“Well,” said Lady Tolliver, “here certainly was a lap. And in this house, that counts for rather more than a mere hand upon the elbow.” She turned to the footman – who was quietly trying to mop up champagne without being noticed – and said with great ceremony, “Have Cook send up the good syllabub. There is an occasion to mark!”
Hetty had clearly had enough. “There is no occasion!” she nearly shouted, rounding on her assembled family with the composure of a woman about to renounce all kinship. “There was a moment of – of misinterpretation. That is all!”
“Of course,” Lord Tolliver said, nodding gravely. “Misinterpretation is the foundation of most happy marriages. Ask your Uncle John. He thought your aunt was French for nearly three years.”
“Is anyone listening to a word I say?” Hetty shrieked.
At that moment, the last of the Tolliver daughters appeared in the doorway. “I heard a commotion,” Mari said quietly, clutching an open book to her chest. “Has someone fallen from a window again?”
Hetty did not so much sit down as deflate into the cushions. “No. Worse. It appears I am to be married.”
“Are you?” Mari blinked.
“So I am told.”
“To whom?”
“Theo Winslow,” Hetty muttered, not even bothering to lift her head.
Mari simply looked thoughtful, as though mentally reordering her entire understanding of the universe. “I see,” she said at last. “Well. I suppose it does make a kind of sense. He is very symmetrical.”
Theo, still damp, gave Mari a bewildered bow. “Miss Marianne Tolliver.”
“Oh – how do you do,” Mari said vaguely. “Pray forgive the state of affairs. We are seldom found in such disarray.”
As though the universe needed to prove that this exact sort of disarray was the only way the Tollivers ever operated, from the hall came the sound of claws on polished wood, followed by a yelp from a beleaguered footman. The dogs arrived. Three of them – one large, two smaller, and all thoroughly muddy – came careening into the drawing room, evading the footman’s desperate efforts at containment. They barrelled past the chaise, past Mari, past Hetty entirely, and made directly for Theo.
“Good God,” he muttered, though he had no time to brace himself for the onslaught.
The largest hound reared up, planting its muddy paws squarely on Theo’s waistcoat. The second darted gleefully, circling his legs and barking. The third – a squat, wiry creature with the build of a turnip – leapt repeatedly at his knees, tail wagging.
Nell leapt to her feet, waving a handkerchief and smacking the dogs’ rumps. “Montmorency! Pickle! Lady Marmalade! Off the earl, at once! Down, I say!”
With much huffing, tail-wagging and a rather excessive amount of licking, the hounds at last obeyed. They dispersed in different directions, one disappearing behind the piano, another floppingbeside Lord Tolliver’s feet and the third attempting to nest atop a discarded bonnet.
Theo glanced down at his person. His coat was soaked through with champagne, his waistcoat bore at least three muddy pawprints and his cravat had wilted entirely in surrender. He exhaled slowly, and there was a pause, just long enough for Theo to believe the worst might have passed.
It had not, for Clara – Nell’s prized hen – was the next to strut into the drawing room. She flapped once, surveyed the gathering with a critical eye, and hopped neatly onto the arm of the settee where she settled with a cluck.
“Oh dear,” said Nell. “Clara has come to judge us again.”
“She is not wrong,” Hetty muttered darkly.
“I knew I ought to have shut the library door,” Mari said quietly.
Lady Tolliver, who had managed to ignore the hen’s presence for all of three seconds, now turned with the full horror of a matron affronted. “Absolutely not,” she shrieked. “This is entirely unacceptable. Chickens are not suited to drawing rooms, Eleanor! This is not some rustic yard in Gloucestershire, no matter how often you insist that wretched fowl understands Latin. The dogs are one thing – noble, intelligent creatures, practically members of the family – but poultry? Heavens above! What would Lady Withercombe say?”
“I expect she would attempt to race her pigeon against Clara,” Nell replied with perfect calm, “and lose.”
Lord Tolliver, having ensconced himself in an armchair with the air of a gentleman thoroughly enjoying a most diverting opera, released a contented sigh. “I find it all rather delightful. It calls tomind your grandmother’s engagement party, Hetty. There was an Italian tenor of some renown and a rather memorable incident involving a blancmange. Your cousin Edwina fainted directly into it. Glorious day. I do believe we have not yet had nearly enough fainting.”
“I give Mama but five minutes more,” said Lottie, regarding her nails with the utmost disinterest. “She’s already well on her way.”
“Hetty will be dispatching Lord Langley to his grave first,” Nell said helpfully. “Then she shall faint over his body.”
“I shall assist in the burial,” Mari added, without looking up, “provided I may inherit his library.”
Theo, now thoroughly surrounded by Tollivers, three dogs and one disapproving chicken, stood with the dazed air of a man uncertain whether he had stumbled into a garden fête or the later acts of Macbeth., and yet, despite the sheer lunacy of it all, he found himself perilously close to laughter.
