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.