He only had four sisters, but as the only one who had married was now widowed by her ghost-husband and, besides that, that they were all varying degrees of odd, he had to imagine Lowri Dempsey had long since resigned herself to seeing them all live in the Galway estate forever. If she had time to consider it, while her other sons (not Endymion; Endymion was an angel) were waltzing around being like that.

“No, I’m – quite a hopeless case, as it turns out,” Endymion said lightly, cheerfully – although the smile might have dipped from his eyes a little, because he was a little disappointed by it. Thistle might have grown into the space she had been given – freedom and independence – but Endymion just felt rather lonely.

A failure, he might have said more truthfully, if Thistle Potts had not also been as yet unmarried; he was not trying to insult her in the same breath.

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   Thistle Potts

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"Merlin," she said around a chortle of a laugh. "We are quite a pair." She clamped her lips together, fighting back louder less dignified laughter as the layers of realization hit her. Not the least of which was that she had been burning with embarrassment a few moments prior when he was doing no better than she was. Except that he was a man... he'd always have the advantage in that regard.

"I've read better stories in Witch Weekly."

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Set by Bee <3

It had been a long time ago, but he would confess he found it strange that he was so much more at ease with Thistle Potts now than he had been, back in their youth. She was right – they were much better matched as a pair now (failures as they were) than they ever had been when tentatively hoping for anything.

Because she was laughing, and so he veered further away from seriousness as well. “No, that’s too much. Too far, Miss Potts,” he protested. “I simply can’t imagine you read Witch Weekly.”

They might not have known each other long enough, or candidly enough, back then to pretend they knew each other inside out, but Endymion trusted his gut feelings fully on the rare occasion he had them. She was certainly not the sort to have much patience with gossip magazines, and she was not in society enough to need to know what they were saying. She was far too sensible. “Do you mean to tell me you have read it?” He quizzed. “I mean, beyond the first page?”

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"I don't make a habit of it." As someone who didn't consider what she was admitting to when she made that comment, she had the sense to be at least a little sheepish through her grin.  Of course it was more so for the fact that she let it slip so carelessly than that she had read it.  "I once knew someone who was quite invested in the Lonely Hearts section."  After a beat she realized he would likely need an explanation "It's an anonymous sort of want-ad but instead of jobs it's for personal connections."

"If you were to see a cover with the headline 'seven things a modern bachelor looks for in a wife' you wouldn't be the least bit curious to see how accurate it is?"

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Set by Bee <3

Endymion did pick up the magazine from time to time (and occasionally one could find copies lying about at the club, in case one needed fodder to mock whichever bachelor had been raked across the coals for far-fetched content that week), but he had never considered the Lonely Hearts pages with any seriousness. Somehow it felt so... contrived.

Endymion had always rather been of the opinion that his soulmate ought just to appear before him one day spontaneously, unmistakable and instant and so ludicrously attractive to him that he could not think of anyone but them from that day on. (This may have been the true curse of his tryst with the wild Veela.)

“Oh, yes, of course,” Endymion said instead, with a daft grin – but actually a little bit serious. “I’d rather appreciate finally finding out what I am looking for in a wife.” He knew what he was not looking for, he thought. And he knew what he ought to be looking for, to some extent. But what he actually was? He hadn’t the foggiest.

“So – who did you know?” He nudged her. Invested in the Lonely Hearts, he meant.

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She frowned with exaggerated doubt. "Skilled in table arrangements." She held up a finger, ready to list off what would so obviously be in this fake article. "Speaks at least 3 fashionable languages." Another finger. A third finger came in equal tempo but she had already run out of readily available unnecessary attributes. After a pause she gave up the count with a small dismissive wave. Clearly she didn't know what made for an ideal wife either.

She clucked her tongue, returning the nudge with an elbow. "A lady must keep some secrets."

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Set by Bee <3

He scoffed at her supposed secret-keeping. Telling him was hardly the same as gossiping: and every time they spoke nowadays the awkwardness seemed to ebb so far away that they felt much like old friends, and Endymion forgot that Miss Thistle Potts really owed him nothing at all. Really, they ought to have been strangers by now – but he was having too much fun with her, skulking behind this suspect flower arrangement, to relinquish her or himself back up to the party.

“Is that all you have?” Endymion said, with a pout of not-entirely-mock-disappointment. “I was taking mental notes.” If they had been friends, he might have ribbed her about her lack of fashionable languages (she probably had table arrangements rather well in hand), but that seemed like – making unnecessary assumptions, and he didn’t want to cause offence.

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