Daniel stood slowly, lifting Lily into his arms in the same motion, her small body curling instinctively against his chest, seeking the safety she'd always found there. She was, he registered distantly, getting almost too big to carry this easily — but tonight, none of that mattered. Tonight, he would have carried her out of that house if she'd been twice her actual size.
"Daniel," Eleanor said finally, her voice carrying the particular warning tone she'd used his entire childhood to signal disapproval, "don't make a scene."
He turned to face his mother fully, Lily still held securely against him, his expression carrying none of the deference he'd extended her for nearly four decades. "A scene," he repeated slowly. "You watched your sister strike my seven-year-old daughter across the face at your dinner table, and you're worried about a scene?"
Eleanor's composure flickered, but she said nothing further, her silence somehow more damning than any defense she might have attempted.
Marguerite, still seated, opened her mouth as though to offer some further justification, but Daniel was already turning away from the table entirely, Lily's tear-streaked face pressed against his shoulder, her small fingers curled tightly into the fabric of his tuxedo jacket.