It's her mother's idea, and as Regina is still in her mother's house, still under her care, she goes along (but not willingly, and not without a few eye-rolls).

"A novelty," Cora Mills points out, taking in the grand lobby of the Jefferson Hotel, the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, the wallpaper and the plush carpet. "A place to have tea. A place to meet people." She lowers her voice, leans in to her daughter. "With the new bank in town, there will be plenty of widowers who may want someone like yourself."

Regina does her best to maintain composure, to not let her mother see that her words cut deep. "A fine idea," Regina says, casting a curious eye around the room. It is afternoon tea, and so there are small tables with white linen tablecloths scattered around an ornately-decorated room, wide windows casting soft light on the men and women who occupy them. An older crowd, but that's not exactly unexpected these days.

"Mr. Jefferson surely outdid himself," Cora adds as they find their way to the table where her father already sits, studying his whiskey (he starts drinking earlier and earlier these days). When he sees them enter, his gaze immediately finds Regina and she can't help but smile.

"You both are a vision," Henry Mills tells his wife and daughter, but he squeezes Regina's shoulder as she sits down and she can't help it – her father's praise is like a balm, soothing over the cuts her mother's words leave.

Regina cannot help that she is a spinster, kept on the shelf too long: she would have been married, had Daniel survived the war (she can still see him in her family's parlor, on bended knee, his mother's ring in his hand. Cora had squealed in delight – a wartime wedding would have been the epitome of patriotism – but Daniel was dead by the end of the year, killed at Petersburg). Regina thinks about it less often these days, but there are times when she thinks about the life she could have had as a wife and mother, and her chest will hurt and her heart will ache and she stops, because nothing can bring back the dead. Nothing can change the fact that, at thirty-five, she is alone.

Tea is brought in a silver pot, and Cora pours elegantly, but as she gets to Regina's cup she notices someone across the room. "That's Mr. Gold," she hisses at Henry. "He's said to be one of the richest men affiliated with the new bank." Cora stands, giving Henry a pointed look. "You should make introductions."

Henry Mills rises as well, nodding to Regina that she can stay where she is. Regina is grateful because (knowing her mother) Cora would make sure to inform the man about Regina's unattached status. As her parents shuffle away to go introduce themselves, Regina sighs and reaches for the teapot. She doesn't know what's worse – Cora's relief at having an unmarried daughter that she can hitch to whichever Northern investors seems to be the current rising star, or her dismay that her unmarried daughter is thirty-five and too old.

"Is the tea here really that bad?"

Regina frowns, uncertain of where the comment is coming from. She turns to her right, where a man is seated at a nearby table. Well, seated might be too polite of a word – he lounges in his chair, looking at her with a small smirk on his (handsome) bearded face. A Northern transplant, no doubt here with the bank. Regina raises an eyebrow.

"Are your manners still in the North?" she asks, lowering her eyes and focusing on pouring her tea. She places the teapot back in the center of the table and reaches for the sugar dish.

"I was just asking – I certainly don't want to order something that makes a stunning woman such as yourself sigh so violently."

Regina bites her lip to contain her smile at the compliment (she receives so few of them these days). "It's not the tea," she tells him, finally glancing back at the man. His blue eyes are focused on her, studying her with such alarming scrutiny that she feels exposed – like this man can read all of her secrets, can see her very soul. She smiles back at him. "It's the company," she says. "It seems like they'll just let anybody into fine establishments these days."

He raises his eyebrows at her comment, and his smirk turns into a grin. "So is the tea any good?" he asks. "Really, I'm waiting for you to give me advice, since you seem like quite the esteemed lady of Storybrooke."

Regina reaches for her teacup, raises it to her lips and takes a slow sip, aware that he is watching every movement.

"Not bad considering the company," she tells him as she returns it to her saucer. The man's gaze softens, and there is a moment – a heartbeat – where Regina knows her own softens as well.

It is disrupted when her parents return to the table and he is joined by his own companion, and so she turns away, focuses on Cora's report about Mr. Gold (wealthy, widowed, really Regina this might be a catch – )

It's only as they're leaving the hotel that she asks her father if he knew the man at the next table.

"Robin Locksley," he says. "Here with the bank as well. Made some money in timber up North."

"A thief," Cora says, placing her hands on her lap as the carriage jolts forward. "Even if they're the only men that will have you, Regina, don't ever forget that all Northerners are just thieves and scavengers plundering the carcass of a once great society."

Regina offers her mother a polite smile, but her thoughts keep drifting back to the man - Mr. Locksley – and the way that he looked at her (no one has never looked at her with such grace).