Chapter 4
Shrieking from the ground floor wafted all the way upstairs to the guest room.
Nora laid her pencil atop the escritoire and rubbed her temples. It was not Lady Roundtree’s shrill tone that was causing her megrim, but rather the challenge of responding properly to her brother’s letter.
The dozen lines he had written had cost her half an hour to read. She’d spent twice as long attempting to pen a coherent reply. Her stomach was sick with frustration.
If only writing letters was as easy as drawing sketches! In a matter of minutes, she would have been able to explain the need for heightened secrecy, that he should never again mention the business arrangement in his letters to her, and that he should never, ever breathe her name to the intermediary, lest the printing house learn her identity.
Above all, she needed to ensure Carter would not accidentally make things worse. Nora ground her teeth at the few lines she’d managed to eke out. If words were as easy as sketches, she could have already conveyed her inspired plan to—
“Miss?” A timorous maid hovered at the open doorway. “Milady requests your immediate presence downstairs. There’s a… situation.”
Nora leapt to her feet. Of course she would go at once; she was here at the baroness’s whim. It would be a great irony for her to be sacked for dereliction of duty because she was in her guest chamber, failing to write a stupid letter.
Her fingers trembled against the balustrade of the spiral balcony. What if the “situation” below was that the baroness wished for her new companion to read the morning newspaper aloud? Or the latest gothic novel for her book club?
Nora pushed through the fear and forced her feet to march down the stairs. Dillydallying after a summons would be just as bad a crime as borderline illiteracy. Promptness, on the other hand, was a trait she was delighted to display.
Besides, there might be nothing worrisome afoot. Perhaps Lady Roundtree had decided she no longer trusted maids or footmen, and it would now be Nora’s sole and solemn duty to starch handkerchiefs and fetch fresh pots of steaming chocolate. Or to place pearl-studded pins in the baroness’s hair.
Heaven help them both.
The intricacies of High Society hair styles were just as foreign to Nora as the contents ofDebrett’s Peerage. Lady Roundtree’s private lady’s maid was nothing short of a wizard with hair pins and curling tongs. The addition of splints and a wheeled chair did nothing to reduce the baroness’s elegance.
As Nora reached the foot of the staircase, a single sharp bark rent the air. What on—
“Good!” came Lady Roundtree’s voice. “That’s Winfield now. She’ll handle him.”
Nora spun to see a cluster of maids and footmen fanning in a half-circle about the baroness’s wheeled chair.
“Handle who?” she asked.
A flash of golden brown fur shot from behind the baroness’s wheeled chair and disappeared under the hem of a maid’s skirt.
The maid unsuccessfully stifled a shriek. “Help! It’s—”
The bundle of fur darted out from under her skirt and latched itself to the foreleg of the closest footman, upon which it delivered several frantic thrusts of its fawn-colored hips.
“—it’s on my leg,” the footman completed the sentence, his face a mask of pained stoicism.
Nora edged closer. “It’s a dog?”
Of course it was a dog. A pug, to be exact. The adorable curled tail with its little black stripe, the golden-brown coat, the floppy folded ears, the distinctively wrinkled face with patches of black about the muzzle and eyes. From the diminutive size, the puppy could be no more than a few months old.
The only question was what it was doing inside Lady Roundtree’s house. Besides humping the servants’ legs. Had it snuck in somehow? Or was—
“This,” Lady Roundtree informed her proudly, “is Captain Pugboat.”
Nora blinked. “Captain… Pugboat?”
“My new puppy,” the baroness added, in case the situation was unclear. “You will henceforth be responsible for his actions and appearance.”
“I am henceforth responsible for… Captain Pugboat,” Nora repeated faintly.
“Precisely.” The baroness waved a white-gloved hand. “Begin by removing him from John Footman’s leg. He smells of wet dog and must be bathed and dried at once.”
“She means Captain Pugboat,” the closest maid whispered to Nora. “Although by now, all of us smell like wet dog and ought to be bathed.”
