But blue jeans, faded and worn in exceedingly interesting places, were just what this man wore. Even more astonishing, he had a huge shiny gold object affixed to the center of his belt. A buckle? Freddie had seen serving platters that were smaller!

“Hi,” he said and gave her the famous Stanton grin.

His American accent settled one issue. Whoever he was, he wasn’t Lord Randall.

“Hello?” Freddie replied cautiously. She clutched Charlie’s mac tightly around her.

The grooves at the corners of his smile deepened. “I’m Gabe McBride. I’m looking for the caretaker of Stanton Abbey. Is he in?”

“He?”

It was not one of Freddie’s finer moments.

Caretakers were not always men. She suspected even the American Mr. McBride would be willing to admit that. But even he, she imagined, would expect a caretaker of either sex to be dressed by ten o’clock in the morning.

But before she could panic about that, she caught sight of the rabbit out of the corner of her eye as it dashed from beneath the refrigerator toward the old cooker. “’Scuse me!” Freddie exclaimed and plunged after it.

She expected Gabe McBride, obviously some relation to the Stantons as his likeness marched up and down the portrait hall at the abbey, to stand by and watch her make a fool of herself.

She was astonished when he joined her.

“Is it a rat?” He was on his knees beside her, all eagerness, his dark hair shedding drops of rain on the flagstone floor.

She shook her head. “A bunny.”

“A bunny? A rabbit?”

“Yes! Here, Cosmo! Cosmo, come here! There’s a nice bunny. It’s time for school, Cosmo.” She was crawling on the floor, trying to stretch toward the back of the cooker where she could see the rabbit hunched, its beady left eye looking straight at her.