[MaC] At the party - Richard, Marty, Nicola, the Skeffington-Nottles

[Jvstin]

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:59:46 -0500, Katie Fulton
<kcunningham40 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > "I'm certain Hodges will make everything right."
> > Richard took a sip of his own drink. "Struck me as a
> > terribly competent fellow, and even if he is pouring,
> > I don't think he's sampling. Nothing worse than a
> > drunk steward, trust me." He laughed to himself.
> > "Reminds me of Christmas three years ago, back
> > home..."
> >
> > "How so?" James asked, Richard, as he walked up to the
> > small knot of people.
> >
> > "Yes, do tell us, darling - I love holiday stories!"
> > Nicola said. Discretely, she kept one eye on Nola
> > while listening to what Lord Richard had to say.
> >
> James turned to the sound of Nicola's voice.  "Miss Douglas." he said
> with the largest smile he had displayed at the party yet. He gave a nod
> and then turned his attention back to Richard for his answer.
> 
> Richard seemed to smile a bit brigher with every new face that joined their
> cluster. "Oh, really, it's nothing... but if you insist..." He set his drink
> aside.
> 
> "I suppose it was three or four years ago-- Yes, when Winston had the flu,
> and couldn't attend us on Christmas. He sent his son instead, since the rest
> of the staff was already too harried to worry about our imbibement.
> 
> "Jack, the boy's name was, and he was just shy of eighteen. Bright eyed
> chap, but I feared his father bore down on him a bit too much. Every time
> Mother so much as coughed, he was cringing, and every time he slopped a bit
> I swore he looked like he had killed someone. So, feeling the generosity of
> the season, I told him he should crack one of the other years of wine and
> have a taste, to calm his nerves. We'd be giving it to the servants anyway,
> so what was the harm?
> 
> "The boy took a sip, and he did seem a bit calmer, so we carried on. Dinner
> was running late, so we had more time to drink, and drink we did. I wasn't
> keeping an eye on our steward, naturally, having an eye on someone my mother
> had some idea to marry me to..."
> 

James chuckled at this last.  "Someone worth keeping an eye on, for a
change?"  He grinned and gestured for Richard to continue. James
surveyed the knot of people listening to the story with him and
returned to looking at the story teller.