There was a slight rustle of the grass at her feet, a pressure upon the toe of her shoe. She glanced down, and—
“Good God, don’t dothat.” A beleaguered sigh sliced straight through her warbling scream. “Your parents will think you’re being murdered. And you’ll frighten Hieronymus.”
Somehow, after several panicked flails in an effort to escape the creature that had settled itself upon her shoe, Phoebe ended up sprawled across the bench. “There’s a—a—”
“A terrapin.” There was the click of the cane against the stone, and then Chris was there, peering down at her. He bent to unwind her arms from where they had settled protectively over her chest, pulling her upright once more. “Hieronymus. He’s a terrapin. And he’s only a threat to dandelions.”
“Dandelions?” Phoebe echoed, uncomprehending.
“They’re his favorite treat. Your shoe was right beside one. I suppose he came up out of his pond for a late night snack. Just look.”
Phoebe stared down at the ground where a few inches from her right foot, a small turtle was chomping blithely through the frilly yellow petals of a dandelion head. “The pond is for aturtle?”
“Well, it wasn’t for me.” Chris nudged her side with the tip of his cane, a silent command to make room upon the bench she occupied.
She slid carefully to the right, tucking her feet beneath the bench to avoid the turtle, and heard the soft material of her dressing gown catching upon the rough stone beneath her. “You built a pond. For a turtle. Whom you namedHieronymus.” The words, separately, made sense. Together, it was all nonsense. “You have a pet turtle?”
“A terrapin.” Chris sat down beside her and laid his cane across his lap—and hers, by extension. He rubbed at his knee through the fabric of his banyan, and a wince slid over his mouth. “I didn’t intend to acquire him,” he said with a sigh. “You’ll find that a great number of my staff don’t come from particularly refined backgrounds. My cook, for instance, makes a palatable cottage pie and can roast a chicken well enough, but her specialty—if one can call it that—is tavern fare at best.”
“Oh,” Phoebe said. “I suppose we’ll not be hosting dinner parties anytime soon, then.” Practically anyone of her acquaintance would likely revolt if they happened to be served cottage pie as a meal in a home as fine as this.
“She wants a little instruction,” Chris admitted. “She knows well enough her deficiencies. It’s just not mattered much before now.”
“I see,” she said. But what had that to do with the turtle?
“A few months ago,” Chris said, “Emma came to dinner. The first time I’d had a proper guest, and my cook decided she was going to serve something fitting. A proper fancy meal, with several courses. And what do you suppose she decided upon for the soup?”
Hieronymus had finished with his flower and took several slow, plodding steps toward the bench, stretching his neck out from his shell as if to gaze up at the star-studded sky. Phoebe uttered a horrified little laugh. “Oh,” she said. “Oh,no.”
“Oh, yes. Turtle soup.”
“But that’s—it’s not—”
“My best guess,” he said, “is that she was not aware of how expensive turtle meat is at market, since she’d never had the need to purchase it before. Probably,” he said, “she didn’t even know that she was meant to purchasesea turtlespecifically. Near as I can tell, she stumbled upon an exotic animal importer and purchased Hieronymus instead. I suppose she must have figured he’d do well enough for a dinner for two. Except she made a fatal mistake.”
“Which was?”
“She introduced me to him.”
Phoebe choked on a shocked laugh. “You’re joking.”
“I am not. She was quite proud of her purchase. He was expensive, but not nearly so much as sea turtle meat.” He dragged one hand through his hair, ruffling the gold strands. “You can’t eat someone you’vemet,” he said doggedly.
“So you named him and put him in the garden.” She watched Hieronymus execute an awkward turtle-turn and set off once more in the direction of another dandelion, and supposed that that explained the profusion of them blooming unchecked. A turtle had to eat, and dandelions were a particular favorite.
“Well, I wasn’t about to let him become soup. Probably he wouldn’t have tasted terribly good, anyway. He’s less a pet andmore a resident. He doesn’t take up much space, and even if he’s not a particularly witty conversationalist, at least he’s a polite little fellow. All he wants out of life is a pond to swim in, a rock to bask upon, and a steady diet of fruits and vegetables.”
“And dandelions,” she said.
“And dandelions. One has to respect the simplicity of his existence.”
“A dog would be more appropriate for a pet,” she said. “Perhaps a spaniel, if you’ve no fondness for hunting dogs.”
“Can’t abide dogs. Or cats.”
A beat of silence. Hieronymus stretched his neck toward the head of a dandelion, but found it just a bit too tall to reach. Phoebe watched the turtle consider his prey carefully, then extend his neck to snip the head off of the stem with his beak. “Clever,” she said, as he began to chew the decapitated bud. “Can one pet a turtle?”
“Wouldn’t recommend it. Leastwise, I don’t think he’d much enjoy it.”
