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 hathad 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 Ihad 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 atthem 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