There was a note of reproach even in her Mr. Lestrange, but Kristoffer was used enough to that tone to be impervious to it. In fact, there was something warming in it, some challenge to be struck. He would toy with her a little, or he would toy too much, and risk offending her: but he did not know her or like her well enough to worry about the worse outcome, either. (Half the people he knew had ended up despising him, and Kristoffer usually managed to blame them somehow for it.)
But there was something terribly playful about Miss Dashwood – Miss Dashwood, if she was so nearly out as to be at parties now – that gave him hope. She looked just a touch like Trixie, too, with her dark hair and pretty features. (If Beatrix Burke had only been raised to make appearances at fashionable parties and smile and laugh when it was appropriate, and not to slave away in the grimness of Knockturn Alley and be cast off on the family business partner’s drip of a son.)
“I always mean what I say,” Kris said easily, which couldn’t possibly be true, with the amount of shit he spouted on a regular basis, but sounded perfectly good and gallant all the same. He wasn’t entirely certain about which she was more worried, being found sopping wet or upon his arm, but he only smirked to himself and inclined his head in conspiratorial agreement. “We’d better move before she sees you, then.” He didn’t know exactly where the ladies’ room was, but he was sure the walk there would afford him plenty of time to get a read on her, and so he steered them, slow and unhurried, to the nearest doors from this main room of the hotel, sure there would be a ladies’ room down the hall.
But there was something terribly playful about Miss Dashwood – Miss Dashwood, if she was so nearly out as to be at parties now – that gave him hope. She looked just a touch like Trixie, too, with her dark hair and pretty features. (If Beatrix Burke had only been raised to make appearances at fashionable parties and smile and laugh when it was appropriate, and not to slave away in the grimness of Knockturn Alley and be cast off on the family business partner’s drip of a son.)
“I always mean what I say,” Kris said easily, which couldn’t possibly be true, with the amount of shit he spouted on a regular basis, but sounded perfectly good and gallant all the same. He wasn’t entirely certain about which she was more worried, being found sopping wet or upon his arm, but he only smirked to himself and inclined his head in conspiratorial agreement. “We’d better move before she sees you, then.” He didn’t know exactly where the ladies’ room was, but he was sure the walk there would afford him plenty of time to get a read on her, and so he steered them, slow and unhurried, to the nearest doors from this main room of the hotel, sure there would be a ladies’ room down the hall.
