"You haven't." Sisse told him stiffly, although they both knew that was a lie. It was hard to look at him, to keep her face impassive, but she did. She didn't let her gaze stray and while she didn't manage a full smile her lips tilted ever so slightly up at her bidding.

But then he wouldn't let it go. There were very few times that Sisse lost her temper these days, she tried so hard to keep it in check, but that insistence... the words were spilling from her lips before she could stop them, her arms crossing her chest and pulling her shawl tighter around her as she spoke, "I know you don't see me as a lady, Mr. Bixby. But I am one. And even though I have not yet debuted I do not wish to debut after a scandal of any sort. So, no. Thank you for your kindness, but I can not accept your jacket, even in circumstances like this. It is too great a risk." She regretted that she didn't soften the words, that she didn't find a way to more eloquently say what she was thinking, but she couldn't help it. All she had done was try to be kind to him and now his own kindness was crossing a line even deeper than his own and he was stubbornly insisting on it. She had been raised to find a good marriage and she would not throw it away on some guilt induced offer before she had even had a chance to attract anyone. Especially not if Mr. Bixby did not see her as a lady. He would ruin her with a coat and she'd never recover and he'd never know.

And there it was. That kernel of truth she had been trying to keep from considering. She had begun to dream that perhaps Mr. Bixby was her prince in the fairy tale that would be her debut. That he would sweep her off her feet in love before she had even graduated and she'd be married within her first season with everything she could have wanted. A love match.

  

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Thank you Bee <3 Your magic has made Sisse bloom

To say he was used to the outbursts of teenage girls would be a lie, but he had a teenaged sister once, so was not wholly unfamiliar with the situation. He had of course, said the wrong thing, yet again and this time he would relinquish the space without further question.

He didn't realize that he was supposed to let a lady, young or not, family friend or not, freeze in a garden. His mother would in fact have his head if she knew, but he was not about to argue with the young lady before him. Miss Thompsett was incorrect; this was the Potts home, filled with Potts people, and they would likely think nothing of it, knowing it was his, or that he would have done it for any of the women present here tonight.

"Fine," he managed, still slightly taken aback, voice quiet and resigned. "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Miss Thompsett." He was off to say goodbye to Zinnia and head home. He had done his best to give the night a go, but clearly he was out of his depth still.

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Looking back Sisse knew it was this moment that would sting her the most. It wasn't his hands withdrawing. It wasn't losing her temper. It was that fine. It was that he turned away. That he didn't fight back. Because the truth of it was that he didn't think of her as a lady. That in one word all her unrealized fears had been confirmed.

Sisse couldn't stand to look at him as he walked away. Instead she hugged herself tight in her shawl and stared up at the moon trying not to let the angry bitter tears escape her lashes.

In that moment she felt all the losses in her life again. She missed her mother, she missed Sloane, she missed her childhood. This new world she would enter in six months was a confusing quagmire of feelings and expectations that would only lead to disappointment.

No. Sisse breathed. She refused to consider that it would lead only to more frustration. Just because of her experiences with Lester and Mr. Bixby did not mean she wouldn't have the chance to meet a handsome stranger who would sweep her off her feet this summer. She would cling to that hope, that dream. She would find her happy ending. One day. It just didn't have to be today.

  

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Thank you Bee <3 Your magic has made Sisse bloom