A Gentleman Never Tells(94)

A lump formed in Brent’s throat. “I know,” he said and tried to tell Gabrie with his eyes he understood what she was feeling. He knew what it took out of the old dog to help him. Brent patted the dog’s head with one hand and wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the other. Godfrey had hit him on the same side of the mouth as his previous injuries, and it hurt like hell. He looked around for his hat and spotted it flattened into the ground. Brent didn’t know if a can had rolled over it or if Brutus had stomped on it, but it was definitely ruined.

Brent looked at Godfrey, who was backing away from the dog. “Get him away from me,” Godfrey shouted again.

“First, tell me… where is my dog?”

“He’s standing right beside you,” Godfrey said, fear and fury flashing in his eyes.

“No, that’s her dog.” Brent pointed toward Gabrielle.

“What dog are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Godfrey. You know the small dog I’m talking about. I paid you to be on the lookout for my Pomeranian. I know you returned Lord Snellingly’s and Lord Waldo’s dogs, so where is mine?”

“I’ll tell you.”

Brent turned and saw one of Godfrey’s sisters standing a short distance away. The misting rain fell on her white mobcap and straight shoulders. Brent didn’t know when it had started to rain.

“You stay quiet, Emily,” Godfrey said. “You don’t have anything to say.”

The girl didn’t even look at her brother. “Just don’t let the big dog hurt him again, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

Gabrielle rose to stand beside Brent and said, “Brutus didn’t hurt him and will not hurt him. He only wanted to stop Godfrey from running away. He’s big but a gentle dog.”

“Don’t say anything, Em,” Godfrey ordered. “This doesn’t involve you.”

The slender brown-eyed girl walked closer. “Yes, it does. We all took the dog that day. No one ever knew. It was easy to keep all the dogs quiet in the wagon. We just kept putting milk in a bowl for them. Your dog is inside the house with our mother.”

Relief washed through Brent like water rushing over stones in a brook. Prissy was alive.

Gabrielle grabbed his arm and squeezed it as she leaned against his side. “Thank God,” she whispered. “You’ve found her.”

“You can’t have her back,” Godfrey spat at him.

“We’ll see about that,” Brent muttered. He turned to the girl. “Where is your mother?”

“Wait, Brent,” Gabrielle said. “Why don’t you talk to him first and let him tell his story.”

Gabrielle had pulled the hood of her black velvet cloak over her bonnet, and looking at her, Brent saw the intriguing, gorgeous, and tempting young lady he met in the park weeks ago, who said to him, “You talk softly to dogs just like you do to people.”

She pulled a handkerchief out of her muff and handed it to him. He looked from Godfrey to the girl, and then back to Gabrielle as he pressed her handkerchief to the corner of his mouth. He supposed with his adventures with Gabrielle, he was destined to lose his hats and have a cut lip.

Brent turned toward Godfrey and said, “Tell us why you took the dogs.”

The lad nervously wiped rain from his face, and Brent was reminded how young he was.

“It wasn’t my fault you lost her,” he said belligerently. “She was just wandering around in the park that morning when we were heading home. She started following us, so I put her in the wagon. We planned to take her back to the park the next day, but me mum thought I’d brought the dog home for her, and I couldn’t tell her I didn’t.”

“She’s sick,” the girl said.

“What is wrong with her?” Gabrielle asked.

The girl shrugged and shook her head.

“It don’t matter what’s wrong with her,” Godfrey said angrily. “She fell in love with that dog the moment she saw it. I couldn’t take it away from her.”

“What about the other dogs?” Gabrielle asked. “Why take them?”

Godfrey looked at Brent and pointed his finger at him. “He gave me money just to look for the dog and said there’d be more if I found it. I was thinking maybe other lords and gentlemen would pay me for finding their dogs, too. I took them so I could return them.”

“So you decided to start yourself a little business of stealing dogs,” Brent said, finding it difficult to feel sorry for the lad.