Page 30 of From Rakes to Riches

There was a brief pause, then the delicate clearing of a throat. “Attached means joined, sir, or fastened, or connected to?—”

“For God’s sake, I know what attached means! I meant to inquire as to the nature of your particular attachment to that tree.” Good Lord, wasn’t that obvious?

“Oh. I beg your pardon. You just seemed, ah…a bit confused. It’s my hair. It’s gotten tangled in one of the branches, and I can’t get it loose. I’m stuck.”

“Nonsense,” he huffed. “You’re not stuck. Simply scamper back down the way you went up. Cats do it all the time.”

“Cats don’t have long hair that is apt to get tangled in the branches. Young ladies do, however, and I am, alas, the latter rather than the former. Unfortunate, but there it is.”

“Untangle it, then.” It wouldn’t prove to be that easy, of course, because things were never as easy as they should be, and because he’d clearly stumbled into the ninth circle of hell.

Or Hawke’s Run. Same bloody thing.

“Untangle it?” She made a sound like a hastily-smothered snort. “Thatisan inspired idea, sir. Indeed, I wonder I didn’t think of it myself. But now that I consider it, it occurs to me that if I release my hold on the trunk, I’m quite likely to tumble out of the tree. So, you see, I’m in a bit of a quandary.”

First a conundrum, and now a quandary? This chit was making his head throb. “You are indeed, and I’ve half a mind to leave you in it. You were foolish enough to climb up there. Had I not had the cursed bad luck to stumble upon you, you’d have had to get yourself down somehow.”

He waited, but his threat did not have the effect he’d intended. Any woman in her right mind would have dissolved into a flood of tears and pleas for his assistance, but she only said, “Do as you will, then. I’ll find my own way down eventually.”

He cast a despairing glance from his unbooted foot to the frozen ground below. Absurd chit. It would serve her right if he abandoned her to her fate, but as much as she deserved to lose her toes to frostbite for her ridiculous stunt, he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave her up there. Good Lord, how he loathed heroics. “Stay where you are. I’ll climb up and untangle you.”

“Your gallantry does you credit, sir.”

He grunted. She was doing her best to sound grateful, but there was a distinct thread of amusement in her voice. “Gallantry be damned. I simply choose not to explain to the magistrate how some witless girl froze to death in my tree.”

Her foot stopped swinging. “Yourtree?”

“My tree, my branches, and my mistletoe.” He dismounted and picked his way across the rutted drive, trying to sidestep the patches of frozen mud, but it was difficult with only one boot, and by the time he reached the bottom of the tree his stocking was ruined. Not that it made much difference, at this point. “You’re trespassing onmyproperty, madam.”

“Your property,” she repeated, her amusement vanishing. “If this is your property, then you must be?—”

“Adrian Chatham, the Earl of Hawke. If I fall from the tree and perish from a broken neck, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing the earl was killed in service toyou.”

He waited, but she didn’t offer another impertinent reply, so he started climbing. He paused when he was level with her foot and squinted up at her. “On which side are you tangled?”

“The left. There’s a thick branch just there, right by your?—”

“Yes, yes. I see it.” He wedged his foot between two sturdy branches, wrapped his arms around a bough above him and swung himself up. The limb gave a protesting groan, and he shook his head to dislodge the image of his twisted body lying unconscious under this cursed tree with bits of his skullscattered about, and kept climbing until he reached a limb that could take his weight, several branches above and behind her.

The dappled sunlight filtering through the trees lit up a thick mass of wild, golden-brown curls, because of course, she must have wild curls like some heroine from a romantic novel.

Impertinent, somehow, that hair.

He couldn’t see her face, but in her yellow cloak, with that irrepressible hair wound around the branches she looked like some sort of exotic tree nymph. The thought irritated him more than it should have, and his voice was gruff when he asked, “Why would you climb a tree with your hair unbound?”

“I didn’t.” She held up a wide blue ribbon. “Why would you go riding with only one boot?”

“I didn’t.” He braced himself against the branch at his back. “I was, er…separated from it. In any case, it’s not the same thing.”

“No,” she agreed. “I didn’tlosemy ribbon.”

“I didn’t lose my boot, either.” Not exactly. It was likely still lodged between the window and the sill in Lady Pamela’s dressing room. “But I have no intention of explaining myself to a thief who climbed my tree to steal my mistletoe.”

“Steal it! I wouldnever?—”

“Quiet, if you please, madam. I’m rather busy.” His hands hovered over the nest of curls and branches, but he hesitated, reluctant to touch her. He didn’t want to know if her hair was as thick and soft as it looked.

He hadn’t any choice, however, unless he wanted to spend the rest of his days in this god-forsaken tree with her. “Hold still, now.” He reached for her, his fingertips catching in her heavy curls as he began to work her hair free from the branches, one lock at a time.

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