As was Will, when not fuddled by Lady Susannah’s kisses. He wished he’d kissed her back properly, not a mere gesture of apology and regret in the moonlight.
“What was the fourth dog’s name?” Kettering asked. “It will bother me, like a snippet of Handel I can’t place.”
“Samson. He’s coming along.”
“Which suggests he went after the stable boys this very morning. Do you never give up on a dog, Willow?”
Not the stable boys, because Will allowed nobody but himself to handle Samson. He was not a pack leader by nature, but Meda had been weakening, and Samson had been distraught. He had not been treated as badly as Comus, but he was a mongrel, unsure of his place in the world, and easily upset.
The four of them—Meda, Comus, Hector, and Samson—had skulked about the Dorning mews for a week, rooting through the midden, terrorizing the cats, and scaring away even the birds. Ash and Cam had come upon one of the stable boys loading a pistol and fetched Will to intervene.
“Do you give up on a slow clerk?” Will asked. “A client who can’t manage his money? If your son turns out to be backward at his Latin, will you turn him loose on the docks to fend for himself?”
“I have given up on clerks,” Kettering replied. “A few. Not many. I mostly separate goats and sheep before taking anybody on as an employee or client. I can afford to be very choosy, especially now, and no power on earth could coerce me to do business with somebody I thought was crooked.”
Kettering’s reputation alone, for scrupulous dealings and scrupulous attention to details, was worth a fortune. A rapidly growing, immense-to-begin-with fortune.
“There are no crooked dogs,” Will said, because Kettering comprehended business metaphors. “Only dogs we’ve broken, or dogs beset by illness and pain. The same is true, I believe, of every species we’ve appropriated for our comfort and well-being.”
Will had not made up his mind regarding humankind’s inherent capacity for bad behavior. Crooked, rotten, mean people abounded, though, and woe to any—dog, bear, or debutante—in their paths.
“The stewardship lecture comes now,” Kettering said to Meda. “Though I rather think you put me in Meda’s keeping, not the other way around. Taking her outside every so often, going for a stroll with her in the evenings, seeing her lounging about the hearth at the office… One can’t be quite as…”
Will waited, because Kettering was a smart fellow, and Will had had a strategy when he’d put Meda into Kettering’s care.
“One is a happier, healthier person for accepting the companionship of a dog,” Kettering said. “One must care for them responsibly, and learn to take pleasure in that. Owning a dog is good training for being a husband and father.”
Will was so proud of his brother-in-law, he nearly reached for a bite of cheese. Meda was safe now, and Kettering and his little family were safe too.
“On that pleasant note, I’ll take my leave of you until next week,” Will said, rising. “Work especially on that’ll do, on making Meda stop what she’s doing and come to you no matter what task you’ve given her. I’m off to pay a call on the Duchess of Ambrose.”
“Poor Annabella is in a state,” Kettering said, Her Grace being one of his clients. He took on the affairs of many widows, and if the lady wasn’t wealthy when she came to him, she often became wealthy. “She’s in a taking over that missing dog.”
“I know, which might be why she sent for me.”
Kettering got to his feet, and Meda did as well, remaining by her owner’s side. Will always felt a pang to leave one of his dogs with their owners, but leave them he must. Casriel’s coffers could not afford any additional strain, and Will’s own means were limited.
“Let’s go in through the office,” Kettering said. “I have your last two quarters’ earnings reports, but I keep forgetting to pass them along. Meda, come.”
Good. She was training Kettering to give the commands, the word and the signal both. When Will reached the office, he jammed Kettering’s reports in a pocket and checked his watch. One was not late to pay a call on an upset duchess, and Will had already done the pretty with his sister.
“The duchess has posted a reward for her missing dog, you know,” Kettering said as they ambled toward the mews. “Her Grace is determined to find out what happened to her puppy.”
Her puppy had been mean and starving when Will had found him. Her Grace, two years into lonely widowhood, had been in similar condition, though to outward appearances she’d been hale. She could still take a bite out of any who displeased her.
“A reward will bring out all the charlatans and swindlers,” Will said. “Every retired coachman will be on her doorstep claiming his three-legged mongrel is her long-lost mastiff. I wish she’d asked me about this first.”
“Willow, you can’t save them all.”