Trevor stood, flushed from his alarm at the idea. “Surely not. Who could want to harm her? She has no enemies. The townspeople love and respect her.”
“The old ones do. The new ones hardly know her.” Gareth studied Trevor, who now gazed out the window while he accommodated this new notion. “How badly does your client want that house and land?”
Trevor turned on him, stunned. “What are you implying?”
Gareth just looked at him.
“My client is a respectable businessman, Fitzallen. He is worth seven thousand a year due to hard work and shrewd dealings the last ten years. What you suggest is insulting to him, and uncalled for.”
Gareth stood and faced Trevor squarely. “I’ll wager you know almost nothing about this man, other than the face he chooses to show you and the size of his income. He is wealthy from trade, which is hardly damning, but ten years is fast success in any business, so he may be the sort to knock over anything and anyone in his way. She won’t sell him what he wants, so perhaps he tried to persuade her by making her feel unsafe in her own home.”
“Your accusation is outrageous. You do not have any evidence of this, yet you malign a man—”
“Who is he? Tell me and I will find out soon enough if I am correct.”
“I’ll be damned first. You are no more a gentleman than he. You, too, may be the sort to knock over anyone in his way, for all I know. I’ll not have you accusing my client when this was probably a random crime.”
Gareth set his brandy glass on a table. “If this was a random crime, there will be nothing more. If there is any further attempt to frighten Miss Russell, however, I will be back. If you do not give me his name then, I will learn it another way so he and I can have a conversation.”
He walked to the door.
“You are out of your depth, Fitzallen. He has lawyers, the best that money can buy. They will ruin you financially if you impugn him.”
“I have a better one, and since he is family he will not cost me a shilling. He is also the sort to show no restraint with men who threaten women. Tell your client to be glad I am the one suspicious of him, and not my brother.”
***
The pistol felt less heavy in her hands now. Not nearly as leaden as when she first picked it up and clumsily followed Gareth’s direction on how to load the ball and powder. Nor did she find it difficult to hold steady, the way she had the first two times she fired.
She aimed at the thick, large wooden board Gareth had brought and set against the garden wall. “Now?”
“Whenever you are ready.”
She fired. The crack assaulted her ears. Smoke rose from the end of the barrel. She did not startle this time, although she did not think she would ever grow accustomed to the noise.
She peered at the board, seeking the ball’s destination. Gareth eased the pistol out of her grasp.
“Much better, Eva.”
“Really? I do not see where it hit.”
“You did not hit the board as such.”
Her gaze shifted to the wall. A third black dot now decorated it, near two others. The wall might be stone, but lead balls did not bounce off. Rather they embedded themselves, eternal reminders of her poor marksmanship.
“How can you saymuch betterwhen I still don’t come close to a board as big as a barn door?”
“You were closer this time.”
“By an inch!” She took the pistol back, sat down, and lifted the bag of powder. “Are you a good shot?”
“You will not meet many who are better.”
He did not say that with pride or conceit. He merely answered a question. She tapped powder into the pistol. “Did it take you long to become so good?”
He sat beside her and watched her load. “Every summer I spent a few weeks with my father, right up the road at the lodge. It was the only time I spent with him to speak of. The summer I was twelve, he taught me to shoot. He made me practice every day, for hours. I came to hate that pistol. Here was this precious time, and I was alone in that garden, firing over and over.”
“Did he know you hated it?”
