It was the first time Ethan had seen her so at ease. He liked seeing it; she’d been that anxious when she first arrived. Tonight, she was the picture of contentment, and a lovely picture it was.
“Oh, Ethan was crazed about animals when he was a lad,” said Susan. “You’d only to tell him of a downed bird or a wounded hedgehog, and there he’d be. Eight years old, and he had a little kit with bandages and all.”
Ethan gave her a lazy grin. The young lady’s maid was practically a sister to him. They’d played together as toddlers and grown up on the estate side by side.
“Most of ’em died, o’ course,” Susan added. “And what a to-do we had then. You stopped doing the funerals after a while, though, Ethan. Why was that?”
“I started to wonder if I’d done them a service, keeping them hanging on, like. I figured out that some of them died ’cause they could never live in a cage.” It had taught him a lot about the way nature worked.
“Our Ethan’s quite the fee-losopher,” James said.
Ethan poked his fellow footman in the ribs, and they tussled briefly. He didn’t really mind the teasing. He knew the others liked him, as he did them.
“Let him be now,” said Mrs. Wright. “Our Ethan’s an easygoing lad, but there are limits.”
And there it was. They didn’t go too far, and next they’d be twitting James about his finicky ways with boot polish, or Agnes about her weakness for sweets and the lengths she’d go for a bit of cake. Nobody was mean with it.
Ethan caught a flash of black in the corner of his eye. If it was a rat, Cook would… but, no. It was Callie edging along the wall. Was the cat trying to escape the house where she was increasingly confined? A creature like her was used to wandering of a night. However, she was probably used to kicks and thrown stones, too. Not likely to be missing those. Callie settled by the fire with her paws tucked underneath her; she noticed Ethan’s gaze and looked away. Maybe she was just lonely, upstairs on her own.
Ethan thought no more about it until a few minutes later, when a lightning paw flashed over the edge of the table, snagged the bit of cheese remaining on James’s plate, and disappeared. Talking, James groped about the plate, then looked down, puzzled, at the empty dish.
Ethan bit back a laugh and an urge to peek under the table. Callie was a slick little thief, and no mistake. And why shouldn’t she be? Her skills had kept her alive out there in the street. He looked up and caught Lucy’s blue eyes dancing. She’d seen it, too. He raised his brows. Should they turn the cat in? Lucy smiled at him, a free and easy smile that hit him amidships and just about stopped his heart. What was it about this particular lass? He’d known prettier; he’d known livelier. But somehow Lucy Bowman made every other girl he’d met fade from his mind. For the gift of that smile, Callie would go free, Ethan thought.
James decided he’d eaten the cheese after all. “I don’t know what’s going to come of it,” he said. “Folk I know are near to starving. No joke, their young ones are hungry more days than not.”
Mrs. Wright shook her head. “The hardship’s something terrible in the country.”
“And I’ve heard from my brother that there’s some want to take steps,” James added. “They’re sick of waiting for help that don’t arrive and a government that don’t listen. Right back home, this is.”
“You should tell Sir Alexander if there’s talk of violence,” admonished Mrs. Wright.
James’s jaw hardened. Ethan knew he’d never risk getting his friends in trouble.
“He’s doing his best to make things right,” the housekeeper went on. “He has a fund for those in need, and all.” But James was clearly not convinced.
“Everybody said things would be better when the Frenchies were beat,” put in Agnes. “We’d been fighting those devils since ’afore I was born. Why en’t it better with the war over?”
Nobody knew. Though James faithfully read the newspapers that came into the house, and Mrs. Wright corresponded with a number of people in Derbyshire, the problem was too knotty even for their collective wisdom.
A pan rattled, then fell with a great clatter in the scullery. A streak of black hurtled across the kitchen and out toward the stairs. “Drat that animal,” said