“He sees me as a sister.”
“That can be the basis for a loving union—”
“He has other women.”
Melisande didn’t say anything, and Emeline wondered if she’d shocked her friend. It was to be expected that an aristocratic gentleman would have affairs, both before and after a marriage, but it was considered gauche to speak of such things aloud.
“You had no quarrel with that before,” Melisande said. The gentlemen were beginning to order themselves as to who would shoot first. “Come, let us go watch the target shooting.”
They strolled toward the shooters.
“I still have no quarrel with Jasper’s feelings for me,” Emeline said low. “In fact, I believe a kind regard toward one’s spouse is for the best in marriage. Far better than desperate passion.”
She felt Melisande’s sharp glance, but her friend did not comment. They had neared the group of gentlemen shooters now. The Duke of Lister stepped forward and made a show of preparing to shoot. No doubt he’d been given the first shot as a badge of his rank.
“Nasty man,” Melisande muttered.
Emeline raised her eyebrows. “The duke?”
“Mmm. He drags his mistress about like a little dog on a chain.”
“She doesn’t seem to mind.” Emeline glanced at Mrs. Fitzwilliam again. She was shielding her eyes to watch the shot, her golden hair glinting in the sunshine. She appeared perfectly relaxed.
“She can’t show any vexation, can she, if she’s to keep her position?” Melisande frowned at her, and Emeline suddenly felt rather dim-witted. “But all the same, it must be wretched. None of the ladies will talk to her and yet he is perfectly respectable.”
The duke raised the gun to his shoulder.
Melisande covered her ears with her hands as he fired, and she winced when the sound of the shot echoed off Hasselthorpe House. “Why do guns have to be so loud?”
“So that we ladies can be duly impressed, I expect,” Emeline said absently.
A footman advanced ceremonially toward the target and painted a black circle around the bullet hole so that all could see where it had hit. Lister’s shot was near the edge of the target. He scowled, but the watching ladies clapped enthusiastically. Mrs. Fitzwilliams started forward as if to congratulate her protector, but the man didn’t notice her and turned away to talk loudly with Lord Hasselthorpe. Emeline watched as the woman halted uncertainly before smiling and strolling back to the edge of the lake. Melisande was right. Obviously it wasn’t an easy job being a mistress.
“Don’t the gentlemen look manly!” Lady Hasselthorpe fluttered toward them. Today their hostess was dressed in pink-dotted dimity over wide panniers. Many pink and green ribbons decorated her elaborately draped skirts, and she held a white shepherd’s crook in one hand. Apparently she fancied herself a rustic shepherdess, although Emeline doubted many shepherdesses wore panniers whilst tending sheep. “I do so love to watch the gentlemen show off their prowess.”
She was interrupted by another loud bang!
Melisande started at the sound. “Lovely,” she said with a strained smile.
“Oh, and Mr. Hartley is next with his odd gun.” Lady Hasselthorpe squinted toward the gentlemen—she was notoriously nearsighted but refused to wear spectacles. “Do you think it will fire properly with such a long barrel? Perhaps it will explode. That would be most exciting!”
“Quite,” Emeline said.
Samuel stepped up to the mark and stood for a moment simply looking at the target. Emeline frowned, wondering what he was doing. Then, almost faster than her eye could follow, he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and fired.
There was a stunned silence from his audience. The footman with the paintbrush started toward the target. Samuel had already turned aside even as everyone else waited to see where the ball had hit. Solemnly, the footman painted a black circle at the very center of the target.
“My God, he’s hit a bull’s-eye,” one of the gentlemen finally murmured.
The ladies clapped, the gentlemen crowding around Samuel to examine his gun.
“Lord, I hate the sound of a gun firing,” Melisande muttered as she lowered her hands.
“You should have brought lint for your ears,” Emeline said absently.
Samuel hadn’t blinked as he shot. Not as he’d raised the gun to his shoulder, not at the sound of the shot, and not as the smoke from the flintlock had wafted over him. The other gentlemen handled a gun easily; they probably went hunting and target shooting fairly often at country parties like this one. But none of them had shown the absolute familiarity that Samuel displayed. She could imagine that he’d know how to shoot that gun in the dark, while running, or while being attacked. In fact, he probably had.
“Yes,” Melisande muttered, “that would certainly improve my appearance if I had lint growing out of my ears like a rabbit.”
Emeline laughed at the image of her friend with rabbit ears, and Samuel turned as if he could hear her amusement. She caught her breath as his eyes met hers. He stared for a moment, his dark eyes intense even across the distance that separated them, and then turned away as Lord Hasselthorpe said something to him. Emeline could feel the blood pulsing in her head.
“Whatever am I to do?” she whispered.
“DAMN GOOD SHOT, that,” Vale murmured from behind Sam.
“Thanks.” Sam watched as their host prepared to shoot. Hasselthorpe stood with his feet too close together and was in danger of falling or at least staggering when he fired.
“But then you always were a good shot,” Vale continued. “Remember that time you got five squirrels for our dinner?”
Sam shrugged. “Not that it did much good. They still hardly filled the stew pot. Too scrawny.”
He was aware that Lady Emeline stood not twenty feet away, her head close to her friend’s, and he wondered what the ladies were talking about. She was avoiding his gaze.
“Scrawny or not, they were welcome fresh meat. I say, Hasselthorpe’s going to blow over, isn’t he?”
“Might.”
They were silent as their host squinted down the barrel, squeezed the trigger, and then inevitably couldn’t keep the gun from jerking as it fired. The shot went wide, missing the target altogether. Lady Emeline’s friend covered her ears and winced.
“At least he didn’t fall down,” Vale murmured. He sounded a little disappointed.
Sam turned to look at him. “Have you asked about Corporal Craddock yet?”