With Christmas behind, Ellory could finally relax. Well. Not really, but it was always more stressful before Christmas than it was after it. There were less preparations to be made, less expectations to be met.

Finally, after days, Ellory had had enough time to spend time with Cash. The previous days she'd had to drink tea with that cousin, or take a walk on the grounds with that aunt.

She was slumped on one of the sofas -- or at last as slumped as someone with a corset could be. "Have they forced you to interact with Monsieaur Beaumont yet?" 'Monsieur Beaumont' was uttered in a mock French accent.

"I can't say I've had the pleasure," Cash said dryly, sprawled on the couch with his head tilted back. Now that they'd escaped the full breadth of the festivities, he finally had the time to be around Ellory.

Cash had decided to dislike Monsieur Beaumont for one reason: Ellory didn't like him. It wasn't as if this would surprise anyone who had seen the two of them interact; they hated the same things.

"You know how I feel about small talk, after all," Cash added. His feelings on small talk could be summarized as: 'if it's not Quidditch-based, it's uncomfortable as HELL.' 

It wouldn't be long before Cash was forced to interact with the frenchman. At some point, they'd end up sitting next to each other during a dinner, or they'd find themselves in the same company of people at a party. And then Cash would be exposed to the full force of Mathias Beaumont's unlikeability.

"Small talk featuring being talked to like you're an inferior five year old." Ellory corrected. She'd interacted once with him so far, and her impressions of that was that Mathias Beaumont was pompous.

"I understand that he's a family patriarch and whatever, but if Claude and Regan can act like normal people, so can he."

"Oh, now that's charming," Cash said, wrinkling his nose. He was very used to pompous adults - they were Lestranges - but Beaumont was barely older than he and Ellory were. Where did he get off?

"Does he not realize how close in age you and Rosalind are?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. Surely Beaumont didn't talk down to his fiancee? Cash and Rose had never been close, but even he knew that his cousin was very bright.

"Actually, he asked me if we're close. I bet you he hoped we aren't, and that she views me as her annoying twelve-year-old sister." Part of the reason why she disliked the Frenchman so much was because she was so close to Rosie. She didn't want her to be hurt. The other part was that she thought him an asshole. Hence why she thought he'd hurt her.

Cash snorted disdainfully. "What an idiot," he said, a serious allegation coming from a Ravenclaw. How could anyone dislike Ellory, honestly? "Didn't he end a courtship recently, before her?"

"He did," Ellory replied, honestly thinking that Cash knew already, but asked for the sake of making a rhetoric question. "And with a middle class girl, too. I can't help but think that people will take this as a sign that he has low standards... And you know what that would mean for my sister!" They had not even courted before he proposed to her.

"It would mean that he's marrying her because she's available," Cash said with a roll of his eyes, "And I don't think that either of them would be happy." A marriage without any courtship seemed like a ridiculous idea to him, and he wasn't sure what his cousin was thinking. Not that it was, ultimately, any of his business - Cash wasn't nearly as involved with Rosalind as he was with Ellory, his fellow disappointment.