She looks to Vane, who shrugs and gestures with the knife he had offered to use, and Hennessey, beside him, simply smiles, offering no comment. Miranda does not seem to need one – she has long since discovered that her father-in-law has a wicked sense of humor.

What I like about my version of Hennessey is that he’s got a sense of humor and it’s very much based around the fact that he’s not a noble. He’s not Lord so and so, he’s not the younger son of Lord So and So – he’s a former pig farmer who made good, and it shows here, because he knows perfectly well how to catch that chicken. The chicken knows it. Gates knows it if he thinks on it a moment. James most definitely knows it, and is wondering what exactly it would take to get Hennessey to bestir himself to catch the chicken. And meanwhile, there sits Hennessey, munching an apple and enjoying himself, and Miranda knows him perhaps best of all of them save Gates, because she knows what he’s about and is just glad to have a parental figure who has that sense of humor that’s not malicious, just mischievous at times.