Don't Choke On The Scotch, It's Expensive - Black's

[Wilhelm Echelon]

Will was relieved to hear that his father was happy for him. He wasn't sure what he'd expected--honestly, maybe his apprenhension just arose from the exact circumstances of their engagement more than any resistance he expected to meet from his family, but even so, things had seemed almost a little... too easy thus far. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, he reminded himself, and just smiled at his father as the older man as raised a toast, then took a healthy sip of scotch. If Thorben was in a jovial mood, maybe he'd buy the next round, in celebration.

"Well, she's French," Will started. Best to get that out of the way at once; it would be abundantly clear when they finally met and Mai refused to speak any English, though hopefully she'd get over that soon enough. "I met her while I was abroad and we've been corrospondents for--years now. I lose track. She's very elegant, which is perhaps a bit surprising--she was never poor by any means but from what I gather she wasn't exactly raised like an Echelon," he said with a mild shrug. Fiances didn't bother him; class and blood never had, but he knew they could be sticky for some members of his family. "But she's very well-bred, and had an excellent education. "She's going to stay with a married friend of mine--well, a mutual friend of Uncle August's and mine," he said, struggling for a proper way to describe Elsbeth without saying Elsbeth--as that likely wouldn't go over well. "Until we can get her some sort of live-in chaperone or something. Until we're married."