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“Ah, but Mrs. Cottage is very particular,” Simons replied. “She don’t deal with just one butcher. Even with three butchers visiting the house, if she can’t find a chicken as plump as she’d like, she sends one of us grooms to fetch yet another butcher. Just look at all these stalls, Miss Florence. I wouldn’t know how to find her favorites.”

“We can just get that one, the biggest,” Florence persisted.

“That’s venison, not beef,” Simons said. “Besides, we’ve arrived.”

The rabbit hutch was a small building past the row of stalls. When they walked inside, they found two rows of cages full of twitching, furry animals. The smell was so strong that Torie choked and swayed. Here the stink was not merely excrement; an acid smell of blood suggested that the rabbit seller butchered his creatures on the premises.

Dominic decided that he was allowed to wrap an arm around his wife, improper though that might be. Torie turned her face into his chest and said something muffled by his coat.

He bent down.

“I love the way you smell.”

Dominic only allowed his valet to sprinkle him with scent if he was headed to the Royal Court, where it was taken as an insult not to smell like bergamot and cedar.

“Leather,” Torie said, just loud enough to be heard. “Musky with a hint of lemon.”

“That would be my soap,” Dominic said, looking down at his wife’s bright head. She never powdered during the day. Today she smelled of perfume rather than turpentine. He just caught it over the reek of rabbit urine.

The children were walking down the first aisle, looking into every cage, so he held her tighter. “You smell like black currant and jasmine,” he whispered.

Torie lifted her face. “My perfume is called Rosa Turchia. I’m not sure what that means.”

“Whatever it is, it’s captivating.”

“I feel as if the stench is intensifying moment by moment,” she said, looking watery-eyed. “Is that possible?”

“Torie!” Florence cried.

When they turned around, Florence was holding what looked like a mitt on her palm, the kind of thing that ladies slipped over their hands when it was snowing.

“Oh no,” Torie groaned.

It wasn’t a mitt, because suddenly long ears flicked up.

“Babies!” Florence cried.

Chapter 28

“Hell and damnation,” Dominic muttered. A hare was one thing. In his experience, they had aggressive, yellowed teeth and slightly mad expressions. Such an animal could be turned into rabbit stew without a tear being shed.

But babies?

“Me name’s Crouch, your lordship,” a lean, filthy man said, moving toward them with a smile that put on display saffron-colored teeth not unlike those of his chosen livestock. “’Tis a pleasure to have you in me rabbit hutch, that it is.”

“I didn’t think there would be babies,” Torie moaned.

“Milk-fed rabbits make the most delicate of broths,” Crouch explained. “Excellent for bilious patients and famous for killing a fever. Ask any doctor. I’ve the mother there as well, so they’re in good condition with no illnesses.”

Florence had replaced the bunny she had been holding and moved to the second row of cages, following Valentine. Now the twins were shoulder to shoulder, leaning over to peer in a cage.

“They’ll be looking at the runt,” Crouch said, starting down the row.

Dominic arrived at the cage just in time to see Crouch respond to a command from Florence and lift a rabbit from the cage, a youngster with long ears and fur the color of fog.

“Last of his litter,” Crouch said, handing over the animal. “His ears are too long for a rabbit and yet not long enough for a hare. Odd little beast. The litter came all the way from Scotland, but he was the only one so misshapen.”

Florence turned to Dominic and Torie, holding the rabbit in both hands. Her eyes were huge and imploring. “We must paint him. Just look how beautiful he is!”