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She gripped the bowl in both hands, trembling. “Garlic,” she said firmly, “is poisonous to cats.”
Realization came over his expression and he grabbed the bowl from her and marched outside. She followed him as he tossed it onto one of the manure piles and gave it a good dig through with a rake. “They won’t want to go near that.”
“You don’t understand, Cillian. If they’ve even ingested the tiniest amount, it could be fatal.”
“Shit.”
She echoed the sentiment in her mind, but the one thing Mama forbade them from was cursing so she kept it to herself. “I need to find them.”
“The stable hand said he saw them by the coach house. I’ll go round them up.”
“Can you bring them inside? I can give them something to help if they have eaten any.”
“Most of the food was still there. Maybe they never touched it.”
Ivy nodded. He was right. Maybe they hadn’t eaten any of it. Maybe they’d be just fine. But it didn’t stop the cold fear spreading through her that someone might have harmed the poor sweet things.
Cillian put a hand to her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “All will be well, Ivy.”
She nodded again. “I’ll go to the kitchen and prepare a tonic. Can you bring them to me?”
“Of course.”
Ivy raced inside, nearly spilling down the stairs to the kitchen. Heat and steam and the scent of roasted meats mingled with a sweet, sugary smell. The cook scowled at her when he saw her.
“Do you have honey?” she demanded, “and thyme?”
“But of course.” The tall, thin man’s glower deepened.
“Where is it?”
“In the pantry.” He thrust a thumb toward the large room next to the kitchen. “But why—”
Ignoring his question, Ivy slipped past a maid and scanned the shelved contents.
“Thyme, thyme,” she muttered to herself, finally spotting a poorly labelled jar of it.
She found the honey easily and snared some milk from the ice box then carried her ingredients into the kitchen.
“My lady, what exactly—”
“Did you put garlic in the cat food?” she demanded as she set out her ingredients and stretched to grab a bowl from the upper shelf.
The cook rolled his eyes and reached over her to hand her the bowl. “Never. Why would I waste garlic oncats?”
That meant someone else had put garlic in their food.
But Ivy didn’t have time to wonder why. As she finished whisking together her concoction, Cillian ducked into the kitchen, three cats wriggling in his hold. She spied claw marks on his forearms and the side of his face.
The cook gasped. “You cannot bring those in here!”
“He can do what he wants in his own house,” Ivy snapped.
The cook’s mouth opened and closed a few times then he muttered something under his breath and headed back to the oven. Cillian set the cats on the table near the bowl and all three lapped eagerly at the milk.
“What did you put in there?” Cillian asked.
“Honey and thyme.”
