Saucy, headstrong Petrina had just escaped from her country school when she ran into her Guardian, Earl of Staverton. To her surprise he was not the old stuffed shirt she'd expected, but a young, strikingly handsome aristocrat--and without a doubt the coldest, most arrogant man she'd ever met. No matter how desperately hard Petrina tried, she could not befriend the Earl. Her very presence seemed to annoy him. Preoccupied with his idle love affairs, he sought to arrange for her -- a decent marriage and be quickly done with her . . .
Revisiting the rustic landscape favored in her Hilda Hen books, Wormell introduces an engaging, feisty kitten named Barnaby. To each of his mother's warnings ("Don't annoy the sheep, Barnaby!") he replies, "WHY NOT?" and quickly learns exactly why ("Because I'll annoy YOU!" snorts the ram). The feckless feline makes his way across the barnyard: to escape a rooster, he climbs a tree only to be chased by a crow into the sheep's pasture--until finally he gets stuck under a hay bale. As all the animals gather to help him, the ever independent Barnaby manages to free himself, then scampers home for supper.
