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agitated. I’ve been looking for her for nigh on an hour.”
    “Mrs. Callahan, do you always swear?”
    She stiffened, having been so upset she hadn’t even noticed the slips of her tongue. “Aye, my lord. ’Tis a wee bit of a problem I have. Beg your pardon.” She bobbed a curtsy just like a proper servant would.
    “See that it doesn’t happen around my daughter.” Though she hated to do it, she really did, she curtsied again. “I’ll do my best,” she said, then muttered under her breath, “If I ever find the whelp.”
    “As to that, I shall help you.”
    Oh, lawks, he’d heard that,
too
?
    “I am familiar with the
whelp
’s hiding places.” He nodded, indicating she should follow, then said, “Come,” like she was a retriever with a duck in its mouth.
    Come,
she silently mouthed, but she followed as ordered. This was why she didn’t want to work for the nobility. Treated everyone like they owned them, they did. And yet here she was.
    Someone should clout
her
over the head.
    Off she went, only to be brought up short by an ear-piercing scream, and not a monkey scream either, but a full-fledged female-type scream, the kind that meant the person was frightened for her life.
    She looked at the marquis and the marquis looked at her. They both turned and ran.
    “It were a demon,” the scullery maid panted. “Little it was, but with big teeth, and a fierce growl that stole ten years off me life.”
    What it was, Mary realized with a sinking heart, was Abu, though how the little mite had wandered into these chambers, she had no idea.
    “Where did you see it?” his lordship asked, Mary’s eyes narrowing at the genuine concern he exhibited for his servant.
    “In your room, sir. I was cleaning out the ash when something dropped from the chimney.”
    Well, that explained
that.
    “I screamed and it screamed back, pointing at me and bouncing up and down. ’Twas a terrible sight it was, m’lord, one I’ll never forget. Ghost white face. Beady black eyes. Sharp teeth.”
    Mary closed her eyes, tilted her head back, shook her head. Lord, could this day get any worse? First she’d succumbed to greed and agreed to work for the cull and now Abu was running rampant around his lordship’s fancy house.
    “Go below,” the marquis said. “Get yourself a good, strong cup of tea. Mary, you go with her.”
    Mary’s eyes snapped open. “Go with her? I think not, m’lord. I’m staying with you.”
    “Do not be absurd.”
    She gave him a look for calling her absurd. “Your daughter is lost in this house, m’lord, or hiding, or playing. But wherever she is, she might need me should she run across A—” she bit back her pet’s name just in time. “A big scary thing,” she corrected.
    “She’s right, m’lord. If the thing catches her, she might get carried off.”
    Carried off? Was the maid sucking opium between chores?
    “I’m going with you,” Mary said, drawing herself up, just as he did, then narrowing her eyes—just as he did— for good measure.
    “Oh, very well,” he said.
    “Oh, mum, so brave, you are,” the maid said, her eyes going misty. She reached out and clasped Mary’s hands. “Bless you for being so brave for Miss Gabriella’s sake.”
    “Brave?” Mary said, feeling unexpectedly guilt-ridden. “I think not.”
    “Oh, you are. You are. ’Twas a frightening beast he was, for sure.”
    The only thing frightening about Abu was the talent he had for getting her in trouble.
    “Mrs. Callahan,” his lordship said, having stopped his trek toward his bedroom. Mary looked up at him just in time to catch a look of impatience in his eyes. “Are you coming, or no?”
    Mary squared her shoulders, the feeling she had boding ill for the outcome of their search.
    He took her to his bedroom.
    Of course, Mary had expected this, but what she didn’t expect was the bleedin’ size of the place. How silly she felt for being all giddy over her own lodgings when it was a broom closet in