She needed air. And possibly a very stern talking-to about keeping things light and uncomplicated.
She slipped out of bed as quietly as possible, grabbed her clothes, and crept toward the door. She'd shower later, after a walk in the gardens where she could remind herself that this was just a summer fling with an expiration date stamped clearly on the packaging.
Halfway down the corridor something small and furry launched itself at her ankles with the sort of precision usually reserved for guided missiles.
"What the—" she began, then looked down to find a tiny tabby kitten attached to her trouser leg, claws embedded in the fabric like it was planning to set up permanent residence.
The kitten looked up at her with enormous blue eyes and mewed pitifully.
"Right," Sasha said, carefully detaching tiny claws from fabric. "You're not supposed to be here, are you?"
The kitten mewed again, this time with what sounded suspiciously like attitude.
Another kitten streaked past her feet like a furry torpedo, followed immediately by a third that seemed to be chasing its own tail in circles around her ankles. She took a step backward and nearly tripped over a fourth kitten that had materialized from thin air.
"Livingstone!" Sophie's voice echoed down the corridor, sharp with panic. "Darwin! Newton! Get back here, you absolute menaces!"
Sophie appeared around the corner in her pajamas, hair standing up in a dozen directions, arms full of what appeared to be three more kittens trying to make their own escape bids.
"Thank God," she breathed, spotting Sasha surrounded by the feline crime syndicate. "I thought they'd gotten into Grandmother's room. She'd have a complete nervous breakdown."
"Sophie," Sasha said, trying to maintain her balance as two kittens attempted to use her as a climbing frame, "exactly how many kittens are we talking about here?"
"Just eight. But they've formed some sort of alliance."
As if to prove her point, the tabby kitten, Livingstone, presumably, gave a commanding mew, and suddenly all the escapees began moving in formation toward the main staircase.
"Oh, bollocks," Sophie muttered. "They're making a break for the kitchen."
"Why the kitchen?"
"Mrs. Henderson left the bacon out one night. They've never forgotten."
Sasha watched in horror as the kitten army began descending the stairs in single file, like the world's most adorable military operation.
"Right," she said, rolling up her sleeves. "You take the left flank, I'll go right."
What followed was approximately ten minutes of pure chaos. Sasha found herself army-crawling under furniture, making undignified lunging grabs for kittens that seemed to possess supernatural evasion skills. She managed to corner one behind a suit of armor, only to have it escape between her legs while she was reaching for another.
"Got him!" Sophie called triumphantly, emerging from behind a tapestry with a squirming ginger kitten. "That's Newton contained."
"Excellent," Sasha panted, trying to extract Darwin from where she'd somehow gotten wedged behind a portrait. "How many left?"
"Er…" Sophie did a quick headcount. "Three. No, wait, four. Livingstone's made another run for it."
"Of course he has."
By the time they'd rounded up the last escapee, a particularly crafty black-and-white kitten who'd somehow gotten into the library and was using first-edition volumes as stepping stones, both women were disheveled, covered in cat hair, and slightly out of breath.
"This," Sasha said, holding the final fugitive who was purring smugly, "is exactly why people don't keep eight cats in their bedroom."
"Point taken," Sophie gasped. "Though you have to admit, their tactical coordination was impressive."
"Are we going to talk about why exactly you’re harboring these fugitives?" Sasha asked as they conveyed wriggling armloads of cats back to Sophie’s room.
"They were in the kitchen garden," Sophie said defensively. "Tiny and starving and their mother was nowhere to be found. Was I supposed to just leave them there?"
"No, but—"
