His body propelled by a strange, furious energy, Gareth took off even faster. His arms were pumping, and his legs were burning, and his shirt would surely be forever soiled with sweat, but he didn’t care. He was going to catch that bloody woman before she entered her house, and when he did…
Hell, he didn’t know what he was going to do with her, but it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Hyacinth skidded around the last corner, slowing down just enough to glance over her shoulder. Her mouth opened as she spied him, and then, her entire body tensed with determination, she took off for the servants’ entrance in the back.
Gareth’s eyes narrowed with satisfaction. She was going to have to fumble for the key. She’d never make it now. He slowed a bit, just enough to attempt to catch his breath, then eased his gait into a stalk.
She was in for it now.
But instead of reaching behind a brick for a key, Hyacinth just opened the door.
Bloody hell. They hadn’t locked the door behind them when they left.
Gareth vaulted into another sprint, and he almost made it.
Almost.
He reached the door just as she shut it in his face.
And his hand landed on the knob just in time to hear the lock click into place.
Gareth’s hand formed a fist, and he itched to pound it against the door. More than anything he wanted to bellow her name, propriety be damned. All it would do was force their wedding to be held even sooner, which was his aim, anyway.
But he supposed some things were far too ingrained in a man, and he was, apparently, too much of a gentleman to destroy her reputation in such a public manner.
“Oh, no,” he muttered to himself, striding back to the front of the house, “all destruction shall be strictly in private.”
He planted his hands on his hips and glared up at her bedroom window. He’d got himself in once; he could do it again.
A quick glance up and down the street assured him that no one was coming, and he quickly scaled the wall, his ascent much easier this time, now that he knew exactly where to place his hands and feet. The window was still slightly open, just as he’d left it the last time—not that he’d thought he was going to have to climb in again.
He jammed it up, tumbled through, and landed with a thud on the carpet just as Hyacinth entered through the door.
“You,” he growled, coming to his feet like a cat, “have some explaining to do.”
“Me?” Hyacinth returned. “Me? I hardly think—” Her lips parted as she belatedly assessed the situation. “And get out of my room!”
He quirked a brow. “Shall I take the front stairs?”
“You’ll go back out the window, you miserable cur.”
Gareth realized that he’d never seen Hyacinth angry. Irritated, yes; annoyed, certainly. But this…
This was something else entirely.
“How dare you!” she fumed. “How dare you.” And then, before he could even begin to reply, she stormed to his side and smacked him with the heels of both of her hands. “Get out!” she snarled. “Now!”
“Not until you”—he punctuated this with a pointed finger, right against her breastbone—“promise me that you will never do anything as foolish as what you did tonight.”
“Unh! Unh!” She let out a choking sort of noise, the kind one makes when one cannot manage even a single intelligible syllable. And then finally, after a few more gasps of fury, she said, her voice dangerously low, “You are in no position to demand anything of me.”
“No?” He lifted one of his brows and looked down at her with an arrogant half smile. “As your future husband—”
“Do not even mention that to me right now.”
Gareth felt something squeeze and turn over in his chest. “Do you plan to cry off?”
“No,” she said, looking at him with a furious expression, “but you took care of that this evening, didn’t you? Was that your purpose? To force my hand by rendering me unmarriageable for any other man?”