Page 28 of A Sporting Chance (The Chances #8)

“I f you do not stop fidgeting immediately,” came a serene voice, “I will shoot you.”

Leopold started. “Wh-What?”

His sister, Maude, was grinning much like he imagined a tiger grinned before it pounced on small, fluffy prey. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” His voice had no business sounding so defensive, but he had no idea what on earth she was talking about.

All he was doing was sitting in the drawing room after their evening meal, their parents out at a dinner with their three Chance uncles—to which none of the cousins had been invited, to their shared relief.

Alexander was nowhere to be found, which undoubtedly meant he was somewhere with a paramour, and that left himself and Maude.

He had no idea why she was getting so upset with him. All he was doing was sitting here, minding his own business. Tapping his foot. Tapping his hand on his other knee. Sucking his teeth.

Ah . Leopold thought he had gotten to the bottom of the problem.

“Honestly, what has gotten into you?” asked Maude, throwing down her book from where she lounged on a sofa. “You have been all…all squiggly for days.”

“‘Squiggly’?” Leopold repeated, a smile creeping across his face. “Really, Maude, if that is your best description, I think it no wonder that I cannot answer your ques—ouch!”

Maude’s habit of throwing cushions had been one deplored by her family, mostly because her aim was so good. Unfortunately, there had not been a cushion to hand.

Leopold picked up the book which had been flung in his direction and hit him. “ The Youthful Impostor ? Is it any good?”

“No,” said Maude sweetly.

“Oh? Why not?”

“The edges are clearly not hard enough to bruise.”

He could not help but laugh. Five years older than himself, Maude could remember their parents’ early days of marriage.

She was, in a way, half-sister, half-aunt to him and his brothers.

She remembered a time before them, and more, she remembered when their mother had not been the Duchess of Cothrom, nor the dowager duchess, neither.

There was a wit to her, too, that made it rather difficult to dislike her. Not that anyone really tried.

“Touché,” he said, gingerly putting down the weapon of mass education onto the console table beside him. “But I have to warn you, throwing books at me is not likely to make me stop fidgeting.”

“It might make you stop thinking, though that is hardly difficult,” his sister shot back. “I mean it, what has gotten into you? What is playing on your mind so heavily that you do not know what to do but tap feet and make irritating, off-beat rhythms, sighing so heavily?”

Leopold tried not to get defensive. It did not work. “I wasn’t sighing.”

Maude heaved an overly dramatic sigh that would have been more at home on the stage than in their drawing room. She added a hand to her forehead for good measure.

Tempting as it was to throw the book straight back at her, Leopold had received enough lectures from his father about not hitting girls—and the sacredness of books—to resist. “I was not doing that!”

“You were doing it so often, I was starting to worry you were ailing for something,” Maude retorted. “What is it?”

And Leopold hesitated.

They were not a family who talked about the issues of the heart.

His father was not Uncle George, who wept at weddings and spoke openly of his adoration of his wife.

His father was not even Uncle John, who teased people mercilessly for their affections but was always delighted when one of his children, nephews, or nieces found a love match.

No, his father, William, was far more like Uncle Frederick—another complication in the Chance family. A half-brother of the three elder, it was perhaps surprising that despite not sharing a mother, the oldest and the youngest of the Chance brothers were the reserved ones.

As such, Leopold had not had much experience in confiding in people about…

about such things. Thomas had suddenly been given the responsibility of becoming the Duke of Cothrom, and then all of a sudden, he’d been married.

Maude had been out in Society for so many seasons, he had lost count and seemed quite content in her spinsterhood. Alexander…

Well. The less said about Alexander and his rakery, the better.

And so he had never… Well. He had never had such an opportunity to talk about feelings and the like. It was all so dashed embarrassing.

“Well…” Leopold said awkwardly.

Maude rolled her eyes and rose from the sofa. “No—no, I don’t want to hear it.”

His mouth fell open. “You’ve just spent all this time asking me to explain myself!”

“I know that look. It’s about archery, and I don’t want to hear about it, I’m sick to death of butts.”

Leopold winced. Goodness, he perhaps should not have been so forward with Kathleen. Besides, one hardly liked to hear one’s sister talk about butts. “I wasn’t thinking about butts!”

“I know that face. I would know that expression anywhere,” declared Maude simply. “You love it. Whenever you think about archery, your face does that…that thing.”

Lifting a hand to his cheeks, Leopold demanded, “What thing?”

“The thing your eyes do whenever you think of something you love,” his sister said. “I’m going upstairs. I know it’s early, but I’m tired of you. Goodnight, Leopold.”

“Goodnight, Maude,” he said automatically.

It was only when the door closed behind her that he truly took in what she had said.

“The thing your eyes do whenever you think of something you love.”

No. No, it wasn’t possible. Maude must have been mistaken—he surely did not make the same face every time he thought about archery. That would be preposterous.

And yet…

“You are quite wonderful, you know.”

Leopold sank back into his armchair and found his mouth twisting in a wistful smile. She was…something. Something different. Something unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

Kathleen Andilet.

The name had meant nothing to him several weeks ago, and now it was all he could do not to think about her from one minute to the next. She crowded his dreams, making it a true challenge to concentrate on anything else.

Even archery. God forbid.

Perhaps that was the solution: archery.

Yes, it was the only rational thing to do. Go and practice a little. Some time at the butts would—oh, hell, now he couldn’t stop noticing it. Butts.

Leopold rose and rolled his shoulders. He never felt calmer than when a bow and arrows were in his hands. It would make far more sense to go to the club, late as it was, and get in some additional practice before the competition. That was the sensible thing to do.

He strode out of the otherwise-empty drawing room and saw Nicholls dimming the lamps. “Good evening, Nicholls.”

“Good evening, Master Leopold,” said the butler with a bow.

Leopold smiled. He had been ‘Master Leopold’ since birth to this man, and he doubted anything would change that. “I am just going out, Nicholls.”

“And I am just going to bed, Master Leopold,” the butler said with another bow. “Have a good evening, I am sure.”

All too late, Leopold realized he probably should have explained that he was departing at this very late hour to practice his archery, not to bed a lady or three.

He was not, after all, Alexander.

“I’m going to—”

“Very nice, Master Leopold,” said the aged butler with another bow as he stepped through the servants’ door and disappeared.

Leopold’s shoulders slumped. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to think he was bedding ladies. Heaven forbid. Perish the thought.

If that piece of inaccurate gossip reached Kathleen…

The horror of that thought transfixed him for a heartbeat, then Leopold shook his head as though ridding water from his ears. He was no social expert, but he was almost certain that Kathleen and his family’s butler did not exchange correspondence.

Probably.

He blew out slowly, trying to center himself as he pulled on his top hat and gloves. He was going to the London Archery Club. He would enjoy himself for an hour or so, then return home and sleep well, with absolutely no thoughts of Kathleen whatsoever.

Leopold opened the door. “Kathleen!”

“Leopold!” gasped Kathleen.

He blinked, hardly able to believe the vision of beauty that was before him. More precisely, the vision of Kathleen’s beauty.

Kathleen? Here? How? Why?

Kathleen had frozen with her hand reaching up for the bell pull. It was clear that she had been mere moments away from ringing it.

Here? Kathleen? Ringing his bell pull?

Something appeared to have broken in Leopold’s brain because he did not appear to be able to move. His whole body seemed transfixed on the person before him, and she was similarly frozen, her lips parted—her very kissable lips—and her eyes wide.

“Kathleen,” Leopold repeated, unable to say or think anything else.

What was she doing here? Alone, as usual. Though that no longer surprised him.

“Leopold,” Kathleen whispered. “May… May I come in?”

Come in?

Leopold could barely think, let alone consider whether or not it was suitable for Kathleen to come in.

No one else was at home —that was, there were probably about ten servants currently in residence, and Maude was upstairs, but as the only sister, she had a separate corridor to her brothers.

Thomas’s bedchamber was empty. Alexander was undoubtedly in someone else’s.

Come in?

“Yes,” he said, his instincts overriding his mind’s ability to wander.

Kathleen gave him a small smile as she slipped inside. He hadn’t the presence of mind to step back to permit her entrance, and so she was forced to brush up against him and dear Lord, she shouldn’t have been allowed to do that.

Taking a moment to think cold, damp thoughts and brush down his trousers so it was not too obvious that he was aroused beyond belief, Leopold shut the front door.