"Something is amiss, Monsieur?" Callie asked in a worried tone, gamely keeping to French as she looked up sideways at him through the netting.

Trev realized that he was scowling, and softened his expression. "I beg your pardon," he replied, smiling down at her. "I was meditating on the shocking cost of pastries in this town."

"I understand you," she said with feeling. "Mrs. Farr would take to her smelling salts if she knew."

"We must pray that my bank will stand against the strain. But we have an hour or two before we issue our announcement—what would you like to do? Take in the shops?"

"I would rather look at the animals," she said. She spoke very pretty French, he thought, when she would venture to do so. It made him want to kiss her, to brush his mouth against her lips while she formed the words. "Would it be possible?"

"Certainly. Whatever would please you the best, ma chérie." He f lourished his cane and pointed as they turned the corner to the wide street that was filling rapidly with all manner of livestock for the show. Under the shadow of the cathedral spire, the scent of a barnyard permeated the air. "Where shall we begin? Let us critique the pigs!"

"Do you make a study of pigs, Monsieur?" she asked, with a muff led note of amusement.

"Of course. I've observed them frequently on my breakfast plate." They had neared the first of the pens, where a stockman was lovingly bathing the ears of an enormously fat spotted sow. Five piglets squealed and gurgled about her panting bulk. "Note the marvelous coil of the tail." He gestured with his cane. "Absolute perfection!"

"And those ears," Callie said, nodding sagely. "She appears to have two!"

"Four legs," Trev added, cataloging all her points.

"Are you certain she has legs?" Callie asked dubi ously. "I don't see any."

"They are hidden under her porcine vastness," he informed her. He tilted his head speculatively as they reached the pen. "Unless she has wheels. Perhaps she rolls from place to place?"

The handler glanced up, startled to hear a language not his own. Seeing a fashionable lady and gentleman observing him, he straightened up and pulled his forelock, red-faced.

"An animal par excellence," Trev said in thickly accented English as he indicated the pig with an approving nod. He reached inside his coat and drew forth one of the printed broadsides. "Myself, I have a bull."

The stockman took the bill and perused it with a serious air. He seemed to read it, though Trev had made sure there were numerals in addition to words, for the edification of the illiterate. A working man might not have book learning, but the number of guineas was something that anyone would compre hend. "Looks to be a dead gun, sir," the stockman said politely.