Chapter 3
Nora stirred, fluttered an eyelid, then winced, reconsidering. The morning light seared her vision—much too bright to bear. But if it was this light already, she ought to get out of bed. She pried both eyes open and, after the initial shock, shifted her head to peer past the bulk of her pillow.
Daniel’s cheek and handsome nose—only inches away—glowed softly in the strange yellow-gray sunbeams of a London sunrise. She liked waking first and watching him sleep.
Gloating, really, that after years of waiting, he belonged to her.
He sighed, maybe sensing she was awake. They’d not yet grown accustomed to sleeping through each other’s stirrings.
His lips hitched into her favorite smile, and she could almost see the dreams behind his eyelids.
She leaned forward to wake him, lips parted with words half-flirtatious, half-mocking—when she froze and cocked her head.
Scratch. Scratch. The distinct animal sound came from somewhere inside the room, similar to, but not exactly like, the fast scuttle of a mouse. It sounded…bigger.
Nora’s hands tightened on the sheets, and she turned her head to check the door. Still firmly closed. “Daniel.” When he didn’t stir, she prodded his shoulder. “Daniel.”
“What—” He pushed up on an elbow, sensing her tension.
“Shh,” she commanded. “Did you hear that?”
“No,” Daniel said through a yawn. “What did you hear?”
“Scratching.” They both listened, Nora dimly aware he was awaiting a more affectionate greeting. He leaned closer, but she pushed firmly against his shoulder. No distractions yet. She sat up, scanning the perimeter of the room. “There’s something in here, but our door and window are closed.”
“Maybe we’re haunted like the neighborhood children say,” he mumbled, flopping back onto his pillow. “Some dissected soul coming back for us.”
When she ignored him, continuing her survey of the room, he moaned and pulled himself off the pillow again, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “All right.” He pushed back the blanket and started to swing himself off the bed when she gripped his striped sleeve.
“Check the floor! Remember the boa?”
Daniel raised his eyebrows and ruffled his overlong dark hair. Time he visited the barber.
“Remember?” Daniel shuddered. “I’d rather not.”
The Egyptian sand boa, gifted to Horace by another avid naturalist, was luckily nonvenomous.
Last month it had escaped and found a temporary home in Daniel’s slipper.
London, apparently, was much colder than Egypt.
And though sand boas were supposedly harmless, the confrontation had not been pleasant for man or reptile.
Daniel swept his eyes across the rug. The heavy drapes rustled, and Nora tightened her grip on Daniel’s nightshirt. Definitely bigger than a mouse, whatever it was.
“Over there,” she whispered. The scratching started again, this time accompanied by moving fabric.
“What has he brought home lately?” Daniel whispered.
Nora frowned. Mrs. Phipps had a dog, but Duchess couldn’t get into a closed room. “Nothing I know of. Please tell me it’s not a giant rat.”
“Could be a bird down the chimney,” Daniel offered.
Hardly any better.
Jaw set, Daniel gingerly donned his slippers as Nora leaned forward, body tipped over the edge of the bed like a child peering over the rail of a ship, searching for sea monsters.
Warily, Daniel plucked up a folded newspaper and brandished it in front of him, feet springy, ready to retreat.
He poked the curtain with the newspaper, keeping his distance, but when nothing erupted in surprise, he gripped the draperies and yanked them aside.
“What the—”
Nora squeaked and recoiled to safety in the center of the bed.
A fuzzy brown ball, nearly as large as Duchess, darted around Daniel’s legs.
The fur was short and coarse, but the creature had no hairless tail, so it couldn’t be a rat.
Besides, it was far too big. “What is it?” she demanded, clutching the sheets.
“I’d tell you if I had the slightest clue. It doesn’t seem aggressive,” Daniel said hopefully, peering at the animal hunched beneath the writing desk. It had a comical face—beady black eyes and a shining nose, all set close together.
“Is it a bear?” Nora gasped.
“A ten-pound bear?” Daniel shook his head and inched closer, craning his head to get a different view. “Lords and ladies, what did Horace get his hands on this time?”
“And why is it in our room?”
Daniel shrugged, and Nora had to admit, even if just to herself, that there were plenty of things in this home defying belief, reason, and description.
The animal swiveled its head back to the wall, making her jump, but it merely commenced an unhurried scratching on the molding with thick black claws.
“I’d think it was a beaver, but it’s got the wrong kind of tail,” Nora said, curious now.
Horace had a beaver pelt in his collection, and this creature clearly lacked the spade-like, scaly appendage.
Daniel reached his long arm toward her. “Hand me a pillow cover, will you? I’ll bag him in case he bites.”
Nora pulled the case off Daniel’s pillow and threw it to him. Hiding a smile—whatever he pretended, he liked Horace’s creatures—Daniel nudged the fur ball into the pillowcase without much resistance. “Got him!”
Nora flopped back onto the bed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Quite the battle.”
He chuckled, regarding the wiggling bag. “Our mystery guest doesn’t seem to mind it in here, but I think we’d best take it back to wherever it belongs.”
“But how on earth did he get in our room?” Nora demanded.
“Loath as I am to correct you, we don’t know it’s a he. Snooping around inspecting the drapes sounds more female, if you ask me.”
“Why not take him out of the bag and check,” Nora grumbled.
“Not the body I was hoping to examine, but—” He sidestepped as she lobbed a pillow at him.
“Let’s take him to Horace.” Nora stuffed her feet into slippers after a quick check for snakes, spiders, and sundry, and tugged on a dressing gown, all the while surveying the room.
The windows were closed, and though it was possible the beast had come in by the chimney, she didn’t think—“Oddio!” The interjection sprang from her mouth in Italian, just as she’d learned it from Magdalena, her volatile mentor.
“That thing must have come in with Julia’s linens! ”
She waved at a wicker basket, lid askew, and leaped back a good two yards. “It probably urinated in there!” Nora grimaced. “I thought that basket was heavy.” She’d carried it into their bedroom herself yesterday afternoon. “I—”
“I think she’s friendly,” Daniel announced. “Not saying I want her in here, scratching at the new wallpaper and getting ideas about climbing into the bed—”
Nora’s muscles seized.
“Downstairs,” she commanded. “Now.”
***
Daniel usually dressed before breakfast, though occasionally he took a quick cup of tea wearing a fantastically embroidered silk dressing gown he’d purchased as a joke in Paris during his medical-student days.
Arriving in the breakfast parlor in only a nightshirt, with Nora clad in nightdress and wrapper, was singular enough that Horace nearly dropped his spoon.
His bushy eyebrows shot up, eyes widening, as a bit of egg fell from his mouth and lodged in his full gray beard. “Good morning?” he offered hopefully.
Nora felt her cheeks burn scarlet. “Not particularly,” she snapped.
Mrs. Phipps locked narrowed eyes on the pillowcase from the opposite end of the table. “What is that, pray?”
“Delivery for Horace,” Daniel announced.
“And what is it?” Julia spoke coolly, but she had a white-knuckle grip on her fork.
She was the newest member of the household and wife of Harry Trimble, resident surgeon and Daniel’s closest friend.
Her conventional upbringing made these episodes something of a trial.
Nora wished she could manage that tone—and that look.
Julia was beautiful and flawlessly put together, as always.
Meanwhile, Nora’s rumpled nightdress and hastily tied wrapper did nothing for her dignity.
“That’s precisely what I asked,” Daniel said.
The pillowcase wriggled sharply, and Mrs. Phipps yelped. Horace leaped to his feet, almost upsetting his chair. Julia dove for the tea set, sweeping the tray of Meissen porcelain to the relative safety of the sideboard.
“You know what I say about specimens at the table,” Mrs. Phipps snapped. “What thing do you have in there?”
“Sorry, Mrs. Phipps, but the old man deserves this one,” Daniel apologized.
Horace poked at the bag before opening it and peering inside.
“What are you doing with my wombat?”
The strange name made Julia retreat, pressing against the wall.
It didn’t mean anything to Nora, either, but she was more used to this kind of predicament—and Horace’s bewilderment that anyone might possibly be discomfited by something new, strange, or of interest to science.
She lifted her eyebrows. “What in the world is a wombat?”
Horace glared; he never approved of ignorance. “Marsupial from Australia. Egg-laying mammal. I’ve never handled one. Evans from the Linnean Society sent it over.”
“When?” Nora insisted. “You said nothing about this new guest.”
Horace shrugged. “Last week sometime. I’ve been experimenting with her food. She won’t take leaves, she won’t take berries, but I’ve got her onto vegetable roots.”
“She,” Nora mumbled, irked at Daniel’s triumphant grin. “But why was she in my room?”
“They produce cubed droppings,” Horace added, his low-pitched voice humming with excitement.
Julia twitched. “There was an odd little square three days ago…in my embroidery.”
Mrs. Phipps scowled.
“Cubed, you say?” Daniel leaned in for another look. “How precise of a cube? Actual squared edges?”
Looking upward for strength, Nora almost crossed herself—another habit that had imprinted during medical school in Bologna. “Why was she in my room?”