After they’d picked up the gossip column, Slade had brought her to Hortons second floor, which had a well-equipped and spacious shooting range.
Slade’s green eyes observed her keenly. “Now remember all I just said. Aim and squeeze. There will be a split-second delay before the gun kicks back and the shot is released.”
The wood was warm against her palm but the trigger cold as ice as she took aim and tightened her finger. Her eyes were riveted forward when the slight kick-back made her dig her feet in firmer where she stood, a split second after the loud pop sounded. The resulting hole appeared in the first ring outside the bullseye.
Slade blinked in astonishment at the target and then back at Phoebe. “Have you done this before?”
Blast!Should she have aimed for the second ring instead of the first?
She shrugged, affecting an air of innocence. “I may have picked up a few pointers from Egan in the not-too-distant past.”
She felt rather than saw his searching eyes traveling from her forehead down to her eyes, her cheekbones, and then lingering on her lips. Heat rose to her cheeks. Energy crackled in the air affecting her equilibrium as his eyes remained on her.
“What have you been doing with yourself since I last saw you that day in Eileanach’s stables? You certainly didn’t graduate from Ayr Academy and immediately start as a lady’s companion.” Slade’s quiet, intimate voice collided with her senses. His green discerning eyes darkened as he continued to study her.
Phoebe’s heart stuttered as flashbacks flooded her head. She turned away from him, his gaze too intense. She walked to the table a few feet away where she placed the pistol, her back to him so he couldn’t see the rawness in her eyes.
The day he spoke of was seared in her memory. It was the last she’d seen Slade before he’d left for the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. A bleak and cold day, not only because she’d wondered if she would ever see Slade again but because she was mourning Alex’s death, and the encounter on the moors had happened a few days before in broad daylight. No one knew she’d been bruised beneath her clothes. No one knew her world had crashed and combusted to cinders. She’d been too scared to tell anyone. Scared of Faye Ross’s retaliation. That day, she’d wanted to tell Slade that, despite her misery and hellish reality, just being near him had brought her comfort and relief from her bleak life. Being with him had given her a chance to forget. ButSlade had been in a hell of his own then, having just lost his love, Sylvia.
Now, unaware Slade had closed the distance between them, the touch of his hand on her arm jarred her senses. The alarm bells were so loud, Phoebe didn’t think, just reacted as trained. Phoebe swung around, pulled her hand back and sent the ball of her palm forward, straight into her assailant’s gullet.
Not an assailant. Slade!
Oh, dear God.
Slade’s eyes bulged as he coughed, sputtered, and stepped away from her, both hands holding his throat.
Phoebe’s jaws dropped. Heat and mortification enveloped Phoebe completely as she realized what she’d done and stepped towards Slade. Concern a heavy weight of regret in her chest. “I’m … I am ever so sorry, you startled me. It wasn’t my intention to?—”
“It’s fine. I’m fine, just give me a second.” His voice was a painful-sounding strangled whisper. Phoebe’s palm went up to cover her mouth. She wanted to weep in dismay.
Slade’s palms rested on his knees as he bowed his head and continued to cough. When he finally straightened, his face was red, and his eyes glistened with embarrassment and astonishment.
“Your defensive skills are quite good without the aid of a gun.” His voice slowly returned to its usual richness.
“Did I hurt you? Are you well?” Phoebe asked, guilt tightening her chest.
Slade laughed in self-mockery. “I shouldn’t have come up behind you like that. Forgive me.”
Phoebe hesitantly joined in his laughter, although hers sounded strangled. “I shouldn’t have struck you. I beg your pardon.”
“Then we are even. Where the devil did you learn to punch like that? It makes me wonder how little Fifi became … you,” he said, his brows arching in question.
CHAPTER 10
ROYAL SCOTS GREYS, 2ND DRAGOONS’ GARRISON, BURNTWOOD, ENGLAND
Slade concluded his toilette in his colonel’s quarters as dawn’s noisy chorus of birds outside echoed indoors. He pulled on a white shirt, donned his inky black breeches, then tugged on winter hose and a pair of tall caramel leather boots. As he buttoned his embroidered waistcoat and tied the silk cravat in a barrel knot with military precision, Slade glanced out the window. The fiery trail across the sky begrudgingly dropped golden hues into the early morning’s grayness. From the way the branches of the alder tree swayed, it was going to be a windy day.
Today would have been Sylvia’s twenty-eighth birthday. It had been a warm spring day under a similar alder tree in the Highlands when he’d proposed to her a decade ago. The sweet scent of wildflowers and resin drilled into his memory. Sylvia’s shy but brilliant smile had rivaled the marigold sun. His heart had been beating so fast it had almost broken free of his chest. He’d asked her to be his wife. Her cinnamon brown eyes had sparkled with emotion as she’d flung her arms around his neck with a breathyyes. Oh yes,she’d said. He could still hear that enamored voice in his dreams just before the blackness of nightmares took over.
He now pulled on his dark greatcoat as he headed for the door. His eyes glanced over to the plain wooden table with its folded parchments, quills, ink pots, and a stack of leatherbound books. Atop the stack was Minister Raghnall’s folded missive. He’d read the heartbreaking missive so many times its ends were curling outwards. Isaac, Raghnall’s only son and Slade’s friend had died in a skirmish with the redcoats at Claigan village. His hands fisted. The redcoat’scleansingof rebels in the Scottish Highlands had long since changed from viciousness to malicious glee.
Slade reached for the door’s handle just as footfalls sounded outside. Seconds later his door swung open, and Reginald Seymour stood in the doorway dressed in his uniform.
“A word, MacLean.”
General Reginald Seymour, his direct report, wasn’t what Slade would call a kind man, but he wasn’t a contemptable arsehole either. From Slade’s experience, one had to be a contemptable arsehole to advance to the rank of General, thus it said something about the man. Seymour was approximately ten years Slade’s senior, always clean shaven and in fit form, with those discerning brown eyes revealing a casual omniscience.
