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Her fears were absurd.

She was his brother’s daughter.

Would he really harm her?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

TREES AND HOW TO CLIMB THEM.

That noise was not from the staircase.

Ella’s head swung sharply, trying to locate it.

Her lips opened to scream, hopefully loud enough that Jarvis would hear her on the level below, but at that very moment, she heard a rumbling curse.

Her heart thumped once and settled.

She hopped out of bed and went to the window, peering out at the moonlit garden. “What on earth are you doing?” she called.

Fiennes was making his way steadily up the sturdy oak tree outside her window. “Something I haven’t done since childhood,” he growled, reaching up to grasp a tree limb, his arm muscle flexing. “And for bloody good reasons,” he added.

He wasn’t wearing a coat, and his linen shirt was almost transparent. Ella settled down to enjoy herself.

Her heart was still beating fast, but for a much better reason now.

Fiennes caught the branch with his other hand and pulled himself up until he could throw a leg over the tree limb.

He was just below her now. He wore no hat or neck cloth. His hair was tousled, his cheekbones made sharper by moonlit shadows.

“Good evening, my lady,” he said, as if he were in a ballroom, rather than a tree.

“Don’t bow,” she told him, laughing. “You might fall down.”

“If you wouldn’t mind backing up,” Fiennes said, “I shall hurl myself across the divide between us.”

She stayed where she was in the window frame, her breath quickening. “It is not proper for a lady to welcome a gentleman into her bedchamber at night.”

“The hell with propriety.” His deep voice surrounded her in the quiet night, full of desire and promise. “You’re my wife as of today, and I need to know you’re safe.”

“I am safe!”

She felt safe—now that he was there. She moved away from the window so he could enter.

One long, muscular leg emerged over the sill, then another, and then Fiennes was standing before her, wearing only breeches and a white shirt. Ella sat down on her bed, her eyes widening. “Your stockings? Coat?”

“They would have made it harder to climb the tree,” Fiennes said. “I couldn’t risk falling, Ella. Not before I’ve bequeathed you my worldly goods.”

Tears pressed at the back of her throat. “Oh, Fiennes.”

“No crying,” he said, sitting down and pulling her to him. “Your hair is darker when it’s damp—or is that just the effect of moonlight?”

“I was too tired to dry it properly.” She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “No one has ever cared for me enough to climb a tree.”

“To the contrary, Josephina proves her affection regularly by climbing that very trunk,” he said dryly. One of his hands ran through her tumbled, damp curls. “I would like to bathe you.”

“Fiennes!”

“Tomorrow,” he whispered in her ear. “Tonight we’ll merely sleep.”