“You’re joking… aren’t you?”

“Oh, no she isn’t,” Benjamin said. “She checked the records. What was the last time, Cat?”

“Bernard VII and his wives were invited to a surprise birthday party by John Mackenzie XI on June 10, 3807—um, 1704 p.d.,” Katherine replied promptly. “And the experience clearly made a profound impression on Bernard, because I found the actual menu, including the ice cream flavors, in his personal diary.”

“Two hundred and eight years?” Allison shook her head, unable to believe it. “That long without an invitation for anything but a state occasion?”

“I wouldn’t imagine many people just screen Queen Elizabeth and ask her if she’d like to drop by for a beer, Alley,” Alfred observed dryly.

“No, but she has to get invitations at least a bit more frequently than once every two centuries!” Allison protested.

“Perhaps so,” Benjamin agreed. “But here on Grayson, any informal or personal invitations traditionally go from the Protector to the steadholders, not the other way around.”

“Oh, dear. Have we violated protocol that grossly?” Allison sighed.

“You certainly have,” Benjamin replied. “And a darned good thing, too.” Allison still looked a little concerned, but Elaine nodded in vigorous agreement with her husband even as she removed an old-fashioned printed book from Honor’s clutches before it could suffer serious damage.

“Benjamin warned Katherine and me both about protocol before he proposed,” Elaine said over her shoulder, leading an indignant Honor firmly back towards where the older Mayhew girls were engaged in a board game with Miranda LaFollet. Rachel had expressed some rather pointed reservations about her younger siblings’ level of skill, but she had a basically sunny disposition, and she’d let herself be talked into playing. By now, she’d forgotten to maintain her air of exaggerated patience and entered as fully into the play as Jeanette or Theresa while Farragut watched over them all from the back of Miranda’s chair.

The game was one Allison had never heard of before coming to Grayson, but like their peculiar sport of “baseball,” it seemed ingrained into Graysons at an almost genetic level. At the moment, Miranda had just thrown the dice and finished moving her token—a scuffed and worn-out-looking antique shoe of cast silver—around the perimeter of the polished, inlaid wood board to a square labeled “Ventnor Avenue,” and Theresa squealed in triumph.

“I’ve got a hotel! I’ve got a hotel!” she announced. “Pay me, ’Randa!”

“I can see taxes are going up if you ever become Minister of Finance,” Miranda muttered, making all three sisters laugh, and began counting gaily-colored plaspaper strips of play money. Elaine parked Honor on a stool beside her, and Miranda looked up and then smiled at Honor. “I think I’m in trouble here,” she confided. “Want to help me and Farragut count all the money I owe your sister?”

Honor nodded vigorously, indignation suddenly forgotten, as Farragut flowed down to sit beside her stool and lean against her, and Elaine returned to join Katherine on the couch facing Allison across a coffee table of beaten copper.