Page 16 of A Sporting Chance (The Chances #8)

She was starting to mean more to him than… Well, than any lady had a right to.

But…

“Have you feelings for her—is she already under your protection?”

Leopold bit his lip. Usually, when they met for their lessons, the place was empty—he always arranged it so, as best he could, based on the rota at the front desk.

It was easier that way. He did not wish for spectators and he had been certain Miss Andilet would feel the same way.

And now she was not Miss Andilet, but Kathleen, and he had kissed her, and he was starting to feel far more than was appropriate for a young woman from a scandal-embroiled family that his own family could never accept.

“Yes, that’s her, there,” Lord Graycott muttered from behind him somewhere. “Look at them.”

Leopold swallowed. It was not the decision he wanted to make, but it was the right one.

He would not subject Kathleen to the sneers, jeers, and stares of Lord Graycott and his idiotic friends.

He would explain it all to her on another occasion, but on this occasion, he had to do what he knew to be right.

Even if she would not appreciate it.

“I am sorry, Miss Andilet,” he said quietly. “But you should not come in.”

Kathleen’s jaw dropped, and her breath hitched. Her face was an absolute picture of betrayal and shock, and it tore at Leopold’s heart so deeply, he wondered how it was still beating.

“There,” said the footman smugly, which was certainly no great help. “Now, if you’ll just step back down to the street, Miss Annerly—”

“Andilet,” Kathleen snapped, making absolutely no move to leave the club. “Leopold—Lord Leopold, I do not understand. Why would you do this?”

“As I said, Miss Andilet, you should not come in today ,” Leopold said, attempting to tell her without words precisely that it was a bad idea on this occasion, not a censure of her ever returning to the place.

Dear God, the idea of her never returning to this place…

“Are you having me thrown out, is that it?” Kathleen hissed under the laughter from the gentlemen behind Leopold.

“You have tired of me and now seek to end our friendship? Or is it that you have rethought our…our discussion from the other day and have decided I am no longer worthy of your family’s reputation? ”

That was a low blow, and the worst of it all was that Leopold could not deny it had crossed his mind.

Her sister’s scandal, the details of which he did not even need to know, was a stain on her reputation, and anyone associated with her would suffer the same fate.

It was unpleasant to think so, but Leopold was no fool.

He had been raised to know precisely how one single member of the family could destroy everything that generations had built.

One wrong connection, and it would all come tumbling down.

His silence was evidently read as agreement. Kathleen’s lips trembled, her features becoming discomposed, all her pained thoughts written across her face.

“I cannot believe you, and yet I suppose I should not be surprised,” she said curtly, glaring at the footman as he approached her so fiercely that he took a hasty step back. “There was a reason I kept the truth from you. Thank God I did not actually confide all in you. Good day.”

Kathleen whirled around, skirts flying, only resulting in Leopold’s gaze drawn to her wonderful waist, the curve of her hips. Damn it, it was impossible to think when in this woman’s presence!

She had stormed out before he could think to say another word.

“Thank you, my lord,” said Marston with a bow. “It is always wonderful to have the support of—”

“That woman is never to be denied entrance again, do you hear me?” snapped Leopold, jamming his top hat on his head and racing after her.

He did not hear Marston’s reply, if he made one. He was far too occupied with chasing after Kathleen down the street, her pace remarkable and surely due to ire more than natural speed.

“Kathleen,” Leopold panted when he caught up with her, grabbing her arm to whirl her around.

She shook him off easily. “Are you not afraid to be seen with me?”

Yes , he wanted to say, but I don’t care. Somehow, you matter more, and I don’t understand it, and I cannot explain it, and I would deny it if anyone but you asked me.

Ask me, Kathleen. Ask me if I care more about you or my reputation.

“I need to explain myself.”

“I think you made yourself perfectly clear at the club!” Kathleen shot back, her pace undaunted. “To think that I trusted you! That I thought—for a moment, that friendship could—but I was mistaken, dreadfully mistaken!”

She is also speaking at the top of her lungs , Leopold thought desperately, and he could not permit her to gain even more notice when he wished to explain precisely why he had acted in such a way.

If only there was—ah.

“And the next time I am so foolish as to believe a gentleman could—aargh!”

Leopold wished she had not yelped so loudly. It was all he could do to stop himself from placing a hand over her mouth, which surely would not assist matters.

As Kathleen righted herself after he had pulled her suddenly to the left, she glared. “Where are we?”

“Kensington Gardens,” Leopold said in a low voice, grabbing her arm and pulling her farther into the silver birch grove. “Few know of it. I thought we could have a conversation here.”

“I have no wish to hear your paltry explanations for rudeness and betrayal,” said Kathleen harshly, pain glimmering in her eyes. “You think you deserve the stage to declaim your rights?”

“I think you deserve to know that had you walked into that club, on this day, at that hour, you would have found yourself the center of gossip and mockery!”

Leopold had not intended to speak so bluntly. The words resounded in the small grove of trees where they were utterly alone, and Kathleen’s mouth opened, but no sound came out as he watched her register what he had just said.

It was poorly done, perhaps, but it was done, and that was the most important thing. Now she could forgive him and—

“I heard how you spoke about me,” she said quietly. “I was there far longer than you realized. I am naught but an acquaintance, a pupil, I think you said. I think you even specified that I was not the sort of woman to attract you, which was interesting to hear.”

Leopold groaned, pulling a hand through his hair. He would never have said such a thing if he had known—but of course, he should never have said such a thing at all.

Blast it all to hell.

“I was in a tight spot,” he said, his jaw constricted. “I-I felt put upon. There was no right response to their remarks. I did not wish you to be embroiled in another scandal—”

“Oh, I am sure absolutely no one is talking about what just occurred at the London Archery Club,” Kathleen said, a devastating air in her words.

Leopold cursed under his breath.

“And there is no need for foul language.”

“There is every need!” He did not precisely explode, but he certainly spoke far louder than he had intended to.

“Damn it, Kathleen, you are an intelligent woman. You must understand the impossibility of what we have started! This—this friendship, this tutoring of archery, it is not within the bounds of propriety!”

She was staring now with wide and uncomprehending eyes. “I do not understand.”

“I am not your brother, nor father, to be spending so much time with you, and unchaperoned!” Leopold said, desperation pouring through him as the fears he had battled since the moment he had encountered this beautiful, inexplicable woman spilled out of him.

“Spending time with you is a risk, to both of us, and we both have humiliations in our pasts that have not entirely cleared. I am put upon from all sides, pressure from my family to be more than I can be, pressure from Society to entertain and to be interesting, yet never to step beyond the boundaries that appear to move all the time! To be associated with each other in such a way, for our—our friendship to be misconstrued—”

“Then why do it?” Kathleen shot back, her cheeks pink. “Why continue to teach me archery, why—”

“Because I cannot stay away from you!”

Leopold was breathing heavily. His pulse throbbed in his throat, his fingers tingled, and there was a ringing in his ears he could not quite comprehend.

And then he realized why.

“Because I cannot stay away from you!”

Kathleen was staring up at him, utterly astonished.

Her lips, her painfully kissable lips, were parted.

She was closer, closer than he remembered, and Leopold wished for nothing more than to pull her to him and show her, rather than tell her, why it was impossible for him to stop teaching her archery.

Oh, there was so much more that he wanted to teach her.

“I cannot stay away from you,” Leopold repeated, his voice ragged.

“If I could do it, then I would, but you draw me to you in a way that is inexplicable, Kathleen, and you should know—you should know that I can offer you nothing, and I do not even understand my own feelings, but they are there and they are burning, Kathleen. Time spent apart from you is nothing to the time spent with you and that…that is why I could not permit you entrance today. Because if I did, and you became the subject of ridicule from men who are not worthy of you, then my position in Society would force me to step aside. Step away. And I would die, Kathleen.”

He should not have been saying this. He knew he should not. All his upbringing and education and his father’s precepts cried out that this was wrong.

Nothing had ever felt more right.

“So… So that is why I continue to teach you archery,” said Leopold, voice cracking. “Don’t ever think I do not have your best interests at heart. Even if they are at war with my own.”

“Leopold—”

He spun on his heels and marched away before he could hear any more. He could permit himself to—not when he was mere inches away from kissing that woman senseless until she did not know her own name.

Until she wondered whether it was Chance.