“You must miss your son a great deal,” I said, trying to forestall her. “Will he be home soon?”

“Not until his two years’ tour of duty is up, eight months from now, I’m afraid. Of course, were one of his sisters to marry, he would naturally come home for the wedding.” (Giggles.)

She launched into the letter. Two paragraphs convinced me that Elliott was as silly as his sisters and had never been in love with anyone but himself in his life.

Three paragraphs convinced me Tossie didn’t care two pins for him either. She looked positively bored.

By paragraph four I was wondering why Elliott had escaped being named Rhododendron or Mugwort, and gazing at the Chattisbournes’ cat.

It was lying on a violet petit point footstool, and it was so enormous only a few violets showed round the edges. It was yellow, with yellower stripes, and even yellower eyes, and it returned my gaze with a heavy-lidded languor which I was beginning to feel myself, what with the currant cordial and Elliott Chattisbourne’s prose. I thought longingly of being back at Muchings End. Under a tree. Or in a hammock.

“What are you wearing to the fête, Rose?” Tossie asked when Mrs. Chattisbourne paused to turn over the letter to the third page.

Rose giggled and said, “My blue voile with the lace insets.”

“I’m wearing my white dotted swiss,” Pansy said, and the older girls leaned forward and began to chatter.

Eglantine went over to the footstool, picked up the cat, and dumped it on my lap. “This is our cat, Miss Marmalade.”

“Mrs. Marmalade, Eglantine,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said, and I wondered if cats were given honorifics, like cooks.

“And how are you, Mrs. Marmalade?” I said, chucking the cat under the chin. (Giggles.)

“What are you wearing to the fête, Tossie?” Iris asked.

“The new dress Papa had made for me in London,” Tossie said.

“Oh, what’s it like?” Pansy cried.

“I’ve written a description of it in my diary,” Tossie said.

Which some poor forensics expert will spend weeks deciphering, I thought.

“Finch,” Tossie said, “do hand me that basket,” and when he did, she reached under the embroidered cloth and brought out a cordovan leatherbound book with a gold lock.

And there went Verity’s hopes of stealing a look at it while we were gone. I wondered if I could possibly sneak it out of the basket on the way home.

Tossie carefully unclasped a delicate gold chain with a tiny key on it from her wrist and unlocked the diary, and then painstakingly refastened it.

Perhaps I could ask Finch to steal it for me. Or perhaps he’d already thought of it, since Mrs. Chattisbourne claimed he could read minds.

“White mignonette organdie,” Tossie read, “with an underdress of lilac silk. The bodice is made with a lace front, edged with a ruffle embroidered in ingrained colored silks of the softest shades of heliotrope, lilac, and periwinkle, worked in a pattern of violets and forget-me-nots inset with—”

The dress description was even longer than Elliott Chattisbourne’s letter. I gave myself over to some serious petting of Mrs. Marmalade.

She was not only enormous, but extremely fat. Her stomach was huge and felt oddly lumpy. I hoped she wasn’t suffering from something. An early form of the distemper that had wiped all the cats out in 2004 had been around in Victorian times, hadn’t it?

“—and a pleated lilac sash with a rosette at the side,” Tossie read. “The skirt is prettily draped and embroidered with a border of the same flowers. The sleeves are gathered, with shoulder and elbow ruffles. Lilac ribbons band—”

I felt cautiously along her underside as I petted her. Several tumors. But if it was leptovirus, it must be the early stages. Mrs. Marmalade’s fur was soft and sleek and she seemed perfectly happy. She was purring contentedly, her paws kneading happily into my trouser leg.

I was clearly still suffering from Slowness in Thinking. She doesn’t seem ill at all, I thought, even though she looks as though she’s about to explode—

“Good Lord,” I said. “This cat is pre—” and was struck in the back of the neck with a sharp object.

I stopped in mid-word.

Finch, behind me, said, “I beg your pardon, madam, there’s a gentleman here to see Mr. Henry.”

“To see me? But I—” and got clipped again.

“If you will excuse me, ladies,” I said, made some sort of bow, and followed Finch to the door.

“Mr. Henry has spent the last two years in America,” I heard Tossie say as I left the room.

“Ah,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said.

Finch led me down the corridor and into the library, and pulled the door shut behind us.

“I know, no swearing in the presence of ladies,” I said, rubbing my neck. “You didn’t have to hit me.”

“I did not strike you for swearing, sir,” he said, “though you are quite right. You should not have done it in polite company.”

“What did you hit me with anyway?” I said, feeling gingerly along my neckbone. “A blackjack?”

“A salver, sir,” he said, pulling a lethal-looking silver tray out of his pocket. “I had no alternative, sir. I had to stop you.”

“Stop me from what?” I said. “And what are you doing here anyway?”

“I am here on an assignment for Mr. Dunworthy.”

“What sort of an assignment? Were you sent to help Verity and me?”

“No, sir,” he said.

“Well, then, why are you here?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I am not at liberty to say, sir, except that I am here on a…” he cast about for a word, “…related project. I am on a different time-track from you, and therefore have access to information you have not discovered yet. If I were to tell you, it might interfere with your mission, sir.”

“And hitting me on the back of the neck isn’t interfering?” I said. “I think you’ve cracked a vertebra.”

“I had to stop you, sir, from commenting on the cat’s condition,” he said. “In Victorian society, discussion of sex in mixed company was utterly taboo. It was not your fault that you did not know. You weren’t properly prepped. I told Mr. Dunworthy I thought sending you without training and in your condition was a bad idea, but he was adamant that you should be the one to return Princess Arjumand.”

“He was?” I said. “Why?”

“I am not at liberty to say, sir.”

“And I wasn’t going to say anything about sex,” I protested. “All I intended to say was that the cat was preg—”

“Or anything resulting from sex, sir, or relating to it in any way.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward me. “Girls were kept completely ignorant of the facts of life until their wedding night, when I’m afraid it proved a considerable shock to some of them. Women’s bosoms or figures were never mentioned, and their legs were referred to as limbs.”

“So what should I have said? That the cat was expecting? In the club? In a family way?”

“You should not have said anything at all on the subject. The fact of pregnancy in people and animals was studiously ignored. You shouldn’t have referred to it at all.”

“And after they’re born and there are half a dozen kittens running all over the place, am I supposed to ignore that as well? Or ask if they were found under a cabbage leaf?”

Finch looked uncomfortable. “That’s another reason, sir,” he said obscurely. “We don’t want to draw any more attention to the situation than necessary. We don’t want to cause another incongruity.”

“Incongruity?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. When you return to the morning room, I would refrain from all mention of the cat.”

He truly did sound like Jeeves. “You’ve obviously been prepped,” I said admiringly. “When did you have time to learn so much about the Victorian era?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” he said, looking pleased. “But I can say I feel as though this is the job I was born to.”

“Well, since you’re so good at it, tell me what I am supposed to say when I go back in there. Who am I supposed to say was here to see me?” I said. “I don’t know anyone here.”