At the head of the table, Lady Tolliver dabbed delicately at her mouth with a napkin. “Yes, well,” she said, without rising, “it is quite a relief to have you back, Charlotte. A voluntary sojourn in the country can be most beneficial for one’s complexion. Come here—let me look at you properly. Oh dear. You have grown thinner. And your hair—good heavens, have you been allowing it to curl as it pleases?”
“It has a wilful nature, Mama.”
“Like its owner.” Lady Tolliver narrowed her eyes. “Where are your shoes, Charlotte?”
Lottie glanced down at her stockinged feet and smiled sweetly. “Muddied, resting by the door.”
Lady Tolliver reached for her glass in a manner that suggested she rather wished it were laudanum.
At that moment, a chair scraped violently against the floor.
“My girl!” boomed Lord Tolliver, who had taken some time to realise his prodigal daughter was returned. He rose so suddenly that his belly collided with the table and sent the mustard pot toppling into the gravy. “Confound it— blast the thing—oh, never mind. My dear girl!” He made his way around the table, dabbing ineffectually at his waistcoat. “I said to your mother only this morning that the house was intolerably quiet without you, and she insisted it was merely peaceful. Ha!”
“Bernard,” sighed Lady Tolliver, “you might refrain from shouting before the servants.”
He ignored her entirely, enfolding Lottie in a gravy-scented embrace. “London has been a desert without you, my dear. You have been keeping the country entertained, I trust? Excellent. Someone must.”
Lottie laughed, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Only Aunt Belinda’s geese, Papa.”
He roared with laughter and returned to his seat, dragging the tablecloth half an inch askew in the process.
Lottie slid into the seat beside another of her sisters, Marianne, who had thus far been quietly observing.
“Welcome home, Lottie,” Mari said. “It has not been quite the same in your absence. I did not write, as I knew you would detest it.”
Lottie grinned, seized her sister by the shoulders, and planted an unapologetic kiss upon her cheek. “Dearest Mari! I knew you adored me, still.”
Mari wiped her cheek with her napkin. “That was not, strictly speaking, a compliment.”
Lottie smiled, reaching for the breadbasket. “I shall take it as one nonetheless.”
It was then that the door opened once more, and the eldest Tolliver sister—formerly Miss Henrietta Tolliver, now the Countess of Langley—entered the breakfast parlour upon her husband’s arm.
Lottie’s smile slipped for a moment at the sight of Lord Langley; then she stood at once and pulled Hetty into a fierce embrace.
“Good heavens,” Lottie blurted, before sense could intervene, “you are enormous, Hetty.”
Indeed, Hetty was very far along with her first child. “Thank you, Charlotte,” she said evenly. “I see you have survived the countryside.”
“Barely,” said Lottie, stepping back and dropping into a mischievous curtsey. “Aunt Belinda’s sermons were more perilous than her geese.”
Hetty’s husband approached with narrowed eyes and inclined his head. “Miss Tolliver.”
“Lord Langley,” she returned, curtseying just enough to make a mockery of grace. “How very brave of you to enter the room unarmed.”
Across the table, the youngest Tolliver, Nell, gave a snort of laughter that she attempted—and failed—to disguise as a cough.
Lord Langley (or more commonly known to readers of good taste as Theo) tightened his jaw, though his bow was impeccable. “I am delighted to find you in good health.”
“Indeed,” Lottie said, tightly. “It is astonishing what one may survive.”
Before her mother could scold her, the door opened yet again.
“Ah,” Lady Tolliver cried, brightening, “Georgiana at last, and my darling grandson!”
Lottie felt again as though she might well cry. She curtsied to neither the duke nor his duchess—though to think of her sister Georgie as such was still odd. “So this is little Henry,” she said instead, eyeing the infant. “You’ve all been cooing over him for months, and not one of y
ou thought to send me a sketch. I was beginning to believe he was mythical.”
