Chapter 11
EVELYN BLACKWELL
“Shouldn’t we wait for Captain Calder?” Hattie asked, after one of our footmen delivered the lawn bowls to our group in the east garden.
Our back garden didn’t have the space for lawn bowls.
It was flat and open, but only large enough for seating due to the steep drop-off that led to the more expansive grounds below.
Mama, Papa, and the older guests were sitting in chairs closer to the house, so it was the first time most of the younger members of our party had the chance to socialize without being overheard.
“Does Captain Calder often take such care with his appearance?” I asked the two lieutenants. “He’s been gone over half an hour.”
Brookhouse shook his head. “Not usually, no.” He glanced at Hattie appreciatively. “But then he doesn’t typically have such lovely company to dress for.”
Color rose to Hattie’s cheeks. Good. Thank you, Brookhouse. “I will wait for him,” I said. “We can’t play bowls with an uneven number anyway. When he arrives, the two of us can play battledore and shuttlecock.”
“I can wait for him,” Lieutenant Davis offered.
“No.” I smiled at Lieutenant Davis. It wouldn’t be the worst thing if he waited. Captain Calder wouldn’t be able to join bowls regardless, but Hattie needed this time with both the lieutenants and Vincent Howard. I didn’t need to be around any of the men. “I’m the hostess, and I insist.”
Despite being quieter than the other gentlemen, I got the feeling Lieutenant Davis was excellent at observing. He studied my face, and I don’t know what he found there, but after a moment, he nodded.
Vincent Howard, however, seemed less convinced. “I could wait with you,” he offered when the other three started toward the bowls. He looked almost disappointed I wouldn’t be joining. But why? I had no special skill with bowls. Not like I did with artillery.
“They can’t play with three.” I waved him toward the others. “Don’t worry about me. I insist.”
Davis grabbed the white jack and threw it, marking the beginning of their game. I silently thanked him.
Time ticked by as I debated joining the older members of our party rather than standing by myself somewhere between those playing bowls and Mama and the rest of the party.
I hadn’t had time to dispose of Captain Calder’s key, so I fiddled with it beneath my glove while I waited to intercept Captain Calder if he managed to escape his room.
Roughly fifteen minutes later, he did.
The players were well into their game when he came storming around the side of the house.
I froze. I was too far away to hear what excuses he gave Mama and Papa, but they weren’t long enough.
For only a moment later, he’d turned and started striding directly toward me.
He was too far away for me to catch the look of his face, but I didn’t need to.
Each of his steps landed with such force I wondered if the ground might not break beneath him.
He only glanced at the bowlers once and then never turned his head away from me.
Even though there were still yards between us, I stepped back as if I could protect myself from his righteous fury. A gust of wind picked up and the sky darkened beneath a heavy cloud the moment he reached speaking range. He’d brought a storm with him.
“I’m sorry, it seems the others started without you.” I tipped my head to the four bowl players.
He didn’t even glance at them. It only took him three tremendous steps to reach me.
The scar I’d thought made his face intriguing in the croft suddenly looked menacing.
I’d trifled with a man who’d lived through battles and that slash was proof of it.
His eyes bore into mine, dark and intense. “Are you sorry? Truly?”
I pulled my lips together tight. He was too close to me, but I’d stepped back once, and I wouldn’t again. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. Otherwise you wouldn’t have locked me in my room.”
I furrowed my eyebrows “Locked you in your room? Why would I have done such a thing?”
He narrowed his eyes and fixed them on me in a way he hadn’t been capable of when he’d been so ill.
The power of all of his clearheaded focus directly on me was weighty, but I held my ground.
“You know exactly why.” His jaw flexed and he finally pulled that thunderous gaze away from me and looked across the lawn.
It was clear the moment his eyes landed on her, for they softened in a way they never had when he looked at me. “Harriet.”
His familiarity with her was indecent. They’d known each other for only a few weeks, six years ago. “Miss Pryor,” I hissed at him.
His eyes hardened and settled back on me. “You are going to lecture me on propriety?”
I lifted my chin. “Only when necessary. You cannot speak of her in such familiar terms.”
“And will you accept my lectures in return? Or would you rather I simply told your parents that you locked not only me, but my valet, in my room all for the petty reason of trying to keep me away from your cousin?”
“Do you have proof that I did such a thing?”
“Do I need it? You told me yourself you don’t like to keep secrets from your family. Are you telling me if they confronted you about your behavior you would lie to them?”
I wouldn’t, and I would be quite embarrassed to admit to resorting to locking the captain in his room. But I wasn’t the only one who had something to hide. “And would you lie to Hattie if I told her we spent the night alone together only a week ago?”
He muttered a low curse and ran a hand through his hair. “Don’t make it sound so sordid. I was ill.”
I cocked my head to one side. He underestimated my ability to fight unfairly when necessary, and protecting Hattie was absolutely necessary. “You were in my dressing gown.”
All of his bluster evaporated. He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. Lowering his face, he pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Exactly what am I supposed to do with you?”
“Right now?” I asked. He didn’t look up. “I told the others we would play shuttlecock and battledore. It seems like a better way to pass the time than arguing over a locked door that very well may have been caused by your own thoughtlessness.”
He didn’t move his head but slid his hand down lower and peered at me over it. “You think I locked the door from the outside while inside of my room?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think anything. I was simply stating the fact that you don’t know exactly what happened to your door and we might as well play a game.”
“And you want that game to be shuttlecock and battledore?” His words were measured.
I smiled broadly as if nothing in the world could make me happier. “Yes.”
I’ve been told by flirtatious men in ballrooms I have a remarkable smile.
One gentleman specifically said my smile could light a room even if all the candles burned out.
It was an inane compliment and I gave him no credit for it, but regardless, Captain Calder didn’t seem to share that particular gentleman’s opinion.
He let out a huff so low it bordered on growling. “That is a cooperative game.”
“And?”
“You think the pair of us could cooperate and keep the shuttlecock from landing on the ground?”
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. “Why wouldn’t we?”
He shook his head and let out a heavy sigh.
Then he stomped over to the battledores, picked them up, then stomped back and handed me one of them.
His hand brushed mine when I grabbed it from him and even though we were gloved, awareness of that touch coursed through my hand and ran up my arm.
What was wrong with me? I pulled my hand away from his as if it had been burned.
“I refuse to cooperate with you. We will play, but if you are the one that allows the shuttlecock to hit the ground,” he said with a tone so level he had most certainly not even registered that touch, “you will give me my key so I can release my valet.”
Why would he need his key to release his valet? If he was out of his room, certainly his valet would be too. “Your valet is still in your room?”
“Of course he is.” His voice was rising again. “He wasn’t about to crawl out the blasted window.”
My hand squeezed the handle of the battledore. I took in his disheveled hair and the less-than-crisp state of his cravat. “Your room is on the second story.”
“Trust me, Miss Blackwell.” He leaned forward, leaving only inches between us. “I am well aware.”
He’d crawled out the window and down the side of Blackwell Manor?
I tried to picture exactly which window that would have been.
We had no trees to aid him in climbing. The house was made from quarried limestone.
There was a ridge that ran horizontally just above the windows of the ground floor, but if he’d lowered himself from a second story window, his feet wouldn’t have reached that ledge until he’d climbed down five or six feet with only the mortar joints as hand and footholds.
Without thinking through my actions, I dropped the battledore and grabbed the fingers of one of his gloves and pulled. Certainly enough, the tips of his fingers were raw—not bleeding, thankfully, but scraped and scuffed from obvious physical strain.
He yanked his glove out of my hands and then glanced behind me, no doubt in Harriet’s direction, but I frankly didn’t care who was watching us.
“What were you thinking?” I asked. The storm he’d brought with him was going to be matched with one of my own. I hadn’t cared for him all night so that he could fall to his death not much more than a week later.
He narrowed his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking.
I was doing what needed to be done.” He shoved his glove back over his marred fingers.
“I wasn’t going to be left behind in the house while the rest of you enjoyed the morning.
” He held the shuttlecock up with a warning.
“Now, let’s play, so I can get that key and release Henry. ”
My battledore was still on the ground. He served and the shuttlecock flew high and far. I scooped up my battledore, lifted my skirts with my left hand and ran.