Chapter 23 #2
A second shot rang out as I was still inspecting Brookhouse’s target.
A few chortles sounded behind me as well as the sound of one man clapping.
Captain Calder’s bullet ran dead center through the target.
Not an easy feat with a single ball and fowling piece.
He turned to Papa. “Perhaps we should push it to forty yards.”
Papa eyed his shot and nodded in agreement.
Lieutenant Brookhouse and Captain Calder repositioned themselves to stand in front of the new target. “Our first shots don’t count,” Lieutenant Brookhouse said. “Since we moved the target.”
The corner of Captain Calder’s mouth turned up. “I have no problem with that.”
Their shots rang out once again, and the only difference in the outcome was Lieutenant Brookhouse over-corrected and put his ball on the other side of the second ring.
Both men stopped to reload their weapons.
Captain Calder had already removed his coat.
Now he set his gun on the table and rolled up his shirtsleeves twice with quick, precise motions.
I’d seen a lot more of his skin than those few inches above his wrists, but not like this.
He measured the powder first and then poured it down the barrel, every movement causing the corded muscles above his wrist to flex with fluid, graceful movements.
I probably should have looked away but I couldn’t.
He gripped the rod and rammed it down the barrel, first for the wool, then the ball, and finally the tow.
Brookhouse made the same motions but somehow he lacked the poetry and practiced ease of Captain Calder.
And Captain Calder was done a full minute before he was.
A slow smile crept over my face, thinking of poor Hattie watching from the terrace. She was missing the best parts of the show.
Lieutenant Brookhouse managed to strike the center on his second shot. Captain Calder did the same and the process of loading his gun started over again.
After his third shot, this one striking the edge of center, Lieutenant Brookhouse muttered under his breath and handed his fowling piece to Lieutenant Davis, not even waiting to see the outcome of Captain Calder’s last chance.
He met my eye, skirted the other men, and came to stand next to me.
“I hope you are as good a shot as your father claims you to be. Someone needs to humble him.”
“I wasn’t there when Papa boasted of me, so I cannot say if I will live up to it or not.”
He nodded to Davis and Calder, who were now lining up for their first shots. “When you shoot at forty yards, how many out of ten miss center?”
“Out of ten?” I said with a grin. “That isn’t a fair question. Better to ask out of fifty.”
“Alright,” he shrugged, “out of fifty.”
“One or two, depending on the sun and which shot it was. I’m less accurate on my first five and last ten.”
A slow smile spread over Brookhouse’s face. “Well, then. This is going to be quite the afternoon.”
One by one the men faced Captain Calder, and one by one he beat them.
Captain Calder still held the mark when Vincent Howard handed me a fowling piece with a scowl.
One of his shots had gone wide, even though the other two had hit the mark.
In any other group such a round would have been impressive, but not here, with so many men who trained under my father’s hand.
I wouldn’t have minded humiliating him after his stunt in the rose garden but it looked as though a rematch between us wouldn’t be necessary.
Captain Calder had only put two shots just left of center while facing everyone but Papa and me. Both of them had been against Charlie, and I wasn’t certain that was a coincidence.
I took the fowling piece from Mr. Howard and slid the palm of my hand along the smooth, polished wood on the stock.
The worries of the past few weeks—even the past two years since Matilda had eloped with Mr. Langley—slipped away.
Here was the most centered part of myself, the piece of me that remained when everything else faded away.
This one wasn’t my favorite of Papa’s fowling pieces. Captain Calder had managed to choose that one and he hadn’t swapped it out. But it would do nicely. Lieutenant Davis stood near the table with loading supplies and offered to load the piece for me, but I stilled him with a simple look.
I wouldn’t shoot a gun I hadn’t loaded myself.
I measured the powder and rammed down each component of my load.
I wasn’t as fast as Captain Calder but I knew what I was doing.
When I joined Captain Calder at the mark, I eyed the target in front of us.
The paper had been changed twice already but it was still littered with his excellent shots.
I gave him a smile of approval. “You know, I finally understand why Papa likes you so much.”
He grinned at me unapologetically. Apparently shooting had done as much good for him as it did for me. Any awkwardness from this morning had melted away. “The wind has been in my favor today.”
All traces of our conversation in the drawing room and our excursion to Applewood were gone. I’d asked him to forget about that kiss and it finally looked as though he had.
I grinned back. If I could keep my eyes off of his forearms, perhaps we could simply be friends—if not always, at least when we held firearms. “It has been so far. That is the funny thing about wind, though. It can always change.”
He laughed and the sound of it was so hearty and full of health a jolt of pleasure made it through my stillness.
I’d prayed so fervently for this man and here he was standing, completely whole, the sunlight shining on the sturdy planes of his face while he bested some of the finest marksmen in England.
It may have been safer for the two of us to have never met again after that fateful night, but then I wouldn’t have seen him like this. I wouldn’t have known that the man whose chest I watched for hours, certain that at any moment it would still forever, could look so profoundly alive.
Captain Calder raised one eyebrow at me. “Are you examining me for weaknesses?” he asked.
“If I was,” I inspected him one last time before raising my fowling piece and cocking it, “I didn’t find any.”
With a slow release of breath, I found that quiet place again and took the first shot. Smoke billowed around me, blurring my vision. Before it cleared, Charlie hollered, “Center!” It confirmed what I already knew.
My stillness was interrupted by a couple of hoots from behind us.
Those came from the younger men, not Papa.
Captain Calder was silent. I risked a glance to find him grinning.
Not with the shock and delight of the men behind me, but more like the grin Papa gave me when I’d performed exceptionally well.
It was a smile that sparked not with surprise, but with the joy of knowing he’d been correct about something.
Me.