She turned to the duchesse, who was barely recov ering her breath. "Go!" Madame whispered. "I'm… fine! See what—" She lost her voice in another cough but waved so emphatically toward the door that Callie hurried to it.

"It's only my bull, ma'am; you needn't be alarmed," she said. She lifted her skirts and hastened down the stairs.

Jock stood in the open door with his back to her as she came down, looking out and pointing across the road. "That way!" he yelled to someone outside. Beyond his big shoulders, she caught a glimpse of Major Sturgeon dodging round the horses tied at the garden gate. "Follow the dog!" Jock shouted to him. "It broke through the hedge!"

She was about to dart past him to join the pursuit, when a brutal crash and a woman's scream from the direction of the kitchen stairs made her grab the newel post, turning. Lilly came squealing round the corner, colliding with Callie and springing back, her eyes wide. She stood still, put one hand over her mouth, and gestured wildly toward the kitchen.

Callie heard a familiar low rumble, a thump, and the sound of breaking dishware. "Oh dear," she said. She rounded the corner, already expecting disaster, but the sight that met her was rather more along the lines of a culinary apocalypse.

The kitchen at Dove House was not a large chamber. Four ancient stone steps led down to it from the main body of the house, and at the far end, it gave out on the rear yard. At the moment, the back door stood open, blocked by a brawny woman f lapping her apron with both hands and breathing with such violent agitation that the sounds she made almost equaled the gusty snorts of the colossal bovine occupant who took up the largest part of the room.

For an instant Callie stood stock-still, completely confounded by the sight. She had already braced herself to find Hubert involved in this outlandish pickle, but it wasn't Hubert beside the overturned table. Amid the broken eggs, cooked carrots, and remnants of a perfectly browned apple pie, stood—not Hubert—but a black bull of equally gargantuan proportions, swishing its tail against the cupboard. He munched happily on a head of lettuce, showing no objection to the f lour-sack blindfold across its face. As it swallowed the final head of lettuce leaf, Trevelyan—looking entirely the part of an unshaven and wrinkled fugitive from British justice— offered it a ripe tomato from the mess on the f loor.

"Close the doors," he ordered with such a snap of command in his voice that Callie slammed the kitchen door behind her, nearly catching Lilly's nose in it. The new cook was a little less docile. She only dropped her ample apron to her lap and stood gaping in the open back entry. The bull snuff led, turning its blindfolded face up toward Callie, giving a happy moan as its nostrils f lared.