“Or is it,” the dowager said thoughtfully, “that you do love her?”
“As it happens,” Edwin said stiffly.
“Good God, man,” the dowager said. “It is bad enough to impugn a lady’s honor but why on earth would you so damage a lady you admire?”
Edwin looked down at his desk and muttered, “It was all rather complicated.”
“Apparently,” the duchess said, drily.
“I was planning to go to Surrey and speak with the viscount. Own everything, and then offer my hand.”
“There is hardly a need to explain anything to the viscount at this point,” the dowager said, “the man is already perfectly aware of your part in it. As for a marriage proposal, you may cool your heels here for the time being. It is I who will go to Surrey.”
Edwin did not know what his grandmother intended to accomplish, nor whether it was right for her to go, rather than himself. It mattered not, as once the dowager had set her mind on something, everybody else must just jump out of the way.
*
The afternoon beingbright and warm, and Jimmy having spent days rolling up and drying a respectable-sized stack of clay balls, Cassandra determined to go out for shooting practice. The more she used her shotgun, the more she liked it. In most other things she was powerless, but with a shotgun she felt the mistress of her own destiny. She found it rather pleasant to silently name the clay balls before she shot them out of the sky, and she had blown the head off Mr. Longmoore, Lady Montague, and all six gentlemen of the pact repeatedly. Perhaps none more so than Lord Hampton.
She rode Juno down the country road that led to their usual hill and dale, that bit of land well-suited to get the balls high in the air for her to shoot. Johnny jogged along with two baskets filled with the balls on either side of a stick resting on his shoulders. He would set up the slingshot on the ridge. Jimmy trotted on a sturdy pony, carrying the guns.
They’d set up in good time, both Jimmy and Johnny so well used to the activity that they did not need to be directed. Cassandra thought they were rather fond of it, as it got them out of the house and away from Maidencraft’s stern and watchful eye.
Cassandra had already shot half of the balls they’d brought along when she heard the distinct rumblings of a carriage approaching. She held up a hand to Johnny at the top of the hill to pause him in his launches and motioned for Jimmy to follow her in stepping behind the wide trunk of an old oak tree.
Though she was determined to live as she pleased, she would not give any nosy passerby the satisfaction of being able to go round telling the tale of having seen Miss Knightsbridge shoot.
A well-equipped carriage came into view. It was driven at a reckless speed and Cassandra thought they’d better slow to make an upcoming turn or they might well tip over.
She squinted and saw the driver madly whipping the horses. What an idiot! Nobody should treat their horses so. She supposed some thoughtless young buck had given his coachman the impossible task to be somewhere they could not be if they were to drive sensible.
Suddenly, three riders came into view, gaining on the coach.
Cassandra took in a breath. That was no careless driving for the sake of it, the carriage fled from highwaymen!
She grabbed her gun and untethered her horse from a tree branch. She whispered to Jimmy, “Follow on the pony and make certain the other gun is loaded.”
Cassandra leapt on her horse and galloped toward the fleeing carriage. As she approached, she saw the men had got ahead of it and forced it to slow. It had finally come to a stop.
Cassandra spurred Juno and, as they neared it, she wheeled in her horse. She raised her shotgun at the men on horseback and yelled, “I’ll take one of your heads if you do not clear off!”
The three men had initially appeared confused to see a lady aiming a fowling piece at them, but then they began to laugh.
“See that!” one of them cried. “We are to be shot at by a lady! Who here fears being hit?”
“Not I,” called one.
“Only if I were much fatter and presented a bigger target,” the other said.
Cassandra could see that they were not afraid of her gun because it was inconceivable to them that she could shoot it. Jimmy had reached her on his pony. She whispered, “As soon as I fire, we switch guns and you reload.”
Jimmy nodded. Cassandra turned to Johnny standing on the ridge and signaled him to launch a clay ball, hoping he would do as she asked, despite the situation he now viewed.
Johnny only hesitated a moment, and then loaded the slingshot and let loose a ball high into the air. Cassandra watched its trajectory and took in the wind direction, aimed and fired.
The clay exploded into a thousand fragments and fell to the ground.
Cassandra threw her gun to Jimmy with one hand and caught the loaded gun he threw with the other.
