She pushed herself out of his arms. “Wolfgang,no!”
He opened his mouth to protest again, but the sheer desperation in her expression must have stopped him cold.
“I see.” He stepped back, and his eyes shuttered.
Just like that, she’d hurt him again.
Charlotte turned away and launched herself into the safety of her bedchamber.
CHAPTER 35
“Lysander!” Wolfgang bellowed, pounding onhis brother’s door. “Lysander, we’re going shooting.Now!”
The door cracked open and a bleary eye stared out. “Now? What time is it?”
“It’s just before breakfast. Let’s go.”
“What are we shooting?” Lysander squinted at him. “Is it a new suitor? I suppose I could shoot the Marquess of Vyse, but I draw the line at anybody else.”
But Wolfgang had no time for his brother’s foolishness.
“Meet me at the range,” he called, already marching down the hall. He strode out of the house and up the crest of the hill behind it, and continued marching grimly until he reached the field with the lone dead oak that a footman had told him Julian used for target practice.
It wasn’t long before Lysander slouched up behind him. “Where are the loaders?”
“We load for ourselves.”
Wolfgang steadied his rifle between his knees and charged it from his powder flask, wrapping a ball with patch and pounding it hard into the barrel before ramming the whole mess down with the rod.
It was some six hundred yards from the oak to the fence line. He closed the hammer and raised the stock, holding it firm to his shoulder and letting his mind go blessedly blank and his breath even out ashe took aim at a twig on the highest branch that reached up into the sky like a spindly finger.
Bam!
The twig blasted into the air and Lysander whistled. “You were wasted in the Hussars, Wolfie. You should have gone for the Rifle Brigade.”
Wolfgang ignored him, readying his weapon for the next shot. The smell of powder, the crack of the shot, the hard kick of the rifle against his shoulder—it helped, but it wasn’t enough to blank him out.
Not with last night’s thunderclap still ringing in his ears.
Strangely enough, Charlotte’s refusal haunted him less than the scratchiness in her voice, as if he weretorturingher, when all he wanted—
Bam!
Wolfgang let loose a bullet and another bit of twig went flying.
Lysander cocked his head. “Bet you five quid I can take it off at the branch?”
Wolfgang’s jaw tightened. “Shoot or don’t shoot, but don’t make a bloody game of it.”
He fired again.Bam!
A miss, which made him swear low and viciously.
The worst of it was…
Wolfgang lowered his gun, only to have Lysander hand over the second rifle, already loaded.
“Shoot until you’re done,” he said quietly.
