20th January, 1894 — Hospital Charity Event

It was all for a good cause, this party, the hospital. His sister-in-law was a healer, Endymion appreciated this. He had thought he might see Miss Greyback here, and that might have been nice. As it was – he hadn’t been having a terribly good time. He’d lost at cards, and had had to hear all sorts of political talk in the midst of it, which made things even duller. It had even followed him through to the ballroom portion of the affair, so now the whole evening was a lost cause. Was this the way all next season would be for the Dempseys now? People asking for miraculous insights into Oz’s impenetrable head? (Endymion had prayed this would all end after the election. And if it continued this way interminably, how was he ever going to fall in love with anyone? How was he ever to have an interesting conversation again?)

So he had returned from a set of dances to practise studious avoidance, standing next to a decorative flower display at the fringes and peering at it intently so as to carefully avoid the person on his other side. Until he had noticed someone lurking behind the flowers (which might possibly be more interesting than the flowers), and so he ducked furtively around the display to be quite sure it was her. “Miss Potts,” he said, upon being proven right – and these days it was beginning to feel like she was the only one left of her sisters to be Miss Potts, elopements and engagements coming thick and fast for the florist’s daughters – and anyway he was rather too glad to see her, tonight, to be self-conscious about impinging on her solitude. She was safe: she was not really a debutante, not looking to be marry, and, as far as he knew, probably not much interested in the Ministry. He tilted his head at her, curious but not judging. “Are you hiding?”

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Thistle Potts

  

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She hadn't been hiding exactly but that didn't save her from startling when she heard her name. Hand on her chest as if it could calm the jump in her heart rate, she was a touch surprised to find it was Mr. Dempsey there to call her out for being anti social. If any one, she'd expect it from her mother.

"No, I - " she waved him in closer, taking a step back to make room, and pointed at the part of the floral arrangement she'd just been studying. "I think someone's left a secret message."

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The following 1 user Likes Thistle Potts's post:1 user Likes Thistle Potts's post
   Daffodil Grimstone

He sidled in beside her to have a better look at the flower arrangement. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had been hiding – the Potts name was on more than a few lips these days, with whatever had happened to occasion the now Mrs. Gallagher suddenly marrying down – but for now Endymion was happy to take Miss Thistle Potts’ answer at face value, and was soon sufficiently distracted in his own study of the flowers.

He tilted his head thoughtfully. “What have you made of it so far?” Merlin, he hoped she hadn’t been joking. Because he was quite devoted to flower language, himself, though she may yet have an advantage with her practical experience of bouquet-arranging.

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"You see these here?" She asked, pointing out a small cluster near the back of the arrangement. It was conspicuously out of sight from most angles and likely only visible if one were looking for it or possiblyhiding from veiw themselves.

"As far as I can tell they are the only ones of their kind in this whole room. My theory is someone brought them with them." Comfortable with her observation and subsequent hypothesis, she was still curious what he thought and looked up at his face to see what he made of it.

"It's an odd arrangement so I haven't quite decided what the message was meant to say."

  

“Ahh,” Endymion murmured curiously, studying the flowers in question intently and then peering back at her. They were out of place indeed. “Well, they intended to give them to someone, I expect, and then – lost their nerve, perhaps,” he suggested. A gentleman who had hoped to press his suit, maybe. Or someone who had received the flowers awkwardly and had tried their best to be rid of them before anyone saw them and read between the lines.

He didn’t know how much he cared for the truth and how much he just liked inventing the story, but it would be interesting to know whose it had been, and whom intended for. (Endymion was as much invested in everyone else’s pursuit of love as he was his own.)

“Is that a blackthorn blossom? For difficulty.”*

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*from here

  

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She nodded encouragement as he offered a theory. "Or left them here for someone to find." She was clearly enjoying this sensational possibility.

"Well spotted!" At some point when she was younger she decided that men weren't as well versed in flower language as women and it remained one of the few things she hadn't questioned and put to some sort of test. "Which makes this yellow lily all the more perplexing. I wonder if they meant to use yellow acacia."

"'Gaiety' and 'secret love'." The translations came as an afterthought as she contemplated the possibilities. "Unless the yellow lily is there to mean 'falsehood'." Her face lit with the realization. "This is exactly why I don't like using yellow lily."

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Still from here

  

Her praise made him beam; flower language was one of his particular niches, and it was always pleasant to engage with someone who was similarly fluent – and Miss Potts, of course, by nature or trade, was even expert enough to pick out the arranger’s potential mistakes.

“Well,” Endymion said slowly, an idea coming to him, “you found it. Maybe they meant it for you all along.” He didn’t know if he was being serious or teasing her, but if anyone had been supposed to read the bouquet hidden away here, she did make a lot of sense.

“So have you lied to anyone lately? Or had any loves you’ve found difficult keeping secret?”

It was – well beyond his remit to ask her such things, but he couldn’t resist posing the possibility to her, just to see how she would take it; but until she answered he kept his gaze studiously on the yellow lily.

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A frown of contemplation slowly took over her expression.  She hadn't even come close to considering that but it was an interesting theory and she made no effort to hide her intrigue.

"I don't think so..." she said after a moment of consideration.  She wasn't exactly prone to either one of those things but there was certainly an element of interpretation that came communicating via flowers.  And apparently she was much more concerned with deciding if any of her recent behaviors could fall under the wide umbrellas of 'secret love' and 'falsehood' than being too open with her answer.

"Bit of a gamble, assuming I'd look back here with out any prearrangement."  She observed, slipping easily into the dual roles of investigator and investigatee.

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He peered at her sidelong, amused or exasperated: he had forgotten how odd Miss Potts was. (Or – well, maybe she had grown into her oddness, with the years.) I don’t think so was possibly the most impersonal, academically-curious, theoretical answer one could give: like she was dealing more with a puzzle or a riddle than the facets of her own life.

Endymion wanted to take that as a no, she hadn’t had any secret loves, but. Well, not that he had any skin in the game. “Pure serendipity,” he argued (maybe joking; maybe just that optimistic) – he certainly felt that some kind of magical spontaneity played into any matters of love. He didn’t think this would convince her in the slightest, of course. “Or they saw you coming this way, and stuffed it in here when you weren’t looking.”

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