Rat? Ill-fitting?
“He isnota rat,” she corrected in a clipped tone, squeezing Sir Whiskerton even tighter.
“Mm,” the man murmured, with a restrained snicker that made her step forward.
“I’ll have you know that he has a lineage. He was a gift from a colonel in India who claimed he once survived a cobra bite as a kitten.”
“Then perhaps the cobra died of shame.”
A bark of laughter escaped the older man beside him, but he quickly smothered it with a cough when her gaze snapped to him.
His audacious words left her stunned for a moment, and she wanted to know more about him. To know about who dared to deem the cat of the Earl of Scovell’s daughter ill-fitting.
“And who mightyoube, exactly, to pass such judgments on innocent animals?” She tilted her head. “Do you have any idea of who I am?”
The blue-coated man didn’t flinch, didn’t look a tad intimidated. “Someone who values discipline,” he responded eventually, his blue eyes meeting her brown ones.
“You strike me as the sort of man who irons his cravats and frightens small children for entertainment.”
He tilted his head slightly, like a predator amused by a mouse who had learned to squeak back.
“You’re bold,” he observed quietly.
The park had gotten dark by now, and she was standing in front of two strangers.
“Not by choice,” she muttered. “It’s just that I find it hard to remain silent when my cat’s being verbally assaulted by someone dressed like a brooding thundercloud.”
For a second, his mouth twitched, hinting at something close to amusement. But it was gone before she could even place it. As though something close to a smile was rare on that face of his.
Strangely, something about this man piqued her curiosity.
“I suggest,” he spoke again after a while, “you keep your pet on a leash.”
She inhaled sharply. “If I put anyone on a leash today, I assure you, it won’t be the cat…” she trailed off when he turned around abruptly, disregarding her as he walked off, his long strides cutting through the grass as if he owned the very earth beneath him.
Just like that, Aurelia was left standing in the shadowed park, watching the two men disappear in the distance. For some reason, her breathing was shallow, and her heartbeat was oddly loud in her ears.
Sir Whiskerton licked his paw with calm detachment, snuggling deeper into her embrace as though he had not just caused chaos.
“Good heavens,” she muttered as she looked down at him. “Was that… was that real?”
He blinked up at her.
She shook her head. She couldn’t imagine the last time she felt this way—dazed, annoyed, and entirely too breathless for someone who had just been insulted by a perfect stranger.
And what a stranger.
She hadn’t caught his name, and yet something about him stuck in the back of her mind. Like the aftermath of a storm. Or the memory of a touch that never happened.
She drew a breath before adjusting her bonnet and brushing off imaginary dust from her sleeve. It was time to go home.
As she retraced her steps toward the park’s main path, her thoughts kept returning to the alluring stranger.
She glanced down at the smug ball of fur in her arms. “This is your fault,” she whispered. “I was perfectly content being unremarkable today.”
Sir Whiskerton purred louder.
By the time Aurelia made it back to the iron gates, the ladies had vanished, and her knees still ached faintly from her earlier fall.
