He’d never lost his mind to the point where he’d shot anyone with an arrow over one, that much was certain.
“I think you need a drink, Simon. I think we all need a drink. And you best make sure Henry truly forgives you. Because the next competition is shooting, and I saw enough carnage during the war.”
PERHAPS IT HAD been all the stiff drinking they’d done to settle rattled nerves after the arrow incident, or perhaps it was because not enough drinking had been done in the wake of the arrow incident, but otherwise skillful marksmen were shooting shamefully wide of the mark. Over and over and over.
And the mark target was an apple, glowing like a beacon at one hundred paces.
They stepped up, one by one.
Shot, one by one.
And missed, one by one, again and again and again.
The apple remained mockingly smooth and whole and gleamed improbably in the sunlight.
“I don’t know what the trouble is,” Ian muttered. “At this rate, if we all needed to shoot our food in order to survive, we’d starve.”
He would have loved to shoot it. It was such an easy target, and he was such a skillful shot, and he felt trapped in a moment that was both dull and embarrassing. The apple needed shooting, for God’s sake.
Yet another hapless contestant stepped up to fire, and missed.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Tansy Danforth muttered.
He swiveled toward her in surprise.
Her eyes flew innocently wide. She bit her lush bottom lip. Which instantly made him wonder what it might be like to sink his own teeth gently into it.
Which surprised him, and made him frown more darkly than he intended.
She at least blinked at the frown. “May I . . . have a go?” She said it tentatively. Very shyly. The lashes went down.
He almost sighed.
This posed a bit of a dilemma, as within days of meeting her the men of Sussex had decided they wouldn’t dream of depriving Miss Danforth of any whim.
The gentleman currently holding the musket turned to her.
“It’s a very heavy gun,” he apologized, as if he’d forged it himself and should have anticipated her need to shoot it.
“I’m sturdier than I look.”
This brought a rustle of chuckles and the choked, helpless words, “Like gossamer,” from somebody.
Ian rolled his eyes.
“Very well,” the man said. “It’s a bit unusual, but as you’re a guest, perhaps we can make an exception for Miss Danforth . . . Captain Eversea? What say you? May we have a ruling?”
All the men in the crowd were nodding encouragingly.
Ian was torn between genuine concern that she would sneeze or topple beneath the weight of the musket and shoot someone in the crowd, and he was more or less fond of, or at least used to, everyone in that crowd, and wanting to see what would happen when she fired that thing.
Because he had a hunch about Miss Danforth.
“Nobody move, nobody say a word when she pulls the trigger, are we clear? I want no undue distractions. I want everyone to hold as still as they possibly can. Pretend it’s the aftermath of Pompeii and you’ll never move again. Are we clear?”
Heads bobbed up and down.
And then they dutifully froze.
After all, the truly undue distraction, Miss Danforth, would be the one holding the musket.
“Allow me.” Ian took the musket from the previous shooter, who promptly froze into position. “Now, allow me to show you how to hold it, Miss Danforth.”
She cleared her throat. “Oh. Good idea.”
Suddenly Miss Danforth was blushing again. She untied the ribbons of her bonnet slowly, carefully, and something about that motion—the undoing of a ribbon, a sort of ceremonial undressing—again touched soft little carnal fingers to the back of his neck.
What the devil was it about her? There was just . . . something innately sensual about the girl. He remembered watching her emerge from the woods, her bonnet bobbing behind her, and wondered if this seeming innocent might have come by her sensuality by taking a secret lover. But no; everything else about her was virginal.
He realized he was staring, and she was staring back at him, her bonnet now dangling from her fingers. She lowered it gently to her feet.
He gave himself a shake.
“Very well, Miss Danforth. You heft the musket up to your shoulder just . . . so . . .”
He stood behind her, and heft it up just so. Her hands went up and expertly closed around the weapon.
He was close enough now to feel the heat from her body. She radiated warmth like a little sun. Close enough to see the little arc of pale nape, and the scattering of fine golden hairs there. The temptation was to brush a finger over them, or to apply a slow, hot kiss on that little secret strip of skin. He knew from experience it was a splendid way to get nipples to go erect.
He realized he hadn’t moved in some time, mesmerized, in a bit of a reverie, and it might have been seconds or hours. He looked up. Everyone was still frozen in place. But some incredulous glares were aimed his way.
He cleared his throat.
“You hold it like this . . .” he said, then realized he’d already said that.
Ian braced himself as a good portion of the crowd tensed and bristled and stirred.
“I wager she shmells like rainbowsh,” someone near him surmised on a murmur. Someone who had been at his flask all morning, from the sound of it.
She didn’t. She smelled faintly of something floral, perhaps lavender, but he was no expert on flowers. The sweetness and tang of fine milled soap rose from her warmed skin. It was as if suddenly someone had flung open a door onto a sylvan meadow. He could feel a sort of delicious torpor stealing in, as if he could easily melt into her. Surely the temptation to close his arms around her and pull her into his body was nothing more than a reflex. That was what one did when women were just this close, after all.
When a beautiful woman was this close.
A beautiful woman who smelled like a meadow.
So he made sure she had it hoisted correctly and then stepped back abruptly and lifted his arms in the air, as though held at gunpoint or as if she were a hot stove, so the crowd wouldn’t rush him with pitchforks and torches.
Interestingly, that musket nestled into her arms like a long lost pet.
Ian had a hunch they were looking at a ringer.
He folded his arms over his chest.
“Now, this thing has a bit of a recoil, Miss Danforth.”
“I’ve been watching, thank you,” she said primly. “I think I may be prepared.”
The crowd obeyed their orders.
The silence was, in fact, so taut, Ian thought he could have bounced a guinea from it.
And just when it seemed no one could hold their breath any longer, she pulled the trigger.
She flew backward into Ian as the apple exploded.
He levered her upright. He felt his fingers linger on her shoulder blades. They were delicate, and there was another moment where her fragility caught him by surprise. That rogue surge of protectiveness swept in again. And swept out.
Such a joyous roar arose you would have thought she’d negotiated armistice after a long and bloody war.
She stood holding the musket, still aiming it, wearing a look of grim satisfaction, but, interestingly, not surprise.
She smiled modestly.
“A fluke, surely,” she insisted demurely, again and again, as all the men surged forth to congratulate her. “Beginner’s luck, of a certainty. Americans. We’re born knowing how to shoot things, I suppose. All those bears and wolves and Indians from which we need to defend ourselves.”
“I’ll defend you, Miss Danforth!” came a voice from the crowd.
“I would never be afraid if I were protected by
an army comprised of the men of Pennyroyal Green and Greater Sussex. I’ve never known such gallant, thoughtful men.”
For God’s sake. Surely at least Seamus Duggan, who was Irish, would recognize blarney for what it was.
And yet they all seemed like hounds, pushing their snouts into her hand for more strokes every time she said such things.
She was no beginner, he’d wager. At shooting, or at creating a mythology for himself, or at getting men to eat out of her hand.
Wallflower, his eye.
He ought to know. He conducted his own seductions with the finesse of a fine conductor.
“Well done, Miss Danforth,” he said quite cynically.
She turned her gaze upon him. He felt himself brace against the impact of it, which surprised him. He blinked. There were times he forgot—or would like to forget—just how very pretty she was. He was accustomed to beauty. But hers was stealthy; his body reacted to it before his mind could dismiss it.
And for a moment he could have sworn he might have blushed.
It made him strangely angry; he felt tricked, somehow. He did not want to find a woman he distrusted so thoroughly appealing.
To his surprise, scarlet rushed into her cheeks again.
“Thank you, Captain Eversea. The compliment means a good deal coming from you.”
“Does it?” he said so abruptly, so ironically, she blinked. “Why?”
One never knew whether she meant what she said.
She apparently had no answer for that—she stared wide-eyed up at him as if her wits had abandoned her, or as if he’d caught her in the midst of some heinous act. And that flush migrated into her tawny cheeks and spread down her collarbone, and he watched its progress.
And for a moment he found himself simply staring back, as if he’d been given an opportunity to observe a rare wild creature.
Their mutual stare was interrupted by two men chuffing over, ferrying the trophy between them.
“We’ve all between us decided you deserve the trophy this year, Miss Danforth.”
“Oh, my goodness! Surely I don’t warrant the trophy for shooting one little apple!”
“It would be our pleasure. What say you, Captain Eversea?”
Miss Danforth stared up at him, and her white teeth sank into her bottom lip.
He could have sworn she was holding her breath.
“Miss Danforth may have the trophy.”
The trophy came nearly up to her hip.
And there was no shortage of volunteers to haul it back to the house for her.
Chapter 13
THE ENTIRE MARKSMANSHIP COMPETITION crowd migrated to Eversea House, thrown open for the purposes of a party, and happy villagers and competitors milled over the lawn—admittedly, some did more staggering than milling—as well as in and out of the larger parlor, and a long table had been dragged out to the green, covered with a cloth, and piled with an assortment of little cakes and fruit. Ned Hawthorne had been persuaded to part with a few kegs of his light and dark for a price ruthlessly haggled by Mrs. deWitt. An impromptu orchestra of sorts was recruited—really, two fiddles and an accordion. Dancing commenced on the lawn.
IAN WANDERED INTO the house and paused on the periphery of the parlor, studying the scene before him.
He gave a short laugh. The light loved Tansy. He would have sworn it deliberately sought her out like any other lovesick swain, and bathed her in glow. It could, of course, be the other way around. She in all likelihood had a stage diva’s knack for finding the best light in any given room. Regardless, it was easy to imagine her as the lamp in a room and all the young men as moths, circulating, moving in closer at their peril. Each of them secretly soldiers in the game of love, plotting strategies.
They hadn’t a prayer. Titania Danforth was Napoleon.
She could possibly even outshoot Napoleon.
She held court on a settee, accepting a plate of cakes and a glass of ratafia from one swain, smiling up at another. Like the sun, the rays of her attention seemed to effortlessly include all of them while leaving each both convinced and uncertain whether he was her favorite. Or whether she had one.
It might have been more amusing—he might have admired the sheer mastery and showmanship—if one of the men circulating hadn’t been Lord Landsdowne. Granted, Landsdowne wasn’t quite as obvious as the younger men about it. But then, he wouldn’t be. Ian watched him, as he’d watched him the other night, and recognized the look on his face. Not rapt, per se. But a certain inscrutable thoughtfulness. He was a patient man. Older. Wealthy. Titled. Utterly confident, quite solid. He’d courted Olivia in patient, persistent, inventive ways that kept her intrigued, and had lured his notoriously capricious sister into something close to an understanding. And that was by no means an unimpressive feat, given that no man in three years had come near to anything of the sort.
And the trouble was, he’d seen that look on Landsdowne’s face when he’d looked at Olivia.
And when he thought of Olivia—his proud, difficult, brilliant, charming, beautiful sister—the idea of her sustaining yet another blow to her heart made him suck in his breath, as if he was sustaining that blow right now.
A cluster of women were arrayed opposite. One of them was Olivia, and she was pretending not to notice. And yet he was somehow certain she was suffering.
Suddenly Colin was next to him, a seed cake in one hand and a glass of something that looked like the Pig & Thistle’s dark in the other.
He followed the line of Ian’s gaze.
“So . . . what do you think of our Miss Danforth?”
“She’s horrible.” Ian presented the word absently, with a sort of reverent hush.
Colin’s head jerked around to stare at him. “What on . . . Did you sustain a blow to the head? How on earth did you draw that conclusion?”
“It all began when she didn’t blink at all when I said the word tits. And you just did, and you’re a jaded roué. Or were, before you were married.”
“Insults and blinking aside . . . I’m struggling to imagine the context in which one would say ‘tits’ to Miss Danforth.”
“She dared me.” Ian said this on an awestruck hush. “That . . . that . . . wench actually led me right to it. Or rather, she led me into saying ‘Titsy,’ but the difference is the same.”
Colin was examining him thoughtfully, with concern, as though searching for signs of fever.
“Assuming this is true,” he said, “and I’ll allow that it’s a trifle unusual, given her wealth and background and youth, and so forth . . . you didn’t have to take that dare, now, did you?”
Ian launched an incredulous eyebrow. How long have you known me? “Furthermore she goes about collecting hearts as blithely as if she’s picking blueberries, Colin. Without thought to the consequence.”
“Hmm. Now, who does that remind me of?”
“She smokes and drinks! Hard liquor!” Ian insisted wildly.
Colin snorted. “I’m starting to think you’ve been smoking and drinking hard liquor.”
Ian hesitated, and then presented his coup de grace on a hoarse whisper: “I think she may even have a secret lover.”
It was quite an accusation, and he knew it.
This drew Colin up to his full height. He fixed his brother with a hard, searching stare. For one wild instant Ian wondered if he was about to be called out.
Then Colin’s face cleared as if he’d clearly reached a conclusion.
“How long has it been since you’ve taken a lover? A good week or so? No wonder you’re losing your mind.”
Excellent sarcasm.
“I’m telling you, Colin, she’s Beelzebub in a bonnet. Satan in Satin.”
“The devil in damask?”
“Precisely,” Ian agreed fervently. Deliberately ignoring Colin’s irony.
“Ian . . .” Col
in’s tone was placating. “I wonder if this isn’t all wishful thinking on your part, because you know the duke will murder you sooner or later and Genevieve would never forgive you if you . . . shall we say . . . went near the girl. Or through her window, to be more specific.”
“For God’s sake, Colin, I’m not mad. You know me. I’ve never lost my mind over a woman in my life, and I see them all quite clearly, thank you very much. I’m only telling you the conclusions I’ve drawn upon observation. Just watch her.”
As Colin was a good brother, he humored Ian and did just that.
“For heaven’s sake, Ian . . . I mean . . . just look at her.” His voice went a trifle drifty over the last three words.
Ian turned very, very slowly and glared at Colin. “And?” he said tightly.
“Ian . . . her eyes are so . . . may I tell you something?”
“Go on,” Ian said sourly.
“You know I love Madeleine with all my heart. She is my heart. I would die for her, etcetera. I’ve never been happier.”
“Very well.”
“When I get to Heaven?”
“The ‘when’ presumes rather a lot.”
“I think the color of the skies in Heaven are precisely the same shade as Miss Danforth’s.”
Ian stared at him. “Et tu?” he said sadly at last. “Et tu, Colin?”
He flung himself back against the wall and banged his head against it, slowly, rhythmically. Similar to the rhythm of a drum playing a man to the gallows.
“Have a drink, Ian, or have a woman. Surely you’ve one or two on the dangle. Just keep away from that one, if she troubles you so. How difficult can it be?”
Sage advice delivered, Colin gave him a thump on the back and peered out toward the garden. “Croquet!” he said happily. “What a splendid idea. Come out to the garden with me and Madeleine. I know hitting something with a mallet will make you feel better.”
Between the Devil and Ian Eversea: Pennyroyal Green Series Page 12
