"You could help the twins set the table," Della told him, busying herself with last minute preparations. "Seth, Jenny, get the plates out and then show him where we'll be sitting."
The children jumped to obey, anxious to be fed. Seth dumped a stack of plates into Tobias's arms and started chattering away as he led him out into the dining hall, toward the table situated against the back wall. "There's usually about a dozen of us, all told," he said. "Me, Mama, Jenny, Micheal, and Mia-" he pointed to where the places should be set as he talked- "then Isaac, Lionel, Jacobi, Anna, Marion, Selena, and Andrew. You can sit wherever you like..."
From across the room at the "main" table, Tessa watched, smiling slightly. She was distracted when her parents entered the room, her mother bending to kiss her cheek before she took her place beside her, her father simply giving her a curt nod as he sat at the head of the table.
"Don't look so forlorn," Nateri said softly, laying her napkin delicately on her lap. "I talked to him. I think-"
Before she could finish what she'd meant to say, Mia and Micheal came bursting out of the kitchen, arms laden with divinely scented plates. "Dinner, Sir, Madam, Miss Tessa," Mia, Tessa's personal maid, said with a bright smile as she slid the plates onto the table.
"Thanks, Mimi," Tessa replied with a smile of her own. She was suddenly starving.
"I see we've got the new muscle," the girl, three years Tessa's junior, said softly as Micheal came around with wine and water. She raised her eyebrows questioningly.
"I'll talk to you about it later," Tessa whispered, flicking her eyes toward her still sullen father. Mia nodded and skipped away, collecting her brother as she moved toward the servant's table.