Ford's eye caught on Noble as he went to open the wine. He couldn't decide if Noble was being weird about this or not. Surely he wasn't mad about being surprised with a dinner guest? He'd been laughing an hour ago, so it didn't seem like he was too invested in this — not the way Verity was, anyway, as she'd decided immediately that her entire future hung on the balance of tonight's entree course. Noble had smiled, and had just said yes, of course, so ostensibly everything was fine, but Ford still felt something was a little... strange. Not that he could say anything about it now, when Lestrange was here. If he'd wanted to ask he should have done so while the girls were upstairs changing, but he'd been too busy getting berated by Mama.

Ford took half a step towards the dinner table, but hesitated. They couldn't sit down until the girls sat down, but everyone seemed to be frozen in place, still going through the motions of introductions and greetings even though those had been accomplished. He caught Grace's eye and tilted his head towards the table slightly, willing her: go, sit down!