Never Kiss a Toad

Chapter Nineteen, Part 1

Toad poked his head around the door, wishing he were anywhere else, hoping not to be seen by anyone who might call him over to talk. Piero was already halfway across the room on his mission: distracting the comtesse so Toad could release the cats without being seen.

Piero made a path through the assembly with a touch to his left, a compliment to his right, a laughing remark over his shoulder. Toad breached the doors, Bey behind him on one side, Zajac on the other, the better to mask the wriggling burlap sack. The half-dozen cats were starting to move again in the bag, after he had dosed them with laudanum to bring them to the comtesse's hotel particulier. Soon enough, they would start yowling if he didn't release them.

Bey was sulking. "Ninon would not even talk to me, Abersham. Just made cow's eyes at you, and did everything you asked. It isn't fair. It's not my fault my allowance was cut."

"It is not my fault I am a marquess, and the whole of Paris mistakenly believes I share in my parents' enormous fortune."

"My grandfather will reinstate my Kopet Dag stipend eventually. And I wouldn't have let her starve."

The bag started wriggling more forcefully, and Toad hissed, "It's not important right now, Bey. We must release these animals before they start screeching. Do you see Piero and the comtesse?"

"Over there," Zajac said, pointing. He was standing on the tips of his toes to see over the crowds of fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen who thronged the three rooms the comtesse used to entertain in the same fashion as Toad's mother had, long before he was born, while she was still a baroness. The stories at Court about Lady Holsworthy and her salons had earned Toad his first invitation from the comtesse. "In the next room, near the piano."

Piero approached their hostess, who was sipping coffee and arguing something, most likely politics and literature, with a court poet.

"Make haste, Piero," Toad whispered, scratching an itch on his cheek, pulling away his fingers smeared with blood. "Hell. This wound keeps opening. Damned cats. I'm going to ruin my new coat, and I haven't enough money to replace it. Give me your handkerchief, Bey."

"I haven't enough money to replace my handkerchief," Bey objected. "Ask Zajac."

"You and your eternal penury are a damned plague, Bey. Zajac, give me your handkerchief."

Zajac obligingly pulled it from his pocket. "I am sorry, Abersham. It is not very clean."

Toad let out a long-suffering sigh and took it, holding it against his cheek, over the scratch he'd received from the largest of the cats in the bag.

"Ah!" Piero exclaimed loudly enough to catch the attention of the room, falling to one knee. "How can you have grown more lovely since my last visit, madame la comtesse? I am captivated."

As she always did when Piero appeared, the comtesse smiled broadly and made much of him. They could tell from across the room, by the way she smiled and touched his arm and cheek, traced one finger across the back of his hand, twisted her finger in one of his black curls before tucking it back behind his ear.

For the last three salons, she had flirted madly with both of them, but eventually spurned Piero, trying to catch Toad's eye. So far, she had not succeeded, as Toad did his very best to pretend he didn't see the offer of sex rising off her like a heat mirage.

While the comtesse was engaged with teasing Piero and stringing him along another day, Toad loosened the cord and opened the mouth of the bag, letting out the six cats, none too pleased to be transported from their alleyway behind a brothel to the crowded drawing room of the comtesse's Parisian mansion.

Still reeling drunkenly, now yowling in earnest, all the felines scattered in different directions, biting and scratching anything in their way. Ladies screamed, gentlemen trying to calm them while avoiding the claws and teeth of the viscous monsters.

Piero prudently stepped out of the path of the cats, making his leisurely way to the drinks, securing a bottle of wine and four glasses. Bey made the mistake of attempting to protect a young lady, and received a long tear through his trouser leg and into his flesh-and-blood leg.

Zajac added to the chaos by chasing the cats, in a feigned attempt to fix matters. "Madame's cats are escaping," he yelled. "Catch them, quick!" He nudged Toad, a bit too delighted with himself.

Toad had been complaining all night as they prepared for this prank, but now, in the midst of it, he couldn't stop laughing at the silly nobles running about like rats. Bey took up Zajac's cry. "Catch them; catch them for the comtesse!"

Toad took a glass of claret from Piero, who had returned to watch the show with them.

And with one other person. Across the room, in one lone haven of peace amid the screaming, shoving, and struggling, the Comtesse de Soissons sat on a fainting couch, calmly observing the scene with an amused twitch to her lips, finishing her coffee. She met Piero's eye, pointed to the claret and raised her brows as if to request a glass.

By now, some of the men and most of the women were leaving as fast as they could collect their cloaks. Of those who remained, at least half were trying to recapture the cats, the rest attempting to drive them out the doors and windows. Bey and Zajac changed sides to impede whichever group was gaining the upper hand.

The comtesse sauntered around the edge of the room and took the glass Piero passed her. Still watching calmly, her upper lip quivering more obviously, she made a calculated glance at Toad.

"My Lord Abersham." The comtesse demanded Toad's attention, and he flushed, wondering how much she had seen. "My lord, you are bleeding."

He touched Zajac's greying handkerchief to his cheek again. The comtesse took the handkerchief from him, wrinkling her nose. Setting it aside, she snapped her finger for a maid and instructed her to bring bandages and the medicine box. Taking up a linen serviette, she dabbed at the cut.

Spying more scratches on his neck and hands, she took him by the fingers and pushed his cuffs over his wrists. "You have suffered to ruin my party, have you not?" The comtesse's bubble of laughter made him blush.

"Er... yes, my lady?"

"Hardly gentlemanly, Abersham." She chucked him under the chin. "Sweet boy. You perhaps need better schemes to occupy your time."

Piero, Bey, and Zajac snickered and elbowed each other, Piero pouring more wine all around. The maid returned with the bandages and the comtesse's box of medicines, followed by a footman with a basin of warm water.

"Er, you needn't fuss yourself, my lady." Toad tried to pull away from her. "They are only scratches."

"I have a scratch," Bey offered. "I would accept your ministrations, Madame."

"Come," the comtesse said, ignoring Bey, as she always did. "I shall tend to my battle-scarred warrior away from this crowd."

Toad gave his friends a look of desperation. Piero looked at his wine, Zajac turned to the drinks tray, and Bey smirked and held Toad's gaze. Toad mouthed at him, "Do not let her do this," but Bey refused to acknowledge him.

A click of her fingers as she passed them, and the footman and maid fell into line behind them. The more Toad tried to pull away, the tighter the comtesse held to his hand.