Where: a high-end hotel restaurant in Dublin Who: Caitriona and @natexcarrow
It had not even been six months since Xavier’s death, and already Caitriona was tired of living with her parents. Had she had her way, she would have entirely ignored Yvette Yaxley’s fits of passion and quietly grieved her husband like any dignified widow of her standing in society ought to. Caitriona rather though she would have enjoyed being a widow; she could have moved to the countryside and become an afterthought, finally enjoying true independence for the first time in her life. But her father’s pride had been hurt by Yvette’s antics and he’d overreacted, as he was wont to do. So instead of dressing in black for a few months and quietly disappearing, Caitriona had moved back to Connemara and reluctantly re-entered the marriage market.
So far Caitriona had been doing her best to discourage her parents’ match-making efforts, but since that was obviously not having the desired outcome of them giving up, she’d decided to indulge them, just a little. After the ambush dinner with the Notts, Caitriona had agreed to meet with a prospective suitor of her parents’ choosing in the hopes of avoiding another such humiliation. Of course, she hadn’t anticipated the risk of humiliation in the choice of suitor himself. Nathaniel Carrow was, in Caitriona’s opinion, certainly scraping the bottom of the barrel. While technically the first son of a pureblood family from the Sacred 28, he was not the heir to the Carrow family, nor was he particularly impressive in any other way. Caitriona was dreading it, but she was going to see her commitment through.
Caitriona had arranged for afternoon tea at a stylish hotel in Dublin. She didn’t want the intimacy of hosting Nathaniel in her own home, but also didn’t want to conduct the appointment in so public a place as anywhere in London. She’d been preparing herself by devising little ways she could discourage the man without risking any accusation of active sabotage. Dublin served that goal as well, by forcing him to come to her instead of vice versa, and she’d made the reservation under her name, instead of his. She didn’t know much about the Carrow boy, but she was banking on him having the same over-inflated self-importance that seemed to infect their peers.
Caitriona made sure she arrived perfectly on time, not so eager as to be early but not so obviously rude as to be late. Nathaniel was already there when Caitriona entered the hotel restaurant, but looked as if he’d just arrived and probably hadn’t been waiting long. She tried not to be too disappointed that she hadn’t actually inconvenienced him. Outwardly, she smiled politely and held out her hand. “Nathaniel, it’s a pleasure.” His, to be precise, but she left that part out.