internal debate, Gabe followed. The scene had piqued his curiosity, to say the least. Not to mention, his alternative seemed to be milling about the square tending the goat.
The hell he would.
“Come along, you,” he grumbled.
He pulled the goat up the stairs and through the door Lady Penelope had just bashed open.
As he entered, the infernal parrot squawked at him from an adjacent room. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Gabe closed the front door behind him and loosed the goat to make a meal of something unfortunate. Hopefully the bird.
“I’m coming, Bixby!” Lady Penelope called in the distance.
Gabe followed the sound down the corridor and then down a flight of stairs. He emerged into the kitchen. There were no servants to be seen, and a kettle looked to be boiling dry on the hob. A jumble of felines curled by the fireplace.
“I’m here, Bixby! Just hold on a little longer.”
A heavy door at one end of the kitchen stood ajar. Gabe crossed to it and nudged it open further.
Nothing but darkness.
A darkness that scurried.
After blinking a few times, he could discern that this was the coal store, and it sat directly beneath the iron plate she’d been shouting through a few moments ago. A small mountain of coal rose at a steep angle, leading from the ground to the coal chute at the top.
And there—somewhere in the darkness at the top of the heap—was Bixby, presumably. The dog emitted a feeble whine.
“Nearly there.” Lady Penelope attempted to scale the mountain, scrambling up the heap on hands and knees, pushing aside loose chunks of coal as she went.
Gabe shook his arms free of his coat and flung it aside. “What the devil has he done?”
“He’s stuck. It’s happened before. He finds a rat, and then he chases it into the store and up to the chute, and then his cart gets stuck on the coal hole hook, and—”
Yes, the cart. So this was the rolling dog.
“His back legs are lamed, and—” She scrambled higher, dislodging yet more coal. “There’s no time to explain. I have to unhook him, or he could slip and hang himself.”
Gabe yanked open his cuffs and pushed his sleeves to his elbows. “I’ll do it.”
“I’m almost—” She lost her footing and slid back to the ground, losing all her progress.
He reached for a shovel propped against the wall. “Stand aside.”
At last, she relented, backing away from the mountain of coal. Gabe climbed as far as the ceiling would allow and dug into the coal, lifting a shovelful of sooty lumps from the top and heaving them to the cellar floor.
Once he found a rhythm, he made quick work of it, jabbing the spade into the coal heap again and again, employing not only the force of his arms, but his back and legs, as well. His muscles retained the memory of what he’d tried to forget. Shoveling coal was nothing he hadn’t done before. Just something he’d sworn to never do again.
While Gabe worked, she called out encouragement from below. Not to him, of course. To the dog.
“Just a bit longer, Bixby!”
The dog’s whines grew mournful.
Gabe could nearly reach him now. He tossed the shovel aside and cleared more coal from beneath the chute. When he’d created enough space, he flattened himself on his belly and wriggled over the coal, using his elbows to drag himself forward until he’d reached the spot beneath the chute.
There he was, the little mongrel. Scarcely bigger than a rat himself. He was caught on the iron hook of the coal hole plate, hung up by a bit of leather strap and struggling against the dead weight of his stumpy hind legs and cart.
“Easy, there. Easy.” Gabe stretched his hand up the chute, twisting for the best angle. Couldn’t quite reach. Even if he could, he had no idea what he was reaching for. How did this cart fit together? Was there a buckle or button he’d need to undo in order to free the dog? If so, it was hopeless. He didn’t have enough light or space to complete any maneuver requiring dexterity.
“Very well, dog. You’ll have to do your part.” Gabe turned onto his side and reached up into the chute again, this time fumbling blind. When his fingertips brushed against fur, he lifted the dog’s weight in his palm and pushed upward, straining his shoulder nearly out of its socket, hoping he’d give Bixby enough slack to wriggle free.
“Come on, you little bastard,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ve destroyed a full suit of clothing on your account, and I’m not handing your mistress a dead dog at the end of it.”
Thank God. It worked.
Gabe knew the moment Bixby was free, because the dog slid down the chute and landed on his face. With a scrabble of sharp little claws, he fled to his mistress. By the time Gabe disengaged the abandoned cart from the hook and made his way down, he found her seated on the kitchen floor, cooing over the soot-covered dog in her arms.
“Bixby.” The pup licked at her neck and face. “You are a naughty, naughty, naughty boy, and I love you so very much.”
Gabe cleared his throat. “Cart’s broken.”
“My friend Nicola will mend it.”
He set the mangled contraption to the side and shut the door to the coal store.
The moment he turned around, Lady Penelope flung herself at him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Thank you.”
Gabe winced, pulling free of her embrace.
“You’ve hurt your shoulder.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not out of joint, I hope?” She prodded his shoulder, undeterred by his grimace. “When we were children, my brother Timothy dislocated his shoulder when he fell out of a tree. Even after it healed, he could pop it in and out of joint whenever he pleased. He used to do it just to make me scream.”
“It’s not out of joint. Let it alone.”
Ignoring his protests, she pushed him toward a kitchen stool and made him sit. After unknotting his cravat with bossy motions, she circled to stand behind him and slid her hand inside the collar of his shirt.
Holy God.
“You’ve a cramp in your muscle.” She stroked her fingertips along his shoulder until she found the source of his pain. He sucked a breath through his teeth. “Oh, dear. That does hurt, doesn’t it?”
Yes. Yes, it bloody well hurt. He flinched from her touch.
She shushed him. “Be still. It won’t release until you’ve calmed.”
“Your Ladyship,
