“I’ve got the mouser!” came the hall boy’s voice from the other side of the study door. “I’m coming in!”
Blast. Viv ripped out the sheet she’d been scribbling on. She folded the page in half, then hurriedly affixed it to the wall covering using a pin.
“Close it, close it!” she hissed, motioning frantically to Jacob.
He hauled the panel shut just as the study door banged open, revealing the pasty hall boy, a hissing cat, and no sign of the two maids.
“Good man,” Jacob said grandly. “But there’s no need for your assistance. We’ve killed the spider and caught the other beasts.” He scooped up the last two mice.
The hall boy did not look impressed. “Those are still alive. Want me to kill them for you?”
“I’ll handle the rodents,” Jacob assured him. He raised his brows at Viv and Tommy. “Ladies, if you’ve had enough excitement for one day?”
“Oh, yes.” Viv fluttered her hand at her throat and tried to look properly traumatized. “I hope never to set foot into a house like this ever again. My poor nerves. Maid service doesn’t suit me in the least.”
“I tell you, lad. Aren’t young girls missish?” Tommy murmured to the wide-eyed hall boy as the trio sailed past. “Good help these days is so hard to find.”
14
The next morning, Jacob was unsurprised when Miss Henry arrived to interrupt him. He was in the barn, unwrapping the front paw of an injured fox he hoped to release back into the wild.
Jacobwassurprised that his beautiful client had knocked, rather than barrel into the barn as though she’d been launched from a cannon.
The paw had healed beautifully, so he placed the fox in a temporary carrier and opened the door.
Miss Henry looked as unsettled as the injured fox had done upon losing a battle with a wild boar. Jacob found it unlikely his client had been brawling with wildlife in the forest. Then again, Miss Henry was the sort of woman to charge in absolutely anywhere… while secretly wearing leather-reinforced sleeves for safety, and a corset lined with chain mail.
Which meant she was braveandscared, he realized. She tried to do it all. To control everything around her but knowing she could not. So she shored up her defenses as best she could, and hid her interminable worrying behind a mask of total competency and fierce independence.
Coming here and asking for help must have nearly felled her.
Jacob gave her his gentlest smile. “Good morning. And congratulations on completing your first mission.”
“It’s far from complete. We haven’t found Quentin or cleared his name.”
“But we do have clues we wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for your help. I’m glad you were with us.”
Miss Henry glanced away, as if unsure what to do with such a compliment. Her darting gaze locked on the basket at his hip instead. “Packing a picnic?”
He shook his head. “Vulpes vulpes.”
“A red fox?” She looked intrigued.
So was Jacob. This wasn’t the first time she’d demonstrated uncommon knowledge of the animal world. Usually, his siblings’ eyes glazed over whenever a Latin genus escaped his mouth. Miss Henry hadn’t even blinked.
“How do you come by your passion for zoology?” he asked. “Have you always loved unusual animals?”
She looked embarrassed. “Secondary effect from proximity to Quentin, I’m afraid. What are you going to do with this creature?”
“Release him.”
“Might I go along, too?”
He surprised himself by considering the offer before shaking his head. “It’s better if you don’t. Not because I wish to exclude you, but because the fewer distractions for our friend the fox, the better. He needs to return to his home.”
As he spoke, Miss Henry flinched, then nodded.
Jacob wondered at her initial wince. Had he offended her by not accepting her company? Or was Miss Henry’s mind with her cousin, whom she also hoped would return home? Perhaps Jacob’s words had even made her think of her prior home in the West Indies. She must have left it for a reason. He well knew from experience that not all homes were the sort one ever wished to return to.
