She fell abruptly quiet.
Neither of them spoke for a second or two.
“Ah. Very well. There’s one knot undone,” he muttered.
She cleared her throat. “Perhaps you’ll have an opportunity to target shoot while you’re here,” she ventured. “We often get contests up during house parties.”
“Oh, it would hardly be fair to the other gentlemen,” he said offhandedly. “I always win, whichis rather dull for everybody, including me. A man’s pride is his armor, and there’s no real pleasure for me in stripping a fellow of it for the sake of recreation.”
There wasn’t a shred of arrogance in this remarkable statement. It left her momentarily speechless.
She understood then she had never been in the presence of this sort of confidence: the...embodiedsort.
When she said nothing, he flicked his gaze up to hers.
This time it lingered, as if snagged, like the ribbon in the branches.
She had a strange, disorienting conviction then that the essence of the man shone from his eyes, as strangely beautiful and dangerous as the sun glinting off the barrel of a rifle.
And in that moment she was held fast between two confusing warring impulses: to take a step back, away from him, as he suddenly seemed too compelling, like a wild wood she’d never explored. Or to take a step toward him, as if he was the only refuge from all of life’s vicissitudes. Neither impulse seemed particularly rational.
Her cheeks were considerably pinker than her ribbon now, she expected. They certainly felt that way.
As if making her cheeks pink had been exactly what he’d set out to accomplish, he finally freed his gaze and returned to the ribbon, his face gone carefully expressionless.
“Mind you,” he added, a moment later, “if I see no other way to make a point, I’ve no compunctions about pride-stripping. But since you’re such a conscientious hostess, you’d be run ragged doling consolation out to the losers, and we can’t have that.”
“Oh. Well. We’ve plenty of liquor. And what is it for if not consoling the defeated?”
He gave a soft laugh.
Overhead, birds hopped from twig to twig, and the trees shook restively in the wind.
No other guests had yet appeared in the garden. It was awfully early, still.
She cleared her throat.
“I should like to say, Colonel Brightwall... well, forgive me if you’re terribly weary of... of... talk of shooting altogether, after the war,” she ventured. “I wasn’t certain if... well, say the word, and I promise I won’t mention it again.”
He paused.
“It’s very considerate of you to think of me,” Brightwall said gently. “But there’s nothing to forgive. Early in my career, as a foot soldier and infantryman, I did a good deal more shooting. In the war we just won, my job was primarily to tell young men where to point their weapons, and at whom. The answer to both was typically ‘at the French.’”
This, she thought, was carrying modesty a bit too far.
“My goodness. It sounds so easy, Colonel Brightwall. PerhapsIought to go and be a colonel.”
“I’m not convinced you wouldn’t make a fine one. Diplomacy is half the job.”
She fell quiet. On the one hand, it was refreshing to be appreciated for something she did indeed consider a bit of a skill, and which everyone else rather took for granted. On the other hand, she felt a little like a magician whose tricks have been exposed. A bit raw. A bit disgruntled.
She was beginning to understand that he saw her through a prism of life experiences entirely different from her own. Or from those of any of the young men among whom she’d been raised, for that matter.
“It’s just that if you need to feed yourself, you’d rapidly learn how to become an expert with a fork,” he added. “That is, provided you’re fortunate enough to be possessed of at least one hand or tremendously dexterous feet. It’s a bit like that, I suppose—my gun was the means by which I survived and thrived. I’ve always been reluctant to view my good aim as anything like a gift when I had quite a powerful motivation to get it right.”
“If you insist. But I think you have refined self-deprecation into an art.”
He paused in his knot picking and straightened slowly to his entire formidable height to study her, his eyes warm, yet also frankly assessing. His expression was undershot with something more somber and intent. A sort of uncertainty. Almost... a reluctance.
