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“Not to mention,” Caroline continued blithely, “that I will be miserable without you in my life. I know no females my age besides Blake’s sister, and she’s off in the West Indies with her husband.”
Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile, but she was saved from further reply when she noticed that the front door of her cottage was open. She turned to Caroline and asked, “Didn’t we shut that behind us?”
“I thought we did.”
It was then they heard the thump.
Followed by the bellow for tea.
Followed by a decidedly feline howl.
“Oh, no,” Elizabeth groaned. “Lady Danbury.”
Chapter 20
Lady Danbury rarely traveled without her cat.
Malcolm, unfortunately, had difficulty appreciating the finer aspects of life outside of Danbury House. Oh, he made the occasional trip to the stables, usually in search of a big fat mouse, but having been raised among the nobility, he clearly considered himself one of their ilk, and he did not enjoy being wrenched out of his cushy surroundings.
Much to Lucas’s and Jane’s fascination, Malcolm chose to express his ire with a mournful, rather accusatory whine. He repeated this at two-second intervals, with a regularity that would have been impressive had the sound not been quite so monstrously annoying.
“Maw,” he moaned.
“What is that sound?” Caroline asked.
THUMP.
“The whine or the thump?” Elizabeth returned, letting her forehead fall into her hand.
“Maw.”
“Both.”
THUMP.
Elizabeth waited for Malcolm’s next “Maw,” and replied, “That was Lady Danbury’s cat, and”—THUMP—“that was Lady Danbury.”
Before Caroline could reply, they heard another sound, that of feet scurrying very quickly through the house.
“That, I imagine,” Elizabeth said dryly, “was my sister Susan, fetching tea for Lady Danbury.”
“I’ve never met Lady Danbury,” Caroline said.
Elizabeth grabbed her by the arm and hauled her forward. “Then you are in for a treat.”
“Elizabeth!” Lady D boomed from the sitting room. “I hear you!”
“She hears everything,” Elizabeth muttered.
“I heard that, too!”
Elizabeth lifted her brows and mouthed, “See?” in Caroline’s direction.
Caroline opened her mouth to say something, then stopped with a panicked glance toward the sitting room. She grabbed her notebook out of Elizabeth’s hands, snatched a quill off the writing table that sat in the hall, and scribbled something.
Elizabeth looked down and read:
She terrifies me.
