“Here.” Charles transferred the puppy to one hand and reached inside his coat for his handkerchief. “What are you doing outside, anyway, without your wrap?"
Louisa took the handkerchief from him and said, “That doesn't matter now. What matters is that this-” she gestured towards the man with contempt “-this monster will abuse the dog if you give it back. I think he stole it!"
“Now, sir-” Sammy Spadger finally came forward. “T’ lass is upset, an’ reetly so, but there's nowt ta say t’ dog wor pinched. What I can say, an’ will say, is that t’ man did harm t’ dog."
Charles had grasped the situation now. He sighed with impatience. “Louisa, you cannot take a man's belongings no matter how vilely he treats them. I understand your outrage, but-"
Louisa stepped back from him, looking as if he had struck her. Her reddened eyes filled with tears. “Charles-” her voice trembled with disappointment “-I was so certain you would save it."
Charles had frozen in mid-sentence; the weight of her dismay had fallen like a stone into the pit of his stomach. Louisa's eyes were rimmed in red. Her bosom was flushed with pink, and it heaved with a most painful breathing. The burden of her disillusion threatened to sink him into the ground.
The heavyset stranger stepped forward to jerk the dog out of his arms. Charles withheld it and gave him a withering glance.
“This matter has not been resolved."
A gasp of pleasure burst from Louisa's lips.
“Oh, Charles!"
He could not resist casting a look in her direction. The weight on his chest began to lift rapidly when he saw the sparkle in her eyes.
“How much do you want for the dog?"
The fellow started, surprised, but not displeased.
“ ‘Ow much?” he said. Charles could see the calculation going on behind his furtive eyes. “Well, ‘ers a good ‘untin’ dog. I figures-"
“I'll give you ten shillings.” Charles reached inside his pocket and threw some coins at the man, who started to protest. “Ten shillings, and no enquiry into where the dog came from."
This silenced the stranger immediately. He tried to slink off into the dark, but Louisa had cause of her own to protest. She grabbed for his sleeve.
“Pay the man? Charles, how can you pay such a scoundrel when it's plain he's a criminal? Why only the most debased sort of-"
“Louisa…” Charles took her hand off the man's sleeve and forced the puppy back into her arms. Then be removed his overcoat and spread it about her shoulders.
“You've been outside much too long,” he told her, guiding her to the door. “It's time for this business to be concluded and for you to come inside by the fire before you come down with a serious chill. Your nose is already red."
“It's not the cold,” Louisa said, allowing him to shepherd her inside, “it's the dog.” She thrust the puppy back into his arms again. “I shall be quite all right if you hold it from now on."
Halfway down the corridor, Charles halted and gaped at her. “The dog?"
“Yes, Charles,” Louisa said lightly. “I do not know what it is, for I love animals. But every time I come too close to a dog or a cat I begin to sneeze."
On this surprising note, in which he detected no irony, Louisa hurried him into the private parlour and excused herself on the grounds that she must go up to her room to repair the damage the dog had done.
Stunned by this revelation, and by Louisa's obstinacy in rescuing the dog in spite of her affliction, Charles fell into a chair by the fire. Sammy Spadger came into the room to heap the grate with coals, for it was plain to see that both its occupants would need a thorough drying out.
Emerging from his reverie, Charles instructed him to have the bags he had brought from Lord Conisbrough's house taken up to Louisa.
“Then yor lordship's servants wor there as tha said?"
“ Huh? What? Oh, yes!"
Since this latest episode, Charles had forgotten the story they had told the Spadgers. But Sammy sounded so relieved that his faith in the marquess and his cousin had not been misplaced that Charles turned to the matter once more. “My cousin's bags had been delivered,” he said. “She might prefer to change before coming down to dinner."
“Mrs. Spadger'll see to it reet away, sir. Would tha like me ta take t’ dog?"
Charles glanced down at the puppy in his lap.
It had fallen asleep along the open palm of his hand, as if the past half hour's struggle had been far too much for its young body. It lay in an attitude of complete abandon, sprawled on its back as only a young animal can lie, its front paws flopped over his thumb, its hind paws splayed outwards exposing its pink underbelly. Charles noticed the creature was a female, though he might have suspected so by the length of its eyelashes-some sort of black-and-white spaniel with remarkably long lashes.
Something stirred inside him, and he did not answer until Sammy repeated his question.
“Sir?"
“You may leave her here,” Charles said. He cleared his throat and said in a firmer voice, “I shall have to see what my cousin intends to do with it. The dog is hers, after all."
“Aye, yor lordship. And reetly so, t’ way she stood up ta that bully. If tha'll excuse me, I will say this. T’ lass has got a good heart, that she has."
Sammy bowed himself out of the room, leaving Charles to reflect on how Louisa had managed to charm the last suspicions from the Spadgers’ minds.
He was determined, however, to show no more weakness, so he resisted the impulse to gaze at the dog. Of all things for Louisa to saddle him with, he fumed in order to rally himself. He had dogs, of course. Every gentleman had hunting dogs, but they were of his own choosing, carefully bred for the purpose. Charles had no need for a dog who could not pull its own weight.
And this one, draped over his wrist like a lady's shawl, would undoubtedly prove to be a mixture of breeds, completely untrainable-as flighty, in fact, as Louisa herself.
By the time Louisa arrived back downstairs, Charles had worked himself into a state of mild resentment, tempered by the cramp the puppy's weight had started in his wrist. He did not shift it, however. Looked at logically, his discomfort was due not to the puppy at all, but to Louisa, who had caused it to be there in the first place. No reason to take his temper out on a helpless creature when one so capable stood readily by.
He looked up at her entry, planning to start the scold he had prepared for her, but he was stopped by the sight of her new dress. A low-cut gown of yellow silk, as bright as a canary, enhanced her figure. It rustled in a pleasant way as Louisa moved forward and crooned, “Oh, isn't it precious, sleeping there? Charles, I had no idea you were so good with dogs! This one might have known you all its life."
“It's a she,” Charles found himself saying. He had never cared for the colour yellow, but somehow on Louisa it looked quite well. Because of her red hair, he presumed, noting that Ned certainly knew his business.
“Oh, it's a girl,” Louisa whispered reverently, bending over his lap to pet the dog lightly. She might have been talking about a human baby.
Her breasts hovered within inches of his face, causing a lump to rise in his throat. Charles felt something stirring in his lap. He looked down to see if the dog were waking, but realized with dismay that it was not the dog that had stirred.
He cleared his throat and tried to recall his annoyance.
“Louisa-” He sat up suddenly and placed the dog on the floor near the hearth. “What precisely do you mean to do with a creature you cannot even hold?"
The puppy sat up and yawned, then looked about for something softer to sleep on. It spied Charles's legs, crossed at the ankle, and curled up beside them to rest its chin on the toe of his boot.
Louisa looked down at it fondly. “Why, Charles, since you are so good with her, I see I shall have to give her to you."