Chapter 9 #2
Gerhard had begun to laugh when the little dog trotted boldly into the room, his nose in the air and his puffy tail wagging. “Now you are setting lures for dogs?”
“This dog is destined to be a particular friend of mine,” said Richard, his gaze trained on the small animal. “He is our neighbor.”
Gerhard’s brows went up. “Oho! I take it he is the reason you took this house.”
Richard sipped his coffee. “Nonsense. I had not met him then. This house satisfied all my requirements. You told me so yourself when we came to view it.”
“Yet still you hated it, until you went for a walk and saw the grounds.”
“I considered your counsel carefully during that walk. I took the house to please Clemency.”
Gerhard scoffed. “I have known you too long to be treated with this level of contempt! You despised the house and you did not care if that grieved your sister. Something happened on that walk to change your mind, and I wager this impudent little fellow is part of it.”
“Nonsense.” Richard extended his hand with a shred of bacon. The little orange dog walked right up to him and stood on his back paws to nip the meat from his palm.
“No? Then shall I chase him away?”
“Don’t be rude, Gerhard. He is our guest.” Richard watched with quiet satisfaction as the Pomeranian advanced on Hercule. The big dog put his head down on the floor, but his tail gave a few friendly thumps. “Hercule has better manners than you.”
For the next half hour, Richard endured his friend’s teasing while refusing to reveal anything.
He had to quell one bout of throat-rumbling from the two dogs, but a fresh plate of bacon resolved the matter amicably.
By the time Richard heard footsteps and a familiar voice calling from the garden, Hercule was allowing the Pomeranian to walk all over him.
When Lady Courtenay came inside to see her dog at ease in his home, Richard mentally ticked that item off his internal campaign plan. Demonstrate respectability. Befriend her dog. When she sipped her tea, he saw her pleased surprise with satisfaction. Entertain her hospitably.
“You dog is a marvelous little fellow,” Gerhard told her.
She laughed. “Fearless in the pursuit of bacon! Wolves could not keep him away, could they, Louis?” The Pomeranian had come around the table to sniff her skirt again.
“No wonder he has taken fondly to Richard.” Gerhard shot a gleaming glance his way. “Adventurers recognize each other.”
“Are you also an explorer, Mr. Rieger?”
Pleased, Gerhard nodded. “I am why Richard sits here today, alive and well.”
Richard sighed as Lady Courtenay turned an impish look on him. “Oh?”
“I have saved him from the depths of the sea, many times. I have plucked him from the brink of a deadly crevasse on a glacier. I have fought off tigers who wished to eat him, a Mongol warrior who wished to gut him, an elephant who would have crushed him to dust beneath its giant feet, a Cossack who—”
“Lies,” said Richard, now smiling. “Don’t believe a word of it, Lady Courtenay.”
“It sounds like a ripping good tale,” she retorted in delight.
“Of course you may listen to Gerhard’s tale. I only warn you not to believe in it as truth.”
Gerhard shook his head. “After I have risked my life to save your ungrateful person!”
Richard raised his coffee cup in salute. Lady Courtenay laughed. The sound caused a ripple of pleasure inside him. The dog might be a charming little fellow, but she was the most magnificent creature he had ever met.
“But here, I am interrupting your breakfast,” she said, rising from her chair. “And it looks like rain. Thank you for caring for my wayward dog, but I must get home before the rain comes.”
Richard walked to the window and looked out. “It looks very threatening. You are most welcome to stay until the sky clears.”
She smiled. “I am an Englishwoman, sir. A little rain is nothing to me.”
He was not put off. “Allow me to walk you home. I have no carriage as yet, but I do have a sturdy umbrella.”
“That is very kind, but unnecessary.”
“I insist. For Prince Louis’s sake, if not your own. He could be carried away by the wind.” Without waiting for her reply, he strode from the room.
Behind him, through the door he’d left open, he overheard her ask Gerhard, “Is he always like that?”
“Quick to assess the surroundings? Prone to make decisions for everyone around him? Yes, indeed.” Gerhard was enjoying himself immensely, thought Richard as he shrugged on his coat and snatched his hat and umbrella from the hall.
But then his friend added, rather graciously, “And also, it infuriates me to admit, most often correct in his judgment. It has saved both our lives several times.”
When he reentered the room, Evangeline had put on her bonnet again and was peering out the windows at the darkening sky, her brow creased in concern. Thunder rumbled overhead.
Ignoring Gerhard’s gloating look, Richard tugged his broad-brimmed hat lower on his head. Evangeline stooped to pick up her pet, and Gerhard fluttered his eyelashes at Richard behind her back.
“We shall have to hurry,” she said, tucking the dog under her arm.
Richard turned his back to Gerhard before stepping outside and opening his umbrella. “Shall we?”
Evangeline’s smile looked a trifle forced, but she nodded once, firmly and decisively. “Yes.”