Charlotte looked hopelessly at the barren stretch of ground, the empty stairs, the thick smoke from the torchères that smudged seamlessly into the early December dusk. This was no fit welcome for anyone, much less for the return of the duke after a decade abroad. There should have been fanfare and trumpets, servants in livery, and Grandmama there to greet him with her own peculiar brand of regal condescension. There was something shameful about so shabby a welcome.

“Had we known you were coming, we would have made proper provision to welcome you home.”

Her cousin’s eyes flickered upwards, over the vast and imposing façade of Girdings. “Lined the servants up and all that?”

“Something like that,” Charlotte acknowledged, feeling very small on the broad stairs with the vast stone bulk of the house towering behind her. “Grandmama does like the grand feudal gesture.”

“I think I prefer this,” said Robert, in a way that made the sentiment into a nice little compliment to her. “I can do without the banners and trumpets.”

“Although a blazing fire would be nice,” added his friend plaintively, rubbing his gloved hands together. “A flagon of ale, a few plump — ”

“Tommy.”

“ — pheasants,” finished Tommy, with a wounded expression. “We’ve been traveling since dawn,” he added for the ladies’ benefit.

“And by dawn, he means noon,” corrected Robert. “Cousin Charlotte, may I present my comrade in arms and thorn in my flesh, First Lieutenant Thomas Fluellen, late of His Majesty’s Seventy-fourth Foot.”