Chapter Nine
“A nd this one is a horse pistol,” Chase told Winnie as he rested his hand on the last of the five pistols lying on the carved hall table that the footmen had brought out to the dry moat behind the castle.
The moat had never been wet nor used for any kind of castle defense—it existed only to separate the park from the gardens as a giant ha-ha to keep the sheep and deer from staying into the formal gardens and having at the roses. But it also made for a grand shooting range. It was long and straight, and the fifteen-foot earthen-and-stone embankments on both sides ensured that no windows or passing animals would become accidental victims of a stray shot.
It was the perfect place to give Winnie her first shooting lesson, and today was the perfect time for it. Bates, who had become the girl’s de facto governess during her stay, tasked with keeping the little poppet entertained and out of trouble, was away from the castle, tracking down information about Tessa’s father. Which meant Winnie was left with Chase and Tessa for the day. To keep the girl from being underfoot and causing more hindrance than help, it seemed a good opportunity to take advantage of both the break in weather and a break from packing. So Chase quickly put together a shooting lesson, Tessa put together a picnic, and Winnie was simply beside herself with excitement over all of it.
Including right at that moment, when she laughed at him as if he’d gone daft. “Horses don’t shoot pistols!”
“No, but their riders do. And if you’re going to be a dragoon or a hussar someday—”
“Do not give her any ideas,” Tessa interrupted from where she sat on a blanket, safely to their rear and surrounded by the remains of their picnic.
Chase sent her a grin over his shoulder and continued with Winnie, “Then you have to learn to not only shoot from horseback but also to reload at a dead run.”
Her eyes widened in well-impressed awe. They’d spent the past half hour learning how to properly handle and load a pistol, and she now knew how difficult that was to do simply standing still on solid ground. Chase could practically see the wheels spinning in her head as she imagined having to do it from the back of the bouncing chestnut mare she’d been given to ride while at the castle.
“Which means you need a very special pistol, and this one is designed for just that.” Although, in actually, not even the best cavalry men could reload at a gallop, no matter how special the gun. “Do you see this little ring on the butt? Riders tie the pistol to their saddles by this ring so they don’t lose it during a charge. And for reloading mid-gallop, they need a special ramrod that won’t be dropped while bouncing on horseback, so this pistol has a special swivel ramrod.” He picked up the pistol and showed her the intricate mechanism that allowed the short ramrod to pivot in a circle and ram down into the barrel without coming unattached from the gun. “All the cavalry who fought the French had pistols just like this one. Including me.” He could feel Tessa’s curious gaze on him as he returned the pistol to the table. “This one was mine.”
“Were you a dragoon or hussar in the wars?” Winnie asked, excited at the new information about him.
“I was light cavalry. I did reconnaissance, which meant I rode around the battlefield to find out where the enemy was and reported back to my generals.”
Her little shoulders slumped with disappointment that he hadn’t been directly in the fray. “Oh.”
“But I rode a Prussian Trakehner horse named Blücher.”
That impressed her, and the little imp’s eyes widened like saucers.
“You did not have a horse named Blücher,” Tessa challenged.
He faked incredulity. “Old Blü and I were best of friends, I’ll have you know.”
Tessa gave a long-suffering sigh. “You did not have a horse named after the most famous general in Prussian history and one of the most important generals in the wars against Napoleon. It would be like naming a horse after Wellington.”
“I would never have a horse named Wellington,” Chase countered, as if offended at the idea. “After all, there’s already a horse’s arse named Well—”
“Ahem!”
Winnie broke into a fit of giggles. Chase only encouraged her by giving her a conspiratorial wink that had her nearly rolling on the grass with laughter.
Tessa shook her head in bewilderment at Chase. “How did you manage not to be court-martialed?”
“Because I was good at what I did,” he replied. Then he added, suddenly serious, “ Very good.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he snatched up the pistol, wheeled toward the target, and fired, hitting the circle dead center without even seeming to aim. A small trail of smoke rose from the end of the pistol.
Both Albright women stared at him with expressions of awe.
Then Winnie began to bounce with excitement. “Show me how to do that!”
“All right.” He set down the spent pistol and picked up one of the others that had already been loaded. “Come over here.”
Winnie immediately did as ordered. The girl was so excited about learning to shoot that she trembled. Without having to glance over his shoulder, Chase was certain Tessa was trembling, too, at the idea of the poppet learning to use deadly weapons.
“Turn sideways toward the target, like this.” He took her small shoulders and turned her into the proper position. “Now raise your arm and point it straight at the target, but don’t lock your elbow. You want it to be loose so the force of the recoil doesn’t injure your arm.”
“Like this?” She pointed the heavy gun high above the target to counter its weight and length.
“Almost.” He squatted behind her to bring his shoulders level with hers, then extended his arm down the length of hers to cup the pistol butt in his palm. “Raise your wrist just a bit to point the barrel directly at the target. Just like that—good.”
Winnie bit her bottom lip in concentration.
“Now put your finger on the trigger, but don’t move it until I say so,” he ordered firmly.
She nodded and held her breath.
“The trigger moves hard,” he murmured, keeping a firm hold on the pistol. “So don’t pull it, or you’ll move off the target. Just keep your wrist firm, keep your eyes open and focused on the target, and gently squeeze it back toward you when I say to fire.”
Another breathless nod.
Chase gripped the pistol butt firmly to keep it still. “Fire.”
Winnie closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger. Chase’s arm absorbed the force of the shot, yet it was still strong enough that Winnie let out a soft cry of surprise, her eyes flaring wide. The ball struck the edge of the target, nearly missing, yet it was still a hit.
“Well done, Major,” he told her with a gentle pat to her shoulder as he took the pistol from her hand and rose to his full height. “With a few more rounds of practice, you’ll be a royal sharpshooter.”
She shook her head, barely able to contain her excitement. “I want to be cavalry, just like you.”
Chase felt a swell of fatherly pride he had no right to feel. Was this what it would have been like if he’d had the opportunity to teach Thomas to shoot? “That’s—”
“Guns and horses together!” She let out a squeal of happiness at the thought, not because of any admiration of him. “That’s what I want to do.”
His mouth twisted at that prick to his vanity.
“Ladies don’t shoot and ride, certainly not at the same time,” Tessa reminded them.
“Because they haven’t practiced enough,” Winnie argued back in a sing-song voice. “They spend too much time playing the pianoforte and embroidering and doing other things that have no purpose whatsoever.”
Chase stifled a laugh, but he couldn’t hide the amusement in his eyes as he looked at Tessa. “She’s got you there.”
“Ladies do archery,” Tessa corrected. “They don’t shoot pistols, on horseback or otherwise.”
“ Ladies do archery,” Chase countered pointedly. “Daughter of soldiers shoot and ride.”
“And my father was one of the bravest soldiers who ever fought against Boney,” Winnie said quietly, as if to keep Tessa from overhearing.
Chase’s chest tightened. So the poppet knew about the accusations against the general…and knew enough not to want to wound her sister by mentioning them. “Yes, he was,” Chase confirmed adamantly with a reassuring squeeze to her arm.
“Then I need to practice,” Winnie announced, “so I can be good at both. Can we practice again tomorrow? Oh, please, Chase!” She threw her arms around his waist and tilted back her head to stare up at him, a look of distraught pleading on her face that melted his heart. “Say you will! And Bates can practice with us. He’s a soldier, too.”
He smacked a kiss to her forehead. “Perhaps for a—”
“We won’t have time to practice, I’m afraid,” Tessa answered as she rose to her feet and came forward to join them by the table. Her eyes dulled slightly as she kept them focused on Chase. “We have to finish packing.”
They were almost done with the job, in fact. Over the past two weeks, they’d made faster progress than he’d thought possible, until only the nursery, the attic, and Eleanor’s rooms remained. But those would also be the worst of it, and for one desperate moment, he nearly promised to give nonstop lessons to Winnie just to keep from having to do it.
“No,” Winnie said sharply with a frown as she pulled away from Chase and stepped back, angrily crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to do any more packing. Because once you finish packing, then we have to leave here.” Her expression turned accusatory as she glared at Chase. “And then you’ll leave, and I’ll never get to see you again.”
Her words pierced him like a blade.
“So you have to stay. You have to stay and teach me to shoot and ride and to do all the things that soldiers’ daughters need to know.” She waved a frustrated hand at her sister. “Tessa won’t teach me any of those things.”
“Winnie,” Tessa said calmly, “you have to understand that—”
“Why can’t we all stay here? We can all move into the castle together—there’s more than enough room—and we can all have a jolly time.”
“We can’t, sweet,” Tessa said apologetically, gently brushing her hand over Winnie’s hair.
“Why not?”
“Well, for one,” Chase explained quietly, locking gazes with Tessa over Winnie’s head, “your sister is going to marry Mr. Renslow, and you’ll all live in Derbyshire where his factory is located.”
“Then Tessa should marry you,” Winnie proposed, “and we can all live together here.”
Tessa gave a strangled sound, her hand freezing in mid-brush. “I can’t marry Chase.”
“Why not?” Winnie demanded.
“Because he’s leaving for Spain,” Tessa answered with a firm nod, as if hoping Winnie wouldn’t notice that circular logic. “Now, thank Chase for giving you a shooting lesson, and go inside to ask James the footman to come out to help us pack up the picnic, all right? We’ll talk about all this later.”
Winnie shot her sister a knowing look, then dropped her hands to her sides with a long sigh as she turned to Chase and explained, “We never talk about things later. That’s just her way of saying she’s done arguing.”
“Exactly.” Tessa tugged at Winnie’s braid. “Now go inside and find James.”
“All right.” Dragging her feet in defeat, she blew out a loud sigh of surrender and made her way impossibly slowly toward the end of the moat where it sloped up to meet the terrace. But then she stopped as the sound of hooves rattled across the bridge overhead. When she recognized the rider, her face lit up. “It’s Bates! Bates is back!” She bounced in an excited circle. “He promised to give me a fencing lesson when he returned. Bates, wait for me!”
Then she was off like a shot, racing out of the moat toward the stables—and an unsuspecting Bates. The picnic and footman were instantly forgotten. So was the conversation about Chase marrying Tessa so they could all live together at Cuillin. Thank God.
“That man’s won over Winnie’s heart,” Tessa mumbled as she lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she gazed up at the end of the moat where Winnie was scrambling up at lightening speed. “I’m surprised he was able to leave this morning without her attaching herself to his side.”
“Because he was running errands for me,” Chase admitted and reached for the gun to clean it. “And she couldn’t go with him to do those.”
“Oh?” She stiffened.
“It isn’t what you think.” He picked up the wooden case on the table and placed four of the pistols back inside where they belonged. They were old dueling pistols that held more beauty than accuracy, but they served their purpose in today’s lesson. “The errands have nothing do to with closing up the castle.”
The frustrating chit had the nerve to look insulted. “I wasn’t thinking that.”
He raised a brow in silent accusation, then dropped his attention to closing the case and securely locking it. He didn’t want to take the chance that Winnie might decide to practice shooting on her own. “I’ve asked Bates to look into what exactly happened at Genappe, what orders your father gave.” Or didn’t. But he couldn’t bring himself to say that. “I want to find out what truly happened that day and not what the War Department claims.”
He knew how the War Department had operated during the wars against Napoleon. They wanted victory at all costs, including sacrificing the reputations of commanding officers. Mistakes had clearly been made that day at Genappe, but Chase couldn’t fathom that Major General Albright had been the one who made them.
“Bates received word that a man in your father’s regiment lives in the area,” Chase continued, stepping over to the picnic blanket and helping himself to one of Cook’s lemon-lavender biscuits. “I asked Bates to track him down to find out if he’s willing to share what he saw that day.”
She followed him. “You think there’s a chance that the general was wrongly accused? That his reputation can be saved after all?”
“Wrongly accused, yes,” he said between bites. The biscuit instantly turned bitter on his tongue as he admitted, “But saving his reputation is an entirely different matter.”
“You’ll take me with you when you speak to him, won’t you?” She clutched at his sleeve. “Promise me, Chase.”
“It might come to nothing.”
“Even so,” she said firmly and slid her hand down his arm to clasp his hand, her fingers interlocking with his. “Please.”
“All right.” His shoulders sagged. He had no chance against her pleas, just as he’d had none against Winnie’s. God help the men who ended up wed to the Albright women.
“Good.” She rose up on tiptoes, then dropped back, as if she’d wanted to give him a kiss to the cheek but thought better of it. He didn’t blame her. Her innocent kisses had a habit of turning serious. “Now teach me to fire a horse pistol.”
“I’d have to be daft to teach you how to use a deadly weapon,” he complained. “You might just end up using it on me.”
She cast him a knowing look over her shoulder as she sashayed back to the table. She picked up the pistol, turned it over in her hand as she studied it, then held it out to him. “Load it for me, please.”
“You’d probably ask a condemned man to tie his own noose, too,” he grumbled, yet he did as she asked and readied the pistol’s charge.
She gave him a sly smile as she took the gun from him. “How do I fire it? You had Winnie turn sideways to the target, like this.” She turned her back to him and lined her slender shoulder up with the round target. “And then she raised her arm.” She lifted hers and held it out perfectly straight, except for her wrist which bent so far that the barrel of the pistol pointed at the ground five feet in front of the target. “Like so.”
“Not quite like that.” He came up behind her. “Let me show you.”
He placed his hand on her shoulder and slowly slid it down her arm, pausing to ease her elbow into a slight bend. Her bare arm was warm and smooth beneath his fingers, and he stood close enough to feel both the warmth of her back and the soft movement of her breath. He continued the brush of his hand down her arm to her wrist, where he gently tilted up the pistol until the barrel pointed at the target.
“Keep your arm like this,” he murmured, his face uncomfortably close to hers.
His forearm, bare from having removed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves at the start of the picnic, rested along the length of hers, and his left hand slipped slowly around her waist. He gave her a gentle tug toward him to straighten her back, but the slight movement also brought her backside flush against his front, her round bottom pressing tantalizingly against his groin. His lips rested against her temple. He could smell the delicious scent of her, of lavender and lemon, and he couldn’t resist deeply breathing her in.
She began to turn her head and lift her amber eyes to meet his—
“Keep your gaze straight down the barrel.” His voice was suddenly husky, his lips brushing against her temple with each word. “Don’t move your eyes from the target.”
“All right,” she whispered, and he realized she was holding her breath.
Damnation, so was he. “Take your shot, Tessa.”
The pistol fired. Her arm barely moved, held still by Chase. Beyond the thin trail of smoke rising from the barrel, he could see where the ball had pierced the target, almost dead center.
She didn’t move, not even to lower the gun, and remained within his half-embrace, his arm around her waist and his cheek against her temple. He could feel her breathing turn fast and shallow, could feel the pounding of her heartbeat against his chest. God help him, he wanted to kiss her, for no other reason than because he knew how spicy-sweet her lips would taste, how much comfort he would find if she turned in his arms and returned the kiss. All he had to do was lower his head only a few inches to bring his mouth to hers…
“Thank you,” she whispered and turned her head toward him. The small movement inadvertently nuzzled her cheek against his, and he sucked in a hard breath through clenched teeth as an electric spark jolted him.
He stepped back, reluctantly dropping his arms away from her, and deflected the moment’s tension by complaining, “What good will your gratitude be when you use that pistol against me?”
“I didn’t mean for the shooting lesson. I meant what you’re doing for my father.” Tessa turned toward him, her pretty face somber as her eyes locked with his. “You are a good man, Chase Maddox, no matter how much you try to hide it. Especially from yourself.”
She handed him the spent pistol. An ironic peace offering. Then she picked up her shawl from where she’d left it on the blanket, pausing to look down at what was left of the cold chicken and other dishes that Mrs. Kennings had put together for them. “I’ll ask James to clear up the picnic.” Her shoulders sagged with a heavy sigh as she glanced up at the bridge where Winnie had disappeared after Bates. “But first I have to make certain Winnie doesn’t skewer the butler.”
The corner of Chase’s mouth curled into the start of a faint smile, only for his amusement to fade as he watched her walk away.
A good man? He knew better.