The tiny woman snorted. “You don’t pay no heed to those things you read in newspapers, miss. Those writers are a bunch of scoundrels and scallywags they are. No, the answer is in here. We’ll find it, miss, don’t you worry none.” She tapped the side of her wizened head and screwed up her face in thought.

“But we’ve tried everything, Cook. I’m at my wit’s end—Piddle is bad enough, but Erp is becoming a positive leper among dogs!”

The Collins’s cook pursed her lips and counted off her fingers. “We’ve tried meal, game, and stewed vegetables. Potatoes, turnips, and beans.”

Gillian shuddered. “The beans were a disaster. What haven’t we tried?”

“Corn?”

“Two months ago. It didn’t work.”

Cook’s eyes roamed the kitchen as she mentally reviewed the pantry. “Rice?”

Gillian sat up straight in her chair. “Rice? No, I don’t believe we’ve tried rice. Do you think it would help? Perhaps if we—”

Owen the footman interrupted the discussion of the bloodhounds’ diet with a request for Gillian’s presence in Lord Collins’s study.

Knowing that nothing raised her uncle’s ire more than tardiness, Gillian promised to return to the discussion and raced up the backstairs to the first floor. There was no time to pin up the strands of hair that had come down from her haphazard chignon, or to change into a less wrinkled gown. Gillian took a deep breath and stepped forward as Owen announced, “Miss Leigh, m’lord.”

Miracle of miracles, Uncle Theo was smiling. Gillian blinked in surprise. Her uncle was not given to noticing her much, let alone finding something about her that would please him, but she dutifully beamed back an answering smile. She held on to her smile until a dark shadow removed itself from the wall and strode forward. Her smile wavered and crumpled into a soft gasp that only Weston heard. For some reason her reaction pleased him immensely.

“My dear, I believe you know why Lord Weston is here?” Lord Collins asked archly.

Gillian’s stomach dropped into her boots. Oh, yes, she knew why he was here. The Lord of Traitors must have decided her behavior yesterday was so horrifying that he was compelled to report it to her uncle. She frowned at him, annoyed. Did he not promise to never mention the embarrassing incident with the street urchin? Did he not accept her apology when she startled one of his matched bays into stepping on his foot? Did he not admit that it was a minor wound only, that the boot could be easily replaced, and that William, his tiger, had wished for a rest in the country, and thus the slight injury to his back was really a blessing in disguise as it would allow him to rest for three to four weeks, depending on the doctor’s recommendation? He had indeed! She remembered quite clearly him insisting the episode was nothing but an accident, and not her fault at all. And now here he was tattling on her! Gillian narrowed her eyes at him and decided quickly on a course of complete indifference. It wouldn’t matter one whit what tales he carried to her uncle; she would deny knowledge of everything.