“What?” he called, sounding harried, his voice muffled as well.
Almost as if he were on the floor.
“That sound,” she clarified. “Was it a cat?”
“Come here, you scamp,” he muttered instead of answering her question.
Elizabeth couldn’t resist tipping her head back and raising her lashes ever so slightly, revealing Torrie, who was indeed on his hands and knees at the other end of the chamber, peering beneath a table. Just what in heaven’s name was he doing?
She hastily lowered her lashes. “Torrie?”
“Yes, love?” His voice grew strained on the endearment, as if he were extending his arm and reaching with all his might.
Meow.
The feline protestation echoed in the chamber, undeniable. There was most definitely a cat in the vicinity.
“That wasn’t you, was it?” she asked, and then rolled her lips inward to stifle her smile.
“It was one of Beelzebub’s minions,” he said grimly. “Why did I allow Monty to persuade me he would know what he was talking about? The man thinks he can build a flying machine.”
Oh dear. This mystery grew more interesting—and entertaining—by the moment.
“Montrose is building a flying machine?” she ventured, intrigued by that as well, and having no wish to spoil Torrie’s secret.
He had seemed so pleased with himself when he had poked his head into her chamber and asked her to sit and close her eyes.
“Montythinkshe is building a flying machine. And it isn’t the first, either. The man is a menace to society. Did you know that he once got into an argument with a familial bust?”
A burst of startled laughter fled her. “An argument with a familial bust?”
“He broke the nose off the first Duke of Montrose,” Torrie confirmed, his voice sounding even more strained than it had before. “Come here, you bloody devil. I promise not to hurt you.”
“He isn’t hiding under the rosewood table, is he?” she ventured.
“No, and thank Christ for that,” her husband confirmed. “No, now that I think upon it, I’ve confused the stories. He tripped and fell on the first duke’s statue. It was a portrait of his father that he found himself in a shouting match with. To say nothing of the time he attempted to paint the second-floor hall in the midst of the night. Or the time he mistook a potted palm for a spinster at the Oxley ball… Christ, I had forgotten all about that.”
Elizabeth forgot that she was still meant to have her eyes closed. They flew open, finding him still on all fours, peering beneath the elaborately carved table’s solid base.
“Are you remembering?” she asked.
Torrie’s head came up with sudden swift haste, and before she could warn him, he struck it soundly on the underside of giltwood decorating the outer edge of the furniture. The impact echoed in the silence of the chamber, and a small blur of black-and-orange fur darted across the Aubusson before disappearing beneath Elizabeth’s bed.
She rose from her chair, going to him. “Have you hurt yourself?”
Torrie was rubbing the top of his head and grinning at her with boyish charm. “I’ll live. However, my attempt at surprising you with a cat of your own has, I quite fear, failed utterly.”
She dropped to her knees at his side, a rush of tenderness for him bursting inside her at his revelation that he had been trying to surprise her with a cat.
“Itisa cat, then,” she said, touched by his thoughtfulness.
“And you were meant to remain in that chair with your eyes closed, madam,” he reminded her pointedly. “Although in truth, I’m not certain if it is a cat Monty has found for me or a tiny, furred demon. The thing had dreadfully sharp claws, and they cut through layers of garments like an assassin’s blade. That is all I can say.”
Upon closer inspection, Elizabeth discovered angry, red scratches on Torrie’s neck above his neatly knotted cravat, along with drops of red marring the snowy linen. “Has the cat scratched you?”
“Yes, the little beast has,” he confirmed, frowning. “I meant to fetch her out of the covered basket and carry her to you and place her in your lap. But I suspect the carriage ride here scared the devil out of her, and she wasn’t willing to oblige me.”
Her eyes burned, emotion making her throat go tight. “I should clean the scratches for you,” she decided, rising to her feet in search of her wash basin.
