“Never mind, Montford.” Basingstoke shot him a quelling glance. “Really, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. We’ll take the shooting brake and make up for any lost time that way.”
“Please don’t make any special arrangements on my account, Your Grace.” Prue glared at Montford. “I’m quite accustomed to walking in skirts, and perfectly happy to do so.”
“I’ve no doubt of it, Miss Thorne, and you needn’t ride if you don’t wish to, but we’ll bring it along, so any of the party that does choose to ride may do so. Now then, does that satisfy you, Montford?”
“No, Basingstoke, it doesn’t.” Montford stalked off toward the stables, and spent the short time required to ready the shooting brake huffing under his breath, as if every bird on the Duke of Basingstoke’s twelve-hundred-acre estate was sure to fly away during the brief delay.
“Goodness, Montford is out of temper this morning, isn’t he?” Franny murmured, taking Prue aside to straighten her hat. “You did say you came to an agreement last night?”
“We did.” Hadn’t they? Montford had his earrings back, and she . . . well, she wasn’t going to Bridewell for blackmailing a duke, which was more than she deserved. “At least, I thought we had.”
“How strange.” Franny glanced at Montford, who was still fuming. “Whatever is the matter with him, I wonder?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea, but I’m resolved not to pay any attention to him for the rest of the day.”
“That’s probably for the best.” Franny gave her crooked hat one final tilt, then gave up and leaned closer, her voice swelling with suppressed laughter. “Otherwise, you might be tempted to shoot him.”
* * *
As it happened, shewasn’ttempted to shoot Montford, mainly because he kept far away from her for the entire day. She felt his dark, brooding gaze on her more than once, but every time she attempted to catch his eye, he scowled and looked away.
By the time the afternoon arrived she was, however, tempted to injureherself. Just something trifling—a turned ankle, perhaps—but bad enough so she might escape what had turned into a truly wretched outing.
She was soaked to the bone within the first hour. By the second hour, the coarse wool of her riding habit had rubbed every inch of her skin raw. One of her boots sprang a leak, and the poor little feather in her hat was clinging desperately to its soggy bit of ribbon.
If it had only been the dreadful weather, she could have borne it. It was hardly her first wet shooting party. This was England, after all. Neither would a day spent tramping up and down hills and through heavy underbrush have troubled her much, though it was a good deal more exhausting than she’d anticipated to drag a stone’s worth of skirts behind her with every step.
Montford had been right about that, drat him.
But in the end, what had truly worn her spirit down to a thin, feeble thread was Montford’s obvious displeasure in her presence. The weight of that disapproving glare cut through her until she felt like a pale imitation of herself, a weary, bedraggled ghost moving silently through the dripping trees.
But she kept on as the afternoon waned, her legs wobbling with fatigue and her finger shaking on the trigger of her borrowed shotgun. Montford might scowl at her as much as he pleased, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d been right.
And there was one bright spot in the day. Colonel Kingston had remained by her side for most of the morning, chatting cheerfully. He was charming company, and the amusing tales he told of his time in His Majesty’s Army were quite diverting.
When at last they finished their sport and turned back toward Basingstoke House, the colonel climbed into the brake and patted the seat beside him. “Come, Miss Thorne, take pity on an old man’s weary bones, and keep me company.”
Perhaps the colonel was truly weary, or perhaps he’d only resorted to the brake to give her an excuse to ride without losing her dignity, but by that point, she no longer cared. She joined him and they rode along, chatting companionably about her father and Thornewood, and the quiet life they lived in Wiltshire.
They were halfway to Basingstoke House when Blount stopped the party and gestured to a small, rocky area surrounded by a thin stand of oak trees. “We’ve had good luck with the grouse here the past two seasons, Your Grace, if the gentlemen—and the lady—wish for one last foray.”
Pruedidn’twish for one last foray, but she could feel Montford’s gaze on her once again, and her pride wouldn’t permit her to rest while the gentlemen shot. So, she dragged herself from the brake and drew her cloak as tightly as she could around her shivering body.
The beaters came forward to rouse the game, and she raised her shotgun and took aim, but just as the grouse began to flee their cover, the sky opened and released a heavy torrent of rain upon them, and her hat chose that moment to admit defeat. The brim collapsed, and a deluge of cold rainwater water flooded into her eyes, blinding her just as a frantic flutter of wings churned through the air.
A half a dozen shots rang out at once, and her own gun jerked back hard against her shoulder, the recoil stunning her. Had she shot? She lowered the muzzle, dazed. A metallic odor flooded her nose, and a thin curl of smoke drifted from the barrel.
“Man down! Man down!”
The shots were still echoing around them when the shout went up, half a dozen men, all of them shouting at once. Her rifle fell from her nerveless fingers and tumbled to the ground. She backed away from it, the gentlemen’s cries ringing in her ears.
“It’s Montford! Montford’s been shot!”
Footsteps thundered past her as the men all raced toward Montford, rainwater flying from their coats, their boots splashing in the muck. The rain was falling in sheets now, pounding the ground around her. She blinked against it, her gaze locked on the man in the bottle-green frock coat at the center of the melee, his black top hat lying on the ground beside him.
Montford.
She’d shot the Duke of Montford.
