"Well you thought about twenty minutes too late," he fired back just as fast. He might have been kinder, and probably should have considering she'd fainted and nearly had her reputation completely ruined less than an hour ago, but it seemed she was intent on having the last word.

As he tied the laces up, he realized that he hadn't even stopped to consider that she was worried about her mother in that sense. The authority sense. Lachlan respected his mother, and he certainly didn't want her thinking ill of him, but he wasn't in a position in life where she could exert that much influence over his daily life. He lived apart from his family, and he could escape her fussing with a convincing excuse and apparition license. Up until this moment he'd assumed—foolishly, now that he considered it further—that she had independence of her own. She had been in the garden without a chaperon, and he was certain she wasn't a young debutante  on her first, second, or even third season. She wasn't married, and she wasn't old, but he would have guessed she was closer to his age than she was to any of the debutantes at the party.

"And you live with your mother," he said, a comment rather than a question. Oh to be a woman—it sounded like a horrible life. "When did you graduate Hogwarts, anyways?" He assumed she had attended; she was obviously a witch, British, and seemed bright enough.

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