Imogen reached out one hand and let the nearest kitten, a small, round, grey-and-white creature, approach it. Fearlessly, it ambled to her.It put its nose against her finger, sneezed, and then rubbed against her digit again.
“Tristan,” she said. She scooped up the grey kitten and nuzzled him.
“You may keep one,” he said.
She opened her mouth, then closed it with a frown. “But you said the weather, and they needed somewhere warmer.”
“Yes, well, we will bring them all in for now. But ultimately, you may only keep one.”
Groves muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like,“not bloody likely,”but Tristan ignored him.
Imogen leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, husband.” She looked down at the five tiny cats, then up at him. “Which one?”
“Whichever one you like. And you don’t have to decide today.”
She looked at them for a long moment with great seriousness. The grey-and-white kitten still clutched in her hand. One of its siblings, a marmalade-colored creature of bold temperament, had noticed the newcomer and was making its way across the hay. The marmalade kitten arrived at her knee and sat down and looked up at her.
She looked down at it.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that this one may have already decided.”
“You can go in and ready an area for them. We should probably keep them somewhat contained so they don’t havecomplete run of the manor. Then Groves will bring them up to the house with Margaret.”
“Thank you,” Imogen said. She gave him her wide smile, the one that felt as if it could bring on the sunshine despite the unseasonably cold weather.
He glanced at the marmalade kitten now in her hands. “It will need a name,” he said.
She considered the kitten, which was now attempting to investigate her ear. “Ptolemy,” she said.
He looked at her.
“He has very pharaonic energy,” she said, with perfect seriousness.
Tristan looked at the orange kitten, who had inserted his entire nose into Imogen’s ear in a manner that was many things, none of which were pharaonic.
“Obviously,” he said.
She laughed, her real, unguarded laugh that was loud and boisterous, and all things considered, totally perfect.
Chapter Thirteen
July, 1816
She had been trying to find the right moment for a week.
This was, she recognized, an entirely uncharacteristic problem. She was not, as a general rule, a woman who struggledto find words. Words had always been reliably available to her—in excess, her mother would have said, and not as a compliment.
She had, more or less, talked her way down a church aisle in another woman’s dress. She had navigated a distrustful and suspicious duke in a carriage while wearing borrowed silk. She had handled considerably more alarming conversational situations than this one.
And yet.
She was sitting in the library window seat, Ptolemy arranged across her feet like a small, self-satisfied sovereign. The other kittens, because of course they had kept all of them, were napping in various places in the library.
One of the things Imogen had learned about her husband in these last few months was that he seemed to have an inability to say no to her. And well, the weather was still atrociously and unseasonably cold and wretched outside. No doubt, the almanacs will someday refer to this as the year with no summer.
She knew it was still likely early, but she also knew that her courses were always on schedule. She had not had one once since arriving at Whitmore Hall.
The door opened.