March 27th, 1891 - Generic Pre-Easter Rich Pureblood Luncheon somewhere in Southern England

Luncheons were, Cash had decided, just the worse version of dinner parties. It didn't feel like a real meal and then there were afternoon activities, and it wasn't even fashionable for people to start drinking liquor for another several hours. Cash knew his opinions on luncheons were likely being exacerbated by having spent the last two days at Fort Lestrange, and by talking to Miss Scrimgeour on the boat, but that didn't mean he was enjoying this.

Now that the lunch part was apparently over, it was time for — yard games. Like croquet, which was objectively a terrible sport. Cash was really only still here out of a suspicion that at least one of the girls from Lucius' list would be here, and since so many of them were Hogwarts students he certainly had to talk to as many as possible while it was the Easter break if he was to have any hope of meeting Lucius' deadline.

And — oh, there one was. Or his cousin had mentioned another Miss Selwyn, which, maybe there were a lot of them, but she at least seemed to be the right age. Cash sighed, steeled himself, and approached her. "Mind if I join you for this game?" Cash said, with a vague indication of his hand towards the croquet set — he was unable to keep his hand from being just a tad dismissive, so hopefully she did not have too many feelings about croquet.

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@"Adrienne Selwyn" Amelia Evans

  

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MJ made this!

Of all the lawn sports to have at a Spring Easter party, did the hosts really have to have croquet? Adrienne would have much rather done something more exciting, like archery. Though of course, Aristide would say that would be unfair to everyone with her own track record.

It was hard to keep an entertained face, but Adrienne supposed it was fair practice for debutante season — she was still in sixth year thank Merlin, but that didn't mean she couldn't be prepared for what was coming. To keep her mind from wandering further down the path that would inevitably lead her away from her twin, Adrienne took her mallet and hit the croquet ball in front of her.

Just as she finished her solo game, a voice pulled her out of her wandering thoughts and she looked up to see a familiar face. Cassius Lestrange, while not being someone with whom she had intimate conversations, was certainly someone she recognized as being in the public eye as well as being a distant cousin or some such. She cast a mildly perplexed look at him, having not been aware she was ever remotely on his radar. "Of course," she said not unkindly with a small smile. "I had no idea you were ever inclined to the game of croquet, Mr. Lestrange."

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At least Miss Selwyn was not taller than him, as Miss Scrimgeour had been.

"I wouldn't call myself inclined," Cash joked, with a wry smile. "More that there aren't options I prefer." It was only after he'd already said it that he realized it was a little rude, if she liked croquet; of course, if she was so into croquet that she would get offended by his comment, then he could just go ahead and take her off of Lucius' list of potential brides now.

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MJ made this!

His last comment made Adrienne narrow her eyes slightly, which would have been her suspicious look had it not been betrayed by the slight grin on her face as she handed him the extra mallet.

"Aannnddd..." she mused, tapping the starting post twice so all the balls would roll into the respective place for them to start (thank the lord for magic). "Croquet would be one of those sports you do prefer?" An interesting choice, but Adrienne wasn't one to judge. Perhaps the speed and pace of Quidditch caused him to seek out a more mundane sport to balance out the two.

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Cash laughed, although it was sort of deliberate that he did. Still, she’d said something a little funny, so he didn’t have to force it — just let it out. With the balls all in pace, Cash swung at the first one.

”No, I misspoke, my apologies,” Cash said, ”I tend to prefer more fast-paced sports.” Or — he preferred Quidditch. Nothing else was the same. And maybe Quidditch didn’t make him feel the same way as it had a few years ago, but sometimes it broke through and added noise in a way nothing else did.

Tennis was okay, he guessed.

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MJ made this!

A rather transparent look of relief briefly crossed Adrienne's face before she remembered to hide it. Trying to disguise it with a smile, Adrienne laughed. "You nearly had me there." she said, raising a quizzical brow before looking down at the game. Mr. Lestrange's ball had nearly almost gone through the first hoop. Adrienne took a swing of her own.

"Although I wouldn't begrudge you a slower activity to counter your Quidditch playing." Her first blue ball hit Mr. Lestrange's own through the first arch. She stood back to let him go. "Frankly I prefer archery over croquet but alas I don't think my bow and arrow would do much good here unless our equipment suddenly decided to fly off."

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Cash's grin, this time, was genuine. He hit the next ball, striking Miss Selwyn's in the process. "It's rare that I try my hand at archery," he admitted, "Although I think I would like it — I suppose it requires a similar visual acuity to seeking?" Miss Selwyn was an athlete, then, as well as being French and having a presumably significant dowry — this was something Cash noted vaguely in his head, as now he knew exactly three facts about her.

He felt gross, having these conversations, doing this. It made him feel gross. At least he actually had something in common with Miss Selwyn.

He took a step back to let her go. "I'm sure you could outshoot me, if you're confident enough in archery to pursue it," he added, with an easy shrug of his shoulders.

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MJ made this!

"I'm sure I could," Adrienne responded with a nod of affirmation. "I've been practicing for quite a long time, and I rarely miss." It wasn't meant to be overly cocky — her tone was the same it would be if she were commenting on the weather. However, if she was confident about anything it was most certainly her skills in archery.

His first comment made her pause; she had never thought of the similarities that archery and Quidditch (particularly seeking) had in common. She leaned against her croquet mallet in perhaps a more unladylike posture than she should have, however, she was too lost in thought to correct herself. "How curious." she said, her tone light. "You know I reckon you're right Mr. Lestrange. I don't think I would ever have connected the dots between the two, but you might take to archery like a shot if you tried."

Adrienne focused her attention back onto the game at hand and tapped her ball through the first arch. "Though I can't imagine I would be the same with Quidditch, as I know my coordination on a broom leaves much to be desired."

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Miss Selwyn was clearly confident, and Cash respected her for it — he was confident except for when he wanted people to pay less attention to him, because he did know he was good at Quidditch. Everything else, maybe not, but Quidditch? Sure.

"Flying gets easier the more you try it," Cash replied, more out of habit than because it was something he really believed — he couldn't remember a time that he had not taken to the sky. "But I think I may be over-confident about archery. I might be able to see where I want to hit the target, but aiming is something else." His smile was wry. He hit another croquet ball.

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MJ made this!

The last time Adrienne was on a broom, it had bucked her off. Blood flooded her cheeks as she thought of the memory — not one of her most graceful and dignified moments. Ari, while helping her up, had laughed himself hoarse. "I was surprised how much thinking can go into one single action," She responded, watching the balls roll along the lawn's floor. "One must be confident enough to know that once they release the arrow it will go where they want. There is no controlling the direction after that like in Quidditch."

Despite her estimations, Adrienne was still sure that the Quidditch player would have little trouble with archery. He already had well established skills to fall back on, which was far easier to train than a green sapling. "I wouldn't sell yourself too short, sir." She smiled at him before tapping her ball. With a clacking sound it ricocheted off the post and headed in the exact opposite direction she wanted it.

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Hm. The way she talked about archery was intriguing, and Cash did find himself — intrigued by her, to the extent that he'd been intrigued by any of the women he'd talked to in the process of fulfilling Lucius' wishes. He watched her croquet ball clang off the post and into the wrong direction before he replied.

"Well," Cash said, "I shall trust that you are not just complimenting my skills to be complimentary, because you know too much about archery to do so." He swung his mallet at the croquet ball and watched it repeat much the same physics as her last attempt. "And it has to be better than croquet."

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MJ made this!

A soft but unladylike snort came from Adrienne and she raised a hand to her lips to hide it. Here they were one skilled archer and one professional Quidditch player both equally bad at croquet. The irony did not escape the Slytherin and she raised an ironic brow. "Mr. Lestrange I doubt you'd be hard-pressed to find any sport more boring than croquet," she cast the two misbehaving croquet balls a scowl for good measure before attempting a second turn that seemed to repeat the exact same steps.

While the game was not exactly frustrating, it was more the tedium of it that bored Adrienne to frustration and she let out a sigh. "I wouldn't be so bold as to claim I know Quidditch as well as I do archery, for that would be your area of expertise." She prefaced, "But I don't believe I'm most known for my flattery, though it's not for lack of trying, so I believe you'd be right in your assumption!"

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Cash laughed at her last comment. "Well, I appreciate your honesty, Miss Selwyn," he said. He was more playing with his croquet mallet than he was playing now, just alternating it between hands to pass the time. "I'm not particularly known for my flattery either —" although he could be charming when he wanted to be, and he was trying at it right now "— so we shall just have to be honest with each other. And I think I can honestly say that we may both be mediocre at croquet."

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MJ made this!

Well, Adrienne thought as she peered down at the croquet ball, honesty was always the best policy. And she always appreciated that first before any sort of false hope. "I shall agree to that." she conceeded, before moving to tap her croquet ball in the right direction. She would have succeeded if his comment hadn't made her laugh again, and she completely missed which only proved his point further. "Mediocrity at its best," the witch said, still giggling as she dropped into a curtsey.

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   Cassius Lestrange

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Cash laughed and bowed in response to her. "Well," he said, "Let's just not agree to tell anyone else about this, and we'll walk away with our dignity intact."

He'd surprised himself by actually liking this one.

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   Adrienne Lestrange

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MJ made this!