You've got some nerve to come back here. You're not the only one who can smell fear.

[motherspider]

Comments

[dapperdeath]

*Looking like nothing so much as one of the corgis after it’s been given a start, he blinks rapidly and shakes his head.*

Sorry, mother.

*As they get closer, he stands, arranging a smile on his face that--if he’s honest with himself--looks quite a bit like Esmerelda’s. It’s not an entirely friendly smile. There’s far too many teeth for it to be friendly.*

[pricklypatils]

*As the two of them make their stately way up the ivied garden path, one of the odder things about any of this is that they’ve been here before--some garden party or other, long, long ago, which had not been followed by a second invitation. That fact, if nothing else, has the two of them walking stiffly, self-consciously, Mr. Patil in a crisp and flawless suit and his wife decked out in the very finest silks her expansive closet has to offer. Now that the Cabinets and the servants bearing them are gone, it’s easier to act as though this is an ordinary meeting with the in-laws, an ordinary social call of betrothal and negotiation, as Baldev’s parents had met with Aarshati’s thirty-odd years ago. Of course, this meeting is far from ordinary--there’s the fact that the betrothal has been already made, without their consent or even knowledge; that their diseased and disobedient nightmare of a daughter has blatantly extorted from them in exchange for whatever scrap of good name they have left; and, not least, the real likelihood that

[motherspider]

I am, and he will not. Dearborn has an prior engagement.

*It’s more that Dearborn is far too blunt an instrument for this kind of occasion, but Esmerelda isn’t going to elaborate. It’s not as if they deserve an explanation, and if they honestly think the affair is going to be done in whatever way they consider proper--she neatly neglects, in her mind, the fact that he should be there even if this were an all-Anglo affair--they should be put to rights posthaste.*

Please, sit. Tell Lauren how you take your tea.

[pricklypatils]

Of course, thank you.

*Once again, it’s Mrs. Patil who speaks, a little nervously, with a quick and easy smile that briefly touches both of them, as if to read the emotional weather there. As she turns to the Squib maid, speaking in an undertone, her husband offers a smile of his own and stiffly extends a hand.*

You must be Evan. I am Baldev, and this is my wife, Aarshati.