Such a shame, my dear Jordan, God rest his soul, left us just as quickly when the fever set its hooks to him. You have my condolences, and if you find yourselves in need of help in the arrangements, you need only to call upon me. It is a sad business, but I have experience in it.
[Amusement sparks in her dark eyes, even if her expression remains tastefully neutral. She appreciates his way of speaking, confident and clear; appreciates his civilities, there is a fine line between simpering and smirking that must be walked just so if it is truly to convince anyone and his poise is acceptable to her. And he appreciates his understanding of what it is to rule something. A politician's son indeed.]
Quite right, but I still think I shall forgive him, just this once--[She will do no such thing, and yet the way her nose crinkles does not belay her severity.]--so I might wait and see how his new situations in life agree with him.
[How you handle him, Raleigh. A test for the both of you. Can wrangle in the angry little creature?]
I am contented besides, as our meeting has been more than agreeable enough to bridge the difference.
[ Raleigh has every intention of succeeding where his father had not necessarily failed but had grown lax and inattentive. Aubrey's behavior had played itself mostly in the shadows, but with the death of Raleigh III both sons were not illuminated and pulled to center stage. ]
I am glad to hear it. [ The corner of his mouth crooks upward in the briefest of smiles. So frequently disingenious, this one fails to be. ] As for my younger brother's situation, he is to be married. My father's illness, of course, delayed the ceremony. Given that his arrangement with the Stonewells for their daugther's hand was the last agreement he brokered, I think it would befitting of his memory to see it through, and expediently. That is what he would have wished, were he still alive.
[ A bluff. Not intended to insult her intelligence, but simply for the sake of appearance. The longer Aubrey dangled on the edge of perpetual scandal, the more likely young Robin would be inclined to reveal what she knew to her parents. That would not do. ]
[Brokered. She herself was brokered for, spotted in the capital city, deemed a prize worth having and promptly won. Her family, her city, they are rich from the trade now, she is not so ungracious as all that and yet... She despises them all. Flesh trafficking is looked down upon as so unseemly and yet. Still, for all her fury, it is not a war she fights and perhaps there is a certain satisfaction to knowing that the boy is just a much a commodity as the Stonewell girl.]
Husbandry [She uses the word knowing precisely what it means, but she allows her accent to slip through despite the twenty five years she has lived in the northern world. Perhaps she has made a harmless mistake, not suggested that his brother is an animal who needs tending to.] has been known to change many a man for the better.
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Quite right, but I still think I shall forgive him, just this once--[She will do no such thing, and yet the way her nose crinkles does not belay her severity.]--so I might wait and see how his new situations in life agree with him.
[How you handle him, Raleigh. A test for the both of you. Can wrangle in the angry little creature?]
I am contented besides, as our meeting has been more than agreeable enough to bridge the difference.
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I am glad to hear it. [ The corner of his mouth crooks upward in the briefest of smiles. So frequently disingenious, this one fails to be. ] As for my younger brother's situation, he is to be married. My father's illness, of course, delayed the ceremony. Given that his arrangement with the Stonewells for their daugther's hand was the last agreement he brokered, I think it would befitting of his memory to see it through, and expediently. That is what he would have wished, were he still alive.
[ A bluff. Not intended to insult her intelligence, but simply for the sake of appearance. The longer Aubrey dangled on the edge of perpetual scandal, the more likely young Robin would be inclined to reveal what she knew to her parents. That would not do. ]
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Husbandry [She uses the word knowing precisely what it means, but she allows her accent to slip through despite the twenty five years she has lived in the northern world. Perhaps she has made a harmless mistake, not suggested that his brother is an animal who needs tending to.] has been known to change many a man for the better.
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