However, Fox’s niece had never been one to tolerate anyone standing between her and her cat.
She danced out of the duke’s reach, shaking her head.
“No,” she said. “I stay with Mr. Dandy.”
“You will do as you are told!”
Madeline flinched, her bottom lip quivering. A crying fit and possible tantrum were soon to follow. Fox knew the signs only too well.
Though she hadn’t thrown a proper fit in years, his niece’s tantrums were the stuff of legend.
“Husband,” the duchess implored, eyes darting between the cat clinging perilously to the tapestry overhead and the distraught little girl.
Mr. Dandy, sensing his chance, clawed up the tapestry until he reached the uppermost corner, a foot or two short of the plasterwork ceiling. Then, astonishingly, he leapt upward toward the cornice, eliciting yet another scream from the duchess. Mr. Dandy landed with two paws in the shadowy hole there, the one leading into the Laird’s Lug.
The dratted cat dangled for one heart-stopping moment, and then pulled himself up, squeezing the great poof of his body through the opening, disappearing entirely.
Given the practiced motions, this was not the first time the cat had enacted this particular maneuver.
Madeline shouted in dismay. She pivoted and took off at a run, aiming for the stairs, presumably to retrieve Mr. Dandy from the Laird’s Lug.
The duchess stretched out a hand and caught Madeline around the waist before the little girl had gone five steps.
“Leave the cat, child,” Her Grace ordered.
Madeline howled.
The full promised tantrum arrived.
“Mr. Dandy! No! I need my kitty!” She collapsed to the floor, wailing her distress, kicking and hitting her fists.
“Now, now,” the duchess attempted to soothe her.
But Madeline was beyond hearing.
The girl looked the duchess straight in the eye and shouted “NO!”
Then, Madeline did her worst. She pulled her trump card, the one that had stopped Fox’s heart cold more than once.
She puffed up her cheeks, expanded her lungs, and held her breath.
The duchess bent to lift her upright.
Madeline went boneless, melting her weight into the Aubusson carpet. But she stared up at her grandmother with ferocious intensity, even as her face turned purple from a lack of air.
Fox had to give Madeline credit—it was an alarmingly effective technique.
He was torn between pride at Madeline’s creativity to get her own way, and terror that she would not succeed.
The duchess blanched.
“Breathe, child!” the duchess shrieked, looking up to Fox. “Why won’t she breathe?”
Fox shook his head, unsure what to say or do.
Madeline, despite all appearances, would be fine. She would eventually pass out and begin breathing again. Fox had endured enough of Madeline’s tantrums to know how this scene would play out.
But he hardly wanted to reassure the duke and duchess at the moment.
