“If you hold it like that, it’s going to put your shoulder out of commission for a week.” In order to adjust her grip, he shifted. From behind, he wrapped her with both arms. Even through gloves, his hands were warm against hers. His face sat inches from her neck and she shivered at the heat of his breath. The hair on the back of her neck rose. She hoped he couldn’t see how the flutter of her pulse at her throat strengthened.
For a heartbeat, her vision blurred and her breath caught. It had been one thing to be encircled in his arms last night, when alcohol had dulled her senses. It was another thing altogether to do so sober.
“You couldn’t correct my form while facing me?” Her muttered words were uneven.
She couldn’t see his smile, but she could feel the change in his breath on the back of her ear. “You’re the one who said you’d shoot someone,” he said. “I’ve already given you a motive. Let’s not give you an opportunity.”
“I’m not going toshootyou.” She rolled her shoulders as another shiver traveled the length her. It was a mistake. It simply pressed her deeper into his embrace.
“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
He wasn’t wrong. “I haven’t thought about it recently.” His chuckle was low and warm and the nerves on the side of her face crackled and sparked. She twitched her lips from side to side to scratch the tickle.
“That is reassuring,” he said. “Now lift the gun three inches. When you look through that eyepiece, the crosshairs should fall at the dead center of the target before you shoot.”
She craned her head to glare at him but all she succeeded in doing was putting her lips a breath away from his. She whipped back toward the target. “That is not what I agreed to.”
He raised his hands, holding them away from hers in mock surrender. His body didn’t shift, though. It was still pressed uncomfortably close. “Hypothetically,” he said. “When you shoothypothetically, because we’ve already determined that you won’t risk failing in front of an audience.”
She didn’t risk failing at all, audience or not. To avoid responding, she returned her attention to the end of the barrel. “Hypothetically, if my crosshairs were dead center, would that be the time to pull the trigger or is there another step?” Books never went into that much detail. They described the crack and the gun smoke, and the ringing ears, but they never described the mechanics of pulling the trigger.
She felt him nod and his hands traveled to her hips. The gun almost fired right then. “You pull it slowly,” he said. “Calmly. If you jerk, your aim will be ruined.”
“Wouldbe ruined.”
“Exactly. Now, wait for it.”
Before she could ask what it was she was waiting for, there was a crash, a shriek, and cursing. As Eleanor swung, Peter grabbed the barrel of the gun to keep it pointed at the ground. One of the men he’d spoken to had collided with Lady Cecilia. They were in a tangle of skirts and parasols. Even from this distance, she could hear Lady Cecilia shout, “You fiend! You miserable cur!”
The young man attempted to stand and fell down all over again, his apologies unintelligible.
“Quick,” Peter urged, spinning them both and putting the gun back against her shoulder. “There is no one watching.”
It took a moment for her to realize that Peter had orchestrated a moment of privacy, an opportunity to fire a weapon for the first time with no one able to witness it.Courage, she thought. Still, she couldn’t move.
One hand on her hip, the other against her shoulder, he squared her to the target. “Get those butterflies into formation, Eleanor. They should workforyou.”
It seemed impossible. They weren’t butterflies in her belly, they were pterodactyls, and they were frenzied. But the pressure of him right there, waiting for her to prove herself a coward or not, gave her no option. Holding her breath, she straightened her arm, allowed him to adjust the position of it, closed one eye, looked down the scope, and fired.
The kickback was stronger than she could’ve predicted. She stumbled backward, and if he hadn’t wrapped an arm around her waist, she would have landed in the grass.
His hands splayed over her rib cage. Even with gun smoke wending around them, she could still smell his cologne.
She should have straightened immediately, but her body wasmired in the memory of the night before, and it lingered. He made no attempt to set her upright. In fact, the fingers across her sides tightened.
“Are you well?” he asked.
She dropped the gun and straightened, brushing off her skirts as an excuse not to look at him. “Very well, thank you.” With trepidation, she turned toward the target. From this distance, it looked no different than it had a moment ago.
She checked to make sure the gun was absolutely, definitely on the ground, and walked with him to see how well she’d performed. As they neared, she was engulfed by shame. The fire of it sucked all the oxygen from the air around her. The tips of her ears burned and nausea roiled in her belly.
She hadn’t hit the bull’s-eye. In fact, she hadn’t even hit the target. The bullet must be lodged somewhere in the trees behind it.
Utterly mortified, she steeled her expression before swinging to face him. “See?” She would have launched into a tirade if she hadn’t been so confused at the sight of him furiously studying the sky. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t look at her. Instead, he held a hand to his eyes, warding off the sun’s glare. “I’m waiting.”
“Forwhat?” Frustrated, curious, she looked to see what had him so intrigued.
