August 11th, 1892 - Elysium

Sina secretly liked a county party. It gave her opportunities for acquiring interesting social interactions and conversations. It also allowed her and Oz to scandalize people with loud fights and loud intimacy, and reminded her a bit of their courtship. This one promised to be interesting, given the origin of the Prewett couple's marriage, but Sina was disappointed that she had not yet uncovered anyone's life-ruining secrets.

There was still time. Sina had misplaced her husband, hopefully temporarily, and was enjoying a game of croquet with some of the other guests. (She didn't care about croquet — it did, however, allow her the illusion of an activity more important than hunting for information.)

"It's not a real party unless someone's engaged by the end of the weekend," Sina offered. It was day three and she hadn't discovered any scandals yet, and she was going to be sorely disappointed if she missed work for days and didn't learn any gossip from it.

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open to anyone staying at the Prewett Country Party

  

Leo thought croquet was a waste of time; he had better things to do that didn’t involve hitting a ball through hoops and faking laughs with people he didn’t particularly know or care about. He was viciously competitive though, which was the reason he’d come over to play when a few others had begun to form another game on the law. There was something satisfying about winning something that didn't matter to him but made people upset when they lost.

It helped too, that people’s lips tended to be a lot looser when they were in the middle of trying to concentrate. He collected secrets like other people collected rocks, often filing them away in a discreet book to use as potential blackmail and leverage if needed; that also made playing croquet a little less painful. Unfortunately, the game hadn’t quite gotten to the point of that, which was disappointing given how many days he’d already spent at the party and little information he'd collected that would be even remotely useful.

Turning his attention toward Miss Dempsey, Leo shook his head. “Well I know for sure it’s not going to me.” If he were to get engaged it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise whirlwind with rumors attached to it. “Although I heard Mr. Foxwood is considering an engagement. I guess he couldn’t think of a better scenario to surprise his future bride than here.” What a poor woman if he were to actually go through with it.

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Thomasina Dempsey

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"Don't speak too soon, Mr. Maxime," Sina chided. "There's always time." Timoleon Maxime: Ministry, French, and Sina didn't know a third thing yet. Hopefully she would learn during this conversation — even if it would be unusual for someone to give her their secrets right away.

"Oh?" she asked. "Which Mr. Foxwood?"

She hoped that Maxime was right; it would give her something to talk about after this weekend.

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An amused smile curled against his lips at her words; still time for something to happen, but he liked to be behind the scenes when things happened. “Is that a proposal then, Mrs. Dempsey?” Timoleon asked before he turned his eyes toward her and chuckled. She was married, but that didn't mean much here.

“Well, there’s only one Mr. Foxwood here, if memory serves. Atticus. He has his eyes on some woman. Heard he was ring shopping with his cousin.” Leo didn’t care if he was meant to be friends with him; this was much more interesting. He didn’t know much about his younger brother, a rather boring individual if someone were to ask him. Too caught up in his books and being a professor to do anything exciting.

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Thomasina Dempsey

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Sina laughed lightly. "I've already had all my scandal for the weekend," she said. She fought with her husband and continued to be a woman who worked; she'd done her part to be entertainment at the party.

She hummed her interest. "Who's the woman?" she asked. "Rings are very close to marriage, after all."

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“So early?” Leo questioned with a laugh. “You still have three days of fun, so I think whatever scandal you think you’ve done can be bigger. Better.” Outside of finding himself in bed with a few married women - and a debutante or two - he wouldn’t say that his own scandals were done for the weekend.

Humming, he shrugged. “I’m not sure. One of the Malfoy sisters, I think.” Atticus had danced with both several times, although the thought of him proposing to Estelle Malfoy was almost laughable.

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Thomasina Dempsey

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"Oh," Sina said dismissively, "A pureblood thing, then." Pureblood things were boring; the blood purity thing had never made sense to Sina, but she had never been particularly good with keeping up with social niceties that didn't impact her on the daily.

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Leo narrowed his eyes at her as she seemed to dismiss purebloods. That he was his life goal, to keep the Maxime name free of muggleborns, although he waffled back and forth on the idea if half bloods weren’t just as bad. He could understand the desire to keep blood pure - it made the magic more potent, more powerful. But she didn’t seem to understand that he wasn’t going to argue with her.

‘Tonight, I’ll drum up something fun at dinner. Something torturous or something scandalous. I haven’t quite decided which one.” If he had any interest in ruining marriages, slipping love potions into a few drinks would be fun, but the thought of a well-timed weather spell made him laugh. “But either way, I promise it’ll be something everyone talks about tomorrow.”

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Thomasina Dempsey

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Thomasina grinned slowly, like the Cheshire Cat in that muggle children's book. "Oh, excellent," she said, tone obviously delighted. "Do let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Perhaps Maxime would be interesting; or at least more interesting than the average.

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Leo tilted his head as he watched her expression morph into something that looked like she was too pleased at his statement. It made him chuckle quietly as he inclined his head, knowing that whatever he came up with was going to have to be grand, as he felt the need to please her. (An odd feeling because he generally didn’t care what people thought of him.)

“If I need help, I’ll be sure to find you. Let me think about it first.” He grinned at her. “Until tonight, Mrs. Dempsey.”

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