Rather than issue Lottie with the reprieve she craved, Lady Wennington consulted her list. “Miss Travers is on Lady Lynette’s team.” Marvelous. Now Lottie wished she were dead too. “Have you ever shot an arrow before, Miss Travers?”
Lottie sighed as she shook her head. Because why on earth would she when archery wasn’t a useful skill for either a farmer’s daughter or a lady’s companion? And the absolute last thing she wanted to do was take any begrudging instruction from that angry, hurt, and rude oaf, Lord Wennington. Or worse, Lady Lynette!
“Splendid! You are just in the nick of time for the lesson!” Lady Wennington gestured her over and arranged her at the end of the long line of debutantes awaiting their private moment with the viscount. Then she deferred to her frankly horrified son. “The floor is yours, Guy.”
“Right,” he said, eyeing them all with understandable trepidation. “Why don’t I just demonstrate what to do and you all give it a go?” Ignoring the disappointment on the debutantes’ faces, he grabbed a bow and set about showing them how to hold it and how to prepare the arrow.
Lottie could not help but admire the sublime visual sorcery that occurred in the muscles of his arms and shoulders as he aimed at the target and pulled back the taut string. Nor could she help noticing how many of the other young ladies ogled him too, experiencing a proprietorial but futile pang of jealousy as they did. However, she flatly refused to be party to the pathetic sigh they all emitted when his arrow flew through the air and hit the target straight in the bull’s-eye.
“Who wants to give it a go?” His eyes widened as all of the debutantes took a rapid step forward, but it was the shameless Miss Maybury who dashed to his side and claimed him by grabbing his arm and clinging on like a barnacle to a boat. Even after a footman handed her a bow.
Guy extricated his sleeve from her grip and took several paces back, explaining the steps, which all seemed perfectly simple to Lottie.
Brace your feet. Clip the indented feathered end of the arrow—the nock—to the string in the center, align the pointy bit onto the arrow rest in the middle of the wooden bow. Raise your bow to a right angle with the ground until the arrow is perfectly horizontal, line up the target, pull back the string, release the nock from between your gripped fingers, and let physics do the rest.
Instructions which even an idiot could have followed the first time. But, of course, instructions that Miss Maybury struggled with at every juncture. She made such a hash of it that Lord Wennington had to step behind her and move her apparently useless limbs into the correct position. Something she made an absolute meal out of with a calculated expression of triumph that he could not see from his intimate position behind her.
The conniving witch!
But alas, it proved to be the standard for the next half an hour as desperate debutante after desperate debutante feigned complete and utter uselessness so that they could all flutter their eyelashes up at him pathetically while they basked in Guy’s strong arms.
Then it came to Lottie’s turn and he stiffened. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Miss Travers.” The way he said that made it plain that the six feet of ground that stood between them wasn’t anywhere near enough space.
She sent him a defiant look back, marched to the spot, set her feet, aimed, and fired without waiting for his critique. By some inexplicable miracle, her arrow flew to the target and lodged itself in the outer rim, clearly surprising them both.
“That was an excellent first attempt, Miss Travers.” From her position nearby, his mother clapped her hands. “You are a natural. With a few minor tweaks in your technique, you could hit the bull’s-eye. Position her, Guy, so that she is perfect.”
A nerve ticked in his cheek as he moved toward her, his expression a barely disguised mask of distaste.
“If I can shoot an apple off of your head with my father’s bent andbattered old pistol, I sincerely doubt it will take me long to master this without your help.” Lottie threw him that barbed bone because she felt awkward enough and hurt enough already by his behavior. “All I need is some private time to practice.”
“Oh, pish,” said his mother. “Never be too proud to learn from an expert, Miss Travers.”
“Just do as you are told, gal,” shouted Lady Frinton from the spectators’ chairs. “You are representing me, after all.”
Trapped, Lottie had no choice but to raise her bow again and suffer his ministrations. The flesh on her back tingling with unwelcome awareness as he positioned himself behind.
“Line up your shot,” he said in clipped tones much too close to her ear.
Lottie did as instructed and heard his sharp intake of breath before he used the tip of his index finger to briefly touch her elbow and raise it a millimeter. He then practically leapt back as if he feared he might catch some fatal disease from her.
“Now fire.”
If they hadn’t had an audience, Lottie would have rebelled. Turned around and given the stubborn wretch a piece of her mind for his continued childish petulance, but as all eyes were on them, she had no choice but to grit her teeth and do as she was told.
She was about to do just that when Lady Lynette piped up in a loud aside to Miss Harper that Lottie was clearly intended to hear. “Let us hope she hits it. I cannot believe that we are delaying the start of the tournament for Lady Frinton’s servant when weinvitedguests are all chomping at the bit to begin. It isn’t as if Miss Travers is one of us.”
In her peripheral vision Lottie watched Guy stiffen at the insult and just knew that he was going to say something in her defense. While that gave her some hope that he might forgive her eventually if she persisted, she did not want him to cause any more of a scene, so instead shot him a warning look before she set her focus back on the target. Picturing Lady Lynette’s face on it, she pulled back the string and let the arrow fly.
It missed the bull’s-eye by a whisker.
Pleased with her own grace under fire, Lottie grinned at her achievement and could not resist a little gloat at Lady Lynette as she sauntered from the field. “I cannot wait to watch you beat that, Robin Hood.”
Guy had no blasted idea why his mother had decided an archery tournament was the perfect way to while away an afternoon. He had shown no interest in the sport since he’d turned thirteen, when he had discovered horses and girls, and he wasn’t entirely sure that giving a bunch of title-hungry debutantes weapons was wise.
The competition was certainly bringing out the worst in some of them but fortunately, his mother had decreed that he be a referee rather than a participant in this ridiculous battle. That suited Guy just fine as it allowed him to put fifty feet of distance between him and the debutantes as he needed to be stationed near the target.
Unfortunately, that also meant that the ladies used it as a blatant opportunity to parade their wares in front of him, which, as well as bloody awkward, was not without its danger. Several arrows had come too close to comfort thanks to the firer of them focusing too hard on him while they flirted with their eyes from afar rather than the target. But keeping extra vigilant was a small price to pay for not having to listen to them all, and watching them all fight for his favor was occasionally entertaining. It was also good for his poor, bruised ego and he sincerely hoped it made Lottie a little bit jealous.
