“It does not. But you came anyway.”
She pressed her lips together. He was right, and that he was right made her want to turn around, go back inside, and never speak to him again.
She did not turn around.
“The kiss was a mistake,” she said. The words came out steadier than she felt. “At the opera. I got carried away, and it will not happen again.”
Something shifted in his posture. A tightening across his shoulders, a fractional stiffening of his jaw that lasted less than a second before he smoothed it away. The charming mask slid back into place, easy and familiar, and when he spoke, his voice carried none of the tension she had seen in his body.
“Understood.” He pushed away from the wall. “That is not why I asked you here.”
“Then why?”
“Come with me.”
He turned and walked along the path that led behind the mansion, past the kitchen garden, the potting shed, and the main stable block.
Lily followed because she could not help herself. The moonlight turned the grounds of Thornwaite Hall into something otherworldly, silver and shadow, and because Hugo Beaumont walking ahead of her in the dark with his coat open and his hair catching the light was a sight she lacked the will to abandon.
They passed the main stables and continued along a gravel path to a smaller building set apart from the rest, a low stone structure with a shingled roof and a paddock attached. Hugo led her around the back of the building, and Lily stopped.
A makeshift archery range stretched across the cleared ground behind the stable. Three straw targets stood at varying distances, their painted rings pale in the moonlight, and a longbow rested against a wooden rack beside a quiver of arrows.
Lily’s breath caught.
“What is this?” she asked in awe.
“I saw you. You wanted to have a go.” Hugo crossed to the rack and lifted the bow.
He tested the draw and adjusted the string with the practiced movements of a man who had done this a thousand times.
“You were not watching the competition this morning, Lily. You were watching the bows. You were calculating distance and draw weight, and the only thing stopping you from stepping onto that range was the fact that someone, at some point, told you it was not proper.”
“It is not proper.”
“It is midnight. There is no one here but us and the moon, and I promise you the moon does not care about propriety.” He held the bow out to her. “Try.”
She looked at the bow. She looked at the targets. She looked at Hugo, standing in the moonlight with his sleeves rolled up and his eyes holding that steady, certain warmth that made her feel as though he could see every locked door inside her and had brought the keys.
She took the bow.
It was heavier than the one Giovanni had given her in Tuscany, but the weight felt right in her hands, solid and purposeful. She selected an arrow from the quiver and nocked it against the string. The muscle memory of those three weeks in Italy rose through her fingers like a song she had not sung in years but had never forgotten.
“Your stance is good.” Hugo moved behind her.
His chest pressed against her back, and his arms came around hers. His hands covered her hands on the bow. The heat of him enveloped her, warm, solid, and overwhelming, and his breath stirred the loose curls at her temple.
“Wider with your feet. There. Now draw.”
She drew the string back. His left hand moved to her waist, steadying her. His fingers splayed across the curve of her hip. A shiver rolled through her body, involuntary and immediate, and she felt his chest expand against her back as he registered it.
“Focus,” he murmured against her ear.
She gritted her teeth and forced her attention to the target. She eyed the nearest one, thirty paces away. Its center ring was a pale circle in the silver light. She anchored the string at her cheek. She breathed in. She breathed out.
She released.
The arrow flew. It struck the target with a clean thud, burying itself in the second ring, just left of center.
