At her comment, he felt his cheeks turn pink.
"Well I er, that is to say-" but then, bless her, she went on to explain her children anyways, and he gave her a soft smile of appreciation for that while still rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. But as she went on, he could only reply, "Your mother must have wanted you out of the house pretty badly. My friend dragged me here as well, though I could have refused, surely, but he was unrelenting." And he chuckled about the comment about Riley's disappearance. "Again, my apologies on that one. Riley and I seemed to hit it off, Going from Creme Puffs to Constellations."
But at that last comment of hers about his intentions here (more pointedly- a dance, he nervously cleared his throat with a short cough, then clasped his hands behind his back, though at her last comment, he couldn't help but smile- revealing just in that action that she was, in fact, correct in what she presumed.
"Riley and I had some sort of plan for the evening, yes. He felt dreadful he was being a poor escort, you see, but my being here on the veranda was purely coincidence, I assure you. Perhaps, Lady BlackBird, I've come on my own volition to ask you to dance. Though my shoes are rusty, we've got quite the long night ahead of us and it would be in poor taste for us to remain away from the dance floor when all of Connlaothian society had to wait years for this day. Surely we can not allow ourselves to remain as rocks stuck at the bottom of a river. The river itself seems to be going somewhere and somewhere fast. The night is only moving onwards, so ... er.." and here he held out his hand, cheeks pink again.
"Would you do me the honor, my lady bird?" And he bowed to her gracefully, and found himself laughing when a few feathers fell from his person. "That is to say, obliging a dance before I end up molting all over the veranda."