Miss Ginevra, who now descended the stairs, certainly looked to encompass all that the Rosier family desired her to be. Perfectly beautiful, to adorn them and look nice in the portrait gallery; young, but not too young, to be primed for immediate motherhood; educated, to withstand conversation at dinner parties; pureblooded, but not a Malfoy or Travers or Bulstrode, for these families had become too intermarried in the past 300 years with the Rosier line.
Mr. Alastair, however, looked towards the approaching jewel with a dour face. He thought to prefer women who were easy pickings, falling into his hands like fruit past the point of ripeness; Sweet and vulgar. This whole affair seemed to be anything but that. She would be difficult and affected, like all well-bred girls.
“Miss Blackwood, I am delighted,” he said without emotion.
“Shall we?”
He helped her into the carriage, his hands lacking the proper delicacy. That was not his forte.
Mr. Alastair Rosier took up a good amount of space in the carriage because he was a man both broad and tall, with arms and shoulders like the son of a common miller. Combined with jet-black hair atop a heavy skull and square face, he emanated an air of hostile masculinity.
His manner of speaking, however, was exactly like you would expect of a wizard aristocrat.
It had been impressed upon him that it was his responsibility to explain the world to the ladies, and this was what he set out to do.
“The rain is most pleasant today. It does us good that it shall cool down after the heat of late,” he said to her.
“This carriage is pulled by impressive steeds, is it not?” Alastair then asked. Without waiting for an answer:
“I bought them off a fellow on Doubt Street for a handsome sum. They may serve the family for centuries so I think it a good investment. Finer you cannot find anywhere, but the wizard who made them is a regretful case of muddied blood,” he meandered on, getting off track.
“His father married a dirty outright muggle, can you believe it? That is an old wizard line, gone and ruined. These folks were proper merchants and lawyers back in the day, but that is how it goes with pure families of the lower echelon, they lack the foresight. Now I would have taken my business elsewhere, but as I said, a service like that is hard to find. Forces your hand to associate with traitors of blood due to their sheer numbers, that is what things have come to.”
After this rant, he fell into brooding silence. Then:“Now where we are going, you will see how it was and how it ought to be again, Miss. I do hope that will please you.”