Annabel started to say something. She felt her lips move, but nothing really came out. So she shut her mouth. Better to stay silent than to say something foolish.
“They were doing it last week as well,” he muttered.
“I think they’re just over the rise,” Annabel said, motioning behind her. The shot had seemed rather close, actually. Nothing to make her go pale and shaky; a girl did not grow up in the country without hearing rifles discharged with a fair bit of regularity. Still, it had been rather loud, and she supposed that if one had returned from the war—
Thewar . That was what it had to be. Her father’s father had fought in the colonies, and until the day he died he’d jumped every time he heard a loud noise. No one ever said a thing about it. The conversation would miss a beat, but never more than that, and then everything would go on as if nothing had happened. It had been unwritten rule in the Winslow family. And it had suited them all quite well.
Or had it?
It had suited the rest of the family, but what about her grandfather? He never quite lost the hollow look in his eyes. And he did not like to travel after dark. No one liked it, Annabel supposed, but they all did it when necessary. Except her grandfather. When night fell, he was in the house. Any house. More than once he’d ended up as someone’s unexpected house-guest.
And Annabel wondered—had anyone ever asked him about it?
She looked up at Mr. Grey, suddenly feeling as if she knew him a great deal better than she had just a minute earlier.
But perhaps not well enough to say anything.
He dragged his gaze back to her face from whatever it was he was staring at, and he started to say something, but then—
Another gunshot.
“Goddamn it.”
Annabel’s lips parted in surprise. She looked this way and that, hoping no one had heard him curse. She did not mind, of course, she’d never been overly fussy about such things, but—
“Excuse me,” he muttered, and then he took off in the direction of the shots, his gait long and purposeful. Annabel took a moment to react, then bounced to attention and hurried after him.
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer, or if he did, she couldn’t hear it because he did not turn around. And it was a stupid question, anyway, because it was perfectly clear where he was going: over to the shooting competition, although why, she had no idea. Was he going to scold them? Ask them to stop? Could he even do that? If people were shooting in the park, they would have had to get permission to do so. Wouldn’t they?
“Mr. Grey!” she called out, trying to keep up. But he had long legs, and she had to move hers nearly twice as fast to match his stride. By the time she made it over to competition area, she was out of breath and perspiring under her corset.
But she soldiered on, chasing after him until she was but a few steps behind. He had stomped over to the gathering of participants—about a half dozen young men, none of them a day over twenty, if Annabel was any judge.
“What the devil do you think you are doing?” he demanded. Except that his voice was not raised. Which Annabel found odd, considering how obviously angry he was.
“Competition,” one of the young gentlemen said, affecting the sort of annoyingly jaunty grin that always made Annabel roll her eyes. “We’ve been at it all week.”
“So I’ve heard,” Mr. Grey responded.
“We’ve got the area behind cleared out,” the gentleman said, waving his arm toward the target. “Don’t worry.”
“And when will you be done?” Mr. Grey asked coolly.
“When someone hits dead center.”
Annabel looked down toward the target. She had seen her fair share of shooting contests, and she could tell that it had been set uncommonly far away. And she suspected that at least three of the men had been
drinking. They could be here all afternoon.
“D’you want to have a go at it?” another of the young men asked, holding a pistol out toward Mr. Grey.
He gave them a dry smile and reached for the gun. “Thank you.”
And then, right before Annabel’s extremely wide eyes, he lifted his arm, squeezed the trigger, and handed the gun back to its owner.
“There,” he announced curtly. “You’re done.”
“But—”
“It’s over,” he said, then turned toward Annabel with an utterly placid face. “Shall we continue our stroll?”
Annabel got out a yes, but she wasn’t sure it was terribly clear, as her head was snapping back and forth between Mr. Grey and the target. One of the young men had run out to see how he’d done and was presently yelling something and sounding extremely surprised.
“It was a bull’s-eye!” he yelled, running toward them. “Dead center.”
Annabel’s lips parted in amazement. Mr. Grey hadn’t even aimed. Or at least he hadn’tseemed to aim.
“How’d you do that?” the young men were asking. And then one of them added, “Could you do it again?”
“No,” he answered curtly, “and don’t forget to clean up after yourselves.”
“Oh, we’re not done yet,” one of the young men said—rather foolishly, in Annabel’s opinion. Mr. Grey’s tone was light, but only an idiot would have missed the hard glint in his eyes.
“We’ll set up another target,” he continued. “We have until half two. You don’t really count, since you’re not part of the games.”
“Excuse me,” Mr. Grey said smoothly to Annabel. He let go of her arm and walked back to the other men. “May I have your gun?” he asked one of them.
Silently it was handed over, and once again Mr. Grey lifted his arm, and with no apparent concentration, squeezed the trigger.
One of the wooden posts supporting the target splintered—no, it evaporated—and the entire thing went tumbling to the ground.
“Now you’re done,” Mr. Grey said, handing the gun back to its owner. “Good day.”
He walked back to Annabel’s side, took her arm, and said, before she could ask, “I was a sniper. In the war.”
She nodded, fairly certain she now knew how the French had been defeated. She looked back at the target, now surrounded by men, then back at Mr. Grey, who appeared completely unconcerned. Then,
because she couldn’t stop herself, she turned back to target, dimly aware of his pressure on her arm as he tried to pull her away. “That was…that was…”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
“I wouldn’t call it nothing,” she said gingerly. He didn’t seem to want praise, but at the same time, she couldn’tnot say something.
He shrugged. “It’s a talent.”
“Er, a useful one, I should think.” She wanted to look back one more time, but she wasn’t going to be able to see anything, and anyway,he hadn’t looked back even once.
“Would you like an ice?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“An ice. I’m feeling a bit warm. We could go to Gunter’s.”
Annabel made no response, still flummoxed by the abrupt change of conversation.
“We’ll have to bring Olivia, of course, but she’s good enough company.” He frowned thoughtfully. “And she’s probably hungry. I’m not sure she had breakfast this morning.”
“Well, of course…” Annabel said, although not because she knew what he was talking about. He was looking at her expectantly, and she was clearly supposed to make a reply.
“Excellent. Gunter’s it shall be.” He grinned at her, his eyes sparkling in that now familiar way, and Annabel wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake. It was as if the entire episode with the guns and target had never happened.
“Do you like orange?” he asked. “The orange is particularly good, second only to the lemon, although they don’t always serve that.”
“I like orange,” she said, again because a response seemed appropriate.
“The chocolate is also quite delicious.”
“I do like chocolate.”
And so it went, a conversation about nothing at all, all the way to Gunter’s. Where, Annabel was not particularly proud to say, she forgot all about the incident in the park. Mr. Grey insisted upon ordering one of every flavor, and Annabel insisted that it would be rude not to taste them all (except for rose, which she never could abide; it was aflower , for heaven’s sake, not a flavor). Then Lady Olivia declared herself unable to tolerate the smell of the bergamot ice, which meant that of course Mr. Grey had to wave it under her nose. Annabel couldn’t recall the last time she’d had so much fun.
Fun. Pure, simple, fun. A very good thing, indeed.
Chapter Fifteen
Two days later
By the time Annabel had finished dancing with Lord Rowton, which followed her dance with Mr. Berbrooke, which followed her dance with Mr. Albansdale, which followed her dance with adifferent Mr. Berbrooke, which followed her dance with Mr. Cavender, which followed her dance with—good heavens!—a Russian prince, which followed her dance with Sir Harry Valentine, which followed her dance with Mr. St. Clair, which (she had to take a breath here, just thinking about it!) followed her dance with Mr. Grey…
Suffice it to say that if she had not previously understood the fickle nature of London society, she did now. She did not know how many of the gentlemen had invited her to dance because Mr. Grey had asked them to, and how many had asked her because all of the other gentlemen seemed to be doing so, but one thing was clear: She was the latest rage. For this week, at least.
Their walk in the park had done its trick, as had the outing at Gunter’s. Annabel had been seen by all the ton with Sebastian Grey acting (in his words) like a lovesick fool. He had made sure that all the biggest gossips had seen him kissing her hand, and laughing at her jokes, and, for those who approached them in conversation, gazing adoringly (but not lustfully) at her face.
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