“I don’t want to come down!” came a retort from the heights of the oak.
Douglas was no expert on children, but the girl looked to be about five years old. Though she stood on one limb, she also anchored herself to the tree with a fierce hold on the branch above her. When she made her rude reply, she stomped her foot, which caused the branch she grasped to shake as well.
Douglas heard the danger before he saw it. A low, insistent drone, one that would have been undetectable but for the stillness of the stable yard.
At Rose’s display of stubbornness, the woman’s hands closed into white-knuckled fists. “Rose,” she said, her voice an agony of controlled desperation, “if you cannot climb down, then you must hold very, very still until we can get you down.”
“But you promised I could stay up here as long as I wanted.”
Another stomp, followed by another ominous, angry droning.
Douglas took in two more facts: The child was unaware of the hornet’s nest hanging several yards out on the higher branch, and she was not at all unwilling to come down. She was unable. He recognized a desperate display of bravado when he saw one, having found himself in an adult version of the same futile posturing more than once in recent months.
He stripped off his gloves and stuffed them into the pocket of his riding jacket. Next, he shed his jacket, slung it across the horse’s withers, turned back his cuffs, and rode over to the base of the tree. After taking a moment to assess the possibilities, he used the height of the horse’s back to hoist himself into the lower limbs.
“Miss Rose,” he called out in the steady, no-nonsense voice his governess had used on him long ago, “you will do as your mother says and be still as a garden statue until I am able to reach you, do you understand? We will have no more rudeness”—Douglas continued to climb, branch by branch, toward the child—“you will not shout”—another several feet and he would be on the same level as she—“and you most assuredly will not be stamping your foot in an unladylike display of pique.”
The child raised her foot as if to stomp again. Douglas watched that little foot and knew a fleeting regret that his life would end now—regret and resentment.
But no relief. That was something.
The girl lowered her foot slowly and wrinkled her nose as she peered down at Douglas. “What’s peek?”
“Pique”—he secured his weight by wrapping one leg around a thick branch—“is the same thing as a taking, a pout, a ladylike version of a tantrum. Now come here, and we will get you out of this tree before your mama can devise a truly appalling punishment for your stubbornness.”
The child obeyed, crouching so he could catch her about the waist with both hands—which did occasion relief, immense relief. The droning momentarily increased as the girl left her perch.
“You are going to climb around me now,” Douglas instructed, “and affix yourself like a monkey to my back. You will hang on so tightly that I barely continue to breathe.”
Rose clambered around, assisted by Douglas’s secure grip on her person, and latched on to his back, her legs scissored around his torso.
“I wanted to come down,” she confided when she was comfortably settled, “but I’d never climbed this high before, and I could not look down enough to figure my way to the ground. My stomach got butterflies, you see. Thank you for helping me get down. Mama is very, very vexed with me.” She laid her cheek against Douglas’s nape and huffed out a sigh as he began to descend. “I was scared.”
Douglas was focused on his climbing—it had been ages since he’d been up a literal tree—but he was nearly in conversation with a small child, perhaps for the first time since he’d been a child.
Another unappealing aspect to an unappealing day.
“You might explain to your mama you were stuck,” he said as they approached the base of the tree. He slipped back onto the horse, nudged it over to where the woman stood watching him, and then swung out of the saddle, Rose still clinging to his back. He reached around and repositioned her on his hip.
“Madam, I believe I have something belonging to you.”
“Mama, I’m sorry. I was st-stuck.” The child’s courage failed her, and weeping ensued.
“Oh, Rose,” her mother cried quietly, and the woman was, plague take this day, also crying. She held out her arms to the child, but because Rose was still wrapped around Douglas, he stepped forward, thinking to hand Rose off to her mother. Rose instead hugged her mother from her perch on Douglas’s hip, bringing Douglas and the girl’s mother into a startling proximity.
The woman wrapped an arm around her child, the child kept two legs and an arm around Douglas, and Douglas, to keep himself, mother, and child from toppling into an undignified heap, put an arm around the mother’s shoulders. She, much to his shock, tucked in to his body, so he ended up holding both females as they became audibly lachrymose.
Douglas endured this strange embrace, assuring himself nobody cried forever.
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Grace Burrowes hit the bestseller lists with her debut, The Heir, followed by The Soldier, Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal, Lady Eve’s Indiscretion, and Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish. The Heir was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010, The Soldier a Publishers Weekly Best Spring Romance of 2011, Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish won Best Historical Romance of the Year in 2011 from RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards, Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight was a Library Journal Best Book of 2012, and The Bridegroom Wore Plaid, the first in her trilogy of Scotland-set Victorian romances, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2012. All of her historical romances have received extensive praise, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.
Grace is a practicing family law attorney and lives in rural Maryland. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached through her website at graceburrowes.com.
Andrew: Lord of Despair (The Lonely Lords) Page 31