“Thank you.” Fox pressed his advantage. “Despite Dennis’s cruelty, it never entered my mind to abandon his daughter. When no one else stepped in to care for Madeline, I did. When her mother died, I became her mother and father. I was the one to tend her, to soothe her nightmares, to hear her first words, to protect her from harm. That has to mean something. I love this child with everything that I have, as true as any father. I beg you to please not take my darling girl away.”
Madeline stirred on the floor, slowly rolling over and sitting upright. She pushed her blond curls out of her eyes before crossing her arms over her chest.
“I’m not leaving without Mr. Dandy,” she announced again. And then, in a smaller voice, bottom lip quivering, she added, “And I’m not going without my papa and mamma. If my fairy grandmother’s castle is so big, then it needs to be big enough for us all.”
The duke looked from his granddaughter to Fox and then back again. He ran a tired hand over his side whiskers.
“I’m too old for this,” His Grace muttered.
The duchess stirred to life.
The duke sighed and sat down beside his wife, taking her hand in his.
Leah rested atopthe boulder, legs tucked into her chest, her heart so heavy she feared it would sink right through her and vanish into the rocky mountain beneath her bent knees.
Meow.
Leah turned her head toward the noise.
Mr. Dandy currently picked his way across the heather, leaping from stone to stone, his bushy tail swaying.
Leah stared.
That dratted cat.
How had he escaped the Laird’s Lug? And why was he out in the mist and heather?
Was he coming tofindher?
Or had he finally vanquished everyone within the castle and felt the need to finish Leah off, as well?
She wiped her eyes on her shawl and watched the cat approach. He meowed, over and over, and when he reached her, he did the one thing Leah never expected.
He butted her hand with his head and meowed.
A blatant request to be held and petted.
Leah shook her head, exhaling a bewildered laugh.
Tentatively, she stroked his head.
He was unimaginably soft, his fur dense and every bit as fluffy as it looked.
Mr. Dandy nudged her hand harder, demanding more emphatic attention.
Even in capitulation, the dratted cat was a tyrant.
Shaking her head, Leah gathered the animal close to her chest, scratching his head and jowls.
He purred his contentment.
Blasted cat.
“Ye silly beast,” Leah scolded. “Ye cause an uproar and then come nipping across the moor without so much as a by your leave.”
Mr. Dandy responded by burrowing deeper into Leah’s arms, purring loudly.
Somehow, tears pricked once more.
