The duchesse shook her head. "It is most vexing. I should like to send him down to see what is… all this clamor. Voices at the door, and I heard the strangest sound, my dear, you… would not credit. Nurse says I am dreaming, it's only a dog, but we have no dog, you know!" She shook her head. "And it did not sound like a dog at all. More as the very Horn of Salvation! But sinister. Very low. Almost I could not hear it."

"I heard a dog barkin', madam," the nurse said stubbornly. "Certain as I live."

"Yes, there was a dog too," Madame agreed. "But this was… different."

"Aye, and it may be that your mind is playin' tricks on you, madam, since you haven't yet been bled as the doctor directed." Nurse snapped the sheets taut across the bed. "Too much heat in the brain."

The duchesse made a little face, turning toward Callie so that the nurse could not see. She winked. "Yes, my brain is boiling," she said. "But I wish for my son… to approve my treatments."

"He'd best rouse himself out of bed, then, madam," the nurse said with the disapproval of the righteous for all those who did not rise at first light.

"Indeed," said Madame. "Before my head bursts! Perhaps, Lady Callista, would you be so good as to direct his… manservant to wake him?"

Callie opened her mouth, but nothing emerged. She was certain Trev was far away somewhere, f leeing the law, though she had no idea how to break this news to the duchesse. As she searched for some way to def lect the request, a low vibration rose beneath her very feet, a rumble that was just at the edge of hearing. The long and haunting note seemed to tremble in the walls themselves before it died away below hearing.

"There!" the duchesse exclaimed and was immedi ately overcome by a fit of coughing. She leaned over, struggling to breathe, while men shouted outside. Callie and the nurse hurried to assist Madame, but she waved, pointing to the door. The nurse was wide eyed now, supporting the duchesse's thin shoulders as she coughed, looking up at Callie as if she had seen a ghost.

It was indeed a malevolent and unearthly sound, if one didn't know precisely what earthly beast had produced it. A surge of relief f lowed through Callie, but Hubert's bellow had sounded so close that even she was startled. She looked out the front window, seeing nothing in the garden but the constable's coattails as he ran out of the stable gate toward the lane. He paused, looking up and down in both directions, and then ran across toward the opposite hedgerow. After a moment, a brindled dog raced after him, barking with all the offended frenzy of a shopkeeper chasing a thief.