He stopped by Barbara’s, but Louise was not there. The household still slept, the butler told him, looking cross and disapproving, as all butlers were wont to do. He supposed they taught them that at butler school. Dominic left a note for Barbara to call on him later that day.
Amazing how finding a solution made everything better.
He did not see Louise at the park. Neither did he encounter any men of ill repute attempting to rob him. He had not had reason to use his special cane in years. In the past, pugilism offered a release from stresses, as well as a fine form of entertainment. Since inheriting his estate, he had not engaged in any pugilistic bouts.
Perhaps it was time.
And so it was, ideas and plans racing through his mind, that he arrived home. Jacks immediately informed him that both ladies had arrived. He said so in a low voice, his head dipping.
Dominic handed him the cane and his top hat. “Is there a problem?”
Jacks eyes flickered. “Perhaps you should see for yourself.”
That was when Dominic heard giggles. And then another sound, so out of place and foreign that for a second, he felt like an interloper. As if he’d entered the wrong house.
Jacks was disguising a smirk now, and failing utterly at it.
“Is there a dog in my house?” Dominic pointed up. Without waiting for an answer, he sprinted up the stairs, following the sounds to a room next to the old nursery.
Dogs. He had never liked them since not one, but two, had bitten him as a child. Granted, they were starving mutts that had wandered onto the estate and his brother had mercilessly chased the poor beasts each time.
Still, his memories of dog encounters did not serve to endear him to the women who had brought one into his home. At least Louise was safe, which brought an immeasurable relief.
He pushed open the door.
The sight that greeted him did nothing good for a mood that was quickly disintegrating into annoyance. Deep annoyance. Did they think him easily duped? A soft sap who allowed anything and everything? Mouth grim, he leaned against the door frame, crossing his feet and arms and waiting for acknowledgement.
Which did not come.
Henrietta and Louise giggled and grabbed for an animal, which repeatedly escaped their grasps and yipped its way across the room, leaving mud trails and bubbles. They scrabbled after him, their skirts dark with water, their hair coming undone.
He did not want to laugh. He really didn’t. What he wouldn’t give for one of those miniaturists to be here at this moment to capture the ludicrousness of the scene in oil.
“I’ve got him,” Louise proclaimed, tackling the animal and hefting him up. But as she stood, her foot slipped out from beneath her and she fell on top of Henrietta, whose face was buried in her arms. Her laughs filled the room, and at his niece’s added weight, the laughter collapsed into breathy giggles.
The thing ran in circles around them, its tail whipping back and forth in unmanageable swipes.
“What is the meaning of this?”
The girls’ laughter cut off. Even the dog stopped moving.
Despite the bubbles on Henrietta’s cheeks and a stubborn one clinging to her forehead, he easily read the guilty look that crossed her face. She scrambled to her feet.
“I can explain,” she said in a higher voice than usual.
“You had better.”
“I didn’t run off, Dom.” Louise didn’t bother standing. Obviously she had no concern for repercussions. He didn’t know if that made her braver or just foolish. The more he looked at the room, and the mongrel who had decided to clean himself on a rug that Dom knew for a fact he’d bought in Italy, the more irritated he became.
“I went to the back of the house. Through the servant’s entrance.”
“You are not a servant.”
“Retta found me and explained everything. We took a walk and Smiles found us. He was starving, Dom. Why, look at his ribs? They are jutting out.” She crossed her arms in an eerily fashion reminiscent of his own stance. “I couldn’t leave him there, not when he so obviously needs a home. It is beastly for you to even suggest such a thing.”
“I said nothing.”
“It is in your eyes.”
Dominic looked at Henrietta, who remained unnaturally quiet. Perhaps she realized how completely she had overstepped her bounds.
* * *
Henrietta was trying very hard not to laugh.
She donned her most serious look, fighting the twitch of her lips and refusing to meet Dominic’s glare since the chastisement in it only made her want to giggle more.
His boot tapped the floor. Perhaps he was waiting for Louise to say more? She dared not even peek. To see such astonishment upon a man who prided himself on his nonchalance only increased the amusement flipping her stomach.
She cleared her throat. It still tickled with giggles. She stood slowly, shaking her skirts of clinging bubbles. “Smiles is a sweet addition to your home. He will provide Louise with an outlet for her energy, as well as a way to learn responsibility. It is my suggestion that she be the one to feed the animal. Care for him.”
He straightened off the door frame. His arms crossed his chest. He legs spread in what Henrietta considered a warlike stance. Surely he was not truly angry. For the first time, it crossed her mind that he might be.
She had never seen Dominic angry. Annoyed, perhaps. Miffed. Put out and stubborn.
But angry?
She examined the jut of his jaw, moving on to the squint about his eyes. The movement of his jugular, very faint but discernible, caught her attention. Perhaps she could count the beats and detect whether or not his heightened heartbeat proved his anger?
“Are you very angry, Dom?”
Or she could ask, just as Louise had just done.
“No,
