And it struck him thatBeautybelonged to him. She had actually chosen him. And he was glad. There was nothing inferior about a dog’s love. Perhaps it was even superior to human love. It was total and unconditional.
They set out through the woods in the direction of the lawn and the stables and the house. Beauty ambled along,investigating whatever took her fancy. Then abruptly she stopped, raised her head and cocked her ears, and trotted straight ahead, a dog with a set purpose. The trot almost immediately became a gallop and Gil increased his pace. He hoped it was just another rabbit.
It was not.
“Sit, Beauty,” a slightly querulous voice said without any conviction that it was going to be obeyed. And apparently it was not.
By the time Gil was close enough to see what was happening, Beauty had Miss Westcott backed against the trunk of a large old oak. The dog was in the process of setting her big front paws on the woman’s shoulders while wiggling her broad rump inelegantly and waving her tail in ecstatic greeting. Miss Westcott turned her head with a muffled shriek as the dog proceeded to lick her face.
Good God! Did he not have her trainednotto jump up on people?
“Beauty, down. Sit.” Gil was the speaker this time, and Beauty obeyed both commands instantly. But the damage had been done, damn it all. Thank God at least for the tree behind the woman. She would have been bowled over had it not been there. Why had the stupid dog decided to take a fancy to this particular female? Only an excessive fancy would cause her to forget her training.
“She prances about most people but does not actually touch them,” he said. “She jumps up only on people to whom she has taken a liking.”
“That is enormously flattering,” Miss Westcott said, her cheeks flushed, her eyes flashing as she rubbed the thin sleeve of her dress over her ear. “I am honored.”
Gil strode forward, drawing a clean handkerchief out of his pocket to hand her. She took it almost vengefully andscrubbed the dog’s saliva from her neck and ear and one cheek while he stood watching. She looked delicate and lovely in her muslin dress, her fair hair styled more simply than it had been last evening. But she also seemed very angry and very hostile—both of which emotions appeared to be directed at him rather than at his dog.
“I owe you an apology, Miss Westcott,” he said.
She scrunched the handkerchief into a ball in one fist and looked him over before handing it back to him. He supposed he appeared as intimidating as his dog, with his dark-complexioned face and almost black hair and eyes and ugly facial scar. Not to mention his size. It was not fear he saw in her eyes, though. It was... disdain?
“No real harm has been done,” she said curtly. “At least the tree trunk stopped me from falling over.”
“I mean for not immediately identifying myself yesterday,” he said, “or pulling my shirt back on. For causing you some humiliation last evening when you realized your mistake.”
Her nostrils flared. “I was not humiliated,” she said.
“My apology stands,” he told her, and watched the color deepen in her cheeks.
“I was not the one who lied by omission,” she said.
Which was exactly what he was apologizing for, of course. Well, he had done what he could. If she chose to bear a grudge, that was her business.
Beauty was sitting exactly where she had landed after removing her forepaws from Miss Westcott’s shoulders. She was very erect, panting, head high, trying to look intelligent.
He nodded curtly. “Beauty,” he said, “heel.” The dog scrambled to her feet and came to his side, looking up at him eagerly for further instructions. He gestured ahead and took a few steps away from the woman.
“What breed is that dog, anyway?” she asked, sounding more irritated than curious.
He stopped and turned back to her. She was still leaning against the tree trunk, her hands on the bark on either side of her, her head turned his way. “I had no idea when I found her as a puppy,” he told her, “and I have no idea now. I suspect there has been crossbreeding down so many generations that if one looked hard enough one would find traces in her of every dog breed there ever was and even a few there never were.”
“Except pug,” she said.
He looked at his dog and back at her. “I would not rule out even that,” he said. “What she resembles most these days is a vastly overweight greyhound wearing someone’s ratty old cast-off fur coat or else an unshorn sheep on stilts. But either one would be an oversimplification. Ultimately she is herself.” Just the way he liked her.
Miss Westcott was gazing steadily at him, and for a moment there was a flash of something in her eyes—some sparkle, some warmth—and he almost expected her to laugh. She did not do so, however.
“Where did you find her?” she asked.
“On the battlefield at Waterloo after the fighting was over,” he said. “I suspect she belonged on one of the farms, but no one came to claim her. She looked hungry but not starving. For some reason that I have never understood, she attached herself to me and refused to go away even when I shooed her and cursed her. Then I made the mistake of feeding her some stale scraps I had in my pack. One word of advice, Miss Westcott. If you ever wantnotto adopt a stray dog, do not on any account feed it.”
Actually he did not believe the dog’s advent into his life to be inexplicable. But he could not share his theory withanyone else without being pronounced raving mad. It seemed to him that some fate with a bizarre sense of humor or compassion had sent him Beauty at almost the exact moment the real beauty of his life was being taken from him back in England—still unknown to him at the time.
“So she found you rather than the other way around,” Miss Westcott said almost as though she had read his thoughts.
“Meaning that I am her man more than she is my dog?” he said. “It sounds pathetic, does it not? But no one else wanted her. Even as a puppy she was a scrawny thing with no promise of better looks to come. I have suffered ridicule over this dog.”
