I brought the gun to my shoulder, certain that would force him to step back. It did. But the damage was done. I wasn’t hereon the lawn. I was back in the croft, reliving the first moment Captain Calder opened his eyes after his delirium.
I took a deep, calming breath, but to no avail. His comment was highly inappropriate. So much worse than what I’d said to him.
I shot anyway.
“Right of center!”
Captain Calder made a tsking sound from behind me. He lined up to shoot and as he raised his piece I could feel him pause, waiting for me to say something distracting. But I didn’t. He was much better than I was at this game and I would not engage in a battle I couldn’t win.
24
EVELYN BLACKWELL
Captain Calder outshoteveryone but Papa before the morning was declared a success. We had no certain winner, since I’d outshot Captain Calder once and he had bested me once. Papa and Captain Calder stopped before either had missed.
I needed to leave Captain Calder’s vicinity as soon as possible. He was dealing with all our secrets much better than I was at the moment. But I didn’t want to walk up to the top of the terrace alone. I needed someone to distract me. Mr. Howard caught my eye, but I wasn’t in the mood for any more shameless flirting. I strode over to Lieutenant Davis and held out my arm. “Will you escort me back?”
“Me?” he asked. When I nodded he snuck a glance in Captain Calder’s direction, and then turned to me with a puzzled smile and agreed.
Why would he do that? Why should it matter to Captain Calder who I walked with? The two of us really shouldn’t have been so casual with each other in the drawing room or spent time alone in Applewood.
We left the rest of the party behind to clean up and discuss plans for the next time we would shoot. Just as we reached thepath, Papa called out to Lieutenant Davis, “Don’t forget to wear your uniform tonight.”
Davis paused and gave Papa a short bow.
Wonderful.
It was bad enough I had to deal with Captain Calder’s forearms all morning, but now I was going to have to spend the evening with him in uniform? The world could be poignantly cruel sometimes.
I tried to think of something to talk about as we headed toward the terrace—anything to distract me from the earnest way Captain Calder had called me an angel. But nothing, absolutely nothing, came to mind.
“You know,” Lieutenant Davis said, a strange lilt in his voice, “when Calder first arrived, I could have sworn it looked as though the two of you had met before.”
I missed a step. It did not go unnoticed.
Davis turned to me, still walking, only now taking his strides sideways. “I knew it.” His grin was a self-satisfied one. On anyone else it would have been irritating, but on the quiet lieutenant it was endearing. “We all knew about you, even if he never told us your name.”
Exactly how many people had Captain Calder told about that night? “You did?”
“Well, it was hard not to know. He’d speak of you when he was delirious.”
I blinked, no longer certain I understood what Lieutenant Davis was speaking about. He hadn’t been sick again, had he? I would have known. “When was he delirious?”
The lieutenant’s face fell slightly. “Perhaps I should have let him be the one to explain that to you. He ... well, he gets sick sometimes. But he’s healthy.” He muttered a curse under his breath. “I really shouldn’t be the one telling you this.”
“Don’t worry, Lieutenant. He has told me of his Walcheren Fever. But I don’t understand how it pertains to me.”
“Oh, that’s good, then.” He smiled in relief and his steps quickened again. “That’s how we all learned of you. The mysterious owner of the glove.”
The mysterious owner of the glove? What the heavens was Davis speaking of? Captain Calder couldn’t have spoken about me, not if those bouts of his had come during their time of service together. He leaned forward, a delightful smile on his face as if he was a man who just unearthed a treasure. “The woman,” he turned sideways again, his solid form somehow suddenly light on his feet, “who promised to wait for him, no matter how long it took for him to make something of himself.”
I stuttered to a stop, a tight pit forming in my stomach.
There was only one woman he’d spoken of when he was delirious, and it certainly hadn’t been me.
May.
Was she real, then? I hadn’t simply heard him wrong. She wasn’t someone his fever had dreamed up. She was real and the man who’d called me an angel and showed me the sky through his childhood home had been dreaming of her for years. How could she be real? If he was in love with this May, then why was he here trying to court Hattie?
