Of all the decisions Bella had made in her life, this was perhaps the worst.

The first time she'd made a mistake to run off to a rural muggle town with a man, it had been a mistake. She hadn't gone to Ireland that time with the intention to snog Ben Crouch's face off, but tonight with Mr. Gladstone—well, in Bella's narrow mind, that was one of the two options. The other, of course, was to return teary-eyed after officially breaking things off with him, but there was truly no telling how the conversation would end. Bella could be stubborn, but Mr. Gladstone was aggressively nice (and not to mention handsome!).

Bella had chosen the muggle town nearest where the Scrimgeour family kept their Welsh estate, but she knew from her parents' comments years ago that they never visited. There was nothing there, they'd said—and that was exactly why she'd chosen it. No wizards, nobody of note, no towns close enough for gossip to spread. Nothing.

They'd arranged to meet inside an inn, lest Bella find herself piss drunk inside one of the town's only pubs. That was an impression she'd been willing to give to the mysterious Ben Crouch, but not to the wealthy, sweet, responsible Mr. Gladstone. (Though that didn't stop her from stashing a flask of whiskey in her coat pocket in case the conversation got too tense and too emotional for her. Nothing wrong with a bit of preparation, right?)

After an hour of stress-pacing through the halls of the inn's halls, she heard a familiar voice speaking to someone. She took hesitant steps towards the nearest corner and, holding her breath, peeked around.

"Mr.— Richard," she breathed, a shiver running down her spine as his first name left her mouth. She would have greeted him formally, if not for the stranger staring at her; despite knowing that she'd never see him again after tonight, she didn't want him to think her some sort of... woman of the night!

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