First Comes Scandal (Rokesbys #4)(35)

“Your plan all along, I assume.”

He shrugged again as he nudged himself forward a few inches. “You’re not going to do better.”

“Freddie, don’t! It won’t support your weight.”

“Toss me a rope.”

“I don’t have a rope! Why would you think I had a rope in my bedroom? And for the love of God, back up.”

He didn’t listen.

“Do not come closer,” Georgie warned. She was starting to worry that maybe the branch would hold his weight. It wasn’t bowing nearly as much as she would have thought.

“You will marry me,” he growled.

“Would it be easier if I just gave you money?”

He paused. “You would do that?”

“No!” She picked up the closest object she could put her hands on—a book—and hurled it at him.

“Ow!” It clipped him on the shoulder. “Stop that!”

She threw another book.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Defending my honor,” she ground out. She tried to lean forward, but the cats were in the way. Without taking her eyes off Freddie she picked them up one by one and tossed them down. “If you have any care to your well-being,” she warned him, “you’ll remember what happened last time you tried to convince me to marry you.”

“Don’t be a—Jesus Christ!”

She knobbed him on the head with an inkpot.

“I’ve got another right here,” she growled. “I write a lot of letters.”

His face curled into something unpleasant. “I’m beginning to think you’re not worth the trouble.”

“So I’ve been telling you,” she hissed. She hurled the second inkpot at him, but as he moved to dodge it, Cat-Head (who had never been the brightest of her three cats) hopped back up onto the sill, let out an unholy scraw, and launched himself out the window.

“Cat-Head!” Georgie lunged forward, trying to get hold of him, but the cat was on Freddie’s face before she even had her arms out the window.

“Get it off me!” Freddie shrieked.

“Cat-Head! Cat-Head, come back!” Georgie hissed, trying to keep her voice down. The other bedrooms were around the corner, so with any luck no one would have heard Freddie’s cry of distress.

Freddie clawed at the cat, trying to dislodge it, but Cat-Head held firm, wrapped around Freddie’s head like half of a furry octopus.

Half of a furry octopus with claws.

“You bloody—” Freddie’s words disintegrated into a furious grunt as he seized the cat by its midsection.

“Don’t you dare throw my cat!” Georgie warned.

But Freddie already had him by the belly. Cat-Head let out a mighty cat-scream, and Freddie tossed him away.

It did not go well for Freddie.

Cat-Head fared splendidly. After a terrifying moment when he seemed to be suspended in mid-air, fur sticking out in every direction, he got his claws into a clump of leaves hanging down from another branch and then swung himself to safety.

Freddie, on the other hand, lost his balance completely. He let out a howl of distress as he clawed for purchase, but it was to no avail. He slid from the branch and fell, bumping against several lower branches as he tumbled to the ground.

“Oh my God.” Georgie’s words came out in a tiny horrified squeak as she leaned out the window. “Oh my God.” Was he dead? Had she killed him? Had her cat killed him?

She ran out of her room, grabbing a lantern from a table in the hall.

“OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod …” All the way down the stairs, skidding through the hall and out the front door in her bare feet. “Oh my God.”

He was at the base of the tree, lying very still. His head was bleeding, and already one of his eyes appeared to be swelling shut.

“Mr. Oakes?” she asked hesitantly, inching toward him. “Freddie?”

He moaned.

Oh thank God. He wasn’t dead.

She leaned in a little closer, nudging his hip with her toe. “Mr. Oakes, can you hear me?”

“Bitch.”

So, that was a yes.

“Are you hurt?”

He gave her a malevolent stare. A one-eyed malevolent stare, which was somehow worse.

“Er, where are you hurt?” she amended.

“Everywhere, you bloody moron.”

“You know,” she said, “considering this is entirely your own fault, and I’m the only one here with the ability to summon help, you might think about being a little more polite.”

She held the lantern closer. There was a lot of blood on his head, although in the dark it was difficult to say how much of it might have been from the inkpot. But that wasn’t the worst of it. His left arm was twisted at an angle that wasn’t just unnatural, it was positively inhuman.

She winced. “I think you broke your arm.”

His reply was a string of vile curses, all of them directed at her.

“Miss Georgiana? Miss Georgiana!”

It was Thamesly, hurrying down the front steps in his dressing gown. Georgie wasn’t surprised that the butler would be the first to arrive on the scene. He had always had freakishly good hearing.

“Miss Georgiana, what has happened?”

“There has been an accident,” she said, wondering if she should avert her eyes. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Thamesly in anything less than full uniform. “Mr. Oakes was injured.”