Page 2 of The Earl’s Hoyden

Elizabeth gave a bright smile of appreciation.

“What does it take to get drunk?” Jillian asked, peering around Hannah.

Amy narrowed her eyes at the bottle. “I wager it’s about seventeen jacks. Divided between the five of us, that’s exactly—”

“Now is not the time for such equations.” Lucy pulled the cork free, and the hollow thunk filled the room. “We’ll find out.” She sniffed the contents and recoiled. “I imagine not much.” With that, she put the bottle to her lips and tilted her head back. She grimaced and lowered the brandy as she wheezed out a pained exhale.

“I think you’re supposed to sip it,” Jillian mused.

“I’ve never been a rule follower,” Lucy ground out and passed the bottle to Hannah. “And neither have you.”

The glass was cool against Hannah’s palms. “I ought to take offense to that.”

“But you won’t,” Lucy replied, her husky voice restored.

While Lucy wasn’t wrong, she wasn’t entirely right either. Unlike her wayward friend, Hannah didn’t intentionally break the rules. Just as she didn’t intentionally talk too much or try to be overly loud.

It all sort of happened.

She didn’t bother to sniff the bottle as Lucy had, or her courage might falter. No, she set aside her reservations and tossed back a mouthful.

In for a penny, in for a pound…

And like that, her last option for a New Year’s resolution—following the rules better—slipped away. Or, was swallowed away, as it were.

The liquid hit her throat like punishment, all fire and hell and awfulness. She swallowed it down so as not to spit it out and felt as though she were breathing out flames as she wheezed an exhale similar to Lucy’s.

Amy immediately set to patting Hannah’s back.

“Is it really that bad?” Elizabeth asked, wide-eyed, stepping away from the offending spirits.

Jillian took the bottle in a show of her own special defiance and drank. Of the three, only she did not sputter but instead offered a shrug. “Not bad.”

She regarded their faces, then burst into a laugh, succumbing to a hacking cough, her green eyes watering. “But not good either,” she rasped.

Amy ran to her and gently thwacked her back until Jillian waved her off, still laughing.

“Let’s get to our resolutions before any one of us has to drink more of that.” Jillian pointed an accusatory finger at the brandy.

Lucy tucked the bottle against her arm, and they gathered closer to the hearth. Hannah swiftly retrieved the journal, flipping to one of the back pages as she did so. She sank in the semi-circle near the fire, and heat blossomed against her icy toes and warmed the front of her nightdress.

As they settled on the plush salmon-pink carpet, Hannah already could predict each of their resolutions, even as she handed the journal to Elizabeth. Amy dipped the quill in ink for her and held it at the ready, poised over the small metal well.

“I vow to be less clumsy this year,” Elizabeth said. “Or at least not be so intolerably awkward about it.”

Amy cast her a sympathetic look and gave her the prepared quill.

Elizabeth scratched her vow onto a fresh page with “1810” written atop it. Hannah had written the year earlier in anticipation of the evening, her penmanship so careful and perfect, even the stern-faced Miss Cuthbert wouldn’t have cause for complaint.

“And you, Amy?” Hannah asked, already guessing the answer as Amy accepted the book.

Amy gently blew at the page to dry the ink. “I would like to be kind always.”

“You are always kind,” Lucy groaned in exasperation.

Even Amy rolled her eyes at this, albeit playfully and wrote the resolution in her neat, looping script.

“And I resolve…” Lucy indulged in another gulp of brandy with only a wince this time.