Beyond Compare (2 page)

Wellington had moved during her climb and now unfortunately perched even farther up in the tree. Kyria sat down and scooted carefully out on her branch, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of apple and extended it toward the bird.

“See? A treat, Wellie. Come here and I’ll give it to you,” she coaxed. “Good Wellie. Come here.”

“Hello,” the parrot responded, and let out a noise that sounded remarkably like a cackle of laughter.

“Yes. Hello.” Kyria hid her exasperation and wiggled her hand a little toward the bird. “See? A treat for Wellie.” She patted her shoulder. Carefully she edged out farther onto the limb, still coaxing the bird to come to her.

As she inched along the branch, she wondered how much farther she could go along the narrowing limb. She stopped, steadying herself with one hand on the branch and with the other holding out the piece of apple. “Here, Well—”

There was a loud crack, and suddenly, terrifyingly, Kyria was falling. She whacked into a branch below her and slid from it, turning, grasping frantically. Her hands caught and clung and suddenly she was no longer falling, but clinging to a branch. Below her, several of the women were screaming as they watched her. Kyria looked down at them, her stomach doing a sick flip-flop when she saw how far from the ground she dangled. She was going to die, she thought, and all from trying to save a silly parrot.

Then she looked out across the front lawn and beyond, and there she saw a horse, bay coat glinting in the sunlight, pounding along the driveway toward the tree. A man sat on the animal’s back, bent low over the horse’s neck, riding as one with his mount. His hat
had fallen off and his wind-whipped hair glinted gold in the sunlight. A warmth started in Kyria’s chest and she felt a sudden surge of hope.

She tightened her grip on the branch, watching him ride like a centaur toward her. The guests and servants scattered from his path as he leaped the low hedge separating the drive from the lawn and raced toward the tree. Kyria felt her hands slipping on the branch, and her stomach knotted with fear.

The rider reined to a halt beneath the tree, standing up in his stirrups and reaching up toward her. “Let go,” he called. “I’ll catch you.”

For a moment longer Kyria clung, afraid to let go. Then, with a deep breath, she closed her eyes and opened her hands. She fell, and for an instant terror gripped her. Then she crashed into the stranger’s chest and his arms went around her, as her momentum toppled them both off his horse and they hit the ground with a thud.

Kyria lay stunned. Slowly she opened her eyes. She was lying against the rider’s hard chest, the cloth of his white shirt beneath her cheek; she could hear the pounding of his heart. She moved, carefully noting that everything seemed to be working properly. She had survived. She raised her head from the man’s chest and found herself looking down into the bluest pair of eyes she had ever seen.

She felt as if she could not breathe, could not look away. He grinned up at her, a dimple popping into his tanned cheek in a way that made her heart stumble. It was a sensation Kyria had never felt before, and it startled and annoyed her.

“Well, hey, darlin’,” he said, his eyes alight with amusement, his voice deep and softly accented. “If I
had known you could just pluck a beautiful woman out of a tree in England, I’d have come over here sooner.”

The timbre of his voice, the lazy, slow way his words slid out, sent a strange warmth twisting through Kyria’s insides. She felt herself blush, and she realized that she wanted to giggle. The impulse irritated her even more; she had never, even in her first season, behaved like a simpering, giggling schoolgirl. The easy amusement on the handsome stranger’s face told her that he was accustomed to foolish females acting this way when he smiled at them. Kyria scowled.

“I fail to find the amusement in this,” she retorted, sounding annoyingly prissy even to her own ears.

“Do you?” His smile did not dim. “Personally, I always enjoy rescuing pretty girls from trees.”

Kyria looked at him repressively. The man was really quite irritating, she thought. He hadn’t even the decency to pretend that she had not acted in a reckless and foolish way. A gentleman would have allowed everyone present to ignore what had just happened. Worse, he was actually trying to flirt with her!

“I didn’t need rescuing,” she told him haughtily.

His grin grew even wider. “Didn’t you, now? My mistake.”

Kyria grimaced and started to sit up. For an instant, the arm he still had looped around her waist stiffened, holding her against him in their far-too-intimate position. Her eyes flashed and she started to give him a blistering set-down, but before she could speak, he released her and rose lithely to his feet, the insufferable grin still in place.

He bent and offered Kyria a hand up. Pointedly she ignored his outstretched hand and stood, looking across to where the servants and guests were all gazing at
them in astonishment, apparently rooted to the spot in shock. Her getting to her feet seemed to release the others from their paralysis, and they all started toward Kyria, a babble of words rising from them.

“Oh, my lady!” Smeggars was the first to reach them. “Are you hurt?”

“I am fine,” Kyria assured the butler, shaking out her tangled skirts. It made her color all over again to think of how much leg she had exposed to her rescuer.

“Cousin Kyria!” Wilhemina seized the opportunity to burst into sobs, burying her face in her handkerchief.

“Damned watering pot!” Lord Penhurst commented in the trumpeting sort of voice he considered an undertone.

“Well, I never…” Cousin Wilhemina’s companion began indignantly, but one stern glare from Lady Rochester stopped the woman’s words.

Lady Rochester’s maid had apparently come to her mistress’s aid, for the indomitable old woman now had her head covered with an elegant, lace-trimmed black cap. She leaned on her cane, looking at Kyria, and let out a loud harrumph. “You’ll break your neck one day, Kyria, the way you go at things. Mark my words.”

“Yes, Aunt,” Kyria replied meekly, too used to her great-aunt’s strictures to bridle at them.

“Who the devil are you?” Lady Rochester went on bluntly, pointing at Kyria’s rescuer.

The stranger turned his charming smile on the old woman and swept her an elegant bow. “Rafe McIntyre, ma’am, at your service.”

Lady Rochester did her best to look disapproving, but Kyria was sure she saw a glimmer of a smile flicker across her mouth.

“You’re an American?” Cousin Wilhemina asked, tears forgotten as she stared at McIntyre.

“Yes, ma’am, I have to confess that I am. I’m a friend of the groom’s.”

“Oh!” Kyria whirled back to face the man, realizing now who he was. “You are Stephen St. Leger’s partner.” He was also Stephen’s good friend and would act as his best man at the upcoming wedding. She had, she thought with another spurt of embarrassment, been rather rude to the man.

“Former partner,” he corrected, and turned his brilliant blue gaze back to her.

He was, Kyria thought, undeniably handsome. The bright eyes and the bone-melting smile would have been enough for any man, she thought, but in addition, he had been blessed with a tall, wide-shouldered frame and well-modeled face framed by thick, light brown hair, just a trifle long and shaggy, and sun-kissed with streaks of gold. Kyria felt sure that half the women in the house would be swooning over him. Any hesitation they might have at his lack of aristocratic background would be more than offset by the fortune he had reputedly made in silver mining when he and Stephen were partners. For some reason, the thought made her feel even more annoyed.

“I must say,” Lord Marcross put in, walking up to McIntyre and extending his hand. “Deuced good riding there.”

“The credit belongs to the horse, I’m afraid,” McIntyre said, easily turning the compliment aside, and looking for his mount.

The bay stood a few feet away, grazing unconcernedly. McIntyre grinned and walked over to take his reins and run a hand down the horse’s neck. “Half the
time he looks like he’s about to fall asleep, but he can fly.”

“Did you buy him in England?” Cousin Albert asked.

“Ireland,” McIntyre answered, and in the next moment several of the men were clustered around him, talking horses.

“Oh!” Kyria remembered the parrot. “Wellie! Where is he? Did he fly away?”

She turned to look up into the tree. Sure enough, there was a flash of red and blue as the parrot flitted from one branch to another, somewhat lower down than previously, and let out a squawk, apparently peeved at being ignored.

Rafe looked up from his conversation. He glanced at Kyria. “Is that what you were trying to do up there? Catch the parrot?”

Kyria nodded.

Rafe put two fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle. To Kyria’s vast irritation, the parrot rose from his perch and flew down in a wide circle to alight on McIntyre’s shoulder.

“Good Wellie,” the bird croaked.

Kyria glared at the pair of them. Rafe chuckled and ran his finger over the bird’s head.

“Obnoxious bird,” Lady Rochester said bitterly. “I always said it’s ridiculous to keep a parrot in England. Belongs in Africa.”

“The Solomon Islands, Aunt,” Kyria corrected. “It is indigenous to the Solomons.”

“Never heard of them,” Lady Rochester sniffed, dismissing the place. “I can’t think why your brother thought the creature was a proper gift.”

“I have a cage, my lady,” Jenny, the maidservant,
said tentatively, holding up a small cage. “Cooper went up to the nursery and brought down one of the cages.”

Rafe cast a questioning look toward Kyria, and she nodded. “Yes, please, put him in the thing. Then take him up to the nursery, Jenny, and transfer him to the big cage.”

At Jenny’s cringing look, she relented. “All right. Just leave him there for the moment. I will have the twins take him up. Where
are
those two, anyway?”

Jenny cast a glance behind her, and Kyria followed her gaze. The twins’ tutor stood at the edge of the crowd, looking grim. Kyria motioned to him, and he came forward rather reluctantly.

“I don’t know where they are, my lady,” he began, forestalling Kyria’s question. “I left them working on their geography and went back into my room to retrieve my Latin-grammar book. When I returned, they had vanished.” He scowled. “I must tell you, my lady, young Master Alexander and Master Constantine exhibit a lack of decorum that I find unacceptable.”

“Do you?” Kyria asked in a deceptively silky voice. “Well, Mr. Thorndike, I have to tell you that I find that
you
exhibit a certain lack of skill in keeping eager and inquisitive minds interested in their subjects. I believe that the duchess explained to you the methods by which she prefers her children to be taught. When I examined their study tablets last week, I—”

The man bridled. “I teach, my lady, as I was taught.”

“By rote and repetition?” Kyria queried, one brow raised. “Geography can be a fascinating subject, an exploration of lands and people different from ourselves—rather than a memorization of the names of countries and their capitals. I think it might be wise for
my mother to look over some of their recent work and perhaps explain to you again what she requires.”

“That won’t be necessary, my lady,” the tutor replied icily. “For
I
am tendering my resignation.” With that he turned on his heel and marched away, back ramrod straight.

Kyria let out a soft groan. “Oh, dear, that’s the third one this year. Perhaps I spoke too hastily.”

Beside her Rafe chuckled. “Well, speaking from experience, I imagine the boys will be quite happy to have lost a tutor.” He paused, then added with a grin and a raised eyebrow, “Constantine and Alexander? The emperors?”

“Yes. They’re twins, you see, and Papa is a classicist. And I am sure that they
will
be happy.” She sighed.

At that moment, the butler, who had politely retreated from the guests, returned, one of the housemaids in tow. “My lady…”

“Yes, Smeggars?”

“Martha has some knowledge of your brothers’ whereabouts, my lady.” He turned a stern eye on the young maid, who was twisting her apron between her hands nervously. “Tell her, Martha.”

“Um, well, I’m not for certain, my lady,” the girl began shyly.

“That’s all right. Tell me what you think.”

“Well, um, I was cleaning out the grate in the nursery this morning, my lady, and I heard the twins talking to each other like, and, well, it sounded like they were going to the hunt.”

“The hunt?” Kyria repeated blankly. “Are you sure?”

“No, miss. I mean, I heard them say something
about the squire, and then one of them, Master Con, I think, said, well, they could intercede—no, intercept—them, I think. They were talking about where the hunt would run like.”

“All right. Thank you, Martha.” Kyria frowned, puzzled.

“Is there a hunt today?” Rafe asked.

“Yes. Our neighbor, Squire Winton, is the master of the hunt, and he was having one. Several of our guests went to it this morning, actually, but I cannot imagine why the twins would be talking about going to it. They are far too young. They aren’t quite eleven, and anyway, they have always spoken of the hunt in terms of the greatest loathing. They love animals, you see, and—”