“We have slightly different rules for different players,” Magnus picked up. “So, everyone must stand ten paces back from the board when they throw their hoops, but Rose’s ten paces will be a shorter distance to mine or yours. Anyone who wears spectacles gets an extra throw.”
“Different hooks and hoops have different scores too,” Rose put in. “You get six points for throwing a small hoop onto a small hook, but only three for getting a large hoop on a large ring.”
“Well, I’m ready for a game of Hoop-a-Hook,” Dorian declared. “Is it a traditional game? It’s not one I remember from school.”
“Father made it up for us,” said Rose with a sigh. “When we were children, he used to make up all kinds of games and stories. Sometimes, he would pretend to be a bear and chase us around the house.”
“Rose!” protested Edwin, slightly uncomfortable to have his father’s dignity called into question before company, even if he and Dorian had come to terms.
“Well, he did. We all loved that game,” Magnus spoke up in Rose’s defense as he opened the dining room door for the party to exit.
“Father!” Rose exclaimed as the view of the hallway was revealed and they saw the pale figure in the bathchair, swaddled in dressing gown, blankets and thick slippers. “You are downstairs!”
She rushed to the Duke of Westvale’s side and embraced him as the old man chuckled.
“Yes, my dear Rose. I wanted to give you a surprise.”
“You’ve given us all a surprise, Ambrose,” said Eugenia Williams, her smile clouded with concern as she came over to her husband’s side. “Is this wise?”
“An hour or so with my daughter and her new husband will do me more good than all the physicking in London,” insisted the old man as firmly as he could. “I am sure I have missed my little Rose more than she will have had time to miss me.”
“Oh, I have missed you, Father,” Rose assured him, kissing the old man again on the cheek.
“But not too much, I’m sure. Your young man’s company must have been welcome recompense for any homesickness.”
“A husband and a father are very different things,” Dorian commented, coming forward to shake his father-in-law’s thin hand. “Whatever company I can provide cannot stop Rose from missing yours.”
Ambrose Williams smiled appreciatively.
“How glad I am to see you together today. You make a very fine pair and I’m sure your children will be the handsomest in London when they arrive.”
Rose blushed beet red at this remark and could not meet Dorian’s eyes. Perceiving this, Ambrose looked a little chagrined.
“Forgive me, dear girl. An old man like me is always impatient to meet his grandchildren.”
“Of course you are,” agreed his wife, smiling sympathetically at both Ambrose and at Rose and Dorian. “But you cannot hurry nature.”
“Very true, Duchess Eugenia,” agreed Dorian, with a look at Rose that was intended to be reassuring if she had not still been avoiding his gaze.
“We’re going to play Hoop-a-Hook, Father,” Magnus announced cheerfully then, having far less interest than his parents in Rose’s future offspring or anyone else’s. “Shall I wheel you through to watch us play? You may be umpire.”
The old man chuckled and rubbed his hands as his second son took over the handles of the chair from a footman.
“Hoop-a-Hook, eh? It will be just like old times.”
“Giving up are you?” wheezed the Duke of Westvale as Dorian pulled up a seat beside his bathchair, close to the fire.
“I keep forgetting the rules and I’m losing miserably,” Dorian excused himself with a smile. “I don’t think the others will notice if I sit this round out.”
Ten paces each from the huge board of hooks, the three Williams siblings were chattering animatedly, sometimes arguing and throwing hoops skillfully. Abandoned by Edwin, who had beendrawn into the game despite his earlier reserve, Eugenia Williams had taken up some embroidery and occupied herself with that. Periodically, she rose and adjusted a selection of screens intended to shield her husband from drafts only she seemed to feel.
“I can see them at play just like this ten years ago, fifteen years ago,” the old man reminisced. “Like a litter of puppies, scrappy and full of energy. Of course, I was strong enough to keep up with them then. How strange to see them all grown.”
“Rose is enjoying herself, isn't she?” Dorian remarked, thinking now of a different sketch of his wife, fully dressed, laughing and beckoning him to a game. “I must ask if she would like a game of Hoop-a-Hook assembled at Ravenhill House. I do hope that when she feels settled, she will invite her friends to visit more often.”
“I’m sure she would like that,” agreed her father. “There’s people who say Rose is too shy or too reserved, but they don’t know her. My wife doesn’t like to talk of it, but there were even people saying that Rose would never find a husband, even with looks like hers, and the dowry I gave her.”
The Duke of Westvale shook his head in disbelief as he looked back.
