The unexpected thought of alligators made him laugh, and he rubbed a hand over his rasping whiskers, shook his head, and turned in to Papa’s gate. He sniffed the air expectantly, but he was early; he could smell smoke from the kitchen fire, but no bacon. Voices, though … He wandered round the side of the house, intending to see whether he might charm Moira the cook into giving him a bit of toasted bread or some cheese to ease the pangs of starvation ’til something more substantial was ready.

He found Moira in the kitchen garden, pulling onions. She was talking to Amaranthus, who had evidently been gathering as well; she carried a trug that held a large mound of grapes and a couple of pears from the small tree that grew near the cookhouse. With an eye for the fruit, he strode up and bade the women good morning. Amaranthus gave him an up-and-down glance, inhaled as though trying to judge his state of intoxication from his aroma, and with a faint shake of the head handed him a pear.

“Coffee?” he said hopefully to Moira.

“Well, I’ll not be saying there isn’t,” she said dubiously. “It’s left from yesterday, though, and strong enough to take the shine off your teeth.”

“Perfect,” he assured her, and bit into the pear, closing his eyes as the luscious juice flooded his mouth. He opened them to find Amaranthus, back turned to him, stooping to look at something on the ground among the radishes. She was wearing a thin wrapper over her shift, and the fabric stretched neatly over her very round bottom.

She stood up suddenly, turning round, and he at once bent toward the ground she’d been looking at, saying, “What is that?” though he personally saw nothing but dirt and a lot of radish tops.

“It’s a dung beetle,” she said, looking at him closely. “Very good for the soil. They roll up small balls of ordure and trundle them away.”

“What do they do with them? The, um, balls of ordure, I mean.”

“Eat them,” she said, with a slight shrug. “They bury the balls for safekeeping, and then eat them as need requires—or sometimes they breed inside the larger ones.”

“How … cozy. Have you had any breakfast?” William asked, raising one brow.

“No, it isn’t ready yet.”

“Neither have I,” he said, getting to his feet. “Though I’m not quite as hungry as I was before you told me that.” He glanced down at his waistcoat. “Have I any dung beetles in this noble assemblage?”

That made her laugh.

“No, you haven’t,” she said. “Not nearly colorful enough.”

Amaranthus was suddenly standing quite close to him, though he was sure he hadn’t seen her move. She had the odd trick of seeming to appear suddenly out of thin air; it was disconcerting, but rather intriguing.