As the Devil Dares (Capturing the Carlisles #3)(40)
“I was just explaining to Clara that the kitten will come down when it’s ready,” he said, pointing to the small puff of white fur clinging to one of the high boughs.
His niece gave a hiccupping sob and wrapped her arms around Mariah’s neck, turning away from him to focus all her charms on her new ally. “Daisy’s just a baby, and she’s frightened,” Clara choked out softly, in that I-am-a-helpless-female-who-needs-a-hero voice she’d practiced to perfection on all three of her uncles since Josie and Chesney adopted her shortly after they married. All golden curls and big blue eyes, she’d learned quickly how to manipulate the three men to get whatever she wanted.
Then her mouth hardened in cold accusation. “But Uncle Robert wants to leave her up there!”
He blinked. Apparently, he and his brothers had created a monster.
“It’s a cat,” he reminded them with exasperation. “They climb trees. It’s what they do.”
Mariah narrowed her eyes on him in disapproval. Apparently, logic didn’t work on twenty-five-year-old hellions, either.
She tucked one of Clara’s curls behind her ear. “Well, it seems that Daisy’s gotten herself into quite the predicament.”
“Yes.” Clara sighed, the long-suffering sound of a mother whose child often misbehaved.
“Have you tried calling to her?”
She nodded.
“What about tempting her with a treat?”
Another nod, this time accompanied by a finger pointing at a saucer of cream on the grass beneath the tree.
“I see.” Mariah commented gravely, “She must be very stuck, then.”
He heaved out a breath of aggravation. “Oh, for Lucif—”
“Uncle Robert,” Mariah interrupted sharply, shooting him a warning look at the curse he was about to unthinkingly spit out in front of his young niece. Then she smiled, one that curled forebodingly down his spine. “It seems the only way to save Daisy is for you to climb up after her.”
Aware that his niece was listening, he forced a smile and said as sweetly as possible, “You really expect me to climb a tree to rescue a cat?”
“Saving a damsel in distress seems a perfectly heroic thing for a dashing gentleman to do,” she pointed out ingenuously.
Clara nodded her agreement with a loud sniff.
His smile tightened. “It’s a cat. With claws. Twenty feet in the air.”
Mariah’s mouth rounded into an exaggerated O of shock. “So you’re just going to leave the poor thing stranded up there?”
He saw a gleam of amusement dance in her eyes. The damnable woman was enjoying this! He bit back his growing irritation and ground out, “It will come down when it’s ready.”
“When anything might happen by and hurt it?” Her smile faltered with an expression of inflated dread. “Including a pack of wild wolves?”
“Wild wolves?” He spit out in half anger, half surprise. “For God’s sake, we’re in a walled garden in the middle of Mayfair!”
But the worried look Clara gave him nearly broke his heart.
Good Lord. It was bad enough when just one of the pair beset him. Together they were deadly.
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ll climb up after it.”
Mariah gave a deep sigh. “My hero.”
The glare he shot her was murderous. But the minx only stifled a laugh.
“Thank you, Uncle Robert!” Clara threw her arms around his legs to hug him.
His shoulders sagged. Hadn’t he been defeated from the beginning? “When I fall and break my leg, imp,” he teased grimly, giving a tug to one of her curls, “you’ll be the one bringing me breakfast in bed for the next six months.”
She giggled and placed her hand over her lips in a gesture of pure flirtatious femininity as she retreated back to Mariah. He felt a pang of sympathy for her father when in ten years the gentlemen would be flocking to his door to court her. But knowing Chesney’s former reputation as a rake, Robert suspected the universe had a grand sense of humor and was simply getting even.
Mariah smiled victoriously at him as she hugged Clara.
He grimaced. Perhaps not so grand, after all.
“You two stay back,” he ordered as he shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the stone bench at the side of the path. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Oh no,” Mariah affirmed with an exaggerated shake of her head. “We certainly wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Gritting his teeth, he ignored her baiting and rolled up his shirtsleeves to his elbows. “Just stay back, all right?”
Both females nodded gravely, although one was on the verge of bursting into laughter at his expense. Damned minx.
He walked up to the tree and jumped to catch the lowest of the branches, then pulled himself up onto the bough. In a matter of seconds, he was in the midst of the tree and making his way carefully up toward the ball of white fur, which now meowed such plaintive cries that he would have sworn that wolves truly were stalking it. Far below on the path, Mariah held Clara wrapped securely in her arms to keep the girl from attempting to climb up after him. Both sets of female eyes followed him closely.
Slowly and carefully, encumbered by the smooth soles of his boots, which were not made for climbing trees, he made his way up to the top boughs where the kitten clung from its claws on the side of the trunk. Its tail lay curled between its legs, its eyes wide with fear.