Page 12 of A Sporting Chance (The Chances #8)

Leopold knew there were words, words he could say, perhaps even should say, but he could not comprehend what they could be.

All he could think of was that kiss. It was hard to believe it had only been days ago—days filled with longing and repressed anger over the fact that she had so easily swayed him.

That she had played him, in truth, like the fool of a man he was.

How had a woman had such an impact on him? How was it possible that he should be so affected by her?

And why had she looked so discomforted when introduced to her father? They… They did not know each other, did they?

“I… I feel myself a mite fatigued from our last lesson,” Kathleen said awkwardly, struggling to remove her gloves before placing them on the bench beside her. There was something about her, something unnerved. “In fact, I think it would be best if we—”

“Yes, we cannot have you overstretching yourself,” Leopold said, grasping at the possibility to spend time in Kathleen’s presence without risking a repeat of that kiss. Precisely why he wanted, why he needed to be in her presence, he was not going to investigate. “Shall we take a walk?”

Her eyelids fluttered. “A… A walk?”

He had not believed it to be such a ridiculous suggestion, but clearly, it was a surprising one.

Kathleen’s face was a picture. A picture rather like one Evelyn could paint, Leopold could not help but think.

His cousin was a talented artist, indeed, but the longer he looked at Miss Kathleen Andilet, the more he realized there was something about her that simply could not be replicated on canvas.

It was the intelligence—no, it was more than that. Something about the eyes. Something that seemed to suggest she was about to laugh at any moment, but not at someone’s expense.

Here was a woman who saw the joy in the world, even if it was hard to find. Even if it was sometimes out of reach.

Even if she had to make the joy herself.

“Yes, a walk. I think—I mean, I can continue to teach you about archery, while you rest your arms,” Leopold said, suddenly realizing he had been staring at the young woman some moments in silence. “If… If you want to, that is. I am sure you have many calls on your time. Many suitors.”

What had possessed him to say the latter phrase, Leopold did not know.

It was senseless. Foolish, really—a desperate attempt to gain an answer to a question he could not bring himself to ask.

Kathleen appeared to know. Her half smile was too knowing, truth be told, as she started to walk slowly to the left so that they encircled the butts. “Yes, indeed. Many suitors. Far too many.”

The jolt of jealousy and anger was one Leopold had not expected, but it felt wholly natural. The thought of another man courting Miss Andilet—of kissing her, of perhaps more… Did she meet other men without a chaperone present, so brazenly, so boldly?

“You are quiet,” she said softly.

“I am often quiet,” said Leopold without thinking. He laughed, his nerves forcing their way out. “I am sorry, Miss Andilet.”

“I thought we agreed that I was to be Kathleen, and you were to be Leopold?” She did not look at him as she spoke the words, preferring, it seemed, to look directly ahead of her.

Leopold swallowed. “Yes. Yes, we did.”

It was an intimacy far beyond that of a kiss. For a gentleman, the son of a former duke, to be addressed by his first name…

“You said you are often quiet,” she said. “You spoke to me boldly enough, when we first met.”

The memory softened the tension within him, and Leopold’s smile was genuine now. “Whenever I have a bow in my hand or I have recently been shooting, I feel…more myself. As though I am solely myself. Does that make sense?”

“It makes sense, though I have little experience of it,” Kathleen said quietly.

A few other gentlemen had stepped out of the club and were approaching the rack of bows.

Leopold thanked her silently for agreeing to his walk.

He would not have enjoyed the gentle or not-so-gentle teasing they would undoubtedly have received had they stayed.

As it was, he hoped the men didn’t look their way—or if they did, that they confused Kathleen for his cousin or sister.

He was well aware he should not be alone with her—his brother had picked up on the fact that this wasn’t the first time, either. But he couldn’t help himself. He had a feeling that if he pushed the issue, Kathleen would simply slip away.

“Archery, then, is your passion.”

Passion . Such a word, spoken so innocently by an innocent young lady, should not have enflamed a man. But it had.

“Argh,” said Leopold inarticulately. Clearing his throat, he tried again as they turned a corner, meandering away from the butts and more toward the woodland.

“I mean, yes. All sport is, really. It sounds terrible, but I can think of no better way to put it. I have always preferred sport to people.”

“To people?”

Leopold shrugged. “My parents and siblings excluded, I suppose. I mean, when you are focused on your sport—hunting, or billiards, or boxing, but I prefer archery over all else—then all one’s problems fade away.

One cannot concentrate on them, you see.

One cannot even acknowledge they exist. They melt away for you are focused on something different. Better. Higher.”

When he realized that nothing followed his remark but silence, he glanced to his side. Kathleen was smiling, but it was not a mocking smile, or a teasing one.

“You speak as though you refer to God.”

He could not help but laugh at that. “I suppose in a way, it is not a dissimilar feeling to that of being in church. Connecting to something larger than you, I mean, higher than you, more than you could simply be on your own.”

“You feel that while you shoot?”

“When I have a bow in my hand,” Leopold said, the words flowing from him now, easily, without thought, “and an arrow in the other, it is as if I stand atop a precipice with no concerns of falling. I know I can fly at any moment, and indeed, the sensation when I knock an arrow into place…”

It was like flying. Like ecstasy, and passion, and complete calm. Like he had never felt with anything else before.

Only then did he realize that the last few words had not been spoken aloud.

“It is like…like searching for meaning in your life and then finding it, and it was in your hands all along,” Leopold finished, a tad lamely. “I am sure that sounds preposterous.”

“No, not in the slightest.” Kathleen’s words were warm, and she slipped her hand into Leopold’s arm without hesitation.

The weight of her was…comforting. More than comforting. It filled an emptiness Leopold had not known was there.

“All my life, I have sought meaning,” he found himself saying as they continued to walk, the woodland giving them shade from the oppressive heat of the day.

“I am a second son, and if my brother and his wife continue on like they are doing, I shall soon be several sons away from the title—a title I do not particularly want.”

“You are unusual in that, I presume,” Kathleen said with a grin. “My impression of the nobility is that most brothers hope their eldest never has an heir.”

Leopold made a face, attempting to show through it his distaste for such a thought.

“A title… It brings nothing but duty and responsibility, and I have seen the weight with which that has burdened by father. My brother, being made duke while our father still lives, I can already see the change in him, though slight. But in a way, I envy him.”

“The title?”

It was difficult to put into words and Leopold had never attempted it before. Never found himself in a conversation like this, where it would feel natural to say it.

“No, I mean…the purpose.”

Kathleen squeezed his arm, a silent encouragement to continue, and Leopold wished to thank her for it but found he could not.

Instead, he said, “My brother Thomas, he has a purpose. A direction, a meaning for his life. He will live and work for it all his days, I know he will, and he will do well. And when he dies and his son takes up the mantle, my brother will go down in family history, English history, even, perhaps, as a man who served his country. Served his family. Served the title.”

What was he doing, spouting all this nonsense?

Kathleen did not appear to think it was nonsense. She was smiling, nodding her head elegantly in a way that made him remember just what it was to brush a kiss against that neck.

“You seek determination.”

“Being a second son has its advantages. Do not mistake me,” Leopold said with a chuckle. “But knowing there is no path for me, that there never can be one… Archery fills that gap within me, that ache I have for a sense of direction. I cannot explain it any better.”

“I think you have explained it well.” Kathleen’s voice was low, as though they shared secrets. And did they not?

As they turned a corner around the woodland, the London Archery Club disappearing momentarily out of sight, Leopold exhaled. “I have never felt the entire weight of my father’s expectations, and he is…not a harsh man, but a direct one. He is clear in his prospects.”

“My father is much the same,” said Kathleen, her smile faltering. “But you should try being a daughter of any birth order, not just a second son. It would not matter if I did find something like archery, something that sparked my pulse and gave me a sense of purpose. I could not pursue it.”

She spoke quietly, calmly, as though she were merely remarking on the weather. Already, Leopold knew her better than that. He could see the tension momentarily tightening her jaw. Hear the forced lightness.

Sense the sadness.

“You are restricted by being a woman,” he said quietly.

“I am restricted by Society,” Kathleen countered with a rueful smile. “But as I cannot change Society, I have learned, in the main, to embrace what I can do. Come to London. Walk without a chaperone with relative ease. Learn archery.”

There was a teasing smile in her voice and Leopold could not help but squeeze her arm—something he knew immediately was far too forward.

“Archery is not a bad passion to discover,” he said quietly. “It is an ancient skill, one practiced by all peoples across all history, as far as I can make out. We have stories about archers who have lasted generations, do we not? Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give to the poor.”

“William Tell and his apple,” said Kathleen with a laugh. “Palnatoke.”

The recognition of the unusual name spurred Leopold to smile in turn. “Fancy you knowing about Palnatoke!”

“I read,” Kathleen said, her cheeks pinking. “Especially now I am making such impressive progress with a bow.”

Their laughter mingled through the hot summer air and Leopold felt a tug in his loins that had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with…with more than lust.

“Diana,” added Kathleen, brushing a curl from her eyes. “And her hunts.”

“Cupid,” said Leopold without thinking.

Their laughter halted.

At least, his did. There was still laughter dancing in Kathleen’s eyes, eyes he could not tear his own gaze away from, but Leopold did not know if she was laughing with him or at him.

At him, surely. He was being a fool, a capital fool, and if he was not careful, he was going to do something ridiculous.

Like kiss her again.

Not that she wanted him to. She had only accepted his kisses as a jest, he tried to remember.

“Your passion…”

Leopold swallowed, his mouth dry. “I beg your pardon?”

“For archery. Your passion for archery, it is remarkable,” Kathleen said, looking away as they started to walk back to the club. “Inspiring, even. I admit I begin to feel a flutter at the subject now myself.”

“Well, do not let it go to your head,” he tried to joke. “Not that I have ever gone to anyone’s head in the past.”

“Haven’t you?” Her perfect, round mouth fell open.

It was an innocent enough question, except Leopold had never felt less innocent in his thoughts in all his life.

There she was, looking up at him, asking him such a question, and she was touching him, no gloves, her hand on his bare forearm, and for a moment, just a moment—

Leopold could not breathe. The balance: it was here.

It was her. The world was stilled, stilled in a way he had never known before.

There she was, and there he was, standing together, not walking—precisely when they had stopped walking, he had no idea—and he did not need to breathe in or not, there was just this moment, this perfect moment.

Kathleen laughed awkwardly and pulled her hand from his arm. “I have taken up your precious time, my lord. You undoubtedly wished to accompany your brother and father on their errands. I should not have kept you.”

Keep me , Leopold wanted to murmur. Keep me, I could be yours if you wanted me.

“And look at me, out here without my gloves!” She laughed delicately. “I suppose there’s no going back for them now. Not with all those people there.” So she had noticed them, too.

“Of course,” he said aloud, mouth dry, hating himself for saying nothing. “It’s probably best you don’t. Good day, Miss Andilet. Miss Kathleen.”