Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(28)

And Nathaniel had sent nothing to keep off the dogs. His eldest brother had, in fact, been mildly sarcastic in his return letter, certain that his large, military brother could handle a few pugs. “He’s thinking of one small, pampered creature lying in the lap of a dowager,” Sebastian said to Sykes when he read this aloud. “He’s never seen a moving carpet of the beasts. They egg each other on.” His valet nodded; he’d had a few encounters with the resident canine mob by this time. Their affinity for leaping upon freshly ironed neckcloths irritated him intensely.

What was worse, the ringleader Drustan had developed a positive obsession with Sebastian. And as he was the dog most often let loose in the house, he was unavoidable. Sebastian wondered if this new persecution was due to Mr. Mitra’s absence. The Stanes’ Indian guest had followed Sebastian’s advice and established a retreat at the top of the old stone tower, out of Drustan’s reach. So if Georgina’s mother had set the dog to persecute him, she was missing the mark.

On a sunny afternoon in August, as the pug followed him about the garden, Sebastian seriously considered dousing himself with vinegar after all. It might be worth offending the noses of his human companions if he could permanently repel Drustan. It wasn’t as if he was getting close enough to Georgina for her to notice, he thought sullenly.

The dog’s latest trick was to weave in and out under his feet, tripping him up and then yowling as if he’d been kicked each time Sebastian stumbled. His piteous cries had drawn Georgina’s mother once already, and she hadn’t seemed to find Sebastian’s explanation persuasive.

Sebastian sat on a bench under the spreading branches of a great oak. Drustan rushed over to throw his front paws around Sebastian’s boot and offer the leather his customary unwelcome attentions. “You are a thoroughly repellent dog,” Sebastian said.

“He’s spoiled,” a feminine voice replied.

Sebastian looked up to find Emma standing on the pathway. Blushing, the girl kept her eyes well above ground level. “I brought you this,” she said. “He hates it.” She held out a tattered lump of fabric. “Mama told me you’d kicked Drustan, but I knew you never would have done so. And that he must be playing his tricks.”

Sebastian gazed at the offered object. It was some sort of cloth animal, he decided. There were four stubby legs and an indeterminate head. It had clearly been chewed and battered over a long period of time.

Emma extended it further. “Show it to him,” she urged.

Sebastian took the thing. It was a little bigger than his hand and meant to represent a rodent, he guessed. A rat? Feeling foolish, he pushed it toward Drustan’s flat face. The intrusion broke the dog’s obsessive concentration. Brown bulging eyes took in the gnawed snout, the hint of broken whiskers. Drustan gave a sharp yip. Then, whining, the dog backed off. Hardly daring to hope, Sebastian waved the stuffed animal at him. Drustan moved farther away, his pug face seeming anxious.

“Yah!” cried Sebastian, thrusting his newfound weapon forward. Drustan turned tail, literally, and fled. Sebastian gazed at the drooping toy in triumph. He’d feel like a fool carrying it about, but the cause was well worth the humiliation. He checked. Yes, it would just fit in his coat pocket.

“Drustan is a living example of the word pugnacious,” Emma commented.

Sebastian turned to stare at her. “Pug…nacious,” he repeated. “That’s where it comes from.” A link between a word and the world often came as a revelation to him. He noticed Drustan, crouched on his belly, peering out from a clump of long grass as if he hoped Sebastian had forgotten what he held. Sebastian shook the cloth rat at him. Whining again, Drustan actually took himself off. “Thank you for this,” Sebastian said to Emma.

“I’m sorry I didn’t think of it sooner. Mama keeps it shut away in a cupboard. It’s been ages since any of us saw it.”

“Why does he hate it so?” Sebastian turned the thing in his hands. It was ugly, but hardly frightening.

“No one knows,” Emma told him. “He used to play with it all the time. Indeed, he would hardly let any of the other dogs touch it. And then one day he developed a horror of it. He’s been that way ever since.”

“Maybe he met a real rat and tried batting it about,” Sebastian said. “A big one.”

Emma looked surprised. “That could very well be it. How clever you are!”

It didn’t seem clever to Sebastian. Merely common sense.

“Clever about what?” asked Hilda, slithering out of the bushes behind them.

Sebastian suppressed a start. Georgina’s youngest sister was as stealthy as an army scout infiltrating enemy lines. She clearly had a network of unseen ways here in the garden. He hadn’t been able to trace them, perhaps because of his larger size. But you could never be sure when she would suddenly appear.

Emma repeated the story of Drustan.

“It seems obvious when you say it,” Hilda replied. “There’s a family of water rats living down by the stream.”

“There is?” replied her sister.

Hilda grinned at her. “Big ones!”

Emma looked around apprehensively.

“They don’t come up the bank. Very often.”

“How do you know?” asked Emma.

“I watch them sometimes.” Hilda turned to Sebastian. “We should all go out riding,” she said in a breezy non sequitur. “You haven’t seen the waterfall west of here. It’s very beautiful.”