The soft press of damp, cool nose into her palm was a relief to feel instead of the clamp of those sharp teeth, visible even without the animal trying to menace her. Slipping forward, bare knees scraping upon the stone floor, Felicity skimmed her hand up the hound's great head, trying to ignore those watching as best she could, and the dogs that circled and occasionally snuffled at her skin.<br/><br/>Cooing wordless soothing noises, as if this great hound were a skittish animal upon her family's farm, she petted and stroked its weighty skull, even slipping her fingertips beneath the fold of its ear to scritch softly. The nuzzles and licks along her hand and arm made her actually giggle in selfconscious nervousness, and for a moment it could have been a simple, lovely idyll - the pretty young woman befriending the beast.<br/><br/>But the Baronet had not told her to befriend the creature. He'd demanded something more, and though it made her stomach coil over on itself to do so she shifted closer to the animal, one hand still scritching and stroking its head and jowls, while another began to creep and stroke along its back and side - and then she bent forward, her hand sliding under to stroke along its belly, seeking out the soft, furred sheath wherein lay that part of the animal she least wanted to touch and yet was bound to do so, or likely suffer far worse.