“Meanwhile,” Lady Hornsby said, “your daughter there can’t imagine managing even one, I daresay.”
In response to the woman’s laugh, Gwyn smiled weakly. Ah, but she could imagine . . . and had, many a time. That was the problem.
Lady Hornsby was still laughing when Joshua entered the breakfast room.
“Joshua!” her mother said. “You’ve arrived just in time to meet my good friend, Eliza Brock, the Countess of Hornsby.”
Gwyn tensed when Lady Hornsby turned to study Joshua with a critical eye. Once again, his attire was old-fashioned: a brown coat of the style popular several years before, a nondescript waistcoat, and riding breeches of buckskin. But if the countess sharpened her wit on him based on how he was dressed, Gwyn would never forgive her. He looked handsome no matter what he wore.
And if it were his battle wounds that Lady Hornsby wanted to criticize . . . Well, Joshua didn’t deserve to be judged by his lameness, though clearly he expected such, because he wore that stony stare designed to keep people at arm’s length.
“Lady Hornsby,” Gwyn said hastily, “this is Major Joshua Wolfe. He’s Mama’s nephew by marriage.”
To Gwyn’s relief, the countess smiled like a cat in the cream. “So this is the gentleman hired to be Gwyn’s bodyguard. I can see he will make a charming addition to our party.”
When she looked him over again with more interest, Gwyn gaped at her. Wait, was she flirting with Joshua? Why, she had to be twice his age!
And Joshua clearly was aware of the woman’s flirtations, for he relaxed his rigid stance. “I can assure you, Lady Hornsby—no one has ever called me charming.”
“Except me,” Gwyn said.
He met her gaze, his rare smile sending a delicious frisson down her spine. “Forgive me, Lady Gwyn, but you called me ‘almost charming.’ There’s a vast ocean between that and ‘charming.’”
Gwyn felt the weight of her mother’s gaze on her. “True. And that’s because I see you surly more often than not.”
“Surly is my middle name, I confess,” he said. “So let me attempt to amend my ways and compliment you on your attire.” Before she could do more than smile, he added, “It has more gold braid across the front than I have on my entire uniform.”
“Major!” Gwyn cried, torn between laughing and chiding him. “Except for the color, this is a virtual copy of one worn by the Queen of Prussia. It’s Hussar braiding, which you, of all people, should recognize.”
“I believe you are confused, madam. I’m not a Hussar. I’m a Royal Marine. Hussars serve atop horses. Marines serve aboard ships. They are hardly the same branch of the military.”
“I wasn’t saying they—” She caught the twinkle in his eyes and huffed out a breath. “You’re teasing me. That is so unlike you, sir.”
Clearly, he could barely contain his mirth, for his lips twitched. “I did say I wished to amend my ways.”
“Mocking me is not a good way to start.”
“Very well.” He bowed slightly. “You look exceedingly lovely this morning, Lady Gwyn, gold braid or no gold braid. Forgive me for implying otherwise.”
Then he turned to Lady Hornsby. “I’m pleased to have met you, madam. Now, if you’ll excuse me and Lady Gwyn, I promised to take her riding this morning, and I’m already late for that engagement.”
“I would not wish to keep either of you,” the countess said, a new gleam in her eyes. “And Gwyn, I cannot imagine why you don’t find the major charming. He seems perfectly delightful to me.”
That was because Lady Hornsby had never seen Joshua rude or insulting or overbearing.
Mama was still searching Gwyn’s face. “Where’s your maid, Gwyn?”
“One of the grooms is accompanying us, Aunt,” Joshua said.
“I suppose that’s fine, then,” her mother said. “Just be sure to be back in time for Bea and Grey’s visit. I’m hoping to persuade them to stay for dinner.”
“Yes, Mama,” Gwyn said.
She headed for the door, not wanting to wait one minute longer for her lessons in shooting. After bowing to the two ladies, Joshua followed her out.
“What has put you in such a good mood this morning?” she asked him as they headed down the steps. “It’s not like you at all.”
“Are you sure?” he drawled. “Lady Hornsby said I’m ‘perfectly delightful.’”
“What she means is she would find it ‘perfectly delightful’ to have you in her bed,” Gwyn said dryly.
Joshua turned a sharp gaze on her. “You’re not serious.”
“Oh, trust me, she is famous for taking young lovers now that her husband is gone.” And up until this moment, Gwyn had rather admired her for it. Why shouldn’t an older woman take young lovers? “The countess has a particular fondness for officers—Hussar and otherwise. Or so I’ve heard anyway.”
“Hmm,” he said lazily. “Forgive me, but I’d say you sound jealous.”
“And I’d say you’re daft.” She sniffed as she walked down the steps. “I don’t care whom you bed, Joshua. It’s all the same to me if you bed half the widows in London.”
“That would take more energy than I possess,” he said. “I’m going to have enough trouble keeping up with your antics.”
“What antics?” she asked caustically.
“Forcing me to teach you to shoot, for one.”
Well, she could hardly deny that. So she hurried down the steps to mount the gelding being held for her next to the horse block. As the groom brought her horse forward from the block, she looked up to see Joshua moving even more slowly than usual, scanning the street as he came down the steps.
Oh, dear, might he have trouble mounting? Perhaps he was dreading having to do it. But to her surprise, once he did reach the street, he climbed the horse block, seized the mare, and was in the saddle in a matter of moments.
She was impressed. How many other physical feats could he accomplish despite his bad right leg? She couldn’t wait to find out. After he taught her to shoot, that is.
He rode off at a good clip, and she trailed him, watching his riding with interest. The mare responded well to him, and before long, Gwyn was having to ride hard just to keep up. But as she turned down the road he’d taken, she realized she’d lost him. How could that be?
The groom, who’d been following them at a respectable distance, rode up to stay right by her side.
“Do you know where we’re going?” she asked him.
“Yes, milady. Went there this morning with the major.”
So that was where Joshua had gone so early. “Where is he? Has he ridden on ahead?”
“No, milady. He’s checkin’ to make sure nobody’s followin’. Don’t look, but I saw him and his horse down that alley we just passed.”
She caught her breath. Joshua was lying in wait for Lionel. Depending on what Lionel did once Joshua caught him, that could be either bad or good. In any case, there was naught she could do about it now.
The two of them hadn’t ridden more than half a mile when she heard hoofbeats behind them and turned to see Joshua riding hard after them. As he came abreast of her, he nodded to the groom, who dropped back.
“Did you see anyone following?” she asked, her heart in her throat.
“No. I thought sure Malet would take this chance to come after you, but I guess he has other plans for the day. I only wish I knew what they were.”
She wished the same. Because she had no idea how to reach Lionel to tell him when or where she would meet him with the money. Why, she hadn’t even had a chance to ask Thorn for it. She would have to do that soon.
Before long, they reached a field near a stretch of woods in the countryside northwest of Hyde Park. When she spotted the target set up in front of the woods, her pulse leaped. She really was going to learn to shoot!
Joshua reined in his mount. She noticed that there was a horse block out here, too, of all places.
“Where are we?” she asked as she followed suit.
“Believe it or not, we’re on land belonging to Greycourt. I asked him where we could do a bit of shooting, and your half brother recommended this property. I already knew of it, anyway, from my youth.”
“Is that where you were this morning, at Grey’s town house?”
“Last night actually.” He dismounted, using the block. “This morning I was here making sure it would suit all our needs.”
Just then, the groom came alongside them, and she realized he’d been carrying a large, wrapped parcel tethered to the side of his horse. With her curiosity thoroughly roused, she dismounted. The parcel looked far too long and thick to contain a pistol. Was it a musket? Was that what she’d be shooting?
She couldn’t carry a musket about London, for pity’s sake. But just as she was about to ask Joshua what it was, he took the parcel from the groom and opened it to reveal a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
What the devil?
It took her a minute to realize why he had brought it, but when she did, her temper exploded. She pointed to it with a trembling finger. “You said you would teach me to shoot, curse you! Not that you would teach me to . . . to . . .”
“Shoot?” he said, annoyingly smug. “I never specified what I would teach you to shoot, just that I would do so. You were the one to assume it would be a gun.”
She gaped at him as his words sank in. Of all the sneaky things! So that was why he’d been in such a fine mood. He’d been anticipating this . . . this trick he meant to play on her.
Her anger rose, fueled by the realization that she couldn’t even accuse him of lying to her because he hadn’t actually done so. “You knew what I meant. And you deliberately ignored it.”
“I did. Nor do I make any apology for it.” He ordered the groom to secure their horses, then stepped toward her. “A woman like you shouldn’t be carrying a pistol to protect herself.”
Oh, the audacity of the man! “A woman like me? An heiress, you mean? A duke’s daughter? A young lady? Seems to me that being those things gives me all the more reason to carry a weapon in a city famous for its crime.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Unless you meant something else by ‘a woman like you.’ Perhaps you think I’m too stupid to know when it’s appropriate to draw a weapon.”
He narrowed his gaze on her. “If you choose to think so, that’s your affair. But you know damned well I don’t consider you stupid.”
“Then why shouldn’t I carry a pistol, if I learn to use it properly?”
“Even men seldom carry pistols, and certainly not to the sort of activities you and I will be attending.”
“Yet you intend to carry one.”
“To protect you, which is my job.” His tone was infuriatingly calm, as if he were arguing with a child. “Thornstock is paying me well enough for it, so let me make sure he gets his money’s worth.”
“What about when we leave London to return to Armitage Hall? Do you mean to spend the rest of your life protecting me?”
That seemed to produce a ripple in his calm. “Of course not. But after this Season, you’ll have a husband to protect you. And Malet will no longer be trying to kidnap you because you won’t any longer be an heiress, just a rich wife.”
She could hardly reveal that she never meant to marry. Even if she dared to tell him why, he would never understand her reasons. He wasn’t a woman. “You sound awfully sure that I’ll snag a husband this Season. I wish I could be as certain. At my age, even a tidy dowry doesn’t always guarantee a quick marriage.”
“You’ll snag a husband, trust me.”
The bitterness in his voice took her aback. It implied he might actually—
No, not Joshua. By refusing even to acknowledge their kiss yesterday, he’d made it quite clear how he felt about her. And as he’d said before, he regarded marriage cynically.
Not that it mattered what he did or didn’t feel for her. He would not want a “woman like her” once he learned the full truth of what that meant.
Suddenly, the groom returned from tying off the horses, effectively putting an end to their rather personal conversation.
“So,” Joshua asked her, “do you want to learn to shoot a bow and arrow? Or should we mount up and return to town?”
His smirk and his lifted brow told her he expected her to say no and march off in high dudgeon. It wasn’t as if she could threaten again to choose Thorn over him as a bodyguard. Because that wouldn’t gain her anything but her twin watching her every move, keeping her from paying Lionel.
She and Thorn had played hide and seek too many times as children—they knew each other’s tricks. She had a better chance of slipping away from Joshua than she’d ever have from Thorn. But that meant she had to trick the major into letting down his guard, which required figuring out his weaknesses. Archery lessons might provide a good chance for that.
Though she began to wonder if he had any weaknesses. So far, she’d only found one—his difficulty with loud noises. But using that against him would be cruel.
“How about this?” he said. “Shooting arrows and shooting pistols aren’t much different when it comes to aiming, so you could use some of what you learn in archery in learning to aim a pistol. Archery also strengthens the arms and shoulders, which is helpful when dealing with a pistol’s recoil. So if you can prove yourself capable of excelling at archery, I might—might, mind you—consider teaching you how to shoot a pistol one day. In the far distant future.”
Was he actually trying to coax her into staying by dangling the prize in front of her that he’d initially denied her? She simply had to see where this went. But she wasn’t about to let him know how eager she was to do so.
“Oh, very well, if you insist,” she said coolly. “We’re here already, and archery is supposedly a popular—and respectable—pastime for ladies these days. So why not?”
Why not, indeed? She would make Major Joshua Arrogant-As-Hell Wolfe show her every possible lesson in archery, until he was sick to death of it and she was proficient. Because that was the only way she could think of to get some of her own back on him for his trickery.
Chapter Eight
It didn’t take Joshua long to recognize the gross miscalculation in his strategy. Gwyn was an agony to teach. And not because of her ability—or lack thereof—to learn archery.
“I know I’m holding the bow wrong,” she complained. “My arrows keep missing the target entirely.”
“I told you, it has nothing to do with your grip on the bow. It’s because you keep trying to draw the bowstring too far back.”
“Oh, right. Show me again how far to draw it. I promise I’ll pay better attention this time.”
Gritting his teeth, he came up behind her and put his arms around her to place one hand on her bow hand and the other on her draw hand.
“You don’t need as much force as you think,” he said. Again. “You can work on sending your arrows farther and faster once you’ve strengthened your drawing arm sufficiently to sustain the draw while you aim.”
Was she really this interested in learning archery? Or was she deliberately trying to get into his embrace so she could torment him for the trick he’d played on her?
If the latter was her strategy, it was working. This close to her, he could smell her light, lemony scent and feel her satiny curls brush his neck.
God help him, but having her lush body against his made him want to—
Concentrate, man. Don’t let her get the best of you.
“You draw it back like this,” he said. “You see? Not that far. I told you, there’s no need to bend the bow in half.”
“Blast! Now I’ve dropped the arrow.”
She bent over to pick it up, and he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. It would be so easy to put his hands on that sweetly shaped bottom of hers and then—
Bloody hell. He slid back from her as she straightened. He had to get some distance or find himself doing things he’d later regret. Unfortunately, now that he was to the side of her, he could see
how the tip of her tongue slipped out as she focused on nocking the arrow into the bowstring.
He wanted that tongue twirling with his so badly he could taste it.
“This is harder than it looks,” she muttered. “Who would ever guess that keeping an arrow positioned properly in a bow would be so difficult?”
“Try parting your lips—” He groaned as her startled gaze shot to him. “Your fingers, I mean, so that your index finger is on top of the arrow shaft and the rest of your fingers on the bottom. It’s called split-finger shooting. You can put all of them on the bottom, but you may find it easier to hold the arrow in place the other way.”
“All right.” She repositioned her fingers and let the arrow fly. This time it actually hit the edge of the target.
She beamed at him. Seeing that sunny smile, he would have thought she’d hit the bull’s-eye. Her palpable delight did something dangerous to his peace of mind. Like make him wonder how it would be to see that delight come over her face in bed. His bed. Preferably soon.
God, she was driving him mad, which was undoubtedly her purpose.
“Give me another arrow, if you please,” she said.
He handed her one from the quiver, but as she reached for it, she paused to regard her gloved hand with a frown. “I wish you’d told me what we were really doing today. I would have worn thicker, better gloves, instead of these old worn ones. Now the glove on my draw hand is getting cut up from the bowstring.”
“Here.” He tucked the arrow under his arm so he could look at her hand.
When he drew off her glove, she blinked at him. “What are you doing?”
He pulled off both of his gloves. “You can use mine. They’re sturdier.”
“Very well,” she said, and took off her other glove.
But before he let go of his, he looked closely at her draw hand to make sure she hadn’t cut her skin. She breathed in sharply, and suddenly he became aware of the intimacy in holding her bare hand. His was callused and rough. Hers was . . . not. The delicacy of her soft skin fascinated him, and he wished he could feel it on his face, his chest . . . his cock. Damn.
He dropped her hand and thrust the gloves at her. “See if they’ll do.”
The Bachelor Page 8
