"—thought I saw them come this way," someone was saying. Lady Charlotte's voice, getting closer.
"Bollocks," Victoria whispered, frantically smoothing down her dress.
They managed to step apart and assume innocent poses just as Victoria's mother appeared around the corner of the stables with Mrs. Pemberton-Smythe in tow.
"There you are!" Lady Charlotte beamed at them. "We were wondering where you'd gotten to. Taking in the night air?"
"Yes," Victoria said, hoping her voice sounded normal. "Lovely evening for it."
"Indeed." Her mother's eyes were knowing, but her smile remained diplomatically pleasant. "Well, do come back when you're ready. The evening's not over yet."
They returned to the party, Victoria's mind spinning with the weight of decisions she couldn't make and words she couldn't say. The job offer was a time bomb in her pocket, ticking toward an inevitable explosion that would change everything.
THE SUN HAD finally set properly now that it was close to eleven, and the fairy lights on the terrace had twinkled on,and the party was in full swing. Victoria was cutting through the main foyer, trying to track down Ambrose, when a strange silence began to creep over the guests.
"Oh my," Lady Alexandra said, her voice carrying clearly. "What on earth is that?"
Victoria looked up to see every guest turning toward the staircase, where a small tabby kitten had appeared, surveying the assembled crowd with tiny lion confidence.
The kitten took one delicate step down, then another, completely oblivious to the thirty-odd pairs of eyes now fixed on its progress.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The kitten surveyed the assembled crowd with the sort of regal disdain usually reserved for actual royalty. He took another delicate step down the marble staircase, his tiny pink tongue poking out slightly as he concentrated on not tumbling to his death.
"How charming," Lady Alexandra said, though her voice suggested she found it anything but. "A stray cat. In the house."
Victoria watched in fascination as the first cat was joined by a second kitten, this one ginger and moving with significantly less dignity. Then a third. A fourth. What had started as a single adorable intruder was rapidly becoming a full-scale feline invasion. A practical avalanche of cats. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together and realize that Sophie had to have something to do with this.
Her grandmother sneezed.
"Oh my," breathed Mrs. Pemberton-Smythe. "There are so many of them."
Sophie appeared at the top of the stairs looking like she'd rather be anywhere else in the world. Possibly on Mars. Her face had gone the particular shade of green that suggested imminent vomit or complete nervous breakdown.
"Sophie, darling," Lady Charlotte called up sweetly, "do you know anything about these… visitors?"
"They're not mine," Sophie said quickly. Too quickly. "I mean, technically they’re sort of temporarily mine, I suppose. But legally, I’m not at all sure they’re mine. They’re foundlings, you see, and…"
A fifth kitten chose that moment to emerge from behind Sophie's legs.
The guests began making cooing noises and reaching for kittens, which was apparently the signal for complete chaos. What followed was like watching a very expensive, very drunk version of a children's television show. Lord Ashworth lunged for a tabby and nearly took out Lady Pemberton-Smythe. Mrs. Harrison cornered a ginger kitten behind a suit of armor only to have it escape when she bent over to pick it up.
Victoria found herself diving under a side table to retrieve a black kitten that had somehow climbed the inside of a tablecloth. "Got you," she muttered, emerging with rather more satisfaction than she might have expected.
"Having fun?" Sasha appeared beside her, expertly scooping up two kittens at once like she'd been doing this her entire life.
"Loads," Victoria said dryly, trying to extract tiny claws from her silk dress. "Nothing says sophisticated house party like cats army-crawling under furniture."
"Could be worse. At least we're not chasing them through the dining room."
As if summoned by her words, a crash echoed from the dining room, followed by creative cursing and the sound of breaking china.
"I spoke too soon," Sasha winced.
They worked their way through the chaos, collecting kittens with increasing efficiency while the guests either helped or hindered depending on their level of sobriety. Victoria was beginning to develop real respect for Sophie's organizational skills. Keeping eight kittens secret for this long was actually quite impressive.
"This is actually brilliant," Ambrose appeared beside them, slightly out of breath and holding a particularly squirmy kitten. "Complete distraction from any awkward family conversations I might need to have."
