Chapter 3 #2
“All right.” Emmeline looked at Leon. “Shall we go with dark red?”
“If you wish.” He stared at the oval-shaped diagram on the floor.
The disks were appointed and distributed, and John handed them a cue each, winking at Emmeline. As he moved away, Leon whispered, “How do we play this?”
“You’ve never played shuffleboard before?”
He twitched his head in a barely perceptible shake.
“Push the disks into the marked fields. They score the number they land on—the bigger, the better,” she explained as the blonde did so, laughing at herself when her disk went far off-mark.
Leon gave Emmeline a small smile and nod, which warmed her chest much more than this type of appreciation usually would.
Emmeline went next. She’d played shuffleboard enough times with her brothers, but never on a ship. The slight sway of the giant vessel became clearer when she tried to focus on a good swing. Steady, swing—the disk went scuttling along the wood, a touch too far.
“Darn it.” She moved aside to make space for Leon. “No pressure.”
He positioned himself at the line and squinted at the marked area with a judging, calculating frown. Then, he made a simple swing—and sent the disk straight to the end cap, scoring ten points.
“Yes!” Emmeline jumped. “Nicely done!”
“Not bad,” John agreed. “But let me show you what the experts can do.”
The brothers went next, keeping a solid score. When Emmeline prepared for her turn, John walked up to her.
“Allow me to provide some pointers, miss?”
“Uhm … all right,” she wavered. No reason to be rude, even though she only needed practice, not advice.
John moved closer and led her hands, holding the cue, into a slightly altered position that could hardly make any change. “Like this,” he said. “And swing gently …”
Oh, please, as if she didn’t know how to swing a cue.
“I think her grip is perfectly fine,” Leon’s voice came from the side. She hadn’t heard him approach, but he was only a couple of feet away, inspecting John with narrowed eyes and mouth pulled into a firm line.
“The lady asked for help.” John’s mustache twitched over a smile.
Emmeline furrowed her eyebrows and sent the disk flying, not even caring when it stopped at a lousy two. “Here, done.” She shook John off and moved to the side, supporting her chin with the end of the cue stick.
Leon didn’t follow. John went to score, landed a nine, and raised a smirking eyebrow at Leon; he went next and, with almost furious precision, scored another ten.
“My turn,” John’s brother said, but John held his stick back as if to stop him.
“Let me do it,” John said. “Your elbow is still a little sore, isn’t it?”
His brother squinted but didn’t object.
What in the world is going on?
John went, and then the ladies, who had to wiggle themselves between John and Leon and made their shots while the two men stared at each other as if they were reenacting the duel in The Lord of Two Hearts.
“My turn!” Emmeline shouted. “Actually, I might be owed two turns.”
John’s expression instantly cleared. “Certainly, miss.” His eyes flicked over Leon’s washed-out clothes. “We wouldn’t want the less deserving to be stealing our turns, would we?”
Leon tightened his grip on the stick, but said nothing and only moved away to give Emmeline the space for her swing.
“John, can we call it after this one?” the blonde said. Both women were leaning on the railing, twirling their sticks in utter boredom.
“Then this one counts.” John tilted his head at Emmeline. “You’re nine points behind us.” He tapped the floor with his stick. “What do you say—if we win, you owe me a stroll around the deck?”
She shouldn’t even consider it, but a rebellious fury within her made her say, “And if I win?”
John shrugged. “As you wish.”
“You apologize to my friend.”
His eye twitched. “Deal.”
Emmeline’s hand shook from the heated conversation, and she had to lean the stick on the floor to keep it steady. She followed John’s grin to Leon, whose side glance toward the other man indicated he wasn’t as interested in the polished wooden flooring as he was pretending to be.
She walked over to Leon. “How do you do it? Hit the disks so precisely?”
“Nothing special. Just calculations.”
She laughed, and that brought a smile to his face. “You sound like Father,” she said. Father might like Leon.
Only Father would never meet Leon because once this dream week was over, Emmeline would go back to her life—and whatever schooling institution her parents would lock her in—and Leon would go to his, and they’d never see each other again.
Any attempts to continue their friendship would be moot; if she told her parents where she’d met him, their interrogation would eventually lead to the class he was traveling in, and then Mother would throw a fit, and Father would be on Mother’s side …
She wondered if they’d be as appalled if John and his brother won the game and they saw her walking around with Mr. Perfect Mustache. The fury in her reignited.
That wasn’t something she was about to find out.
“Show me,” she said to Leon.
His eyebrows raised in surprise, but he followed her to the start line, hesitantly moving behind her. Not close enough to press to her back—why was she thinking about that, anyway?—but enough for his jacket to brush the frills of her dress, sending a shiver of pleasant expectations down her spine.
With the lightness of a feather, his fingers grazed her wrists. “Feel the cue.” His breath tickled her ear. “And the disk. Step a touch further apart—yes, like that. Make sure you’re stable on your feet. You can sense the ship’s sway, yes?”
She closed her eyes. If she focused, she felt the rhythm: ever so slightly left and right, barely noticeable.
“Don’t think the ship is working against you. You work with it. Reach the equilibrium. Wait for the right time.”
She opened her eyes, keeping track of the swaying as one would of a song’s tact while dancing. One, two, three; one, two—hit!
The disk flew forward in a straight, determined line, right toward the center, edging ever so close, passing the nine, the five—losing momentum—inside the one’s space, almost past it, and—
“Ten points!” the blonde’s companion exclaimed, but Emmeline barely paid any attention to the rest as she screamed and cheered and took Leon’s hands in hers.
He laughed with her, and she spun them until she got dizzy, and perhaps would’ve lost her balance if Leon didn’t secure her with a hand on her back.
She paused, bent backwards, as if he’d dipped her while dancing, and locked her eyes with his.
She was being fanciful and severely exaggerating, but he looked at her like Lord Blair looked at Miss Ophelia in The Heart of the Moors.
He cleared his throat and steadied her.
“We won,” she said, unable to stop her grin.
“You won.”
She finally broke his gaze and looked at the others. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that means—”
Her smile dropped. Down from where John stood, Father entered the deck and turned in their direction.
Oh, no.
“We have to go.” Emmeline grabbed Leon’s hand and ran.