“I’d suggest you keep the vicious brute out of trees in the future,” he told her sternly, trying to harden his heart against the look of hero worship that she was bending upon him. Don’t get involved with the locals, that had always been his motto, and it had stood him in good stead for the many campaigns he had undertaken across the breadth of Europe. He wasn’t about to let a fresh-faced young chit make him break his vow of disinterest, no matter how heroic she made him feel. “You can’t count on having a handy rescuer to be lost on the way to Copenhagen, and thus available for service to you, both of which I was.”

“Thank you,” she cried, her happiness complete. Clutching the hell-spawn cat in one hand, she slid down from the not insubstantial height of Galahad’s broad back with an air that bespoke much practice in the art of horse sliding. She continued to beam up at Leo…for about three seconds, after which time shrieking and arm waving commenced, propitiated by the cat’s leap from her arms, directly onto Galahad’s neck.

His horse was many things—brave, stalwart, and at times, downright stubborn—but when faced with four sets of claws digging into his neck, he protested the offense in the only way he knew: he bolted.

“Francis, no!” the child screamed and dashed after the cat, which had leaped off the horse and turned into a feline streak of gray and white, headed straight for a barn, the roof of which was visible over a copse of leafy trees.

“Galahad!” Leo thundered, but it did no good. The horse leaped over the stone fence that bounded the pasture, and was off down the dirt road before he could do so much as shake his fist and threaten the horse with heinous retribution.

In the short space of three seconds, Leo found himself alone, up a tree, and bleeding from several scratches on both his face and hands.

“There are times,” he said, looking upward in case some deity or other might be interested in bending an interested ear his way, “when I firmly believe that I’m the victim of a dread curse. That time in Berlin when I was caught in the countess’s bedchamber was one. The recent happenings in St. Petersburg was another. This time, however—stranded in a tree, horseless, and most likely too late to catch the ship sailing for Germany—has to take the top honors.” He sighed, considered continuing his self-pity for a bit longer, but decided that wouldn’t help him out of his present circumstances. “At the very least, we’re having decent weather.”

As if on cue, a group of pregnant gray clouds that he would have sworn weren’t there five minutes earlier drifted across the sun. The gentle pat, pat, pat sounds on the leaves around him made him sigh again.

“Of course. How silly of me to tempt fate.” It took him a good twenty minutes to figure a way out of the tree; without the handy stepping stool that was Galahad or the presence of lower tree limbs, he had a hard time negotiating his descent, but in the end, after much swearing and a little more blood loss thanks to some jagged broken branches, he fell the last few yards to the ground, landing with a heavy thump.