“Please. I don’t wish to interrupt your work,” Vale said. “I’ve just come to deal with my lady’s dog. Ah, Pynch.”
The valet had risen from a chair by the fireplace.
“Did you find a scrap of meat?” Vale asked.
“Yes, my lord,” Mr. Pynch said. “Cook has most kindly given me some of the beef from last night’s supper.” He proffered a lumpy folded handkerchief.
Melisande cleared her throat. “Actually . . .”
Vale looked down at her. “My heart?”
“If it’s for Mouse, he loves cheese,” she said apologetically.
“I bow to your superior knowledge.” Vale turned to the cook, who was hovering near her soup. “Have you a bit of cheese?”
Cook curtsied. “Aye, my lord. Annie, fetch that round of cheese from the pantry.”
A scullery maid scurried into a room off the kitchen and reappeared with a wheel of cheese nearly as large as her head. She set it on the kitchen table and carefully unwrapped the cloth about it.
Cook took a sharp knife and cut off a slice. “Will this do, my lord?”
“Perfect, Mrs. Cook.” Vale grinned at the woman, making her thin cheeks tinge a light pink. “I am forever in your debt. Now if you will show me your cellar, Mr. Oaks?”
The butler led the way through the pantry and to a door that opened to a short flight of stairs leading into the partially underground cellar.
“Mind your head,” Vale admonished Melisande. He had to bend nearly double to descend the stairs. “Thank you, Oaks. You may leave us.”
The butler looked greatly relieved. The cellar was lined in cold, damp stone, the walls stacked with shelves holding all matter of foo S malood and wine. In one corner was a little wooden door, behind which Mouse had been imprisoned. He’d stopped barking at the sound of their footsteps on the stairs, and Melisande could imagine him behind the door standing with his head cocked to the side.
Vale looked at Melisande and put his finger to his lips.
She nodded, pressing her lips together.
He grinned and cracked the cellar door. Immediately a small black nose peeped through the opening. Vale squatted and pinched off a bite of cheese.
shook the dog in his hand. Mouse growled and held on. Vale calmly thrust his free thumb down Mouse’s throat. The dog gagged and let go. In a flash, Vale wrapped his hand around the dog’s snout.
“Come on,” he said to her, holding the dog in both hands. The crowd had scattered when the prospect of blood had disappeared. Now Vale led her back to their carriage.
One of the footmen saw them coming and started forward. “Are you hurt, my lord?”
“It’s nothing,” Vale said. “Is there a box or bag in the carriage?”
“There’s a basket under the coachman’s seat.”
“Does it have a lid?”
“Yes, sir, a sturdy one too.”
“Fetch it, please.”
The footman ran back to the carriage.
“What will you do?” Melisande asked.
Vale glanced at her. “Nothing terrible. He needs to be contained until he calms down a bit.”
Mouse had stopped growling. Every now and then, he gave Kthe/p>a violent wriggle in a bid for freedom, but Vale held fast.