You've got some nerve to come back here. You're not the only one who can smell fear.
*There are few things that Esmerelda is better at than accepting shipments of delicate goods, and this, she thinks, is simply that. Two Vanishing cabinets and one daughter with incumbent family are being formally negotiated for today, and if she thinks of it as a business transaction, it is possible to even ignore the monstrous headache the whole affair is giving her and the insufferable grin her idiot son seems to be wearing at all times now.
The small fleet of musclebound squib servants has been sent to meet the wand-wielding Patil servants to bring the cabinets around the back, as if to shield the fact that this is more mercenary extortion than delighted meeting of families. Still, that fact remains, and Evan is at her side and even less inclined to like them than Esmerelda herself. They have had a frank discussion regarding what this family is and what they want, and for the first time in months, Esmerlda and Evan finally agree on something. They are vile social climbers and must be made aware of their place while simultaneously being forced to keep their silence regarding the subject of Evan’s public fetish for bestiality. Oh, certainly Evan thinks about it differently, but to Esmerelda’s way of thinking--and, more importantly, the way of thinking of all respectable wizards in the country, if not the world--he might as well have proposed marraige to a horse. A horse might have been better, actually; horses generally come only with pedigrees done up in delightfully taciturn parchment rather than greedy and loathsome families who come to call in person.
It is Lauren who has set the table and the tea and the array of petit-fours in the solarium,where Esmerelda sits in a huge carved chair, surrounded by her not-entirely-tame garden. The cabinets have been tucked away beneath some harmless, if overactive, vining foliage, as if they have grown there themselves rather than been brought in so recently. Similar chairs surround the clear glass table, though none of them are quite so high or resplendent as her own. Evan is at her left hand, staring off into the distance dreamily like a lovestruck thirteen-year-old girl. If Dearborn could see it, he’d be throwing chairs and hurling invective against Evan’s sexuality in an instant. It’s a blessing, then, that Dearborn is off and about at some gentleman’s club, and will return late and, most likely, drunk and ready for sleep. Still, it won’t do for her son to keep looking like a fool. She snaps her fingers in front of his face once Lauren is visible through the foliage again, leading the family up the winding garden path.*
Stop daydreaming. They’re here.
The small fleet of musclebound squib servants has been sent to meet the wand-wielding Patil servants to bring the cabinets around the back, as if to shield the fact that this is more mercenary extortion than delighted meeting of families. Still, that fact remains, and Evan is at her side and even less inclined to like them than Esmerelda herself. They have had a frank discussion regarding what this family is and what they want, and for the first time in months, Esmerlda and Evan finally agree on something. They are vile social climbers and must be made aware of their place while simultaneously being forced to keep their silence regarding the subject of Evan’s public fetish for bestiality. Oh, certainly Evan thinks about it differently, but to Esmerelda’s way of thinking--and, more importantly, the way of thinking of all respectable wizards in the country, if not the world--he might as well have proposed marraige to a horse. A horse might have been better, actually; horses generally come only with pedigrees done up in delightfully taciturn parchment rather than greedy and loathsome families who come to call in person.
It is Lauren who has set the table and the tea and the array of petit-fours in the solarium,where Esmerelda sits in a huge carved chair, surrounded by her not-entirely-tame garden. The cabinets have been tucked away beneath some harmless, if overactive, vining foliage, as if they have grown there themselves rather than been brought in so recently. Similar chairs surround the clear glass table, though none of them are quite so high or resplendent as her own. Evan is at her left hand, staring off into the distance dreamily like a lovestruck thirteen-year-old girl. If Dearborn could see it, he’d be throwing chairs and hurling invective against Evan’s sexuality in an instant. It’s a blessing, then, that Dearborn is off and about at some gentleman’s club, and will return late and, most likely, drunk and ready for sleep. Still, it won’t do for her son to keep looking like a fool. She snaps her fingers in front of his face once Lauren is visible through the foliage again, leading the family up the winding garden path.*
Stop daydreaming. They’re here.