Father Brown and the Baxter Twins

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Well it's been a hot minute hasn't it? I've got nothing to say for myself except I'm hoping to continue to post a new chapter every Saturday until this is done. I will say that I've been having some issues with motivation so I might miss a few Saturdays but nothing as long as my last Hiatus. As you might have noticed it says unedited, I'm going to update the post some time tomorrow with the edited version. So if you see a lot of typos I'm sorry. This is also the chapter where they go all the way, it's not fully described but it does happen at the end. Skip the last paragraph if you don't wanna read about that stuff. Lastly please drop a review if you're still here and reading and I'll (hopefully) see you guys next Saturday!

*Now officially edited - hopefully I caught everything*

Chapter 8: The Girl in the Dress

The dress Lady Felicia had helped her pick out was stunning. It was a dark blue, empire waisted, velvet topped, chiffon skirted, silver star embossed piece of art. It hid everything she wanted to hide and enhanced every feature she had. It was the right length, bared enough of her calves but would twirl about her as she danced through the dimly lit parish hall.

And while she was excited to wear it, she was saddened every time she remembered that the person she had wanted to stun speechless with this dress was not the person who would be coming in a few short hours to pick her up for the dance. In all likelihood Sidney Carter would not see her in this dress, and he certainly wouldn't be stripping it from her in some desperate passion like she imagined.

Lady Felicia had come to Mrs. McCarthy's to help her with her hair and make-up. She had told her that she could do it herself but Felicia hadn't believed her. Lady Felicia had had some sort of devious smirk about her since she had arrived and it was making her nervous. It was the sort of look that she got when she was planning something but she couldn't get Lady Felicia to tell her what it was.

When Lady Felicia was done fixing her up she put her in front of the mirror. She had never thought that she could be this beautiful, in fact, for a while she was sure that it wasn't truly her in the mirror.

Lady Felicia had looked her over, was clearly happy with the results and then said she'd see her at the dance hall.

All Seraphina had to do was wait for her beau to pick her up.

When Joshua came, he had flowers for the front room, and a flower to pin to her dress. He paid her all the right compliments and she smiled graciously to each one. She then walked the way to the hall where the dance would be held on his arm.

She had been uncharacteristically quiet. She couldn't help it, her mind was still on Sidney and what he might have said if he had seen her. She wouldn't have needed a bouquet or a boutonniere from him, she just wanted to be on his arm for the night.

Maybe this had been silly. Drawing the line in the sand where it was. It was just, Seraphina was so used to getting her way, that when he denied her that next step, she had taken it as a rejection. And then she had further blown it all out of proportion by making the argument about the dance when it was anything but.

Now she wished to speak to him, to tell him that it was silly for her to pick a fight. That he had just bruised her pride. That if he wanted to wait, then she was willing to do so too. The only thing stopping her was her pride, that and she was on the arm of another man at that moment.

Maybe she'd try talking to Sidney tomorrow. Swallow her pride and tell him the truth. Maybe.

When they got to the dance hall, after Joshua had handed in their tickets as he had prepaid, she found that she was in for a nasty shock.

Sidney had said he hadn't wanted to go to the dance, but there he was, at the dance with some other girl. He looked ever so dapper in this grey suit, complete with waist coat and fancy black dress shoes.

Granted this was entirely her fault. She had made a big show of seeing other people, had instigated a whole row in the middle of the street so Sidney would hear that two men had wanted to escort her here. It would make sense that he would retaliate by bringing another girl, just to spite her. If that's what this was of course.

It was entirely possible that Sidney liked this girl and decided to take her to the dance. Liked her more than he liked Seraphina.

Irrationally her heart hurt. She had so wanted Sidney to come and he had been so vehemently against it and now he was here with someone else. What made her better than her? What did this girl have that Seraphina didn't? You know, except a pretty pale complexion, perfectly curled blonde hair and a small stature to go with her petite figure.

But if he thought she was going to show him she cared, if he thought she'd create a scene he had another thing coming. If he wanted to play this game she would play and she would win.

And he could forget her talking to him tomorrow and apologizing. She had her pride after all… but at this rate it might be all she had left.

She was stunning.

Absolutely stunning in a dress that looked like someone had cut the night sky out of the heavens and turned it into a piece of finery to wear.

But that beauty was wasted on Joshua Hutch. Next to her he looked exactly like what he was, a country bumpkin.

Sidney, on the other hand, had gotten fashion advice from Lady Felicia. She had provided Seraphina's dress so she knew exactly what to put Sidney in to make sure he matched the girl he was going to surprise at this dance.

Of course the second she told him how much it would cost it was out of the running. Couldn't afford a suit as expensive as that. That amount of money could buy him groceries for a year. But Lady Felicia had paid, despite Sidney's protests.

A hopeless romantic, she had called herself. She wanted nothing more than for the pair of them to realize that they were perfect for one another and get back together. And Sidney wanted that too.

Except the second she saw him she turned her nose up at him and burrowed closer into Joshua's side. Right, well he might have deserved that. He was standing with the flower shop assistant, and she was standing rather close to him. Except he wasn't her date, but he was going to help her land the date she wanted.

But Seraphina didn't look happy to see him and all that self-doubt was beginning to kick in again. What if this backfired in his face? He wouldn't be able to live the humiliation down, and his heart would probably never get over the blow.

He'd never find out though unless he tried. And he really didn't want to go another day with her thinking that she could see other people, not when he so desperately wanted her to himself.

So, he counted to five, puffed out his chest and moved immediately to intercept Seraphina and Joshua. Which he did, mid dance floor.

He got right in front of them, forced himself to peel his eyes off of Seraphina and then turned a commanding glare onto poor confused Joshua.

"Clear off, Hutch," he ordered and both Seraphina and Joshua turned surprised eyes to him.

"Sidney," she hissed but he didn't listen to her.

"I'm permanently cutting in," Sidney continued. "You can have my date."

Over at the table where he left her the flower shop girl gave a little wave and Joshua's eyes crinkled a bit. The Flower shop girl had had a crush on Joshua for months. Sidney had not known that, but Father Brown did. When Lady Felicia mentioned the plan, and how it might end with Sidney scraping it out with Joshua, he mentioned that having a suitable replacement for the date Sidney was stealing might help to not cause a row in the dance.

Father Brown had caught the flower shop girl weeping the day after Joshua's row in the street for the honor to escort Seraphina to this dance. And since Father Brown was… well Father Brown, the poor flower shop girl had told him everything. Just spilled it all out to him.

Well it was going to work in both of their advantages if he could get Joshua Hutch to agree. But then man had turned back to Sidney not impressed, but clearly weighing the options.

"If you don't think I won't get in a tousle over this you're mistaken. I will throw down here in front of everyone even if it means Mrs. McCarthy will never speak to me again."

Joshua sighed but shook his head, dropped a hold of Seraphina and pushed past Sidney. He didn't say a single thing, not a word to Sidney or to Seraphina. He marched right over to that flower shop girl and offered her his arm, and that was the two of them disappearing into the darkened hall.

"Champion," Sidney said in a soft exhale before turning a shaky smile onto the very unimpressed Seraphina. He then offered her a hand. "Would you like to dance?"

She looked first to that hand before turning her eyes back up to him. Longing and confusion were reflected back at him and his heart leapt into his chest.

"I've been practicing."

And that he had. Specially to take his girl around a dance floor. In the proper way. He had gotten a lot of practice with Lady Felicia who was the strictest of tutors.

After a moment of silently regarding him Seraphina put her gloved hand in his and let him pull her close. As they began to waltz, to a song that wasn't really a waltz, that nervousness began to melt away from him.

Things may be over after this, and he knew that, but he would always have this one moment and memory for the rest of his life.

They shared one very intimate dance before Seraphina demanded that Sidney take her outside. She told him she needed fresh air, what she really wanted was to speak to him privately and away from everyone else.

As they had been dancing, she noted that everyone's eyes were on them. She even caught some people pointing and whispering. Now she knew this was the way in a small town, but Seraphina didn't want them knowing everything about her and Sidney.

Hence dragging him out of the parish hall, and then around back so they could have some privacy.

The second they got out into the cool night air, Sidney took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

She cleared her throat as they stilled, she felt they had gotten a safe distance enough to speak plainly now.

"Thank you for… for the dance, I know you didn't want to come."

"Yeah well… relationships are all about compromise. Now that I've done this you can't say no when I want to take us fishin'."

"That sounds more like extortion," she said and for a moment the two shared a laugh. Once they were done chuckling she added: "I uhm… I also brought you back here because I wanted to speak to you. I wanted to clear the air."

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea."

"I… I wanted to tell you that I've been silly," she said softly avoiding his eyes. "You see… I took your aversion to go further as a slight against me. As proof that you didn't find me attractive. And instead of talking it out with you, I got angry and acted out. And then made it seem like the dance was the issue but it wasn't. Which… which was terrible of me."

"You have to know that's not true though," he said. "I think you're beautiful, I just… I've skipped through these steps before, gone straight to the good stuff and it ended terribly. With you… with you I wanted things to work out so I thought… maybe if I went about it the good Christian way…"

Seraphina smiled at him and he smiled back. "I shouldn't have let you push me away. I should have fought you more, but I… your words hurt me too…"

"I'm sorry… Patience is one of the virtues that I do not possess."

"No, it's alright. I'll forgive you if you forgive me."

She only had to smile at him and she could tell that already that he knew he was forgiven.

"To clear things up. I am willing to wait however long you'd like," she said.

"Well, that's good," he said. "Since we're on the topic of clearing things up, I would like to add that I do not want you seeing other people. I want you to be going steady with me and I want all the trappings and trimmings that go with that."

"Like telling everyone you're my boyfriend?"

"Especially that one."

Seraphina clapped her hands excitedly, it looked like they were both going to get there way tonight.

"There's one last thing, Seraphina," he said softly coming to stand closer to her and she nodded. "I'd very much like to kiss you, if you'd allow me."

It wasn't like Sidney to ask. Usually he stole his kisses from her, and honestly, she couldn't have cared less. But she understood that he wanted to be the gentleman with her, and since they had been at odds, he might not have been sure if he could kiss her like he wanted.

She smiled as prettily as she could as she said: "You may."

She would have thought he'd jump her seeing as they had spent way too long pretending that they were interested in other people, but he was torturously slow about the whole affair. He brought his hands to her face, faming it carefully, softly. Holding her like he thought she'd break.

And then he lowered his lips to hers, inch by inch like he was trying to test her. Trying to see if she could be patient and move at his speed after all. So she stood there, lips slightly parted, waiting for him to kiss her.

When he did, when his lips found hers, softly but insistently plying more kisses from her, she forced her hands still. Her fingers curled into his grey waistcoat and she fought back every urge to groan into the contact. Truth be told she had missed this.

No one quiet knew how to kiss her the way Sidney did.

They kissed a good while longer, starting first with soft butterfly kisses that left her lipstick along the edges of his lips. Those kisses turned into more solid kisses that had her lipstick smudging against him. But they didn't stop there.

Though she tried not to press him for it, his hands began to wander, and hers did the same. Clothes were pushed to the side, trousers opened, skirts pushed up and there under the night sky, in the field behind the dance hall, they no only made up, but they made love too.