Thank you all for reading and reviewing!
And since I have not mentioned this as of yet:

Sherlock Holmes and all familiar characters are not mine. All of the unfamiliar characters are...except Charlotte, she doesn't like being coddled.

When I arrived back home, I heard the strains of the cello and violin emanating from the music room. As I hung up my coat, I tried to identify the piece that Geoff and my father were playing. I placed the paints and canvasses into my room when I heard the violin being strummed—yes, strummed—and I finally figured out what piece that was. I rushed downstairs towards the music room and then quietly snuck into the performance of Boccherini's La Musica Notturna Delle Strade Di Madrid No. 6, Op. 30.

Geoff sat down with the cello standing beside him, bent over as he played while his head bobbed in time with the music. As I watched him, I always thought that those precariously perched pince-nez would fall off but they never managed to. His normally neat chestnut brown hair however had turned into an unkempt mess as he played due to his movements.

Father on the other hand stood besides him with his eyes closed, almost as if he were imagining the notes were being written in the air. His lithe fingers strummed the violin's strings and he seemed to be bobbing up and down with the music. He opened his eyes and when he saw me, he gave me a wink. I smiled in return. This was his favorite piece of music to play and despite the arthritis in his hands, he would never miss an opportunity to play it.

Once they finished playing, we all applauded.

"Beautiful as always, sweetheart," Anne said as she attempted to get up to give Geoff a handkerchief. Held down by her pregnant belly, she soon gave up and merely threw it in his direction and blew him a kiss.

"Thank you, darling," Geoff said as he caught it (both towel and kiss) and wiped his sweaty brow. Every time he played, Geoff would always exert himself so much that he would turn into a sopping mess.

Mum turned back to where I was standing. "Oh, Charlotte, where did you disappear off to? I wanted to introduce you to this delightful young woman. You would have been good friends with her since James seemed fond of her as well."

"No Mum," James said as he folded the newspaper and placed it on the table next to him. "I wasn't fond of her. She was quite frivolous if you ask me."

"You do not know the meaning of the word 'frivolous' until you encounter Professor Ellis's daughter." Father said with a smile as he put his violin away.

"You mean Emily?" I asked, remembering Holmes' chagrin towards the percolating young lady.

"I see you've met her and while it is not my desire to speak ill of Professor Ellis," he simply smiled and gave me a look to convey the mutual understanding between us. He cleared his throat and changed the subject. "Well, Charlie, where did you disappear to?"

"Oh, I just wanted to get some paints and canvasses—"

"That was an awfully long time to just get paints and canvasses." James muttered and I glared at him.

"Don't interrupt me, James. Anyways, I bumped into a friend of mine and suggested that we headed towards the fencing match at Christ Church, which was quite entertaining. That was the entirety of my afternoon."

"Who did you go with?" James butted in again.

"A friend of mine, James," I said.

"Who's this friend?"

"JAMES!"

"Enough yelling," Father said in a soft voice that meant that the argument was over. If there is one thing that I will always remember about my father, he never yelled nor raised his voice. There was enough meaning in his voice for someone to know when he meant business. "It's getting late. Perhaps we should have supper and then I'll be retiring for the evening."

I stuck out my tongue at James who made an equally distorted face in return.

The romantic predicament that I had unwittingly gotten myself into with Aidan was keeping me up. As I lay in bed watching the moon rise, I could not fall asleep at all. One would think that it is such a simple thing to turn a man down but you must recall my age and my societal experiences during this time of my life. Since those years, I have obviously grown yet then I was merely nineteen years old and when it came to social situations, it would be safe to say that I would rather have a book.

So Aidan's pursuit of my interests irked me in that it was clearly unwanted and that I did not want to hurt his feelings. It would seem that I was born with the tendency to never hurt one's feelings despite the effects that it seems to have on me. I heard the grandfather clock downstairs chime as another hour had passed and decided that perhaps a glass of water or something could put me to sleep.

I put on my dressing gown and crept downstairs. I passed by my father's study and realized that the lamps were lit. I slowly opened the door and saw my father bent over his desk, busy with his papers. He seemed extraordinarily busy and I decided to leave him to his work.

"Charlie, dear, what are you doing up so late?" Father said as I began to close the door. I stopped and hesitated. Silly me, why had I disturbed my father's work? "Come now, my dear, you aren't interrupting me. In fact, it would be quite nice to have some company at this twilight hour."

I decided to enter and Father pointed over at the wing-backed chair. I sat down as he took off his spectacles and cleaned them.

"Can't sleep," I said as I placed my elbow on the chair.

"Well, I figured as much, you night owl." Father said as he placed his glasses back on. I never did like him with them on, it made him seem much older than he really was. "If you don't mind keeping this old man company for awhile, you can stay with me."

"You're not going to tell me to go back to bed, that it's far too late for me to still be up, and all that nonsense?"

"What will be the point of that? Obviously you're up either because you want a midnight snack or something's on your mind. I'm thinking that it's the latter."

I smiled impishly at his guess. "What makes you think that?"

"You would have come into my study with cookies or something as you would eat first then come in here and secondly, you're twirling your hair and you only do that when you got something on your mind that is bothering you."

I had just wound one thick of my hair around my index finger when he finished his statement. He looked at me with a knowing glance and chuckled merrily as he dipped his pen in the inkwell. I released the strand of my hair and shook my head. I was terribly predictable, I guess.

"Cookies do sound good at the moment." I laughed and leaned back into the chair. "Dad, when you were younger, were you ever rejected by a girl?"

"In a courting situation, you mean?" He said not looking up as he scrawled something in his journal. He put his pen down and swiveled his chair towards me. "Let me think for awhile, it's been awhile since my youth…well, Charlie, dear, I remember this one young lady who initially reciprocated my affections and then merely used me to get closer to my best friend…"

"And how did you feel about that?"

"Well, I was crushed of course." I must have winced at that moment as he gave me a funny look and then asked, "Does this have anything to do with Aidan Keating, perhaps?"

My eyes must have nearly popped right out of my head and before I could muster up some words to ask how the deuce did he know and all that, he answered for me.

"Mr. Keating had heard of the party that we were giving in honor of your birthday and wanted to ask my permission if he could squire you about the party."

"…And? And what did you say?" I asked as I heard a meow coming from the corner of the room. It seemed that Dad's old orange tabby had awoken during our little discussion and had crawled over and was rubbing himself around his owner's legs.

"Hello, Apollo," he said as he pulled the cat onto his lap and petted it. In response, Apollo purred. "Well, I told him that it was not me that he would be escorting so I told him to ask you instead." Seeing the astounded look upon my face, he added, "Oh, Charlie, you should not be surprised—I see the way that he looks at you whenever you happen to come to my lectures. Obviously you're oblivious to the fact as I can tell from your shocked face."

"Well, Dad, it's just that I do not think about those kinds of affairs." I explained. "I never do. I just do not want to hurt him and also he's a rather nice bloke and I do not want to wreck a friendship."

Father nodded as he heard my response. Apollo uncurled himself from my father's lap and crawled over his desk, which surprisingly did not ruin the stacks of papers there, and hopped onto the shorter bookshelf next to the desk. He curled back into a ball and watched the both of us with those gold eyes of his.

"Well, Charlie, I am not you so I cannot tell you what you should do about it."

I brought my knees up to my chin and sighed. "I know, Dad…I just wanted to talk, you know before it gets all bottled up and then…"

"Yes, I know." He answered with a wink and the grandfather clock in the hallway chimed three times. "Good Lord, is it really that late? Your mother would be upset if we did not get up in time for mass."

"I know," I said trying to get up when Apollo decided that it was the best time to jump on me. "Apollo, you crazy cat, I swear you know when I'm about to get up and you spring me." He merely meowed in reply and I put him back on the ground. I gave Dad a hug and said, "Well, I hope that I can get some sleep after this."

"If you really want to hear my opinion, though, I think you have two options. The first one is that you can tell him that you do not feel the same or you can find someone else to escort you."

I considered these possibilities and then said, "Either way, I don't think it will be possible to do that with Aidan. You know how persistent can be—last year, he argued with you about a point difference in his exams."

"Yes, that was damned annoying," he muttered. "I ended up giving it to him just to stop him from camping outside my office."

I sighed and buried my face in my hands. "Is it possible for me to go alone?"

My father laughed and was about to join me when he stopped at the doorway and turned back to his papers. "Charlie, go ahead to bed. I need to write a letter."

"It's late, Dad. Couldn't it wait until tomorrow?"

"It will be very quick. Don't worry about me so," he said seeing the concerned look on his face. "You make me feel very old when you look at me like that. You look too mature to be my own daughter."

I smiled and hugged him once more and went upstairs. I could not help but wonder however why writing a letter in the dead of night would be so important to him.

The next week passed by in a blur as Mum enlisted me with helping get ready for the party. Everything from designing the invitations to selecting which flowers would be in the centerpieces of the tables. By the middle of the week, I felt quite exhausted and was practically dragged from one errand to another. On this particular day, we went to the dressmaker's shop where my mother and I were arguing over what I would wear.

"Mum, the corset's way too tight!" I managed to say despite the constriction around my waist. I wondered how many whales were killed so that civilized women everywhere could suffocate themselves willingly.

"You will get used to it. I told you that you will." Mum said as she examined the umpteenth dress that I had tried on.

"The dress is not me, Mum. I'm sure it's beautiful on someone else, but not me." It was a frothy confection of lace and taffeta that practically overpowered my body. It looked like the many pillows that Mum would embroider at home and put on the sofas and chairs. It was something that Emily Ellis would wear in a heartbeat.

Mum judged the dress. "I like the detail though." She fingered the lace around the collar and then turned me around. "And the bustle, Charlotte, I think it enhances your figure. Lord knows you haven't a curve in your body."

I turned scarlet knowing that my body still resembled a twelve year old girl's except it had been stretched out like taffy. I looked at the bustle in the mirror and just thought it looked like I was hiding a child in there. I shook my head in refusal again and we trudged back into the dressing room.

Mum helped me get out of the dress and tucked a stray hair away from my face. "I remember when I turned nineteen. My parents threw a party for me and it was quite lovely. It was the talk of the town for quite awhile. Of course, my younger sister had to upstage me with her debutante ball the next year…"

Her voice trailed off, most likely her mind dwelling on my missed eighteenth birthday. "Mum, it's all right. I could not very well have a debutante ball in a wheelchair."

"I just don't want you to feel disadvantaged by missing out on your social season." She said as she gave the dress to the attendant who in turn gave us another dress, which looked slightly more promising than the other.

"Mum, you know me well enough that you know it won't matter to me." I said as I stepped into the dress. "If I happen to find a man interested in me, that is quite all right by me."

She sighed and then helped button me in. "You are so much like your father sometimes. It terrifies me at times."

I could not help but smile at her words. "Thanks Mum."

She smoothed the dress over my shoulders and looked me up and down. "However, I do not think that your father would look lovely in a dress."

I laughed at the image of my father in a dress and Mum led me outside to the mirror. The dress was extremely superior to the one that I had tried on before. It was a navy blue gown in a polonaise style worn off the shoulders that actually managed to show that I actually had décolletage. The bustle in the back was not too large and the skirt actually managed to end at the right length. It was simple yet beautiful.

Mum knew by the smile on my face that this was something that we could both agree on. She turned to the attendant and said,

"We'll take it."

Mum and I were walking down by the meadows near Christ Church, taking a rest from the busy activities of the day when we encountered the very person that had been the chagrin of my thoughts. Aidan was seated by the edge of the Isis with many of his friends from the rowing team. It was the most relaxed I had seen him with his shirt collar unbuttoned and shirtsleeves pulled up. His brown hair was not plastered back as I normally saw but was ruffled by the wind and slightly unkempt. In short, he looked much better than I had seen him. I just did not want him to notice that I was here.

"Have we been walking too long, dear?" She said as she eyed my cane, which I decided to take with me today. "We can rest if you like."

"No, Mum, I'm fine. I knew that we were going to walk a lot today so I brought the cane. I'll tell you when I need to rest."

"Very well," she said then switched to another subject. "Charlotte, have you thought of any possible escorts to take you? I'm sure I can talk to some of my friends if there is no one you have in mind. Possibly Alexandra Scott's son…"

"Mum!" I recoiled, forgetting to keep my voice low in case he might hear. "Francis Scott is extraordinarily disgusting and rude. There is no chance I would allow him to escort me anywhere."

Aidan looked up at the sound of my voice and smiled when he saw me. He excused himself from his group and walked over to Mum and me. He gave me a smile, which faltered slightly when he saw that I had taken my cane.

"Hello Mrs. Andrewes, Miss Andrewes," he nodded to both of us and then talked to Mum first. "I'm Aidan Keating, one of Professor Andrewes's students and also a good friend of your daughter's. I must say that you look very much like your daughter—you could nearly pass as siblings."

My mother laughed at this while I could not help but feel slightly cynical about his appeal towards Mum. Trying to smooth his way towards me, was he?

"Mrs. Andrewes, I heard that your daughter's birthday will be next week." Aidan said and I could not feel him trying to sneak his way in. I raised an eyebrow while he gave me a wink in return when Mum was not looking. Oh no, I should have expected this.

"Oh, yes," Mum replied. "She'll be celebrating her nineteenth birthday. We are throwing quite a celebration. I do hope you will stop by, Mr. Keating."

"Well, thank you for inviting me, Mrs. Andrewes." He said with a smile. "Mrs. Andrewes is it possible if I could speak with your daughter for a moment."

"Oh, of course," she said with a satisfied grin on her face. She started to walk further down the path and she whispered briefly to me, "He's a nice man! I do hope he will court you."

I managed to put a smile on my face and was once again left alone with Aidan.

"Is your leg hurting today?" He asked as he pointed towards my cane.

"My leg is fine. Honestly, Aidan, stop pitying me. I'm still living and walking around." I said feeling irritated by his overt concern. He looked slightly wounded by my seemingly unprovoked attack. "I apologize, Aidan, I just do not appreciate pity. It accomplishes nothing at all."

"I'm sorry, Charlotte. I just care about you." Aidan rubbed his neck and looked down at the grass. "Listen, about your birthday and that question I asked you last week…I still have not gotten an answer."

"Right," I said and inhaled, knowing that this would be the perfect opportunity to tell him that I did not want to go with him. "Well, Aidan, you see—" And at that point I made the stupid decision of looking at him directly in the eyes. I saw anticipation and hope there and I could not bear to tell him. "Aidan, I still need to think about it. There are others out there who also want to escort me and I must consider them as well."

It was the best excuse I could think of and I felt like kicking myself right now. I should have just ended this right now but my stupid consideration for others got in the way. Damn it all.

"Well, all right, that would seem fair." He answered. "Just let me know as soon as you can."

"I shall," I nodded and began to walk in the direction Mum had walked in. "I must be going. There are other preparations that Mum and I need to tend to."

"Goodbye, Charlotte," he said, taking my hand in his and giving it a kiss. I gave a nervous giggle and walked away quickly.

"So, what did you and Mr. Keating converse about?" Mum asked with genuine interest.

"Oh, just his studies and various activities." I lied, wishing that my hair was down instead of being encased in a taut bun. I wanted to twirl a strand to calm my nerves. Instead I hummed Boccherini to myself.

"Well, he would seem like a fine escort for you." She said. When I gave her a glowering look, she merely shrugged in response. "I am not demanding you to go with him. Merely a suggestion, that's all."

I needed to take care of this predicament but how? I had already tried to turn him down but that did not work. Then I remembered what my father had said, it was either turn him down or find someone else to escort me. That would work but exactly who would I be able to find? Suddenly it clicked.

"Mum, I'm sure you have other errands about town but I just realized that Father wanted me to get something that he left in his office. I just need to fetch it really quick."

"Well, all right, my dear. I will see you back home." Mum said and with that, I quickly ran towards the Christ Church campus.

I was not going to Dad's office and I passed through Tom Quad and ran past the lily-filled fountain. I ran through the stone halls with its medieval arches while several professors looked at me with serious disdain and some students whistling and cat-calling. I finally reached my destination and stood outside the door, waiting for my breath to catch up. I wiped the sweat off of my brow and then went inside Professor Ellis's laboratory. Immediately upon entering, I was assaulted by a cold and biting voice.

"Damn it, Emily, I told you not to bother me when I'm in here."

When I did not respond, Holmes turned around and he raised his eyebrows. He turned back around to focus on his experiment. Just when I thought he was going to ignore my presence entirely, he talked.

"Miss Andrewes, what brings you here all the way from the meadows?" He asked lightly as he poured one chemical into the beaker.

"How do you—" I then realized the fresh mud from my boots. "My boots, yes, very clever observation."

He was about to pour one chemical into another test tube when he stopped and put them down at my answer. "Why are you acting kindly? I would think that after our previous brush-ins, you would be quite reluctant to engage in my company once more." He paused and with lightning-quick speed, he whirled around on his stool to face me. "Unless…"

I sighed and could not believe that I was doing this.

"Holmes, I have a favor to ask."