Page 22 of A Sporting Chance (The Chances #8)

P erhaps this was a bad idea.

Kathleen had thought it was an excellent idea. Turn up early, having borrowed the key from Leopold after what had been a most fascinating luncheon, and get some practice in early.

The sun had come up swiftly enough, she had reasoned as she’d trodden as quietly as she could manage out of the rooms she and her sister shared.

There would be no one about at this early hour, much less because they were gentlemen who undoubtedly had been out carousing, or whatever they did late at night.

It had been an excellent plan. It was a shame, however, that she had been entirely wrong.

“What on earth are you doing here?” asked a gentleman bluntly as Kathleen let herself through the gate and halted, startled, at the sight of a trio of gentlemen all holding bows.

Kathleen swallowed. “I…ah…”

“Do not ask such daft questions. The woman has a key,” muttered one of the other men, nudging the first with his shoulder. “She is evidently some sort of servant. Come on, it’s your turn.”

Heat flushed Kathleen’s cheeks, but before she had the opportunity to say anything, the trio of gentlemen looked away and resumed their turns at the far-right butt. As though she were no longer of interest. As though she were nothing.

Which, she supposed, she was. True, it was a tad hurtful to think that her outfit, although not her finest, was the equivalent to servants’ wear.

It was a small mercy, however, that she was to be left alone. Kathleen carefully selected the bow that Leopold had decided was the best for her, one that was not too heavy, and picked up three arrows.

Practice, that was what Leopold had said she needed. Practice.

“But you’ve had years of practice!” she had protested just the other day.

And he had winked. “Exactly.”

So practice she would. Even if it was a mite disconcerting to line up her arrow to her own butt with the trio of gentlemen staring.

Yes, she was not proficient. Yes, it was unpleasant and decidedly uncomfortable to practice when they were so more talented than she. Yes, they were whispering and may soon inquire precisely why a servant had removed her hat and gloves and was helping herself to the arrows.

But she would never gain the skills required if she did not practice, would she?

Trying to slow her breathing and remember what Leopold had said about her stance, Kathleen took aim at the butt. It appeared to be a great distance away, but she quietened her lungs, glared at it as though it had done her a great injury, and let the arrow fly.

It hit the butt, which was an excellent start—and in the second ring.

Kathleen lowered her bow and tried not to feel too pleased with herself. It was an improvement, yes, but she had a great deal of distance to go.

The trio of gentlemen had not looked around, to her great relief.

Notching her second arrow in the bowstring, Kathleen once again lifted the bow, feeling the tension in her shoulders but acknowledging that she was certainly getting stronger. It would have been impossible to shoot a second arrow so soon after the first when she had begun her archery lessons.

“Excellent! So if I can shoot an arrow to hit one of those things from fifty yards within a month, you’ve won. If not, then I have won.”

The second arrow went flying.

“Oh, I do apologize!” Kathleen winced as the trio of gentlemen gawped. She had hit a butt—not the butt she had been aiming for, sadly, but the butt in between hers and the one the trio of gentlemen were practicing on.

Another few feet, and she would have been in danger of hitting their butt.

She raised a hand in acknowledgement of the mistake and called out again. “I am ever so sorry!”

One of the men, the one who had first spoken to her, was shaking his head, but none of them said a word.

Which is probably all to the good , Kathleen thought darkly as she placed her third arrow in her bow. The last thing she needed was for Leopold to have to defend himself at the London Archery Club for allowing a woman in.

This time, she truly concentrated. Her pulse thudded in her ear, but it was a regular, calm pulse that grounded her rather than distracted.

A slight breeze rustled her hair, her curls dancing across her forehead, but then it slowed.

The air was still. She was still. The only thing that could move was the bow and she held it taut, motionless, as she fixed her attention on the center of her target.

She knew what she wanted. She knew what she was aiming for.

“Kathleen!”

Leopold?

Without thought, acting on pure instinct, Kathleen turned toward the voice that was so familiar and so delightful. Quite accidentally, however, she did not lower her bow.

“Good God, Kathleen!”

Leopold’s explosive words rang out as he dropped to the grass, fear in his eyes as he stared at the—

“Oh,” said Kathleen vaguely, looking at the aimed bow and arrow in her hands. “Oh, yes—whoops!”

She had not intended to let the arrow fly. It had been a mistake, an accident, a flicker of movement in her wrist that had sent the arrow onward.

It was a good thing, really, that Leopold had dropped to the floor in terror. The arrow flew right over him.

“Leopold,” Kathleen whispered, mortified at what she had just done.

She could have killed him! She could have gravely injured him! She could at the very least have given his valet a great deal of mending to do in the shirt and waistcoat department.

Stomach filled with horror, she met Leopold’s face.

It was laughing.

“You are an absolute menace,” Leopold said, still chuckling as he pushed himself to his feet. “Dear Lord, Kathleen, what were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” she said honestly, dropping the bow to her side and rushing over to him.

Why she had done so, she was not sure. It was quite plain that no injury had been inflicted on him, and yet her fingers wanted to brush over his jacket, his shirt, his cravat, to ensure he was all in one piece.

Quite why her flickering fingertips gained such jolting sparks as she did so was quite beyond Kathleen.

She hadn’t been thinking. No, she had been feeling, her instincts prompting her the moment she had heard Leopold’s voice to turn to him.

Leopold carefully captured her hand in his as he spoke in a low tone. “I am quite well, Kathleen. You did not hit me.”

“But I could have,” Kathleen said quietly, her ribcage tightening. “I could have injured you.”

And that would have been a disaster. To hurt Leopold, to wound him in any way, to realize she could have damaged a man who meant…who meant so much.

“I appear to have forgotten to teach you the most serious lesson of all.”

Kathleen blinked away foolish tears. “Y-You have?”

“Yes,” came Leopold’s calm and merry voice, his fingers still clasped around her hand. “Do not shoot your tutor.”

She laughed, she could not help it, and some of the nervous tension within her exploded, relieving her of the pressure within her ribcage. And he was laughing with her, and he was fine, quite unharmed.

“It appears the only company we had is leaving,” Leopold said, glancing over his shoulder.

Kathleen followed his gaze and saw that the trio of gentlemen who had been such uncomfortable spectators of her efforts were making their way back to the London Archery Club. “So it seems.”

The door closed behind them, and only then did Leopold say in a low voice, “Which means we are alone.”

Alone .

A scandal in Society. Something to be feared, to be avoided. There should always be a chaperone, Kathleen knew. It had been the lack of chaperone that had caused such irreparable damage to her sister’s reputation, her prospects, the prospects of all of them.

And yet standing here, the bow somehow on the ground now by her feet, both her hands now inexplicably being clasped by Leopold to his chest, there was no sense within Kathleen that what they were doing was wrong.

Quite to the contrary. It felt right. It felt as though she should have been here all along.

“You… You were wonderful.”

Kathleen snorted, the moment seemingly gone. “I have much improvement to make if I am ever going to hit the center of that target.”

“No, no—I mean, yes, I am afraid,” said Leopold with a wry smile. “But I actually meant the luncheon, with my family. You were wonderful.”

She had felt slightly out of place and a mite harried by the obvious interest they had all shown in her, but it seemed impolite to point that out. “Your family are wonderful people.”

“Yes. I suppose they are. I do not think of it that often, to tell the truth,” Leopold said softly.

He was still holding her hands against his chest. Kathleen had made no move to pull them free, did not want to, was relishing this closeness, this connection. And he surely wanted them there, did he not? Why else would he hold them so close, so flat against him that she could feel his pulse thrum?

“It was pleasant to have you there. It is pleasant to be with you anywhere.”

Kathleen swallowed hard. Leopold’s voice had somehow changed, altered, become something deeper and darker. The way he was staring…a burning, fiery look that darkened the color of his eyes and made him all the more delectable.

She should not do it. She knew she should not; no elegant lady of any class was encouraged to go around kissing gentlemen merely because one was attracted to them.

But there was more to this than mere attraction. This was Leopold. She… She did not love him. Not yet.

But she could.

“Leopold,” Kathleen whispered, looking deep into his eyes.

His smile appeared nervous, though why that should be, she did not know. “Kathleen.”

And then she was kissing him.

How it had started, she did not know. Kathleen was almost certain she had leaned up on her tiptoes to reach his mouth, pressing a nervous kiss upon them, and had yelped at the sudden and instant ardor that he returned.