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“What is it?”
“I’d like you to stand back and let me handle the dog.”
She pressed her lips together. Mouse had only ever responded to her. What if the terrier tried to bite Vale again? Her husband seemed a gent S seipsle man, but she sensed that the gentleness was but a surface layer.
“Melisande?”
She turned. He had stopped on the stairs, waiting for her answer. His turquoise eyes seemed to gleam in the shadows.
She nodded jerkily. “As you wish.”
He descended the last steps and took her hand, leading her back to the kitchens.
The hallway became more dim as they entered the servants’ domain until they reached the kitchen. The room was huge, dominated by a large arched brick fireplace at one end. Two windows at the back of the house let in light, making it a bright room during the day. At the moment, candles supplemented the fading light from outside.
The cook, three scullery maids, several footmen, and the butler were all in the midst of dinner preparations. At their entrance, the cook dropped her spoon into a pot of simmering soup, and everyone else stilled. Mouse’s barking echoed from below.
“My lord,” Oaks began.
“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.
“Now, then, Sir Mouse,” he murmured as he held out the cheese in long, strong fingers. “Have you thought over your sins?”
The nose twitched, and then Mouse took the cheese very carefully from Vale’s hand and disappeared.
