The breeze whipped up again, sending her flowery scent to tease him. She touched her tongue to her lips and then slowly rolled the bottom one inward.
“I…” How could he answer that? He had asked the question, after all.
“I find quite a few things about you tolerable… more than tolerable, actually.” Her face colored up but she didn’t look away. “You’re kind but you don’t like others to know.”
He stiffened at the near direct hit.
“I like how you think quickly. Nothing affects you that you can’t overcome.”
He wasn’t so certain of that.
“Nothing seems to surprise you.”
Now there, she was wrong. She surprised him every day.
Annabella shifted her gaze back to the water. “Did you ever wonder what it would be like to get on one of those boats and just be carried away on the water?”
“Every day since I was a boy,” he said, smiling at childhood memories that suddenly flashed through his mind. “My father brought me down here often when I was young, and we’d spend hours watching them loading and unloading the boats. Silk, satin ribbon, iron… I’ve always felt trapped on land ever since my first day here. So much so that I developed the notion of starting a shipping company.” He wanted to drape his arm around her shoulders or at least take her hand.
He did neither.
Silence fell between them, enhanced by the gentle slap of water against the dock and the distant hum of conversation along the street behind them.
Why had he told her his dream? She couldn’t possibly be interested.
“My father — my real father — was in shipping,” she said, her voice tinged with sadness. She angled her gaze in his direction and the same sentiment reflected in her eyes. “Price Company. Business took him away a lot and I missed him dreadfully. Mother and I hardly got on at all. But oh, how I loved Papa. He always seemed to be leaving…” She returned her gaze to the canal but her voice was so dreamy and faraway, Jon knew it wasn’t the water she was seeing. “When he came back, he brought me presents and sugar-stick candy — lemon and peppermint. And I felt like I was the only person in the world who mattered to him.” She held up her fan. “This was the gift he brought me from the last trip he took. He finally stayed home, but he—” Her sharp intake of breath might have been a sob but after a moment she continued with a quaver in her voice. “He died less than two years later.”
The slash to Jon’s heart was sudden and unexpected, the emotional pain so exquisite he nearly staggered with it. But if he felt such anguish, what must she be feeling? To have carried the torment all those years since her father’s death — it was unbearable to think about.
“I’m sorry.” The words were woefully inadequate, of course, but he’d had to say something.
“I think of him often,” she admitted with a sad smile. “But something about being here makes me feel closer to him.”
“Maybe he’s nearer than you think.” Jon slipped his hand around hers and gave her a gentle squeeze.
Silence cocooned them again, more comfortable than the previous quiet had been. After a moment, she returned his squeeze. The heaviness in Jon’s heart abruptly lifted and a peculiar sensation of floating above the ground jolted his awareness. Maybe the conversation he’d intended to have with her could wait after all.
“Annie?”
She sighed and raised an eyebrow but didn’t correct him. “Yes?”
“There’s something I like about you as well.”
A nervous laugh slipped from her lips. “Really… I can’t imagine what.”
“Your spark… your inner fire.”
A lovely smile bloomed on her face.
Jon only wished he’d told her sooner. He couldn’t do anything about that. But there was one thing he could do. “Come along then.”
She giggled and he embraced the tinkling sound of her unequivocal happiness.
“Where are we going?”
“Market Street, Horne’s Sweet Shoppe.” He smiled down at her, pleased to see the shadows were leaving her eyes. “I’ve a taste for some lemon stick candy.”
At his words, she turned and flung herself into his embrace, twining her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him in a tight hug. A most unseemly hug.
He hugged her back. Then he gestured toward the coach, and they began walking. As they passed the printer’s shop, though, Annabella halted and peered at a notice in the window.
“Seabrook, do you know what the Mercian Bowmen Archery Society is?”
Her question brought him up short. He hadn’t thought of the Society in several years. “Yes, Gran is a member… as… am I.” He bent forward to read the notice she pointed at, announcing the next tournament. “They hold several of these contests throughout the year.”
A wistful sigh escaped her as she reached out and trailed a finger across the glass. “I should like to see a tournament one day.” She glanced over her shoulder and met his stare, her face alive with excitement. “Do you compete, Seabrook?”
“You know what I should like, Annie?” murmured Jon, unable to hold back. He captured her hand and held it between both of his. “I should very much like it if you called me by my given name.” At her sharp gasp, he held his breath, waiting.
“Jonathan?” came her tentative whisper.
Warmth spread over him, followed quickly by chills when she offered a shy smile. “Thank you, Annie.”
Her smile widened. “Or perhaps I should call you… Jonnie?”
He winced. “Not if you expect an answer.” That jab almost hurt, but he supposed he deserved her teasing. “Most people I’m close to call me Jon.”
Her smile faded. The merriment in her eyes flared into intense heat. “Very well. Jon it is, then.”
For a moment after she’d spoken his name, he could scarcely draw a breath. Suddenly, her eyes became his entire world.
Something thudded to the ground behind them, accompanied by a muffled curse. The enchantment was broken.
“Excuse me,” said a man with a peculiar hoarseness to his voice.
“My fault, my fault,” sang out another man from the ground.
Jon turned to help the man up but he was already on his feet, and quickly picking up a bulky wooden crate.
“We appear to be in the way.” Jon smiled at Annabella and held out his arm.
As she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, he glimpsed a gentleman hastening away from them. His face was turned away but his hurried, awkward gait struck a chord of familiarity. Jon frowned, trying to place the man, but he rounded the corner of the printer’s shop and disappeared from sight without once turning around and showing his face.
Chapter Twenty-One
Annabella narrowed her focus to the red circle in the distance. At the dowager’s request, Ernest had moved the targets again that morning. The straw mats now stood as far apart as they had when Annabella had first been shown the range.
She drew the bowstring.
Where had Jon gone off to so early that he’d missed taking breakfast with her and the dowager again? Goodness, he’d been gone from Blackmoor so frequently in past days it almost seemed he no longer resided there. She never saw him in the morning and scarcely saw him in the evening. Moreover, the door between their bedchambers remained closed.
Jon… the name had floated about in her head, enticing her to say it, ever since he’d insisted she use it that day at the canal. She’d yet to say it aloud except for that first time. Heat invaded her face, and her heart picked up into a gallop at the memory.
That day things between them had begun to change. He’d shown her bits of the real Earl of Seabrook. And she had begun to feel comfortable letting him see pieces of her.
Then the next day he’d taken himself off early in the morning and not returned until supper. Even worse, he’d remained largely quiet over the meal and then locked himself in the study for much of the evening. He’d been absent from breakfast the next day, and th
e one after that as well, without so much as a scone or a “good morning.” Five days of his departing from Blackmoor, and Annabella had no notion of where he took himself off to. Alone. Leaving her behind each time.
“Shoulders back,” instructed the dowager.
Annabella straightened and attempted to concentrate on the target at the far end of the field but it blurred into Jon’s face. Where was he?
She released the shot. The arrow arced through the air, flew several feet above the target, and disappeared into the leafy branches of one of the elderly trees at the edge of the meadow. Leaves rustled and an angry black-and-white bird screeched its way out of the tree and flew over them.
“A little lower dear.” The dowager’s calm voice interrupted her concentration. “No need to shoot the faeries out of the elms.”
“This is impossible, your grace.” Sighing heavily, Annabella slumped and lowered the bow. “The target is too far away.” And I simply cannot concentrate.
“Nonsense.” The dowager flung off her peacock blue wrap and draped it on the bow stand. Then she handed over another arrow and pushed Annabella’s hand back into position. “Do you think the enemy will wait to fire on you until they’re in range of your pitiful shot? Now focus.”
The enemy, the enemy. Annabella suppressed a frustrated sigh as she placed the arrow. The enemy was never far from her grace’s thoughts, apparently. “Do you truly believe the French will invade and one day you’ll find them outside your castle walls?” she snapped.
“Hrmph,” muttered the old lady. “One never knows where to expect the enemy. That’s the notion behind preparation — being ready for anything at any time.” She motioned toward the target. “Go ahead, take your shot, dear.”
Annabella drew in a calming breath and eased it out as she focused on the red circle across the meadow and drew back the bowstring. If she’d learned nothing else in the past few weeks, she’d most certainly discovered that once the dowager ordered the shot, she expected Annabella to comply and no discussion would alter that expectation.
She released the arrow. The sharp sting to the inside of her elbow brought hot tears to Annabella’s eyes and she dropped the bow with a cry, forgetting to even watch and see whether the arrow had flown true. She dashed the wetness from her eyes and stared at the red welt already forming on the tender inner part of her arm. The blasted bowstring! A whimper welled in her throat, but she swallowed it.
“I say, you haven’t mucked up a shot so badly since your first few days of practicing.” Clucking her tongue, the dowager shook her head. “If you keep that up, you’ll have a devil of a time scoring at the tournament on Thursday.”
Annabella struggled against the urge to fling the bow as far as she could across the field. The dowager certainly wouldn’t accept such poor manners. And whatever objectionable activity the errant Earl of Seabrook might be up to, Annabella liked his grandmother and respected her too much to continue behaving badly.
“I’m sorry, your grace,” she said on a sigh, withdrawing another arrow from her quiver. In the middle of setting it into the bow, she froze and lowered her arms. “I beg your pardon? Scoring at the tournament?”
The dowager pushed the bow back up. “Why yes, when you represent the Durhams.”
The bow slid from Annabella’s boneless fingers and she let out a little screech. “Me! Represent the Durhams at the tournament! You must be jesting! I still miss the target nine shots out of ten!”
The dowager frowned at the bow on the ground and Annabella quickly bent to retrieve it.
At the side of the meadow, Queen Dorothea hissed and leapt into the air then landed with deadly force on Miss Celia. The blue-gray mop growled in response and hunched herself closer over whatever she held between her front paws. Annabella shuddered, unsure which was worse, that she might feel sorry for some hapless field mouse, or that she now knew the cats and thought of them by name.
“Nonsense!” The dowager turned Annabella by her shoulders until she was pointed at the target. “You hardly ever miss anymore. I’ve watched many club members shoot from end to end and not touch the target with an arrow, so you are an expert by those standards.”
“But—” Her heart pounded heavily in her chest. Thursday was only three days off. How could she possibly represent the family at the tournament? She had no experience. She didn’t even know what happened at such a contest. “I don’t know how… And I’ve nothing to wear.”
“I’ve taken care of ordering your uniform.
Uniform? That sounded daunting. “But…”
“And what do you think I’ve been training you to do all these days?”
Weakness poured through her, stealing her ability to think. “I thought — shoot at the French?”
The dowager hooted with laughter as she straightened Annabella’s shoulders. “Take your next shot.”
Obediently, Annabella sighted the target, but once again, Jon’s face masked the red circle. Mindful of the sting on her arm and not wishing to repeat the incident, she eased the bowstring back and released the arrow. It flew a little to the left of the target and dropped several feet in front. Annabella snatched up another arrow and set it in place, but the dowager shook her head and pushed the bow downward.
Heaving a sigh of exasperation, she stepped back and locked her hands on her hips. “Suppose you tell me what’s really got you so distracted before someone ends up seriously injured.” She angled her head and leveled an intent gaze on Annabella. “Something to do with my grandson, I’ll wager.”
Annabella released an unladylike snort, and ran her thumbnail over the feathers on the back of her arrow, separating one of the rows into tiny spikes. “He’s impossible! Just as I feel we make progress, he closes me out.”
“You think so?” The dowager stepped back and regarded Annabella with a critical eye. “You know, my dear, we have a bit of a local legend here in Coventry. It’s said that a kind woman once recognized her husband’s tenants were being sorely overtaxed. She repeatedly asked her husband to lower their taxes. I expect she thought she was making progress, too, but then he’d just refuse.” She smiled. “Then, one day, when he tired of her persistence, he told her he would happily lower the tenants’ taxes on the condition that she ride naked through the town.”
“Naked! What woman would dare—” Annabella’s voice ceased working and heat invaded her face.
“One who’s desperate, I’d imagine,” mused Gran, nodding. “Lady Godiva is said to have ridden bold as you please through the streets, wearing nothing but the skin she was born in.” She gave a nonchalant shrug. “Of course, some people claim she really only wore her unmentionables. But either way, as legend has it… she succeeded in persuading her husband to take pity on his tenants.”
The story certainly was an intriguing one. “I hope the weather was warm,” muttered Annabella, eliciting another chuckle from the dowager. But what did that story have to do with getting her husband’s attention? If he wasn’t overtaxing his tenants, what did the story have to do with Jon at all? Unless…
“He’s not — er, you’re not — related to Lady… Godiva?”
The dowager chuckled. “Now, that would be an interesting family history, wouldn’t it? No, my dear, I’m merely giving you an allegory. You’ve been out here practicing archery for some weeks now, and you’ve picked it up admirably. Surely you realize that the bow must first be pulled back to make the arrow go forward. That the arrow soars through the air because the bow sends it there.” The dowager took up her bow, positioned an arrow, and took her shot, all in one fluid motion and probably on less than a count of five. The arrow lodged just off center of the target with a solid thwack.
Annabella sighed. Apparently, her grace was prepared for the enemy. Or the tournament, anyway.
“Lady Godiva’s husband was the bow in that case, and his compassionate wife the arrow. He pulled her back with that challenge to ride sans clothing.” Her eyes glittered and she clicked her tongue. “Poor man likely ne
ver knew what hit him when she took him up on it.”
Annabella shook her head. She must be addled, for she had no notion of how that story answered the questions in her own heart. “Well, if you ask me, my husband would never—” A heavy sigh blasted out, for in truth she had no idea what exactly Jon would do or not. He certainly demonstrated no sign of being as predictable as a bow shooting an arrow. “I fear I shall never understand him… or what he wants from me.”
“My dear, men are not to be understood,” clarified the dowager as she spun and repeated the shot at the opposite target with nary a moment to sight. “The woman who attempts to understand what goes on in a man’s thoughts will simply drive herself mad.”
Thwack. A strike dead center.
“The only thing a woman can do is keep the man struggling to figure out what she’s thinking.” She swiveled again and aimed with another arrow.
Gracious, she’s as precise as a clock pendulum. And quite confusing.
Annabella made a sour face. “So a woman shouldn’t expect to figure out a man but a man may figure out a woman?”
The dowager burst into laughter just as she released the arrow, sending it veering to the right. With a thud-twang, the arrow embedded itself into the trunk of one of the elms.
“You see what happens when you let the French lead you astray? You forget how to listen to what’s being told to you.” Still chuckling, the dowager wagged her bow like a giant disapproving finger and slipped the arrow from Annabella’s unresisting grasp. “Now, I do not believe I said a man would ever figure a woman out. No, dear, the trick is to keep your man just slightly off balance.”
With her thumb, the dowager dug at the fletching Annabella had shredded until the entire edge of feathering pulled loose. She released the feathers into the wind, shaking her hand until the last bits had flown off. Then she set the arrow in place, turned sideways to the target, and pulled back on the string.
Annabella watched in wide-eyed shock as the arrow shot from the bow then made a sudden left turn and spiraled into the heart of the target.
Something Like a Lady Page 24