Greengrass. He knew nothing about them, he didn't think. Normally, this might have been cause to dismiss the girl; if her family had never reached his notice they must not have been particularly interesting. On the other hand, for this particular task, being uninteresting would work in his favor. That was the ideal, wasn't it? Some perfectly ordinary young debutante whom no one could possibly say a word against and with whom people might feasibly believe he was smitten. Ugh. He might, sooner or later, have to pretend to be smitten. That was decidedly less work than just being charming; he had practice being charming, when he wanted something from someone. He had no practice at all pretending to be in love. (Well, unless one counted his occasional forays into replying to the Witch Weekly Lonely Hearts column under pseudonyms, but it wasn't quite the same; with those he was always trying to take one more step towards ridiculousness and see whether or not his letter-writing partner would follow).

"Well, a canape at least won't unsettle your stomach," he said, indicating the small bits of pastry with olive spread atop. Nothing could have been more mild, and since there wasn't anything to cook it was impossible that anything was undercooked. "I'm partial to the ostrich-egg quiches, but they're not to everyone's taste. I'm glad to hear you've been enjoying the performance," he continued, switching topics; food was not particularly interesting and if he had to stay here, he was at least going to talk about the acrobats he'd paid for. "Have you had a chance to see much of it, so far, or have the gentlemen been keeping you busy out here?"