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She jerked her head up, clearly thinking of something else as she studied the recumbent elephant.

“Hm? Oh, yes. The lace. I thought…” Her lips twisted wryly as she reached for a button of her blouse and slipped her hand inside her corset.

“Luck, perhaps?” She offered with a shrug as she removed the battered lace.

Gus sighed reverently as he took it, cradling the unimpressive-looking material in his palms. “Is it all right if we use it now, Gabby?” he breathed, eyes wide as he stared down at it. “To help Elizabeth?”

She shrugged. “I do not think it would hurt. I suspect…” She shook her head, glanced down at the elephant, and shrugged. “Poor Sir Dickie has been duped.”

Gus was already at the elephant’s head, calmly explaining what would happen to Elizabeth, as if the animal could understand.

Cassian, however, pressed. “Duped? How?”

“I do not think…” Gabby took a deep breath, then winced. “I do not think she’s pregnant. Gus, go ahead and light it and see if you can get her to smell it.”

“Aye!” the lad called happily, clearly excited by the possibility of helping.

“Cassian, come here,” Gabby commanded, pointing to a spot at her side. “Put your palms here…and here…” She posi tioned him carefully. “Now lean your weight on her—yes, like that.”

She hurried to mirror him, both of them leaning on the elephant’s side that was exposed by her recumbent position.

And Cassian had to admit that he couldn’t feel a fetus inside, although on the list of things he was an expert of, elephant fetuses ranked quite near the bottom, between peeling boiled eggs and internal combustion machines.

“Alright, Gus,” Gabby said in the stillness of the barn. “Now.”

Cassian watched his son reverently pull the smoldering lace from the lantern. The lad waved it around the elephant’s face, until the beast lifted her trunk to swat away the smokey disturbance.

“Excellent,” Gabby whispered, face full of concentration. “Keep leaning, Cassian.”

He complied, and watched the elephant inhale deeply. Once. Twice. The smoke was around her trunk and mouth now. He felt her muscles tense, and then…

She sneezed.

An immense sneeze that surprised Gus enough to send him stumbling backwards.

Another sneeze.

A third.

The movement caused Cassian to stumble forward, to fall heavily against the elephant’s side.

And when she sneezed a fourth time, she released a massive…well, there really was no word for it .

The poor animal released a colossal fart.

Then another.

He glanced over to see Gabby’s look of concentration as she pressed the animal’s side, so he pressed harder as well. Poor Elizabeth farted again, the sound reverberating around the dark space, then rolled to her feet.

When she moved, both Cassian and Gabby lost their balance and stumbled forward.

He grabbed the woman and rolled to the side, away from the huge mammal’s dinner-plate-sized feet.

They ended up splayed in the hay, her on top of him, and Cassian’s shoulder most definitely resting in… oh, excellent. A pile of elephant dung.

“It worked,” Gabby announced with a tired smile. “Right, no more oats for her.”

“What worked?” He wasn’t really paying attention to her words, or the squelchy mass beneath him; nay, he was too mesmerized by her smile.

“The food Sir Dickie had been feeding her has likely caused a bad build-up of gas. If her previous owner fed her the same thing, the poor dear’s likely been suffering for years, and her last owner foisted her off with a lie about being with calf.

And all this time, thinking she is pregnant, Sir Dickie has been making it worse. ”

“In what way?” Cassian whispered, trying to ignore the dung. Was it in his hair? It was in his hair, wasn’t it?

“By forcing her to rest and be sedentary, she did not have the opportunity to walk off the gas. By feeding her mash, they were worsening the gas. She has had long-term colic and indigestion for months, poor thing. I last saw a case this bad?— ”

“Ye’re no’ a doctor’s sister, are ye, Gabby?”

She blinked down at him. “What?”

How had it taken him so long to figure this out? Grinning at himself, he ran his hand up her spine. “Hunter is a shite animal doctor.”

Gabby’s cheeks pinked, but she didn’t look away. “That is because he is not a veterinarian.”

“But ye are, are ye no’?”

Gus threw himself down at Cassian’s side. “Elizabeth is eating more hay from the trench, Gabby. And aye, Da, she has been trained. She went to all the best veterinary schools, but since she’s a girl they won’t give her the fancy bit of paper, so she can’t be an actual veterinarian!”

Cassian raised his brows at the lovely and rather disheveled woman looming over him. “Ye didnae think Sir Dickie would believe ye were the veterinary doctor? So ye set yer brother up as the expert, the puir bastard?”

She snorted softly. “Sir Dickie is a good-hearted man with old-fashioned sensibilities. He would not even allow me to study the elephant.” She tipped her head toward Gus. “Move the cabbages out of her reach, please. She needs hay and grasses.”

“Got it!” the lad grinned, hastening away. How much dung was in his hair?

“Ye’re right,” Cassian murmured. “Uncle Dickie likely would have turned ye away if ye’d shown up and announced ye were the expert.”

“Yes.” She sighed. “I have faced a lifetime of attitudes from men like him. He is not mean-spirited about it, he just does not realize the possibilities. I knew I was coming to Inverlochy Castle to solve two different problems. I did not want to have to tackle his misogyny as well.”

Cassian grinned, his hold on her tightening. “And now?”

Sighing, she glanced over at the huge elephant. “And now, I think I need to tackle it. For Elizabeth’s sake.”

For all their sakes.

“ G as ?” blurted Sir Dickie, his tea cup slipping from his slack fingers to dribble across the breakfast table. “What do you mean, gas ?”

His wife didn’t look up from her sausage. “She means, sweet pea, that the build-up of?—”

“I know what gas is!” Sir Dickie barked, pinning Gabby with a glare. “I want to know why this chit thinks Elizabeth has it!”

“Everyone has it—” Lady Zilphia began, and at her husband’s frustrated huff, Gabby bit her lip to contain her smile.

“Look, Sir Dickie,” she began, sliding into the breakfast room chair beside her brother, whose lips curled ruefully on one side as he tipped his head toward her.

“Elizabeth, I am sorry to say, is not pregnant. Her diet these last months—and likely long before you purchased her—has resulted in chronic indigestion and a terribly bad build-up of gas. I have already instructed her keepers to feed her solely grasses and hay for the next month, and they must make certain they are walking her multiple times a day, and?— ”

“ You’ve instructed?” their host roared, slamming his palms on the table. “Missy, what in the hell—excuse me, Zilphia—makes you think you are an expert? You weren’t even supposed to see the damned—excuse me, Zilphia—elephant!”

Gabby folded her hands in front of her, her shoulders ramrod straight. “No, I was not. I had to sneak in to examine her last night.”

“Why in the—” Sir Dickie began, then shook his head, his face reddening. “Doctor Butcombe, your own brother, agrees that Elizabeth is pregnant?—”

“I dinnae ken shite about elephants, pregnant or no’,” Hunter announced cheerfully, placing his hand protectively over Gabby’s and squeezing. “I’m more of the brawn in this twinship, Gabs is the brains.”

She nodded. “He is right.”

“Doctor Butcombe—” Sir Dickie began.

Hunter’s snicker interrupted him. “Christ, that’s the worst alias ever.”

“It is a horrible name,” murmured Lady Zilphia from her place, her attention on her food. “Unfortunate, certainly.”

“Hunter is not a doctor.” Gabby held Sir Dickie’s apoplectic gaze. “I am. Or rather, I am not permitted to claim the title of veterinarian, but I have trained extensively on two continents, and have all the credentials of a male animal doctor.”

“Yes, but you’re—you’re a woman !”

“Oh, well spotted, sweet pea,” murmured his wife .

Gabby took a deep breath, glad for her brother’s support. “I am. And I am certain you will admit that as a woman, I am just as capable and intelligent as my brother.”

Sir Dickie’s shoulders slumped as he exhaled. His expression turned sheepish. “Aye, you’re right. Of course you’re just as smart—wait, your brother’s a shite doctor. Excuse me, Zilphia.”

“But nae excuse me to me?” Hunter smirked as he shrugged and planted his elbows on the table.

“I gladly admit I ken fook all—excuse me, Zilphia—when it comes to pregnant elephants, and all I ken about animals I’ve learned from Gabby.

Do ye ken she used to keep a pet snake up her sleeve when we were young? What was its name?”

“Mary Magdelene, but that is not important.” Gabby sniffed, trying to maintain an air of professionalism, even while being secretly delighted by her brother’s timely distraction. “I am trained, and if I had been allowed to examine Elizabeth sooner, I could have told you days ago what her issue is.”

“ You’re the one who decided to lie to me,” Sir Dickie growled, slumping over his sausage and toast.

Gabby nodded her head, awarding the point. “And I made that decision because I have spent a lifetime fighting against the prejudices of men like you, and could not afford to be turned away.”

She heard Hunter suck in a breath at her side, and wondered if he was worried, same as her, if Sir Dickie would ask why exactly she had to be here at Inverlochy.

But instead their host shook his head bleakly. “You…you re ally are a veterinarian, lassie? And Elizabeth isn’t pregnant? I was duped?”