Brian leaned down and kissed the exotic looking woman with chestnut red hair gently, listening to the laughter of children. The woman's lily perfume rose up to him and reassured him he wasn't trespassing.
"Not your best look," he said to her softly in her ear. "You do know I prefer blondes. Or one particular blonde." She was about to reply when a squeal from Abbey jolted the woman hard enough that she jumped noticeably.
"Daddy! Looky! Bunnies!" It was Abbey. She was delighted with Babbity's and all the wonderful magic it had for little ones. Brian smiled. This was the first they had dared to even consider taking all the children out together. Abbey, Dakota, the triplets--Robert, Michael and Julia, and the twins--Daniel and Benjamin. They certainly hadn't been able to juggle seven toddlers alone. Hadn't tried. Angus had come, and if not a bit inconveniently, two Michael Tremaines, and Marcus Belby. Angus and one of the Michael's appeared to be herding tiny Lupins to keep them from skittering away. It looked a lot like herding cats. Belby was not paying attention to the wee ones. He was scanning, watchful, looking at every movement, ever shadow. This, to him, was high risk, even in a place that was supposed to be so secure. Michael 2 was at the hostess stand, picking up a couple books of matches.
"I'll go," Brian looked back at the redhead. "Relax. This is supposed to be fun." He gave her a reassuring smile and walked towards the children, leaving her momentarily sitting at the table with the twins in a double stroller less than an arm's reach from Belby. Brian's eyes connected with Belby's, who merely nodded. He had this. Brian shifted his attention to the five little ones who were joyfully dashing about in the restaurant's play space.
Marcus looked at Khaat. She'd taken a huge risk. She had found the long red hairs on her cloak after an outing with Marcus, and she'd dropped them into bottle of polyjuice. Marcus didn't like her drinking "Essence-of-a-Random-Stranger" but, she was rather pleased with the outcome. She was surprised that the stranger wasn't quite so random after all The woman she'd borrowed was one no one would look for. The woman had been a potionswench with no friends or family who had worked for Rob at one time. Never mind that the woman was dead now. It had taken her a moment to get past the rather gruesome realization that she was using a dead woman, but, with better clothes and hair, the poor potionswench looked actually stunning.
Khaat did feel a bit of twinge that the woman herself never had seen that beauty in herself, but, the polyjuice would only last a short time. Being out made her anxious. Insecure, and for a multitude of reasons. It started with the disfigurement that made her reach to borrow someone else's face, and went ahead to the risk of all the business with the Ministry being revealed prematurely and deeping the troubles for all of England, and then it all circled back around in her head to James and how he haunted her every move. She wasn't safe anywhere, and the less she looked or acted like Khaat, the better everyone was.
"You bring your cigarettes?" she asked Belby. Marcus cast a frown at her.
"You don't smoke," he said.
"Not normally, but she does," she replied. "I need a cigarette." Looking the part made sense to him. He drew out the cigarette case from inside his jacket, took a cigarette and lit it, and then handed the lit cigarette to her.
"Don't go any farther overboard," Belby said very quietly to her. "You aren't her. Its just a costume, you know. Not espionage. What do you want to drink? French roast?"
"She didn't drink it. Pumpkin juice spritzer with a twist of orange."
He wrinkled his nose. "Ew," he said. "Sounds perfectly disgusting."
"Not really," she said. "Or so I've heard. We're about to find out." He turned to flag a server to order some beverages.