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The Magic Box [Tuesday]

Yesterday's conversations had helped Celia gain a bit of perspective, insofar as the mere existence of a letter wasn't as devastating as she had made it out to be in her mind, particularly without context. And that, at least, meant that she had stopped spontaneously flickering lights and breaking teacups.

...even if she hadn't actually sought out Ichabod for an explanation. She was still too hurt -- the possibility of a reasonable explanation aside, she still felt deceived -- to actually stop avoiding him, and she still didn't quite trust herself not to cry or something else equally humiliating.

But today was still a step in the right direction, in that she was busying herself with tidying the shop. And for once, she wasn't using her magic, instead actually pulling items off the shelves to dust them and rearrange by hand. It helped that thanks to Christmas, the shop was bright and filled with greenery, even if her mood was still a little bleak.

[open shop and post!]

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Was Celia avoiding him? He could find no particular reason why she should suddenly decide to do so, but being generally perceptive, Ichabod didn't doubt his sense that she was. He also assumed that if she was there had to be a reason, and he would very much like to know what it was.

Perhaps stopping by while she was working wasn't giving them a private enough space, but at least he knew she would be there. Ichabod felt nervous as he entered the shop.

Celia turned to see who had come in, and nearly dropped the crystals she had been dusting. (Which was exactly the sort of reaction she had wanted to avoid, so she was glad to have caught herself quickly enough.)

She took a deep breath through her nose before replacing them, trying to gain a bit more composure, and offered a fairly cold, "Good afternoon," without actually looking over at Ichabod.

That was made it clear enough that something was wrong between them. Ichabod closed the door behind himself and turned to Celia, steadying his gaze.

"Celia, will you please tell me what is wrong?"

"Why would anything be wrong?"

And Celia knew perfectly well that that sort of response was probably aggravating, but if he didn't know that she might take exception to his being affianced, then she wasn't going to tell him.

...even if he didn't know that she knew that. Shh, she was being irrationally angry, over here.

It was aggravating, and he wasn't expecting this from her.

"You have been avoiding me for days, and now I get a greeting worthy of an enemy," he replied, annoyance audible. "Please, don't pretend you don't know what I am talking about."

"Maybe you should ask Mary about it," Celia snapped, finally looking over. "Perhaps she could shed some light on the matter of why I might be displeased with you."

There. Now he knew that she knew, at least, and she could be properly angry with him over it. It was rather less elegant than she'd hoped to be, and she was much more emotional than she'd prefer, but it was still cathartic to actually confront him over it.

For a moment he was about to ask 'How do you know about her?' but it took only seconds to figure it out.

"You read my letter," Ichabod replied tensely. "It was private."

"And for that, I apologize," Celia replied quietly, deliberately keeping her voice low. "It was on your desk when I stopped by your room, and it's rather hard to ignore strongly-scented mail addressed to someone with whom I thought I shared an exclusive commitment. Clearly I was mistaken."

"And you didn't think of asking me?" Ichabod said with a sigh. "Celia, I assure you, I have no intention of ever marrying Mary. It will no doubt disappoint her, as well as her father and mine, but I have never cared for her."

"Why would I ask you about something you'd clearly been hiding from me?" Celia replied, resisting the urge to feel reassured by what he was saying. "Even if you don't want to marry her, you're engaged, and you never told me."

It hurt all over again, saying it out loud like that, and Celia busied herself with vaguely rearranging some herbs on the shelf so she wouldn't cry.

Edited 2014-12-16 19:13 (UTC)

"I..." He began, then faltered. "I should have told you. For that I ask your forgiveness." He knew he had to admit to that.

"But I worried it would scare you away. The engagement was an agreement between our fathers, and while I knew I did nor want to marry Mary, I feared what would happen once I spoke my mind clearly. Since I met you, I've known I would have to do that, and it no longer frightens me the same way, because it would be far worse to share my life with someone I cannot ever care about."

Celia finally looked over at him, crossing her arms tightly around her midsection. It made sense, and she could see why he wouldn't have told her, but the whole thing had hit a little too close to her own insecurities to let it go, just yet.

"What'll happen if you break the engagement?" she asked, finally.

"My father will not accept it at first," Ichabod said thoughtfully. "He will no doubt say what he said before, that love in marriage will come later, and that Mary and I having know each other since childhood is a good thing. To this I will say that the same fact makes me completely convinced that we will both be unhappy, as we are ill suited to each other, and have always been."

"She seems to disagree," Celia replied, though not as heatedly as she might have a moment ago. "Or, at least, I've never wanted to send a perfumed letter to a gentleman I wasn't inclined towards."

She wanted to believe him. She really did. But she couldn't move past feeling like every cheap insult her father had tried to pin on her during his visit, now that she knew that there was a proper, presumably richer fiancée waiting at home for Ichabod.

Here he blushed a little. "Unfortunately, she does disagree," he admitted. "Or rather, she will when I let her know. A more..." intelligent "...perceptive young lady might have known her feelings are not and never has been reciprocated, but that is not one of her talents."

Ichabod really did make an effort here not to ridicule his fiancée in front of his girlfriend, hoping Celia would still consider herself to be that.

That was something Celia hadn't anticipated: pity. She felt bad for Mary, reading easily between the lines of what he was actually saying.

She sighed, a little of the tension going out of her shoulders as she lifted a hand to rub at her temple a little. "You're making it hard for me to stay angry with you," she admitted, actually smiling a little. "I wish you'd told me, Ichabod. It was awful to find out like this."

"Can you forgive me for not telling you?" he asked quietly.

"If you can forgive me for looking at something I shouldn't have," Celia said, only hesitating for a moment.

"I can, especially considering the perfume."

It was so easy to make fun of Mary, and he really shouldn't. In a more serious tone, he added: "I would have liked to have told you myself, but now I am relieved that you know, and that I no longer have to keep that secret."

"I understand why you wouldn't," Celia admitted, sighing and uncrossing her arms. "It just made me feel very...."

She really didn't want to say it, because now it was resolved and he didn't mean for her to be hurt, but she also felt compelled to explain why she'd been so very angry.

"It made me feel cheap. Someone to fill the time until you returned home to a woman of appropriate standing."

That was a much kinder way of phrasing how she'd felt, without any of the language she'd used with Eleanor the night prior.

He drew in a breath. "Celia, that is not how I would ever think of you." He stepped closer.

"You know I am not my father, nor do I share his opinions."

"I know," Celia agreed, looking up to meet his gaze. "I know you're not, and that you don't. But that's why I've been avoiding you. I didn't know what else to think."

She paused, and added, "And it's not just your father who holds those opinions about our relationship, either. Mine reminds me of what he thinks of my choices on a fairly regular basis, as well."

Ichabod wanted to reach out for her, but he didn't, fearing she would pull back.

"Then we both defy our fathers, don't we?"

"Yes, please," Celia said, a bit more vehemently than was perhaps necessary. And after a moment, she reached out for his hand.

"Presuming, of course, that you don't have any other secrets like that that I should know about," she added, smiling slightly. "I'm not sure I'm equipped to hear about a second fiancée."

He locked his fingers with hers. "No other secrets that I can think of," he said, smiling back. "And certainly not a second fiancée."

Celia wrestled with how to phrase what she wanted to say for a moment. "Please be kind to her," she finally asked. "When you call things off, I mean. I can't fault her taste, and I spent the weekend being heartbroken. I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone."

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The Magic Box [Tuesday]

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