For a split second clarity touched Connie’s mind and she realised that Carmelina Cramming spoke in the same vague, unspecific terms that had comprised Connie’s vocabulary since she had been fourteen years old. She kept her face perfectly still as the thought began to take form and grow into something more substantial – a hunch of her own – but she stumbled over her hem for want of paying attention and, blushing furiously, the notion was lost to her.

She was over-tired from the term and had her stumble implied she had probably imbibed wine this evening, even if some of it had gone down her gown earlier, so Connie put her lightening moment down to both those things. She was hardly going to be right was she? Professor Cramming had been married after all, and though Connie knew all too well that didn’t always mean too much – it also reminded her to reply to Lavinia’s latest – there was nothing that made her think the younger woman’s marriage hadn’t been entirely above board.

Perhaps she was just unnervingly perceptive?

“Other plans being not settling for a man?” She inquired with a raise of her eyebrow and a nervous laugh that, coupled with the awkward way she was trying to avoid the Professor’s gaze inadvertently made her look a great deal coyer than she had intended. “For just any man I mean?”

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MJ made me beautiful