The night will save us

[Xena Fisk]

She didn’t want to have to bid Mr Jameshill goodbye just yet, but she did have an awful lot of brothers to get through and then she supposed she ought to dance with some other gentlemen too, just so she could compare notes with the other girls on the boat ride across the lake later that evening.

Xena glanced down at the bangle, rather reluctant to hand it over so it could be swept away by a waiter to the cupboards of house-elves once more. “I don't suppose he would miss two glasses, would he?” She replied slowly. “It does rather nicely match my outfit, after all.” Two glasses surely wouldn’t be missed when more than that were probably hidden around the castle by hiding couples or broken as people tipsily took air out in the grounds. Frankly, Professor Black would have to wrestle the bangle off her wrist.

  

[Lupus Jameshill]

A funny feeling surged through him when Miss Fisk refused to hand over the little bracelet. It was something like what he'd felt when she'd leaned in to replace the flower in his lapel and he'd thought that other people observing the scene would be thinking of them not as two individuals, but as a pair. If she was going to keep it on all night, she'd be keeping a constant reminder of him with her. Maybe someone would compliment her on the unusual piece of jewelry and she'd laugh and have to decide how much she wanted to say about it. Whether she felt like bragging that she'd gotten a man to give her a bracelet on the night she debuted or whether she wanted to keep its origin to herself didn't much matter to him--either way, she'd be carrying a piece of him around with her. He liked that.

"Well, I suppose not," he said, unable to help the smile that came to his face. "Goodbye, then, Miss Fisk."

  

[Xena Fisk]

He didn’t argue or threaten to arrest her, and Xena smiled at the thought of getting to keep her little bracelet. No doubt she would show it off till Zelda got frustrated enough to threaten to break it, but for now it was almost like getting to keep a tiny bit of their dance with her.

“Good evening, Mr Jameshill.” Xena replied, too bouyed by it all to feel much sadness at parting beyond wishing it could have continued longer. The debutante bobbed a small curtsy, before going to begin her rounds of her brother.