Smiling at the revelation, a strange tightness clenching his chest, he jumped up and headed out to find his wife, to thank her for the kind gesture. And, of course, to apologize for the condition she must have found him in.
He had made it to the entrance hall, ignoring the throbbing pain in his spine, when he heard a commotion. The desperate cries of his staff in something of a panic. He could not quite hear what they were saying, but it did not sound good.
Quickening his pace, he hurried in the direction of the ruckus, cutting through the drawing room to get to the outside. He burst into the gardens with his heart racing, almost colliding with the perimeter of a small crowd that had gathered around the ancient apple tree.
“It is not safe!” Mrs. Whitlock shouted, near the front of the congregation. “You must come down at once! You are too high!”
Max’s attention shot up to the twisting boughs and the browning leaves that were shivering down to the ground, knocked by the movement of a figure who was climbing up and up. Oblivious to the fact that the branches at the top were nowhere near sturdy enough to bear a person’s weight.
Horror seized him as he realized it was not just any person, but his wife. She had tied her skirts around her legs, making them appear like blooming trousers, her slender arm desperately reaching for something.
“Please, Your Grace!” Mrs. Whitlock shrieked. “Let one of the men take your place! Youmustcome down!”
“I can almost reach it!” Caroline replied.
Tell me she has not gone up there to try and fetch me an apple,Max prayed with silent urgency as he pushed to the front.
But upon arriving at the trunk of the enormous, ancient tree, he understood that his wife’s antics had nothing to do with him. There was a furry, frightened creature stuck up in the highest branches, hissing and swiping at the woman who was trying to rescue it.
“Stop that!” Caroline urged. “I am not trying to hurt you, so please, do not try to hurt me!”
Her words might have been endearing if she had not placed herself in such extraordinary danger. Max had gone up that treeenough times to know that it was barely safe for even the most seasoned climber, and it had rained in the night, the boughs and branches still slippery with the lingering moisture. He could tell from the sheen of the bark.
“Your Grace.” Mrs. Whitlock looked at Max in dismay. “I have tried to get her to come down, but she will not. She is determined. Why, when she said she saw a cat stuck in the tree, I did not expect her to… If I had known, I would never have let her out into the gardens.”
Max put a hand on the old woman’s shoulder. “All will be well.” He peered up at his wife. “Caroline, come down. I will fetch the cat.”
“I almost have him!” Caroline shouted back. “Honestly, there is nothing to worry about. I am perfectly?—”
A splintering crack pierced the otherwise silent air, making a few of the staff members jump in fright. And with good reason.
Caroline tumbled down. The branch that had been holding her had snapped, while the cat looked on as if that was exactly what it had hoped would happen.
Before he could even think, Max leaped into action, clambering up the tree with the grace and ease of a monkey, pulling himself up to the solid vee at the top of the trunk. Caroline continued to fall, unable to gain purchase on any of the branches that her hands shot out to try and grasp, her slender body bounced andjostled as she tumbled through the tangle of twigs and leaves and tree limbs.
Max caught her at the point where the tangled branches ended, and she would have no way to prevent falling directly to the ground: A distance that looked deceptively small but would break a limb at best, and be lethal at worst.
His arm slipped around her waist, pulling her hard against his chest, while his other hand gripped a narrower branch for dear life. With his aching back screaming in protest, he tilted back until he was half sitting on the widest bough with his wayward wife safe in his breathless embrace.
To add insult to injury, the cat chose that moment to weave down through the branches, as though it had never been in any trouble whatsoever. As it passed Max and Caroline, it seemed to decide that it liked the idea of being rescued and leaped up into Caroline’s arms, rubbing its furry white head against the underside of her chin.
“You see,” Caroline said, panting. “There was nothing to worry about.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You could have been killed!” Max roared, pacing back and forth in front of the drawing room fireplace. “I tolerated your antics when they were harmless, but I will not tolerate this. What were you thinking?”
Caroline sat penitently on the settee, wrapped in no fewer than four blankets that Max had acquired for her, with the troublesome cat asleep in her lap. She stroked the beautiful, silky-coated creature to comfort herself, shuddering at the angry volume of her husband’s voice. She had never seen him like this before.
“The poor thing was crying out,” she said quietly. “It did not know how to get down by itself. I could not just leave it there.”
Max swept both hands through his golden hair, turning his gaze up to the ceiling as though the heavens might grant him some additional patience. “You are a duchess, not a wild woman. You could have asked anyone to help you, and they would havedone it. Even if they were not certain of their climbing ability, someone could have fetched me. Aladderwould not have gone amiss!”
“You were asleep, and I did not want to wake you.”
She was not oblivious to the idiocy of what she had done, but she had not been thinking when she had started up the tree to save the poor cat. She had heard it, worried for it, and the next thing she knew, she was tying her skirts up around her legs and climbing to its rescue.
“It was… reckless, Caroline!” he barked, shaking his head. “I know I have accused you of such behavior before, but I have never meant it as I do now. You could have been severely hurt, and we are miles from the nearest physician. Mercy, I do not know what I would do if anything befell you! What if you had died, Caroline? What if you had broken every limb?”
