Henry Clay just blinked at her some more, causing Fanny to sigh, but then she smiled.
“Don’t you worry about it, Henry Clay,” she said, giving him an affectionate scratch under the chin before gathering medical books and cat up in her arms. “You’re smarter than both those fluff balls put together. Why, they just sit and watch, waiting for their kippers. You, on the other hand? I’m sure when the time comes, you’ll find something useful to do. You’ll be a cat of action.”
Chapter
Fourteen
While Grace commenced her short tour of Porthampton Abbey with Meriwether Young inside, Kate stood outside in the magnificent drive, staring up at the pinnacles, towers, and turrets of the abbey. As she stood there, her shotgun broken across one arm, she tapped her booted foot in impatience.
At least the others were finally appropriately dressed now, Dr. Zebulon Webb, Raymond Allen, and Benedict Clarke clothed similarly to her father in scarlet coats, white breeches, black top hats and black top boots, white cashmere scarves with golden pins. She had to admit that the cousin looked handsome in his costume, while Raymond Allen appeared to be swimming in his. As for Lizzy, Becky had managed to piece together for her black boots, white breeches, and a black jacket with a scarlet waistcoat underneath. Kate had to further admit that her youngest sister did look smart, although she couldn’t help adding to herself, Too bad she’s not actually smart.
Kate was anxious for the hunt to start, but while her father and Dr. Webb already had their guns, and Benedict had said he didn’t want one, Raymond Allen was dithering over selecting his from the supply the gamekeeper had brought up and was showing to him now.
“You know,” the duke said, “I do think I’d be more comfortable if Daniel chose for me.”
“Daniel?” Kate said. “Who is Daniel?”
Just then, one of the footmen who’d been waiting attendance off to the side stepped forward, and Kate recalled something being said over breakfast about the duke’s personal valet having pulled a bunker and one of the abbey’s own footmen stepping in to help.
As Daniel selected a gun and sized it up, the duke informed the party at large, “Daniel was in the war, you know. He probably knows more about guns than all of us put together.”
Had Daniel been in the war? Kate squinted at the footman. In her mind’s eye, she summoned up a younger version, remembering him as a scruffy hall boy. Then he’d disappeared for a while. And now he was back, although she couldn’t say for how long he had been. A year since the war had ended? Longer? She’d never paid much attention to the footmen before today. Handsome as they were, honestly, they all looked the same to her.
“Actually, I, too, was in the war,” Benedict said, showing the first display of competition Kate had seen in him.
Good, she thought. Competition is healthy. Although why anyone should feel the need to compete with a footman, she had no idea.
“Yes,” the duke said to Benedict, “but no doubt you were an officer, protected by your men. Daniel here, on the other hand, saw real fighting.”
“Here you go, sir.” Daniel handed the gun he’d selected to the duke, as though he hadn’t noticed at all that they were talking about him. “I think this one should suit you.”
“Thank you, Daniel,” the duke said. “I’m sure it’ll be perfect.”
Daniel tilted his head and gave a slight bow as he backed away before turning on his heel. Once he started to walk, it looked as though he meant to keep going.
“Wait!” the duke called after him. “Aren’t you coming with us? Aren’t you going to attend to me?”
Daniel turned back. “I’m afraid not, sir. I need to help Jonathan bring the hampers down to the barn and help the others set up your luncheon there.”
“Oh, I see.” The duke sounded so disappointed.
“Daniel!” Lizzy called before the footman had a chance to start walking away again. “I’ve never shot a gun before. Do you think that, before you go, you could help me pick out a shotgun, too?”
Kate couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a mild expression of scorn flit across the footman’s face. Well, who could blame him? The idea of someone who’d never used a gun before going hunting was laughable, the height of foolishness, and she’d scorn Lizzy herself were it not for the fact that she wanted Lizzy along so she wouldn’t have to deal with both the duke and the cousin herself.
Just as quickly as Kate spotted the scorn on the footman’s face, it was gone, replaced by a bland expression of impassivity.
“Of course, Lady Elizabeth,” the footman said. He then selected a shotgun and patiently showed Lizzy the rudiments of using it as the others waited—how to load it and all the et ceteras.
Daniel finished with, “I believe you’re just meant to be shooting birds and the like today, so make sure to only aim at things above you and be sure no members of your party are in front of you when you shoot.”
“Thank you, Daniel,” Lizzy said with grateful good cheer, “I think I’ve got all that.”
Honestly. Lizzy was now addressing a footman by his given name and she was doing so with good cheer? Was this to be a cheerful hunt, then? It really was too much.
“Are we all finally ready?” Kate asked the assembly. When she was greeted with nods all around and some verbal assent, she added, “Good. Thank God it’s Saturday.”
“Why ‘Thank God it’s Saturday’?” the duke wanted to know.
“Because,” Kate said, “at night and at Christmas and on Sundays we’re not allowed to kill anything.”
…
This is no kind of serious hunt, Kate thought. Why, we don’t even have a beater with us!
Still, it was a beautiful day for a hunt.
Gorgeous, sunny, not a cloud in the sky—no sign of the rain that almost constantly plagued them. True, it was cold and extraordinarily windy, causing Kate’s veil to annoyingly brush against her face, but one couldn’t do a thing about the ever-present high winds at Porthampton Abbey. It was a fact of daily life one must simply grin and endure.
What was harder to endure was being forced to listen to her father and Dr. Webb behind her nattering on, chatting to the unarmed cousin they flanked, leaving her and Lizzy to be chatted to by the duke who walked between them.
Right now, he was going on about the inability to find good help. Not that she didn’t agree with him, but did he have to whine about it? Like the wind, it was pointless to complain. She stopped listening, leaving it to Lizzy to offer sympathy, while she cocked an ear to the conversation going on behind her, all the while scanning the skies for something to shoot at.
“And you say you have a passion for croquet?” her father was saying to the cousin. “How fascinating!”
Kate didn’t find it fascinating at all. Moreover, she could see where this was going. Father and Dr. Webb would ask the cousin questions and, no matter what Benedict replied, even if it were something completely idiotic, their responses would be, “How fascinating!” or “How interesting!” or “Aren’t you clever?”
It was enough to make a person sick.
Never mind, she’d expected better from Father. Couldn’t he see how transparent he was being? Clearly, having invited Meriwether Young and Raymond Allen to the abbey as potential suitors for her, now that he had the newly minted cousin on hand, he’d set his sights elsewhere: get the cousin to marry the daughter and everyone’s entail problems would be solved.
She wondered how the cousin felt about her father’s transparent plans.
And she decided she didn’t care what the cousin thought—about this, or about anything else, really.
Then she thought, What do I think about it? Why isn’t anyone asking me?
And then she decided that she really didn’t want to think about any of this—marriage, entails—anymore, at least not right now. What she really wanted to do, was to shoot something.
Which she was being completely prevented from doing.
“Don’t any of you know how to beh
ave on a hunt?” she whispered in an annoyed voice at the group. “We’ve been out here for an hour, and you’re all making so much noise, I haven’t seen even a single bird yet!”
Before anyone could respond to her outburst, she peeled off and began heading to the left. “You keep going the way that you are,” she informed the group, waving a dismissive hand at the path the others were cutting. “I’ll head this way.”
Raymond Allen began to follow her, but she stopped him with a gloved hand. “Really,” she said firmly, “I prefer to hunt alone.”
Reluctantly, the duke rejoined the men, who continued on with their talking walk.
Relieved to be rid of him, to be rid of all of them, Kate made her own way across the field. It was quieter now as distance grew between them, the voices receding, but as Kate scanned the skies for something to shoot, she heard footsteps at her side.
“Lizzy!” She whirled on her sister. “Did you not hear me tell the others that I prefer to hunt alone?”
“Of course I heard you,” Lizzy replied mildly, before adding an eager, “but I want to hunt properly, too. And you’re right, the others are making too much noise.”
“Very well,” Kate said, “but I’d be more comfortable if you kept your shotgun broken over your arm until you’re ready to shoot something, which, in your case, I hope will be never. You are such a novice, you know.”
“How do you mean,” Lizzy said, as always refusing to show insult, “broken over my arm?”
Kate demonstrated, showing how the two main elements of the rifle could be partially separated, so that the hinge hung over her arm with the barrel pointed safely toward the ground.
“Oh,” Lizzy said, “I don’t think I want to do it like that. I’d rather just immediately be ready the instant I see anything.”
“Fine,” Kate said, exasperated. “Do it your way. But don’t blame me if you shoot your own foot off.”
“I won’t.”
“Now, do be quiet. As a matter of fact, it would be best if you walked behind me, making as little noise as possible so I can pretend you’re not even there.”
“All right,” Lizzy agreed.
Kate proceeded to walk on ahead, past a stand of bushes. As she walked, looking upward, she positioned her shotgun, squinting one eye as she trained it on the sky overhead. Patience wasn’t typically one of Kate’s virtues, but she resolved that she would just do this until she saw the object of her desire.
It didn’t take forever, at least. Soon, some flying creature came into view up in the distance. Kate froze, waited.
“Kate,” she heard Lizzy speak from behind her; Lizzy, whom Kate had briefly forgotten was there.
“Shh,” Kate hushed her.
Kate kept her eye on the sky. That bird needed to get closer for her to have her chance.
“Kate,” Lizzy whispered again, this time with more urgency. Was there a rising panic to Lizzy’s whisper? But what was there to panic about?
Kate ignored her, but then she felt the wind rushing at her from the right.
Only it wasn’t the wind.
It was a body, a human body, crashing hers to the ground and then forcefully rolling her over and over until she and the other body came to rest behind the stand of bushes.
“Kate? Are you all right?” a male voice asked in a whisper.
She looked up to find the stable boy poised above her, his body on top of hers.
Kate had never even kissed a boy before, never mind had one lie on top of her, but she’d imagined—oh, how she’d imagined! And yet imagination was nothing compared to the reality of the masculine body and its hard length now pressing down on hers, which felt entirely natural somehow. Was it possible to swoon while lying down? That hair. Those lips just a breath away from her own. All she had to do was exhale and she was sure her lips would come into inevitable contact with his. But there were those eyes, filled with concern. Concern about… Wait.
Abruptly, Kate remembered who she was, who he was.
“Who gave you permission to call me Kate?” she demanded.
“I think when I saved your life, I earned that right,” Will replied.
“What are you talking about? And why are we whispering?”
But before he could explain to her what he had meant by that, a shotgun shot rang out, followed by a scream.
Lizzy.
Chapter
Fifteen
Normally, a rifle ringing out wouldn’t cause others to come running. It was meant to be a hunt, after all. If there were never any gunshots, the whole affair would be deemed a sorry failure. But a young female screaming certainly did the trick, as Lizzy soon learned.
The first to reach her was the duke, Raymond Allen, surprisingly fast on those long legs of his. He was soon followed by Cousin Benedict and then Dr. Zebulon Webb, with Father panting a bit as he brought up the rear. Simultaneous with Father’s arrival, from an entirely different direction, came Will Harvey and her sister Kate, the latter with straw and ground material sticking to her garments in various odd places.
“Lizzy, are you all right?” her father demanded, taking her in his arms. “What has happened?”
What had happened?
Oh, the morning had started out with such great promise! She’d never been on a hunt before. Honestly, she’d never been along for any of the fun and grown-up things her sisters, particularly Kate, were allowed to participate in. And then, when Daniel had shown her how to use a gun, that had been fun, although she’d never dreamed she would be called upon to use it so quickly nor in such a way. Still later, tramping around the grounds with the group, even though they hadn’t been able to spot anything to shoot at due to the talking of the others, that had been fun, too. For a moment she’d thought that if that went on forever—the tramping and not shooting—that would be just fine. At least for once she was being taken seriously as a sort-of adult member of the group.
Not to mention, she’d known she looked just smashing in her hunting costume.
But then Kate had thought to peel off from the others in the hopes of actually shooting something, and Lizzy, wanting to be like and with her older sister, had gone along.
And then…
And then…
“That happened!” Lizzy cried, disengaging from Father’s embrace as she sought to point over the shoulders of the party encircling her.
The others followed her pointing finger, and that’s when they all saw what had happened: the motionless body, lying just a few feet away.
Dr. Webb broke off from the group.
“Is he dead, Doctor?” the earl asked as the doctor drew closer to the object of all their attention.
“I would say,” Dr. Webb said, “that the man is quite dead. That is usually the case when a man has had his head shot just about clear off his shoulders.”
“Lizzy, what happened?” Kate asked with what struck Lizzy as a surprising amount of concern, coming from Kate.
So Lizzy explained, as though just talking to Kate alone, about the excitement she’d been feeling and about how eager she was to follow where Kate led. Here Lizzy turned to include the wider group.
“Kate insisted I stay behind her, so as not to be a nuisance, which I didn’t mind, not really. I didn’t want to put myself forward, since I knew she had far greater experience with such things than I. But then she raised her shotgun, just keeping her head tilted toward the sky, looking for something to shoot at, for birds.” Lizzy paused. “That’s when I saw…him.” As she pointed again, she shut her eyes as though reluctant to look upon what had happened, what she had done.
Lizzy felt herself engulfed by warring emotions: disgust at what she had done but a curious thrill of excitement as well. It was an astonishing thing to realize that as stupid and silly as others thought her, as she often thought herself, in the moment of danger, she hadn’t cowered or run or waited for someone to save her; in the moment, she had reacted with action.
She shoved her feelings aside as she opened her eyes an
d continued. “He was stumbling across the field—toward Kate, really, since she was between us. I tried to warn her, I did, but she was too busy taking aim at the sky. Then when he drew closer, I tried to warn her again, but still she wouldn’t listen. He was almost upon her, and I was about to scream, but before I could open my mouth, Will Harvey appeared from nowhere, pushing her out of sight and under those bushes over there.”
“I was wondering where you’d come from,” Father said, addressing the stable boy.
“After I warned you, back at the house,” Will said, “and you wouldn’t listen to me, I thought I’d just trail along anyway, stay out of sight.”
“What warning?” the duke asked, but the earl ignored him.
“I thought I told you,” Father said, still focused on Will, “that there was nothing to be concerned about.”
“It’s a good thing he ignored you,” Lizzy said, “because I’m sure he saved Kate’s life.”
“Yes,” her father said gruffly to Will, “and I am sure we are all grateful to you for it.”
Kate turned to Will, stunned. “Is that what you meant? By what you said before?”
Will looked away, seemingly unwilling to take credit. “Anyone might’ve done it,” he said.
“But no one else was here!” Lizzy said. “Not to mention, once you rolled Kate out of the way, that…that…that creature turned his focus upon me. As he drew closer, I could finally see his eyes. They looked sick, really sick, dangerously sick…and…and…and…and I just shot him in the head!”
The full enormity of it all washed over her then, more forcefully than before, and her hands began to shake.
“My poor Lizzy!” Father cried out as he embraced her again.
“Poor Lizzy?” Kate said. “Try making it: bra-vo, Lizzy! The first time she shoots a gun, she saves my life and shoots a man’s head off? I’d say there’s hope for her yet!”
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