, as her hands were both busy with the wine, and smiled to find Mr. Dempsey in the chair. "I think one of these was already opened," Sera admitted, hefting her prizes upwards to demonstrate her successful acquisition.

  

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set by MJ | adopt a Bythesea!

Don Juan smirked at the remark. "I'll allow it," he said magnanimously, "So long as it's more than half full."

He rose and went to retrieve the glasses, slipping his coat off his shoulders and onto the back of one of the chairs as he went. He'd been waiting for her fully clothed, so that he was more defensible if it wasn't her that found him here, but he had no intention of staying buttoned up if they were drinking together. Alone, at half midnight — she knew what she was getting up to. She could hardly pretend to be scandalized if he rolled up his sleeves.

He plucked the glasses off the shelf and offered her one. "Do you want to lock the door?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. It was nothing to him either way — she was the one that would be impacted if they were discovered. And there were pros and cons to either choices; they might be less likely to be accidentally happened upon if the door was locked, but if someone with a key or a wand came along it was much more damning to be caught behind a locked door. And there was the matter of trust — they had really only spoken a handful of times, and while she had been agreeable and bordering on flirtatious during those conversations that didn't necessarily mean she was comfortable being locked in a room with him.

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Did she want to lock the door? It was flirtations like this that had gotten her cursed in the first place, Sera knew — and when she was a debutante, she'd been hesitant to lock the door. It felt more innocent to keep the door propped, or unlocked. No one could actually get into real trouble if the door was unlocked; everyone's clothes would remain on. But that had been short-sighted — she was caught anyways. It hadn't mattered.

"I'll lock it," Sera said, turning to click and lock the deadbolt. Caught, uncaught — at least with the door locked, they would hear if someone tried to shake the doorknob.

She set the wine bottles down on the desk before she took her glass. "Do you want the French white, or the Italian white?" Sera asked, her mouth quirking up in a half-smile — no red wine for them this time.

  

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set by MJ | adopt a Bythesea!

"Hmm, fashion or romance," he mused, of the choice of wine. The French had a well-earned reputation for fashion, as everyone knew. His association with Italians and romance was more debatable, but he had always thought Italy had a good run on the rest of Europe when it came to that area. The wine, the food, the proximity of the sea, the balmy weather. France was moody; the sort of place that leant itself to smoking and philosophizing. Italy was for seduction.

"Let's have the Italian," he decided, holding his glass out for her to pour.

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   Seraphina Bythesea

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Fashion, or romance — Sera was not at all surprised that Mr. Dempsey picked romance. Carefully, she poured him a large serving of wine before she filled her own glass. "Do you identify as a romantic?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. She raised her glass to him in a salute.

  

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set by MJ | adopt a Bythesea!

This was not the first time Don Juan had been asked this question; it was practically a staple of his conversations with married women, even the ones he didn't end up sleeping with. Unmarried women wanted to know if he was wicked, because they were repressed and it was exciting to speak to someone so entirely different to themselves. They didn't care if he was romantic, because they were generally surrounded by sweet but boring suitors. Married women wanted to know if he was romantic because their husbands weren't, and no one was paying calls and giving them flowers. They already knew he was wicked.

"When the mood strikes me," he said, smirking over the rim of his glass. He swirled the wine and inhaled the scent of it. "And you, Mrs. Bythesea? How much of a romantic would you admit to being?"

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   Seraphina Bythesea

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Sera smirked back at him. "Oh, only a hopeless one," she said, over her wine glass. She'd wanted a big real love, when she was a debutante, as well as some fun — now, she wasn't sure what she could expect. Stolen wine bottles and hazardous conversations with her husband, and whether or not anything happened beyond that, she wasn't sure.

  

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set by MJ | adopt a Bythesea!

This earned a genuine laugh from him. He wasn't sure he'd been expecting her to be so playfully self-aware. He took a drink, then took a few steps towards her. "They're all hopeless, in the end," he teased. The steps he had taken were enough to bring them close; he could have touched her. He was meeting her eyes, and looking at her as though he might. Instead he veered off at the last minute, around the desk in the center of the room and over towards the armchair he'd been perched in while he waited for her. There were a pair of chairs in a windowed alcove, probably intended to provide good light for reading during the day.

"The grounds look better in the moonlight," he pronounced, pulling up to the central window between the two chairs. He swirled his wine again. He had his back to her now but felt her presence in the room behind him. He'd know when she moved, he thought; the air between them was too thick for subtlety.

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   Seraphina Bythesea

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Anticipation hung heavy in Sera's limbs; for a moment, she thought he might touch her. The disappointment that he didn't caught her off guard, because she had not thought herself invested. But of course she was invested. She had not been jesting when she called herself a hopeless romantic. There was a reason she'd been reading so many romance novels since she woke up.

She followed Dempsey to the window, standing just behind him and to the left. "I've always thought a lot of things seem better in the moonlight," Sera offered, as if they hadn't decided to sequester themselves when the sun was still up.

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   Don Juan Dempsey

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set by MJ | adopt a Bythesea!

He shifted slightly, still primarily facing the window but angling enough that he could look at her across his shoulder. There was a gaslamp in the room behind them, left barely burning on the desk, but she was mostly moonlit now. He let his eyes trail over her eyes, her jawline, her neck, her bust, her waist. He took no pains to hide that he was looking.

"I agree," he said, and shifted his weight again to angle towards her: an invitation.

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Dempsey was looking at her, the way men looked at her when they were attracted to her. Sera smirked, preemptively self-satisfied, because it felt good to be looked at, and flirted with, when she wanted to be. She had sought Dempsey out, if not at the Sanditon then certainly today, because she was sure that he would flirt with her.

She knew she was lonely.

In the almost-year since she'd woken up from the curse, Sera had not crossed any lines. She did not like her marriage, but she'd abided by it — and she knew the question was whether she abided her marriage because she wanted to or because she had not had the opportunity to evade it.

Sera leaned towards Dempsey and laid one hand, casual, on his forearm, below where the shirt was rolled up. The touch, barely-illicit, caused a rush of nerves in her chest — was she really so innocent now? She leaned up to press an exploratory kiss to his mouth.

  

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set by MJ | adopt a Bythesea!

He hadn't known what to expect when he'd turned towards her. The hand on his arm pleased him; the kiss more so. One might have argued that this was to be expected; he had already gotten her alone in a dark room at night, with a locked door standing between them and the rest of the world. What else were they here for, if not this? But he had more experience than most in seduction, and knew not to make an assumption like that too hastily. There were thousands of lines drawn in the sand, for a woman like her — or for anyone, really; it wasn't the amount of lines that changed based on one's sex or status or societal standing, only what they represented. She had crossed a few tonight, and might cross more — but crossing one did not imply a willingness to continue. Some lines would mean more to her than others, and this was impossible to predict: an entirely personal consideration. There was a cadence to these things, he had discovered. A rush of rules discarded in a flurry, and then one that took time, deliberation; one that mattered. A tipping point, and then another rush once it was successfully tipped.

The kiss felt like a tipping point, for her. He could feel it in the pause between when she'd touched his arm and when she tipped her head to him. It wasn't a long pause, but it was a loaded one. His return kiss was soft for a moment, but escalated when she didn't pull back too quickly. He took a step closer to her and let their arms slide naturally into a half-embrace, his free hand wrapping around her elbow and his forearm running below hers. He sought out her tongue with his. The wine glass in his hand was becoming a detriment; the prop had served its purpose for the moment, but he didn't want to disengage long enough to put it down.

Her husband didn't kiss her like this, he could tell. When he had been younger and less experienced he'd sometimes talked to women about their husbands — he'd spent a lot of time with Elfrieda letting her complain about hers. He didn't do that anymore. He knew the patterns well enough to make assumptions, and he never learned anything especially novel from hearing about yet another self-centered rutting fool. Their performance was irrelevant to him, and the reminder of what sex was like with them was sometimes detrimental to his goal of seducing the unhappy wives. He could tell everything he needed to from a moment like this one. She was a little clumsy with her tongue, but eager; she liked this, and had the potential to be good at it, but hadn't been given many opportunities to practice. Ergo: her husband didn't kiss her like this. A follow-on conclusion: she was not an experienced adulteress.

It was the second conclusion that lead him to pause when the kiss eventually drew to its end. He wanted to undress her, to see her bare skin glowing in the moonlight, but if this was the first time she was going to do this... He certainly didn't want to rush her into anything, if she needed a moment to coalesce around this new sense of self — the version of her who was not faithful to an uninspiring husband. He kept his arm where it was against hers as he met her eyes, giving her space to speak; to back down; to ask for more.

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   Seraphina Bythesea

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It was a long time since Sera had been kissed like this; the last time, she'd been a debutante, unwittingly in the middle of her last night of freedom. Now, tonight — her tongue was rusty, and she suspected that she was using slightly too much of it. She was not entirely sure what to do with her hands, and was very much following Dempsey's cues, settling into their half-embrace. Before, when she'd been herself, she had been able to set paces, to keep up — despite the fact that she kissed him first, Sera was worried that she would spend this whole encounter following Dempsey's lead instead of taking initiative.

So she enjoyed the kiss, the warmth spreading in her gut from it, more than she'd enjoyed any kisses with Henry since her awakening. But it also came with an intrinsic reminder that she was not the version of herself she had wanted to be at eighteen, and she likely never would be. Her expression when Dempsey's eyes met hers was soft, unguarded — there was warmth in her from her own arousal, but for the first time tonight Sera was not trying to look crooked, or like she was amused with herself.

"I'm not sleeping with you tonight," Seraphina said, and leaned in to kiss him again.

  

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set by MJ | adopt a Bythesea!

Her statement meant nothing, really. There were dozens of steps between sharing a kiss and sleeping together, and this sentiment didn't help him distinguish what her actual threshold was tonight when it came to any of those. And at any point while they were progressing through those steps, she might change her mind about what she was comfortable with. It might still happen. He didn't mind much either way; she was probably more starved for sex than he was, despite being married. Starved for decent sex, anyway. But he recognized that she had probably said it out loud more for her own sake than for his, and he was willing to give her that. Whatever she needed to feel comfortable with the choices she'd already made tonight, and the ones she hadn't made yet but may have already been thinking about.

The kiss meant more than her words did. The kiss meant she wasn't ready to stop. If she regretted having come here in the first place, the regret was small enough to be outweighed by her longing. Not for him — he knew that. Just for someone like him. Someone who would look at her with desire, who would compliment her, who would make her feel she deserved to feel good.

(In the years since his aborted duel he had convinced himself that this was what Elfrieda had wanted, too; that she had never really needed him specifically. He didn't know whether this was true or not, but it made it easier to rationalize the decision not to have written her when he left the country).

He returned her kiss. He managed to set his wine glass down on the armchair side table he could just barely reach, then shifted closer to her, pressing their bodies together. He moved his now empty hand up and brushed the backs of his fingers down the length of her neck.

"You could put your hair down," he suggested. He'd barely pulled back from kissing her to say it and his voice was soft, his lips still hovering just over hers. He wasn't trying to pressure her into anything, which was why he hadn't said anything about her clothes. He didn't need to rush her; he could play the long game here. Her husband didn't kiss her like Don Juan did, and she had sought him out for croquet and then come up with the idea for the wager and followed through on meeting him in the study. She had decided to lock the door. He'd get her in the end.

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