This week’s excerpt from Lord Cuckoo Comes Home could also be called “courting with monkey”. It’s from my next novella for the Bluestocking Belles. If you have an animal companion in one of your stories, please add an excerpt in the comments.

Chloe took his hand and allowed him to aid her balance as she climbed up to the seat. “I hope you don’t mind, Lord Dom. I had to leave Rosario at home this morning while I was at Lady Seahaven’s writing thank-you letters, since the schoolroom party were not home to entertain her. Aunt Swithin promised to take her out and let her play in the garden, but she forgot, so the poor beast was shut in her cage from the time I left until I got home.”

Lord Dom went around to his side of the curricle, took his own seat, and held out his hand for Rosario to shake, distracting the monkey from her focus on the boy with the horses. “You are very welcome, Sister Rosario.” He grinned at Chloe. “She adds a certain air of adventure to our outings, do you not think?”

Chloe blushed at the sly reference to Rosario’s escapades. Earlier in the week, she had climbed a tree in Tower Gardens and refused to come down until Lord Dom had borrowed a ladder from the gardeners’ shed, whereupon she had climbed down the other side of the tree. If Emma and Merry had not cornered her, she would have been up another before Chloe could have reached her.

Two days ago, she had stolen an ice from a passing waiter, tasted it, then thrown it with unerring accuracy at the back of the waiter’s retreating head. Lord Dom had soothed the man’s irritation with a large gratuity.

Then there was the concert, where Rosario conceived a passion for the brooch on the hat of the dowager in the next row, and reached out to snatch it when Chloe became lost in the music. Had it not been for Lord Dom’s quick action—the monkey’s hand was within an inch of the target when he jerked her back by her leash—the ensuing apologies for Rosario’s complaints would have been for a much worse offence.

“I will keep tight hold of her today,” Chloe promised.

“Or I will,” Lord Dom agreed. His smile warmed away her embarrassment. “She does not mean to cause mischief, I know. We will endeavor to keep her out of trouble, you and I.”