"Everyone cares what Mrs. Finch says!" Juliana shot back, feeling suddenly caught. She hadn't expected Camilla to interrogate her on her own feelings (though in hindsight, perhaps she should have expected this). She'd thought that she would have just explained how recent their interactions had been and that would have been the end of it, because no one could possibly want to kiss someone after only having known them a month. Lachlan MacFusty did, apparently, but he was unreasonable in general; it was a defining feature of his character. Juliana could not want to kiss someone after only knowing them a month, no matter how much of his bare skin she'd inadvertently seen last night.

"My mother certainly cares about her lack of invitations," Juliana continued, still flustered. "I shall not be the reason my family is ruined."

  

---

Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Camilla softened into her chair. She could understand Jules caring about her mother. She would have cared about hers too, if she was getting excluded from all of the parties she liked to go to. The Binnses were also not as established as the Lyttons were, so she couldn't immediately understand how precarious their position was.

"Oh, I understand, darling," Camilla said. "But what happened, happened. There's no way Mrs. Finch could know about anything happening between you and Mr. MacFusty if you're careful about it. She couldn't even keep her own daughter from eloping. You shouldn't deny yourself happiness if you have feelings for Mr. MacFusty!"

  

Juliana stiffened in her chair. She was holding her tea cup and saucer very tightly as she tried to process exactly what Camilla was suggesting. It had not occurred to her before now — perhaps foolishly, given the circumstances under which the kiss itself had occurred. She had imagined that if Lachlan MacFusty wanted to... continue their acquaintance, he might go about things the way men did when they were fond of women and potentially wanted to marry them. She could not have made room in her plans for him paying calls on her at home, or introducing him to her family, or dancing with him at a party. Camilla, however, didn't appear to be interested in any of that.

"Are you suggesting —" she asked, speaking very precisely so that there could be no mistaking her words, as if this clarity would help make Camilla's response more understandable to her. "— that I carry on a covert affair with Lachlan MacFusty?" A beat, and then she added in a much less clinical tone, "And that to do so would make me happy?"

  

---

Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

"Yes," Camilla replied simply. "You don't have to give yourself fully to him, just... Have a bit of fun. Flirt with him. Let him make you feel special!"

Camilla enjoyed receiving those things from men. She didn't want to be trapped in a marriage, but she didn't want to live like a nun either. There was a balance to everything.

"Only if you want him, of course. But if you do and you're discreet about it, you could greatly enjoy yourself. You only live once, Jules. You shouldn't deny yourself happiness because of what some bitter old lady whose daughter eloped might say. You will be shocked to discover that the most virtuous people might be doing worse things. Mrs. Finch could be inviting one of her valets into her bed for all we know!"

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   Juliana Ainsworth

Juliana looked down as though considering this, but mostly what she was considering was how clearly she had made a mistaken in choosing who she ought to confide in about the previous night. "Have you ever —?" she asked, looking back up at Camilla with a flush.

  

---

Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

"Yes," Camilla replied simply, but then it occured to her Jules might be asking if she had ever slept with someone. "Well, I haven't gone that far. But I've kissed people. Arthur Pettigrew, for one. Before he was married."

It had been a fun little affair, when they had both been much younger. It hadn't lead anywhere, because it had been the year of his fall from grace and besides, she tended to get scared of anyone getting too close.

  

Jules was a little shocked by this. Not that it had happened, necessarily, but that it had never come up in any of her conversations with Camilla over the past — well, nearly twenty years that they had known each other, all told. But of course it wouldn't have come up, if Camilla was being as discreet about it as she had just said. It wasn't as though they talked about these things regularly. Juliana had never even had cause to think about these things regularly before the garden party in February.

"And — how did you know?" she asked, brow clouding. "That you wanted to?"

  

---

Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

"The first time we were at a party and we had been dancing and we managed to sneak away and it just felt right," Camila replied, recollecting that moment ten years ago. Up until that moment she had only flirted with people - innocently. She hadn't had any experience with kissing and the first time it happened it had been rather awkward, especially when looking back to it with a more experienced eye.

"And, it had felt nice. I wanted to do it again. I would think of him at night and small things would remind me of him. So that's how I knew."

  

Juliana listened, considering. She latched on to these little tidbits that Camilla threw out as though they were jigsaw pieces that she was trying to fit together in order to guess what the finished picture would be. Sneaking off together, and it just felt right. Wanting to do it again. Thinking about him at night. Small things reminding her of him. She wrapped her hands around her tea cup in the way she did when she was alone and pondering something, and wanted the warmth in her hands more than she wanted to appear well-bred and delicate by holding it properly.

"No," she said decisively. "I don't think I will."

  

---

Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

"That's alright," Camilla commented. She smiled teasingly and said: "I didn't have you for someone into Quidditch players." If she had to guess Jules' type, she'd go for a quieter intellectual who was into the same bizarre things as her friend.

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   Juliana Ainsworth