Entangled

Chapter 1

He’d lost his hat somewhere between London and Hawke’s Run. Of the dozen different things now trying Adrian’s temper, it was the lost hat that made it snap.

An elegant hat, polished boots and a flawless white cravat—tied in Trone d’Amour, and artfully creased—separated a fashionable London gentleman from a plain country squire.

He’d given up his left boot and his cravat as lost before he’d left the city last night, the latter being covered in vomit, and the former…

well, he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened to his boot, but it wasn’t on his foot.

He must have lost it when Lady Pamela shoved him out the window.

But a gentleman’s hat—that was one step too bloody far. A beaver hat was a precious, hallowed thing. Akin to a holy relic, for God’s sake.

Practical, too.

He ventured a glance into the merciless glare above, wincing as pain lanced his skull and hard, white sunlight seared his eyeballs.

Was it necessary for it to shine quite so brightly?

He’d happily give up his one remaining boot for a comforting layer of London smog.

Really, it was just this sort of unreasonable cheerfulness that made people detest the country.

Here, in particular.

If he’d known when he left his townhouse last night that he’d find himself here, he’d have downed a whole bottle of brandy instead of half, but it was too bloody late now.

Sobriety had caught up to him somewhere near Hoddesdon, which was a great pity, as he preferred to remain as close to unconscious as possible whenever he was in the vicinity of Hawke’s Run.

Damned if anyone who saw him right now would recognize him as the fashionable, charming Lord Hawke. He looked far closer to the dissipated barbarian he actually was, and that smell. Stale smoke, regurgitated brandy, and the thick, cloying stench of Lady Pamela’s perfume.

Taken together, it was enough to make him…

He gagged, bile burning his throat, but he choked it back before it spewed from his lips and splashed into his lap. He reined in his horse at the end of the drive and waited until his stomach ceased its rebellion before running the tip of his tongue cautiously over his parched lips.

This was no time to cast up his accounts. He was about to appear at his country estate after…six, or was it seven? long months of unexplained absence, and he was reeking of wicked deeds as it was. Breeches splattered with vomit was doing it a bit too brown—

“Oh, dear. This is a conundrum.”

The soft exclamation came out of nowhere, startling him into another ill-fated glance into the remorseless sky above.

He caught a glimpse of bare, dark branches clawing at the blue, and a flash of something yellow.

It wasn’t the sun this time. A remarkably large bird, then?

He bloody well hoped not, as any bird such an aggressive shade of yellow was sure to be a vicious predator.

He snapped his eyes shut to prevent his retinas from bursting into flames, but they flew open again when something sharp struck him in the face. “What the devil?” He despised the country, yes, but this was the first sign he’d ever had it despised him in return.

“Oh, no. That wasn’t meant to happen.”

This time he took the precaution of shading his eyes with his hand before glancing up.

He could see nothing but shifting shadows at first, but as his vision adjusted, he caught a glimpse of the hem of a shockingly yellow cloak and a slender foot clad in a worn half-boot dangling from one of the branches above his head.

“No? You mean to say you don’t make a habit of hurling branches at innocent travelers? ”

Or guilty ones, as the case may be.

“It wasn’t a branch, but a clump of mistletoe.” The foot swung back and forth. “Rather a large clump. I do beg your pardon. How unfortunate you’re not wearing a hat.”

He gritted his teeth at the mention of his missing hat. “If I’d known I’d be attacked, madam, I’d have worn a suit of armor.”

She laughed. Laughed, as if this were all tremendously amusing. The sound echoed in the crisp morning air like birdsong, the cheerful chirp of it scraping over his raw nerves and further souring his temper. His jaw clenched. “What do you mean, hanging about in that tree like a bloody monkey?”

She gave a prim little sniff. “There’s no need to curse, sir.”

“I beg to differ, madam. How did you even manage to climb up there?” It was a large tree, at least thirty feet tall.

“Why, the same way anyone climbs a tree. One limb at a time.”

“Well, come down from there at once.”

“As happy as I’d be to oblige you, sir, I’m afraid it’s not that simple. I’m, er…attached, you see.”

“Attached? What do you mean?”

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.

“That is an 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. “Your tree?”

“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 on my property, 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 to you.”

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 skull scattered 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’t lose my 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 would never—”

“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.