She purred as he stroked his hands down her silky hair; a particularly feline sound of approval. Her back arched into the gentle caress of his fingers. That purr deepened to a throaty rumble as she curved her back into a lithe stretch, until—
She bit his chin with fangs sharp enough to puncture; a swift and cautionary rebuke.
Henry’s eyes flashed open. He wrenched his head up from his pillow, jarred to instant alertness. Vibrant green irises stared down into his, vertical black pupils sharpened in reproach. Grey fur ruffled by his fingers stuck out at odd angles. A fluffy tail snapped back and forth, like a flag waved in warning. And Henry couldn’t quite tell any longer if the dreadful racket that assaulted his ears was more purr or growl.
There was a solid stone’s weight of cat lounging upon his chest, and he hadn’t the slightest idea of what he was meant to do about it. “Good morning, Tansy,” he said, in the faint hope that some measure of good manners might assuage the beast’swrath.
For a few long minutes, they simply stared at one another. Henry had the oddest sense that his worth was being measured and weighed. Tansy’s paws—which rested far too close to his throat for comfort—flexed. There was the barest prick of her needle-sharp claws, testing the give of his flesh beneath them.
Henry swallowed hard. Cautiously he let his fingers hover above the arch of her back. With the very tips, he smoothed the ruffled fur in a guarded, wary stroke. That cacophony redoubled itself, and for a moment, as those massive paws flexed again, he thought he’d made a fatal error.
Then, at last, her poisonous green eyes drifted closed. She tucked her chin down, laying her large head across the splay of her paws. The twitch of that fluffy grey tail subsided with a swish as she curled it around her body. The fierce rumble of her purr vibrated against his chest.
And Henry breathed a sigh of relief. She really was quite soft, and there was something…strangely flattering about having been chosen to be the terrible little beast’s newest napping spot. “I don’t suppose I could convince you,” he said, “to spare my gloves in the future?”
The drowsy flick of her ear seemed to convey that he shouldn’t hold his breath.
“I thought not.” Henry dropped his head back into the downy fluff of his pillow. His stomach produced an ominous growl as it clenched with hunger. The sun that slanted in through the window suggested he’d likely missed breakfast—which was not a surprise, given how late he’d been up evening last, and the sheer amount of whisky he’d consumed.
But he was loath to disturb the cat, who was presently sleeping sweetly upon his chest. Impossible to say just how long her pleasant mood would last. Whether shooing her off so soon after she’d elected to lay upon him would constitute a mortaloffense.
Tansy had, for reasons beyond anything he could fathom, decided that she liked him—a dubious honor, but one which Grace had implied the cat bestowed upon few. A man in his position would do well to take allies wherever he could find them.
Chapter Thirteen
Ibelieve this belongs to you.”
Grace blinked as Henry extended Tansy to her, his hands hitched beneath her front legs as he held her in the air between them, her rear legs dangling in a lanky, awkward extension. There was an air of affront about her, as if it were beneath her dignity to be carted about in such a fashion. But she bore it with a sort of exasperated resignation, her tail swishing in long strokes.
“She—she letyou pick her up?”
“She didn’tnotlet me, at least,” Henry said. “But I had to get her out of my bed somehow—”
“Your bed!” Grace choked on a flutter of astonished laughter, and struggled to smooth her expression into careful neutrality as Henry flashed her a disgruntled expression that suggested he’d been somewhat less than amused by the occurrence than had she.
“I must not have closed the door properly evening last,” he said. “I woke to her climbing into bed with me. Right onto my chest.” He lifted Tansy insistently. “Would you take her? Holding her aloft like this is murder on my arms.”
Yes, well, Tansy was a solid cat. Grace extended her arms,sweeping Tansy from his hands and into her arms. She stepped away from the front door to allow Henry room to enter. “She doesn’t allow anyone but me to pick her up,” she said. “Redding tried to move her from a chair in the drawing room last week so that the maids could tidy up, and received a swat and a hiss for his troubles.”
“He did suggest when I arrived that your household at large would not be particularly aggrieved if I happened to keep her for a while longer,” Henry said as he followed her toward the drawing room. “Eliza would have enjoyed that, probably. She became quite excitable when she found out that Tansy had come for a visit.”
Grace set Tansy down upon the couch, and Tansy arched her back in a long, trembling stretch, padded in a circle, and settled down. “Really?” she asked. “I’ve seen her on occasion, sneaking Tansy pieces of meat.” Which Tansy had no doubt enjoyed, but had not bought her friendship.
“She did this morning as well,” Henry admitted. His brows pinched as he scanned the room and the papers scattered across it. “I couldn’t figure out how to get Tansy off of me without risking my neck.”
“Probably she wanted breakfast,” Grace said. “She always sits on me when I’ve failed to rise before what she has decided is breakfast time. Which is ever-changing and often appallingly early.”
“Luckily the bell pull was within reach.”
Grace coughed to disguise a chuckle. “You summoned a servant to evict a cat?”
“What else was I supposed to do? And it didn’t work, besides. Apparently my staff have had enough run-ins of their own with Tansy to have developed a healthy fear of her. But Eliza caught wind of my predicament from someone and suggested bacon.”
“Wise girl. It’s Tansy’s favorite.” Grace leaned down toscratch Tansy beneath the chin.
“It was enough to get her off of me, at least, but once she’d had her fill of it, she wouldn’t be moved from my bed. And not even Eliza would risk picking her up. I suppose I thought—since she’d already made a bed of me—that she might let me try. After the bacon, of course.”
“Naturally, after the bacon.” And Tansy did have the equivalent of a satisfied feline grin as she pressed her chin down into Grace’s fingers. “It’s easiest if you hold her like a baby,” she said. “Many cats don’t prefer it, but Tansy does. Although she’ll tear you to shreds if you try to pet her belly.” Which was soft and fluffy and so, so very tempting. Grace had made that mistake before.
