Chapter Twenty-Nine #3
“I will develop the strengths that I need to develop.” She had learned to iron passably well, had she not?
“Diablo is not one I need in my repertoire. Nor are lawn bowls or tennis or croquet. Once this season is over and Lady Wharton returns to the country, I will no longer be attending events such as this, and the pursuit would be meaningless.”
His smile dropped and his posture lost its verve. That she had no need for tennis affected him oddly. He gathered his bearing and scanned the rest of the green. “Perhaps shooting?” He gestured toward the farthest spot from them. “That is not a useless skill.”
“It is a skill I have no need of. I’ve never fired a gun. There is no reason for me to do so now.” In front of him, or anyone else.
A crease formed between his eyebrows. “You live alone and you walk through London at god-awful hours in the morning.”
“My flat is in a secure building, with a porter who doesn’t let anyone in unless he’s sure of who they are.” She scowled. “Except you, last night, apparently. But how many dukes are likely to pose a threat? That would be like getting hit by lightning twice.”
He winced. “Even so, you walk through London alone.”
“With a heavy typecase with which I could knock someone flat, should I choose to.” She’d never felt the need. She walked tall and proud, at least she had until recently, and that confidence had been enough to keep ne’er-do-wells away.
Peter huffed. “You still need to know how to protect yourself. We can address the question of whether you need to own a gun at a later date.”
“I don’t.”
This time when he took her arm, it was to hold her fast. When he tugged in the direction of the targets, she tripped along. “There are other reasons for knowing how to shoot,” he said. “Hunting, for example.”
“The likelihood of me hunting seems very, very low. Deer are rarely a problem in London and it’s hardly a hobby for women of my station.”
“Sometimes things change,” he grunted. When they were fifteen yards away from the target, he picked up a gun from the shooting rest and handed it to her.
She held it with the fewest fingers required to keep it from falling and going off. “I told you, I don’t know how to shoot a gun. There is no prospect of me hitting that target. In fact, there’s a much larger chance of me hitting a person, and then I will be unemployed and imprisoned.”
She attempted to return the gun. He declined to accept it. “Unless you can bend the laws of physics, you will not shoot anyone. Simply keep it pointed over there and don’t touch the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”
“Lady Wharton needs me.”
He looked over his shoulder to where Agatha was deep in conversation. “She gave me permission to enjoy your company for at least the next forty minutes.” He put his hands behind his back like a child, refusing to take the gun.
Stress was gathering at the base of her throat. Her muscles tensed and it was all she could do not to flee back the way they’d come. “I do not want to do this. Especially not in front of a crowd of people who will see just how incompetent at it I am.”
He looked at her differently now. His empathy made her think she’d gotten through to him.
He took the gun from her, letting it fall by his side.
He turned the way they’d come and scanned the green.
She hoped he was not looking for another diversion to impose upon her.
“Can I trust you not to run if I leave you for a moment?” he asked.
“Do you have the courage to remain in one spot?”
She narrowed her eyes, his insult rasping her pride. “I will wait here for two minutes.”
As Peter strode toward two men who were loitering at the edge of the field, Eleanor couldn’t drag her eyes from the fine figure he cut.
His jacket flapped in the wind, and as it did so, it revealed long and muscular legs.
He had one hand in his pocket and was sauntering with all the confidence a man of his status should.
It did funny, annoying things to her stomach. The same funny, annoying things it had done last night. When he returned, she experienced the pleasure of his walking toward her, and warmth stirred between her thighs. Goddamn, he was exquisite. Infuriating and arrogant, but exquisite.
“It’s sorted,” he said as he reached her.
“What’s sorted?” She cursed quietly as he picked up the gun and put it into her hands, ignoring her protests.
He took her by her shoulders, staring deeply at her in a way that, oddly, steadied her nerves.
“I promise there will be no one paying attention to you. May I show you how to hold it properly, at least? Because the way you’re doing so is not it, and I can’t imagine that the most curious person I have ever met could resist learning this one little thing. ”
Blast. He really did know how to steer her. She’d seen photographs of men holding rifles and could imagine the feel and sound of them. But, if she held one herself, her understanding would be more thorough.
“Fine.” They moved farther from the rest of the party. He was half a step behind her, and she shivered at the sense of him at her shoulder. Mats had been set up in front of each target. She chose the center one and set her feet firmly.
“Here.” He guided her arm until it was perpendicular to the target.
His touch made the insides of her ears itch, so she shook him off, put the butt of the rifle against her shoulder, and held the barrel with her other hand.
“If you hold it like that, it’s going to put your shoulder out of commission for a week.
” In order to adjust her grip, he shifted.
From behind, he wrapped her with both arms. Even through gloves, his hands were warm against hers.
His face sat inches from her neck and she shivered at the heat of his breath.
The hair on the back of her neck rose. She hoped he couldn’t see how the flutter of her pulse at her throat strengthened.
For a heartbeat, her vision blurred and her breath caught. It had been one thing to be encircled in his arms last night, when alcohol had dulled her senses. It was another thing altogether to do so sober.
“You couldn’t correct my form while facing me?” Her muttered words were uneven.
She couldn’t see his smile, but she could feel the change in his breath on the back of her ear. “You’re the one who said you’d shoot someone,” he said. “I’ve already given you a motive. Let’s not give you an opportunity.”
“I’m not going to shoot you.” She rolled her shoulders as another shiver traveled the length her. It was a mistake. It simply pressed her deeper into his embrace.
“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
He wasn’t wrong. “I haven’t thought about it recently.” His chuckle was low and warm and the nerves on the side of her face crackled and sparked. She twitched her lips from side to side to scratch the tickle.
“That is reassuring,” he said. “Now lift the gun three inches. When you look through that eyepiece, the crosshairs should fall at the dead center of the target before you shoot.”
She craned her head to glare at him but all she succeeded in doing was putting her lips a breath away from his. She whipped back toward the target. “That is not what I agreed to.”
He raised his hands, holding them away from hers in mock surrender. His body didn’t shift, though. It was still pressed uncomfortably close. “Hypothetically,” he said. “When you shoot hypothetically, because we’ve already determined that you won’t risk failing in front of an audience.”
She didn’t risk failing at all, audience or not.
To avoid responding, she returned her attention to the end of the barrel.
“Hypothetically, if my crosshairs were dead center, would that be the time to pull the trigger or is there another step?” Books never went into that much detail.
They described the crack and the gun smoke, and the ringing ears, but they never described the mechanics of pulling the trigger.
She felt him nod and his hands traveled to her hips. The gun almost fired right then. “You pull it slowly,” he said. “Calmly. If you jerk, your aim will be ruined.”
“Would be ruined.”
“Exactly. Now, wait for it.”
Before she could ask what it was she was waiting for, there was a crash, a shriek, and cursing.
As Eleanor swung, Peter grabbed the barrel of the gun to keep it pointed at the ground.
One of the men he’d spoken to had collided with Lady Cecilia.
They were in a tangle of skirts and parasols.
Even from this distance, she could hear Lady Cecilia shout, “You fiend! You miserable cur!”
The young man attempted to stand and fell down all over again, his apologies unintelligible.
“Quick,” Peter urged, spinning them both and putting the gun back against her shoulder. “There is no one watching.”
It took a moment for her to realize that Peter had orchestrated a moment of privacy, an opportunity to fire a weapon for the first time with no one able to witness it. Courage, she thought. Still, she couldn’t move.
One hand on her hip, the other against her shoulder, he squared her to the target. “Get those butterflies into formation, Eleanor. They should work for you.”
It seemed impossible. They weren’t butterflies in her belly, they were pterodactyls, and they were frenzied.
But the pressure of him right there, waiting for her to prove herself a coward or not, gave her no option.
Holding her breath, she straightened her arm, allowed him to adjust the position of it, closed one eye, looked down the scope, and fired.
The kickback was stronger than she could’ve predicted. She stumbled backward, and if he hadn’t wrapped an arm around her waist, she would have landed in the grass.
His hands splayed over her rib cage. Even with gun smoke wending around them, she could still smell his cologne.
She should have straightened immediately, but her body was mired in the memory of the night before, and it lingered. He made no attempt to set her upright. In fact, the fingers across her sides tightened.
“Are you well?” he asked.
She dropped the gun and straightened, brushing off her skirts as an excuse not to look at him. “Very well, thank you.” With trepidation, she turned toward the target. From this distance, it looked no different than it had a moment ago.
She checked to make sure the gun was absolutely, definitely on the ground, and walked with him to see how well she’d performed. As they neared, she was engulfed by shame. The fire of it sucked all the oxygen from the air around her. The tips of her ears burned and nausea roiled in her belly.
She hadn’t hit the bull’s-eye. In fact, she hadn’t even hit the target. The bullet must be lodged somewhere in the trees behind it.
Utterly mortified, she steeled her expression before swinging to face him. “See?” She would have launched into a tirade if she hadn’t been so confused at the sight of him furiously studying the sky. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t look at her. Instead, he held a hand to his eyes, warding off the sun’s glare. “I’m waiting.”
“For what?” Frustrated, curious, she looked to see what had him so intrigued.
“For the world to end. You did not hit the target. You are not perfect at something. Surely the heavens are about to crash down.”
She felt hot and cold at the same time. At least having just stared at the sun gave her an excuse to blink back the tears in her eyes.
If he noticed her watering eyes, he was gentleman enough not to comment. Instead, he grinned, wide and broad, as though her failure meant nothing, as though it could be an amusement, should she wish it.
Oh, Eleanor. What were you thinking? That would require coordination and patience. How I birthed a child with neither, I’ll never know.
“Will you try again?” he asked, gesturing to the discarded weapon behind them.
She would fail again. She was not naive enough to think that her next shot would find its mark when the first didn’t come close. But the smirk on his face called her a coward.
“Fine.” Her skirts swished as she marched back to where the gun lay.
So, she tried again. And again, and again.
At first, she was keenly aware of him, and of their audience, and of the fear that pooled at the base of her throat, making itself known every time she breathed.
As the minutes wore on, though, she relaxed and the rest of the party faded away.
After thirty minutes, the closest she’d come to hitting the target was nicking the very top of it.
Peter whooped each time she fired, regardless. There was no surprised Oh, Eleanor from him. There was no frustration as he constantly adjusted her stance with no demonstrable improvement. There was no subtle disappointment in his tone.
Instead, at the end of an hour, when it was time to return to her duties, she was no better at shooting than she had been at the beginning, and he didn’t seem to mind that at all.
“So, what is next?” he asked as they climbed the hill, rousing her from her thoughts.
“Fetching sandwiches, I imagine.” Even from this distance, she could see the dowager’s rabid stare. Eleanor would have a lot of questions to answer.
He put a hand to her elbow, bringing them to a stop. He tipped her face until she couldn’t escape his gaze. “No, I mean, what is next? What other scary thing are you going to try now that you know you can?”
Dear Captain,
Absolutely nothing has changed since I woke up this morning.
My circumstances are all as they were. And yet my body feels different, lighter, as though my circumstances weigh less and my lungs can fully expand.
I think I’ll sleep better tonight, despite the fact that tomorrow I must undertake the impossible task of selling my library.
I know you’ll understand the pain more than anyone.
I wished you’d been able to see it in its full glory at least once.
But it’s necessary. I must let go of the past in order to face the future, however much I do not want to.
Yours,
Booklover