The voice cracked across the room like a pistol shot, and every head turned at once.
Ryan's reaction was instantaneous—professional, involuntary. Eloise saw it clearly: the split second of absolute attention, the hand dropping to his belt where a weapon would have been, the shift in his stance before his mind caught up with his body.
Then his expression changed.
"Richard?"
His face did something complicated that didn't quite resolve into any one emotion.
Before he could say anything further, Richard crossed the room in several long strides, arms already open, and pulled him into an embrace with the enthusiasm of someone who had been looking forward to this moment considerably more than the recipient had.
"Ryan! I was passing through on my way to Dorset and thought—I simply had to come and see how you were getting on! There were a few complications along the way—" he clapped Ryan on the shoulder with great feeling "—but thanks to a kind soul from the village nearby, here I am! God's grace, truly!"
Mrs. Severton, who had been watching with the particular alert warmth she reserved for unexpected providences, visibly softened at the mention of God.
Between the two of them, hidden from the room, something different was being said.
"What in God's name are you doing," Ryan said, through a fixed smile.
"Smiling first, if you please, Sergeant Thornton." Richard beamed. "And I should mention I'm not alone. Philip's with me."
"Philip is here?"
Ryan looked past him toward the entrance. Philip, who was the sensible one, who was supposed to be the check on exactly this kind of thing—
Philip appeared in the doorway. He was not alone. He was escorting a young woman with a crutch.
"Abigail?"
Eloise was already moving. Ryan stepped aside as she went past, and watched.
*So this is Abigail Ogilvy.*
The woman who had stared at him from behind the curtain. He had felt that gaze with the certainty of someone trained to feel such things, and it had troubled him—the quality of it, the way it vanished the instant he turned.
But watching her now, the way she turned toward Eloise and her whole expression shifted—
"You came!" Eloise took her hands. "Mrs. Ogilvy said you weren't coming, I was so worried—are you all right?"
Abigail smiled, and it was a real one, reaching properly into her eyes. "I'm all right."
She was not dangerous to Eloise. Whatever that look had held, it wasn't malice. Ryan trusted his instincts on this.
Then Abigail glanced at him, and the answer to his question arrived without words.
The hostility was for him. Specifically and only for him.
He registered this with some indignation, since they had never met in their lives, and then immediately set it aside to deal with Philip, who had approached and was greeting him with a composed bow—the bow of a man who was genuinely apologetic but had come anyway.
"Good to see you, Sergeant Thornton."
"Is it," Ryan said, still smiling.
Mrs. Severton, who had been taking in the whole scene, clapped her hands together with the expression of someone witnessing something they had always hoped to see.
"Two strangers arriving on the day of the banquet." She looked genuinely moved. "I've read of it, but I never thought—you are most sincerely welcome."
The room understood immediately. The old story: two travelers received on a feast day, seated in the place of honor, blessed before they departed. In Albion it had become custom—on any day of celebration, an unexpected guest was a gift, not an inconvenience. Some households had been known to arrange for the appearance of such guests. The real article, arriving by actual accident, was better still.
The guests who had already moved into the dining hall came back out to see. A pleased murmur moved through the crowd.
Ryan took the opportunity to address Richard and Philip through his teeth, still smiling.
"Of all the days in the calendar. What a remarkable coincidence."
"We thought so too," Richard said cheerfully.
Mrs. Severton was already consulting Mr. Palmer. The problem was space—the dining room was fuller than any previous year, and two additional settings would make it genuinely uncomfortable.
Eloise and Abigail withdrew slightly, said something quietly to each other, and raised their hands.
"What if we simply didn't attend the banquet?"
"What?"
"If the two of us excuse ourselves, the other guests only need to shift one place each direction. No crowding, no extra settings needed."
"But you—"
"We've been coming to this banquet since childhood." Eloise smiled. "And Abigail has never been able to sit comfortably on the banquet chairs for very long anyway—she usually slips away to the drawing room before the end."
Abigail nodded. "So we'll be in the drawing room. And the guests sent by God really must have the proper seats—that's the whole point, isn't it?"
Mrs. Severton looked at them for a moment. Then she turned to Mr. Palmer.
"Did you hear? Please go in and ask the guests to shift one seat each direction from the center. And the center places—" she considered "—Miss Julia and Miss Patricia. Let them have the seats of honor, and our unexpected guests will sit opposite Sergeant Thornton."
The faces of Julia and Patricia, who had been standing in the hall through all of this, went very still.
The seats they had been circling all evening—the ones the whole of Cambon and Feltham had been speculating about for hours—quietly passed to two mud-covered strangers from the capital.
Ryan, moving with the unhurried air of someone who had decided to find the situation interesting rather than maddening, offered his arm to Mrs. Severton.
Philip took Julia's hand. Richard, with great gallantry, took Patricia's.
The procession entered the dining room.
The banquet began.