Except for the McQuoids’ new, familiar-looking, younger, and fitter butler.
“I am afraid the lady is not receiving visitors, Your Grace. On account of its past midnight. Perhaps you can try again at fashionable hours.”
Hart had been called out and good…by a servant. Not shocking, as it was a McQuoid servant. Being denied entry, however, was an unanticipated development; certainly not part of the plan, and as such, caused Hart enough of a pause for Young-Strapping-Butler to close the door in Hart’s face.
Almost.
Hart planted a palm on the panel and, through the three-inch gap, sized up the fellow. “I know she is here, and only recently returned from the theatre. I am not leaving until I see her.”
“Very well, Your Grace.”
Hart narrowed his eyes. He realized the insolent servant seemed familiar because he was familiar—one of Arran McQuoid’s crewmen. Under different circumstances, Hart would have admired the strategic choice. Placing a capable soldier at the house’s front line was wise. There was a war between the last privateers, fighting to keep a foothold in a shrinking industry.
“You may wait on the stoop until fashionable calling hours.”
And this time, the wiry servant used a big shoulder and surprise to his advantage.
Frowning, Hart stared at the closed green-painted door.
What in hell had happened here?
Taking several steps back, Hart drummed a distracted hand against his thigh and contemplated his options. He could break the damned thing down. It would take him several good-go’s, but it would also bring the household down, and an army of McQuoid’s sailors turned servants streaming out for battle.
It was a fight they didn’t want. Not with Hart ready to wage war and climb bloody mountains to…to…leap from a tower.
Hart stopped.
And so it was, Hart found himself putting to use very valuable intelligence collected from the Tremaines’ old war with the McQuoids to his advantage, and climbing not a mountain, but a tree.
A sixty-foot—give or take—plane tree, to be exact. Not that he needed to climb all sixty. By his estimate, forty-five feet would suffice. Nothing at all; not when it meant reaching her. After all, it mattered little if he broke his neck; he’d die of a broken heart if he didn’t win her.
It began as an easy enough task.
The McQuoids did him a favor by leaving a mature branch some six feet from the bottom. As he leaped up, caught the limb in his hands, and swung himself onto his climbing base, he made a note to do the McQuoids a favor in the morning light and to hack down the makeshift step himself.
Any scoundrel could use that foothold to reach the McQuoid daughters.
As he neared ten feet, Hart considered that the Earl of Abington might have seen the sizeable tree brought in for this purpose.
But not even another foot later, Hart flat-out dismissed the possibility on two accounts: one, the earl wouldn’t know what day of the week it was if he was sitting in Sunday sermons, and two, the only window nearby was Fleur’s, and she was the only McQuoid worth keeping.
Not even a quarter of the way up, Hart decided the fact Fleur survived as long as she had was a credit to the lady’s own wits and strength. Then, he promptly resolved to ensure she would never have to worry about anything for the rest of her days.
He realized he’d never taken off his jacket, so at fifteen feet he shrugged it off and dropped it on a lower branch before climbing on.
Only to recall what he had left inside his jacket. Climbing down to retrieve what he needed proved much trickier.
For the next twenty minutes, his sole thought was staying alive.
By the end, he was sweaty and his grip was slick; his eyes burned.
Until at last, some forty or so feet, he reached Fleur’s window.
Or as close to Fleur’s window as he could get.
His breath coming hard, sweat continued to sting his eyes.
And since he was fully committed to a scandal, Hart did the logical thing, not the gentlemanly one.
