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was afraid to move. “Did your husband help with your daughter, then, Mrs. Kane?” he wanted to know. He didn't want to be the only nodcock enchanted with a mere handful of humanity.
    "No,” Carissa said, turning away. She realized she must sound too abrupt, especially in light of his attempt at cordiality, so she explained, “That is, he rejoined his regiment whilst I was breeding. He was ... gone when Philippa was born."
    Lesley understood that Kane hadn't merely gone to the Peninsula, and regretted his thoughtlessness. “I am sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to bring up a painful topic."
    She brushed that aside. “It was nearly five years ago, my lord, and you could not have known.” Still, her stiff back told him she would not welcome any questions as to Mr. Kane's regiment or her difficulties in providing for herself and the child. Lesley knew the army wouldn't help. His admiration for the female was growing, until she picked up a broom and started swatting at his dog.
    While Lord Hartleigh sat holding the swaddled infant, Carissa had been bringing what order she could to the unkempt kitchen. Her housewifely heart wouldn't let her do otherwise. Why, she couldn't find a clean plate to serve Pippa a slice of bread. “Come, darling, help Mama tidy up a bit.” Pippa carried glasses, bottles, cups, and more bottles, one by one, to the sink. Carissa was tossing spoiled foodstuffs, green cheese, a chicken carcass, other items too desiccated to be identified, into a pile by the back door. Byrd or the cleaning staff he was hiring could remove the mess later.
    When she went to add a sack of sprouted potatoes to the heap, however, a dog was making off with the chicken bones. Not just any dog, but a long, low, filthy hound, one she recognized well. “You!” Carissa exclaimed, reaching for the broom. “You ... you garden wrecker! You marauding mongrel! Begone, I say."
    Instead of fleeing in terror, the hound dove past her, the chicken remains firmly clenched in its slavering jaws, and raced toward sanctuary under the kitchen table by Lesley's booted feet.
    "That ... that monster is your dog?” the widow asked, grabbing Pippa up and onto the sink, out of harm's way. “I should have known.” She held the broom to her heaving bosom in case the beast decided he'd rather have bones with some meat on them.
    Lesley frowned. He couldn't do much else, with the baby asleep in his arms. “You are entirely safe, Mrs. Kane. He wouldn't hurt a fly."
    The dog was so fat and stubby-legged he couldn't have caught a fly. The animal's top half was a large hunting hound. The bottom half—well, there was no bottom half, just baggy-kneed, splay-footed stumps. It was as if someone had lopped off an arm's length of leg. The creature was so low, the bottoms of its drooping ears were ragged from dragging on the ground. Its eyes were sunken in folds of skin, more bloodshot than the viscount's, and the whole thing was covered in mud so thick Carissa couldn't tell what color it was. Frankly, she did not care.
    "That beast is the bane of the neighborhood,” she accused. “It terrorizes the butcher's boy and steals lunches from school-children. It has destroyed more greenery than a plague of locusts. Get rid of it."
    "Glad? He never hurt anyone, and he's just a born digger."
    "Glad? As in Glad no one has taken a meat cleaver to him yet?"
    "No, short for Gladiator. I found him digging himself out of a pen at a country fair. He was to be first course in a bear-baiting. Old Glad didn't stand a chance, being so slow, and he was smart enough to know it. I couldn't let the poor chap be tossed back in, could I?"
    "He would have given the bear indigestion, I suppose.” The brutal sport was supposed to be outlawed, but Carissa knew it still went on. She could just imagine the uproar at the fairgrounds when the promised entertainment made its escape. “They let you simply walk away with him?"
    "Why, no, Byrd took his place. Knocked the bear out with one