Chapter 2
Aletter from his mother always made for a terrible day.
The Reverend Lord Peter Avondale turned the folded paper over in his hand, examining the dowager duchess’s seal as though he didn’t receive a letter from her at least once a week. The one advantage to his current exile in Yorkshire was that she could only berate him in writing and not to his face.
Her letters never told him anything he wanted to hear—how his siblings were getting on, how his nieces and nephews were growing, what was happening in London or on the family estates.
The letters were always about him, and how he had disappointed her. How he continued to disappoint her with everything he did.
With a sigh, he broke the wax of the seal and unfolded the letter onto the surface of his desk.
One would think a dowager duchess would be willing to use an extra sheet of paper so she could berate her youngest son over two pages—especially when her eldest son the Duke of Livesey could frank the letter for her—but she always crossed and recrossed her lines so he had to spend time deciphering them.
A few words jumped out as he skimmed it—words like mortified and foolhardy and marriage—and Petee re-folded the letter.
Once she had accepted the necessity of this temporary exile to Yorkshire, his mother had begun talking about his need to marry in a way that would boost his ecclesiastical career.
She still refused to accept he had no interest in becoming a bishop or moving up in the Church for the glory of the Avondale name.
He wished only to do good as best he could, in all the ways he could.
For him, that way was clearly to return to London and his work with the poor as soon as his brother calmed down and found someone else to act as the temporary rector.
Kilbythorpe was a lovely and peaceful village, to be sure, but these people did not need him the way the poverty-stricken denizens of London did.
He could make so much more of a difference in his parishioners’ lives there than he could here.
A crash rang through the hallway outside his study, and loud voices caused him to rise from his desk and cross to the door to open it.
His housekeeper, Mrs. Barwick, seemed to be trying to push a young man holding a large basket out the front door, and the young man pushed back, shoving his foot into the door to prevent her from closing it.
“What’s all the racket?” Peter asked, and Mrs. Barwick whirled on him. The young man took the opportunity to slip through the half-open door and stand in the hallway with the basket balanced on one hip, snatching his cap off as he did so.
“Oh! I’m that sorry to disturb you, Lord Peter, but this young ruffian is trying to deliver something that don’t belong here.”
As the racket died down, Peter realized the basket was… squeaking.
He looked from the basket to the impassive young man holding it, and back to the basket.
The squeaking intensified, and the basket began to vibrate.
“Ain’t you Mr. Sloane? I was told Mr. Sloane lived here,” the young man said.
“I’m afraid a mistake has been made,” Peter said. “The Reverend Mr. Sloane has retired to Brighton.”
Peter’s eldest brother, the Duke of Livesey, had provided Mr. Sloane with a handsome pension to clear the way for Peter to take over the living here as a glorified curate, with Mr. Sloane nominally keeping his title as rector of the parish.
After a few necessary improvements had been completed, Peter had finished the process of unpacking and re-organizing the rectory only a few weeks ago, having removed what seemed like dozens of small animals posed under glass from every corner of the cottage to the attic so he could rest without reproachful eyes watching his every move.
And now he was receiving live animals in their stead.
The boy shrugged. “That ain’t my concern, vicar. I was told to deliver these here, and I ain’t got the funds to go haring across the country. They’re yours now.”
He set the basket on the floor and legged it out the front door, ducking under the housekeeper’s attempt at restraint and fleeing down the walkway as Peter and Mrs. Barwick went in fruitless pursuit.
For one moment, the young man paused and shouted over his shoulder, “They like a bit o’ fish!” before continuing down the lane towards the village and vanishing from sight.
Peter sighed and rubbed his forehead before returning to the vicarage with Mrs. Barwick, who removed herself to the kitchen with a grim expression.
He closed the front door and, after a moment’s contemplation of the increasingly urgent squeaks, carried the basket into his study, where he sat on the floor and lifted the latch.
He flinched away in alarm as three furry creatures swarmed out of the basket, squeaking furiously.
One climbed his arm to peer into his face, its front paws clinging to him almost as though it had fingers.
Its whiskers twitched as they contemplated one another, the animal’s face strangely solemn.
It sniffed Peter’s cheek before scurrying back down his arm to join the other two on the floor.
Were they… otters? If so, they were not the large English river otters he was accustomed to.
These were much smaller, about the size of a housecat, and clearly not solitary animals with the way they moved together as a single unit.
Their fur was a medium brown, with lighter brown markings on their face and chest, marking another difference from the English species.
Tentatively, he reached out a finger to pet the closest one. It squeaked but did not appear to mind. They seemed tame, or at least accustomed to people. Its fur was soft and silky.
The otters began exploring the study, heads bobbing in curiosity. Peter hurried to his feet so he could place the mesh fire screen in front of the unlit fireplace to prevent them from getting into any unswept ashes before re-seating himself on the floor so he could stay closer to the otters’ level.
He racked his brain to try and remember what his older brother Paul had taught him about otters.
When he was young, Peter had loved to trail after Paul to observe nature and watch him care for any injured animals he found, but he had not rambled through the forest near the family seat for years.
Not since he had begun his studies at Oxford, at the very least. Now that Paul had unexpectedly inherited their father’s title, married, and produced an heir, he likely did not have as much time as he wished for his animals.
Peter had not realized how much he missed those times with his older brother until now.
The study door re-opened. “Lord Peter—”
The otters immediately scampered to the door, pushing past Mrs. Barwick’s skirts as she shrieked, and disappeared down the hallway.
“What are those things?”
Peter rose from his seat on the floor, dusting off his trousers. “They appear to be otters of some kind, Mrs. Barwick. Do you have any fish scraps?”
She wrung her hands. “I suppose so, but…”
“Did the boy leave a letter? Or a message of any kind?”
“He only asked for Mr. Sloane.”
“Very strange.” Peter frowned. “I suppose we’d better feed them.”
“They should go out to the chicken coop,” she said decisively. “There’s no chickens in there right now since Mr. Sloane took his with him.”
“I think we must keep them here, at least until we determine who the proper owner is.”
“Here? You mean in the house?”
“They seem quite tame, so far. They may be all right in the house, at least until I can make the chicken coop secure for them.”
She frowned skeptically at him, but said, “If you insist, Lord Peter.”
Three mornings later, there was yet another crash from the kitchen, and Peter pressed his hands to his temples as he waited for Mrs. Barwick to appear.
“I cannot take much more of this, Lord Peter,” she intoned from the doorway of his study. The door pushed further open and three furry bodies somersaulted through, wrestling and squealing, so closely entwined they could almost have been three-headed Cerberus, on a very small scale.
He blew a breath out as he lowered his hands and tried to smile at her. “I understand, Mrs. Barwick.”
“You keep saying that, but nothing changes, my lord.”
“I am still trying to determine who the proper owner is so they can be returned.”
Peter looked down at his feet, which the otters were using to play a game of hide-and-seek under his desk. Fortunately, he had not taken off his boots. He would need to re-polish them to remove the claw marks.
“And the smell, my lord.”
“I know.” The otters had located an unused cupboard to do their… business in, and no amount of airing-out was helping. The entire cottage was beginning to reek.
“They must go into the coop today, Lord Peter.”
“I’m afraid you are right, Mrs. Barwick.” Wearily, he rose to his feet. “I believe I have managed to seal off any holes they might be able to wiggle through to escape the coop. Do you have the fish scraps?”
Mrs. Barwick trailed him back to the kitchen, wringing her hands in her apron. “I’m not saying I’m not grateful to them for getting that rat t’other day,” she said. “But they didn’t have to devour it on my clean floor.”
“Of course.” Peter took the covered pail that held the fish scraps from its high shelf in the pantry, and was immediately swarmed by otters. They held their tiny paws up beseechingly, their squeaks urgent, and he felt a little guilty knowing he was about to shut them away by themselves.
He hardened his heart. It was for everyone’s good, including the otters.
Feeling like a fish-scented Pied Piper, he led them out the back door and through the kitchen garden to the abandoned chicken coop as they loped after him.
It had a small, mesh-fenced yard of its own that ought to keep the otters safe from larger predators and Mrs. Barwick’s kitchen safe from the otters.
Clean hay in the coop itself and in the fenced yard should suffice for their bedding, and a large, low tin saucer would keep them watered.