Page 20 of The Homecoming (The De Montforte Brothers #6)

Chapter Sixteen

H ours passed. Darkness descended, and with it came the rain.

It started as a soft whispering against the windows and grew steadier as the last bit of daylight faded from the sky.

Outside in the fields, spring lambs baaa hed for their mothers, and in the stables, the blooded horses of the de Montforte brothers settled down for the night.

Frogs shrilled in the moat, an owl hooted somewhere off in the distance, and high, high in an old copper beech, a kitten huddled in the crook of branch, wet, bedraggled, and meowing.

The child who cried for that kitten had long since fallen into an exhausted slumber after helping her parents, keen to distract her, to choose the name Simon for the newest member of their family.

That finally decided, mother and children all asleep in the big bed with a fire crackling in the hearth, Charles had quietly kissed each of them and then left the room.

He went downstairs, glided past the parlor where Nerissa was entertaining the family at the harpsichord, and walked out into the rainy darkness.

He headed for the tree where the kitten had last been seen.

Please, don’t still be up there. Please, have come down.

But he heard it long before he reached the beech. The meowing was plaintive, mournful, pleading, and Charles felt his heart catch.

He wanted to be angry at the innocent little animal for going up the tree, for staying up there, but that was ridiculous of course.

The bedraggled creature was only a kitten.

It surely didn’t want to be in the tree anymore than Charles wanted to go up to retrieve it.

He wanted to be angry at Lucien for creating this—this mess—but maybe Amy was right, and Lucien couldn’t have predicted the cat’s actions, and maybe he’d only been bringing it out to little Mary.

Like hell he was, he thought.

He wanted to be angry at Ruaidri O’Devir, but as Charles stood there in the rain, the tree branches overhead sending big, fat drops plopping down onto his eyelashes and cheeks as he contemplated this climb he was dreading, he knew that that was ridiculous too.

The little voice of his conscience, which had been clamoring to be heard these past few days, now became a dull roar, and he was no longer able to tamp it down or drown it out.

I have behaved abominably.

They are leaving tomorrow. They crossed an ocean just to come and visit us all, a dangerous journey no matter how one looks at it, and I have been dreadful to my brother-in-law.

I have been rude and awful, and in being so, I have upset my little sister whom I love so much.

It is my fault and my fault alone, that things have turned out the way they have.

He wiped his hands over his face, disgusted with himself.

My fault.

He felt sick.

Meow...

And now the kitten’s distress only added to his burden of guilt and shame.

The quicker he got the poor little thing down, the better.

He took a deep and bracing breath and approached the tree.

This was the last damned thing he wanted to be doing out here in the rainy darkness.

There wasn’t even a moon to light his way.

He laid his hand against the bark. It was wet.

Cold. And it would be slippery. Dangerously so.

“What the—?”

A rope hung from the big limb closest to the ground. It was swinging, as though it had only recently been used. Beneath it were a pair of shoes and someone’s stockings.

“Who’s up there?” Charles demanded. “Gareth? Andrew?”

There was a pause. And then, an Irish voice. “Good evenin’, Lord Charles.”

“What the hell are you doing out here?”

“Same thing I suspect ye’re doing. Rescuin’ this damned cat.”

“It’ll come down.”

“And ye believe that?”

“Obviously not, otherwise I wouldn’t be out here.”

“Well, I don’t believe it either.”

Charles pressed his fingers to his forehead. “It is not your responsibility to rescue my daughter’s cat. It is my responsibility, and mine alone.”

“Ah, well. I needed some fresh air, so figured I might as well try to fetch her.”

High above the tree and its crown of branches and leaves, the clouds thinned and parted and a welcome bit of moonlight shone through. There, some fifteen or so feet up, Ruaidri O’Devir was comfortably perched on a large limb, looking quite at home.

Charles eyed the rope, the trunk of the tree, and considered the best way to begin his climb. “I’m coming up.”

“Ye’re welcome to, but I’m already halfway there.

Besides, if we work together ’twill go faster.

Hard to see through the leaves and branches above, can’t quite tell where that cat is.

Maybe ye can direct me?” He stood on the limb, grasped the thick span of a branch above, hooked his arms around it, and hoisted himself a few feet farther up, swinging his legs up and over the next limb with a dexterity and ease which left Charles open-mouthed with grudging admiration.

“Uh ... yes, I can do that,” Charles said, feeling both relieved—and guilty that he felt relieved.

“Besides, I’ve got good eyesight in the dark, I do. I’ll get the kitten, bring her down to you, and you can take her back in to yer little girl, get her all dried off and warmed up.”

“Why are you out here? Why are you doing this?”

O’Devir grunted as he hauled himself up to the next limb. His foot slipped briefly and with a curse, he caught himself. A shower of raindrops, shaken loose, fell atop Charles’s upturned face.

“I was worried about the kitten,” O’Devir said, and climbed another few feet. “Could hear the damned thing meowing from our window.”

“Does Nerissa know you’re out here?”

“Hell, no.” And then, “Does Lady Charles know that you are?”

“I did not tell her. She would worry.”

“Women. They do that. Doesn’t do a soul a damned bit o’ good.”

“Indeed. Best to just ... just get on with things.”

The Irishman crouched on his limb, stood with impeccable balance, hooked his arms around another branch, and with a grunt, hauled himself up higher, sending another shower of raindrops pelting down.

“Be careful up there,” Charles said tightly, looking up. He felt his palms sweating in growing unease.

O’Devir paused, parting a branch and looking up through the wet leaves at the kitten still so far above his head. “C’mon, ye bugger,” he called gently, and then switched heatedly to Irish, leaving Charles wondering what the hell he’d said.

“What does that mean?” he demanded.

“It means, get yer feckin’ carcass down here right now because I’ve got better things t’ be doin’ than rescuin’ a goddamned cat who can damn well get herself down far easier than I can get myself up.”

Charles couldn’t help it. A snort of laughter escaped him, and far above his head he heard the Irishman laugh too.

Something lightened in his chest.

“What can I get you?” he called up.

“Nothin’ right now, but when you and I get finished here, I’m up for a glass o’ whiskey to warm me bones. I’m soaked through.”

Charles, feeling quite useless, wiped the rain from his eyes with the back of his hand, and tilting his head back, watched anxiously.

The clouds were thinning, the rain beginning to taper off.

The wind sighed through the leaves above his head and there, silhouetted against the moonlit clouds, he saw the pathetic form of the kitten, huddled against the same high branch to which it had fled hours before.

“Come on ... come on, ye miserable bag o’ shite,” the Irishman called. “Let’s go. Come on, now.” He eased himself out along the limb, holding a branch to steady himself. It shook suddenly beneath his grip, and a cascade of water rained down onto Charles.

“Can you see her?” he called up.

“I can, now.”

“Is she moving?”

“Aye, she’s moving,” O’Devir called back. “Farther out along the branch.”

Damnation. “Let’s just leave it until morning. The rain has stopped ... that cat will be fine and once it’s daylight, if it’s not down by then, at least we can see what we’re doing.”

“I can see.” More movement, grunting, and O’Devir hauled himself up yet higher.

“There’s no way those branches up there can support your weight,” Charles warned.

“I don’t plan to climb that far. In fact, I’m hopin’ that as I get closer, she’ll get brave and come runnin’ to me. Poor mite’s probably just scared to move. She just needs—”

There was a sudden crack, a rush of noise and in an instant, a shower of water, foliage, and branches as the limb broke beneath O’Devir and came crashing down.

Charles was slammed to the ground and found himself lying face-down on the wet grass, leaves in his eyes, twigs in his hair, and branches scraping the back of his wet neck.

Twisting out from beneath it, he clawed the debris from out of his face and staggered to his feet.

“O’Devir?” He pushed through the downed limb with its still shaking branches, searching in the darkness, suddenly desperate. “Where are you? Oh, hell... ”

His heart stilled.

For there, a few feet away in the dim moonlight, his brother-in-law lay on the wet grass, the tree limb that had given way beneath him lying across his chest and pinning him to the ground.

“O’Devir!”

Charles ran to him and with a strength he didn’t know he had, grasped the limb and hauled it from the other man’s chest. O’Devir didn’t move. Blood darkened his white lawn shirt, and his body was deathly still.

“Oh, dear God. Oh, my God, oh, my God... ” Charles fell to his knees and frantically put his ear to the Irishman’s chest. “Captain!”

A scratching, skittering sound from above and then a thump as the kitten, backing down the tree, hit the ground and fled off into the darkness toward the house.

Ruaidri O’Devir remained unmoving.

Horror-stricken, Charles slid his hands beneath his brother-in-law, struggled to lift him, and with the other man’s inert body over his shoulder, hurried to the house.