"My family is here," Emrys explained hastily, still trying to shoo Christobal towards the door — though since he was having trouble getting his second earring unlatched, he was still doing this with only his elbows. He didn't actually know who was here, exactly, because he assumed that the niece he'd heard wouldn't have come alone — but it seemed equally unlikely that his brother had dropped by with his entire household in tow, without so much as sending a letter beforehand. Not having a wide amount of experience with children, he wasn't sure which was more likely. How autonomous were teenaged girls?

(Well, considering he'd slept with a few of them as a teenager himself, he knew the answer was at least moreso than their families would like them to be, but it seemed unlikely that his niece would have run off to his house to accomplish that particular goal, so he had no idea what she was doing here).

The sound of her voice in the hallway prompted him to change his plans for Christobal — he couldn't leave through either door, now, without risking being seen. "Hide," he instructed instead. He had no idea where Christobal would accomplish this, in the dining room, but cast a quick glance around the room and said the first thing that seemed suitable: "Under the table."

To his niece (was she his niece, or one of those other fuzzy relations that occupied his brother's house? he neither knew nor cared), he called, "What a pleasant surprise!"

(Surprise it was; pleasant, it was not).