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Reina regarded Mad Dog pensively. As usual, he appeared stoic and indifferent. But she knew how badly he wanted to keep the dog.

So far, Mad Dog had turned out to be the most reliable of anyone she’d hired from the Second Chance Agency. He was an excellent driver, good with horses, and he kept the carriage in immaculate condition. The carriage house too, for that matter. He was also meticulous about being on time.

As for drawbacks, Mad Dog scared people without even trying. Undoubtedly it had to do with his towering size and muscular build. And the tattoos. And the obvious amount of damage he could do if he were ever to fly into a rage. Which he hadn’t so far, thank God.

Now, as Reina met her coachman’s expectant gaze, she decided she may as well trust him. “I’m not familiar with dogs,” she said. “But I’m sure I’d prefer living with a dog to a thousand rats.”

“Twelve hundred,” came Norman’s worried voice from behind her.

Mad Dog’s face softened at Reina’s words. “Alan will earn his keep,” he promised. “I’ll put ’im to work straightaways.”

“Perhaps a bath first?” Reina suggested.

“I ain’t washing it,” Belinda announced.

“I’ll do it,” Mad Dog said. “Alan won’t cause no trouble for no one.”

While the conversation was going on, Alan nonchalantly wandered to the newel post, lifted a stubby leg, and urinated on it. In the ensuing silence, he trotted to Belinda and sniffed in the direction of the dead rat with keen interest.

Belinda shot Mad Dog a baleful glance and pulled out a rag that had been tucked in the waist of her apron. As she bent to clean the little puddle, she said, “Ain’t no proper dog, innit. Looks like a weasel wearin’ a nun’s hat.”

Meanwhile, Mad Dog had turned his attention to Pembroke. “Who’s that bloke?” he asked.

“We finally have a butler,” Reina said with the cheer of someone bringing out a birthday cake. “This is Mr. Pembroke. He’s going to bring order to our household.”

The servants looked at their new butler like a trio of slugs confronting a saltcellar.

“Pembroke,” Reina continued, “this is Belinda, Mad Dog, and Norman. Respectively, housemaid, coachman, and footman.”

“Where did he come from?” Mad Dog asked Reina.

Before she could reply, Pembroke said, “I was hired out by the same employment agency as you.”

Mad Dog regarded him suspiciously. “You’re a ticket-o’-leaver?”

“Aye.”

“Never seen you at Millbank.”

“I never saw you either,” Pembroke replied coolly.

Mad Dog folded his burly arms across his chest. “I ain’t taking no orders from your kind,” he announced.

“What kind is that?” Pembroke asked with dangerous softness.

A refrigerated silence descended over the room.

“Welsh,” Mad Dog said. “I can tell by the way you talk. I heard about them Welsh hill-tribes, eating seaweed and cockles for breakfast, making up their own language like they ain’t even English.”

“We’re not English. We were speaking Welsh while the English were still grunting and pointing at each other.” Pembroke faced him squarely. “You’ll follow my orders or pack your belongings and leave.”

Mad Dog set his jaw. “What if I don’t?”

Pembroke’s calm reply raised every hair on Reina’s body. “Then I’ll pull out your spine through your teeth.”

Few men on earth would have dared say such a thing to Mad Dog. Even fewer would have been able to say it so convincingly.

A complex set of assessments and negotiations seemed to occur in their locked gazes. As Reina watched apprehensively, she couldn’t help thinking of an account she’d once read in Penny Magazine about a standoff between a lion and rhinoceros on the African savanna. Although the lion hadn’t been a match for size, it had been sufficiently powerful that its opponent, after performing a few rhinocerical calculations, had decided to lumber away. Thankfully, that was more or less what happened now.